Steven Carr

Suppose one or two people had decided to go on a picnic that day in 1945, and had left the city when the Americans dropped an atomb bomb on it.

Would that have been a good thing? A miraculous escape?

Let us see how prominent theologian Richard Swinburne, a Professor at Oxford University, answers that question on page 264 of his book 'The Existence of God'...


'Suppose that one less person had been burnt by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Then there would have been less opportunity for courage and sympathy;one less piece of information about the effects of atomic radiation....'


But Richard, wouldn't there be one more person alive to show courage and sympathy?

If everybody was killed, who would take advantage of these thousands of millions of opportuities to show courage and sympathy?

Perhaps God got the balance just right at Hiroshima? Not too many dead, and certainly not one person too few....?

And should dead people really be counted in terms of 'information about the effects of atomic radiation'?

Draconis

Why does someone have to die before courage and sympathy appear?

Bobinius

Does he really say that? That's what makes religious people sick. Their desperate attempts to save their precious idea of God, instead of saving really existing fellow beings.

This is the essence of God's existence made unfalsifiable: if the bomb had not exploded, it would have been a miracle, an example of God's grace and love. If it
explodes, it is again proof of God's grace, that gives us opportunity for sympathy
and compassion.

The problem is : what courage? what sympathy? Who benefits from them? The dead? they are gone forever, prematurely and in pain.

Steven Carr

He really did say that. He went on to say that the more people who died, the more grieving relatives there would be to campaign for peace.

EarlOfLade

Religion - the root of all evil.

Bodhi

What's wrong with trying to find something good in everything?

general_koffi

Actually, in that scenario, the people who escaped would be lucky and no one else would care.

Jaggers

Is this a serious question?

If so, there's nothing wrong with trying to find the good in everything as long as you don't whitewash the bad. Swinburne's not trying to find the good in the Hiroshima nuking. He's trying to gloss over the really horrible stuff.

matthew.william

Richard Swinburne is a moron. If you ever want a good laugh, read one of his works. I'm a theist and I was in tears over some his ideas. Good stuff. I never read the book you referenced, but I'll have to check it out. Sounds like solid gold!

Anyways, EarlOfLade, why do you say religion is the root of all evil?

~matthew.william~

el-pepo

Courage and sympathy are not necessarily good things for atheists whose concept of morality is reduced to herd survival status.