Why Should an Atheist Care About the Problem of Evil?

I am an atheist. What does that mean? It means that I have never seen any evidence that supernatural beings exist. I don't think the devil exists, I don't think that Zeus exists, or Thor, or Gitche Manitou. I don't believe that the god of the Bible exists.

There are thousands of gods that I don't believe in. Some of them have imaginary reputations of cruelty, some of them are supposed to be kind, and some of them are indifferent. It doesn't matter to me because the one thing they all have in common is that they don't exist.

I'm told that some people believe in gods who are supposed to be kind. Those people have trouble understanding why the world is evil. It's a problem that has spawned an entire discipline called theodicy. Bully for them. It's their problem, not mine. I don't accept their premise.

For reasons that seem incomprehensible to me, there are some atheists who really like to talk about the problem of evil as though it were a real problem. Jason Rosenhouse is one of them. You can read his latest at: The Only Reasonable Reply to the Problem of Evil. Jerry Coyne is another. See his post from yesterday at: More Sophisticated Theology: The world’s worst theodicy.

---