Tragedy in moving one both to and from faith

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Mike_from_NJ

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I want to talk about two common yet conflicting tropes regarding faith and tragedy:
  1. Those who are without faith are that way because they must have been some tragedy in that person’s life to make him or her abandon faith.
  2. There are no atheists in foxholes, since the tragedy of war will force a soldier to seek faith.
So for some tragedy can move one from faith and also away from faith, as though tragedy can toggle one’s faith. As I am wont to use pop culture analogies, more than a few cartoons have suggested that getting hit on the head can give someone amnesia and a second hit can cure them of the same amnesia. There was an episode of The Flintstones where Fred accidentally had a bowling ball drop on his head. He became the pompous “Frederick”, then when his wife and friends grew tired of that they hit him on the head again. If we take this to its logical conclusion then believers have had an even number of tragedies and non-believers have had an odd number of tragedies.

Now I’m not saying that tragedy can’t affect what one believes, but the two false canards above try to undercut both the sincerity of a non-believer as well as the strength of that unbelief.

Does anyone here believe the two items above, and if so how do you square the two?
 
For some believers there is a natural assumption that if a non-believer were to be in a tragic or frightening situation (like being a soldier in a foxhole) that the non-believer would by default believe. There’s a bright line between that saying (which is demonstrably false) and what you’re saying is that some people have turned to faith after a tragedy.

On top of that there are some believers (including some who believe in the first assumption) that at some point all or most non-believers experienced a tragedy in their lives that made them drop their faith. And again, there is a bright line between saying that there are those who gave up their faith and saying the reason why people gave up faith must have been a prior tragedy.

So now combine the two items and tragedy simultaneously turns off faith for those who have it and turns on faith for those who don’t have it.
 
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Stephen Hawkins was not born with ALS but had it later in life which is tragic, and by all indications was always and died an atheist, no? I am sure some atheists nothing will convince them.
Can tragedy move a person to the faith? sure it can, but not always. It is a case by case.
 
Your question, to me, is one of the mysteries of life. Why do some people turn to God and why do others turn away? Some people who have never been religious turn to God when a tragedy happens while others who have faith seem to allow it to fade from their lives for no clear reason. Two people can have very similar experiences but react in very different ways with regard to faith. We could save the world if we knew the answer to this dilemma!
 
I think tragedy can magnify what is already going on in a person’s life. A friend of mine surely deepened his faith after suffering a traumatic brain injury. He was seeking God’s help through his recovery, and through accepting permanent disability.

I certainly also know of people who have blamed God and lost faith following tragedy.

It depends on the person.
 
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Mike_from_NJ said:
Does anyone here believe the two items above, and if so how do you square the two?
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I am not sure where you are going with this.

But i have always felt that if it were not for my suffering i would not have a very deep faith. We learn from suffering. Some take it to mean that there is no hope. But suffering can also be a witness to evil and sin and in many ways confirm that we are living in a fallen world. For those who persevere, suffering can lead to wisdom. Suffering can be a great test of the faith, but also a witness to the truth.

Suffering is a problem. But If it were not for the potential for suffering, would anyone really care about the value of existence or God? Would they really care about anyone’s value? Would they care to learn about the value of life? Would it even be possible to truly know it’s value? Sometimes we give our humanity more credit than it really deserves.
Mike_from_NJ said:
There are no atheists in foxholes, since the tragedy of war will force a soldier to seek faith.
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When all other worldly illusions of hope are banished, the only hope left is God, and thus you will find in general that there will be a greater number of people with faith when faced with this dilemma. But there are always exceptions to the rule.
 
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