News from the Foxholes
I’m stealing this entry from Eileene. It was her idea; I’m merely elaborating on it, possibly saying what she was groping towards saying when she sought my input this morning.
A common entry on atheists’ complaint lists about theists behaving badly is the smug little assertion that “There are no atheists in foxholes,” simply put forth as an axiomatic truth. It is, in fact, entirely untrue: plenty of atheists undergo the terrors of enemy fire without a sudden conversion.
Even if it were true, that little piece of theological fiction is irrelevant to questions of whether God exists. Superstition of all kinds finds fertile ground in people who find themselves in dangerous or unpleasant circumstances beyond their control: sports fans who insist on “lucky” rituals, the poverty-stricken who buy lottery tickets, the terminally ill who fall prey to quack medicine, and desperate people of all kinds who turn to prayer. It is hardly surprising that soldiers in the terrible, pants-wetting fear that live combat generates might find comfort in the notion that everything will be all right in the end, no matter how bad things seem as the bullets whiz past. That isn’t evidence of the existence of God; it merely demonstrates human willingness to believe what we would prefer to be true, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Atheists who experience foxhole conversions are literally crazed with fear; they hardly make sterling authorities on theological subjects.
But set aside whether the argument has any forensic value. Quite apart from its strength as an argument, the foxhole argument is deeply insulting, which is why it appears so often on “Why Jesus Freaks Piss Me Off” lists. The claim is insulting because it implies that atheists’ commitment to their beliefs is shallow, easily broken in a time of stress, in presumed contrast to a Christian (or other religious) commitment to God.
This morning, Eileene raised the question as to whether theists ever experience a comparable conversion in times of agonizing fear, and, of course, they do. Theists’ faith is frequently shaken by personal disaster. Struck by terrible and undeserved loss, the faithful ask, “How could a kind and omnipotent God allow this to happen to me?” Jesus himself, according to biblical reports, doubted when his execution became too agonizing: “Lord, Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) He caught himself immediately, of course, according to the same account, willing himself back onto the straight and narrow, but even the supposed messiah did doubt, however briefly, when his mortal peril became undeniable. If the Son of God finds his beliefs shaken in the shadow of death, how could atheists be held to standards of unshakeable belief?
I’d never considered this point directly alongside the snotty foxhole allegation, but now that I have, I am intensely curious as to how the numbers stack up, and I’d bet a lot more people lose their faith than gain it in various metaphorical foxholes. It’s easy to believe that human suffering serves some unspecified “greater plan” when it happens to poor brown people on another continent, or when it happens to sinful people you don’t like very much, but when floods, cancer, and infant death strike home, when they suddenly become real instead of theological abstractions, the disjoint between a loving God and human suffering comes into sharp focus. Most believers find their faith strengthened by such trials, but many very sensibly come to realize that either God is not the omnipotent master of all creation, or that He needlessly chooses to let humanity suffer. A mother mad with grief over a dead infant is far stronger evidence against an infinitely just God than a soldier mad with terror under enemy fire is evidence for one.
That faith is broken as well as forged by intense personal stress is a powerful blow to the sanctimonious little claim that, when the chips are down, we all believe in God, and that, somehow, that means He’s out there. If we could distill that notion down to an equally memorable sound bite, we might finally hear the end of atheists and foxholes.