The Death of Children, What Atheists Think

The Texas flood has shocked the world. But why? Childhood death has been the historical norm, and makes it obvious to atheists there is no caring creator. We must question why some imagine otherwise.

So what do American atheists – which according to Gallup are approaching a fifth of the population and rising fast (news.gallup.com/poll/393737/belief-god-dips-new-low.aspx) – think about the horrific deaths of the children in the Texas flood?

Unless you are among the some 50+ million Yankees who do not believe in any gods, chances are that you have no clue. Because there is a veil of near silence upon atheist opinion that continues to be maintained by the mainstream news media. The irreligious are the most casually dismissed minority in the country.

What we do hear about without end is the theists’ view on the dreadful deaths of children. As per Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin who said, “By the grace of God, my family was safe,” after they by pluck and luck survived the Guadalupe River catastrophe. This detached view, in which the creator -- who has the power to prevent dreadful random deaths -- is ardently thanked for being selective about it rather than preventing it all in the first place, is the theme repeated as a matter of course. Typically by Christians after the latest natural disaster in the form of storms, the tornadoes that afflict the Bible Belt especially, wildfires, quakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, avalanches and the like. As per the flood survivor who said, “God, I know you brought me out, he marked me” (WashPost 7/11). But not dozens of girls. To that add the professional clergy and theologians who -- despite their deep bias -- the media persistently turn to to opine on why the latest killer event may appear hard to explain, but insist all must understand is truly in accord with the existence of a loving and wise creator.

Have you ever heard an open and assertive atheist be asked in a mainstream venue what those who do not believe in the supernatural think about natural tragedies and that is just so left field that let’s have a good chuckle at the notion. Do you ever see us atheos have a place on a panel of pundits to provide the nontheist perspective on anything on CNN or MSNBC? Of course not. Never happens. (You can check out secularfrontier.infidels.org/2022/06/theocancel-culture-discrimination-by-neglect-the-chronic-news-and-opinion-media-bigotry-against-atheists.)

So, for the majority of believers who are reading this, from right wing to liberal, I am going to tell you what is the view of many if not most atheists. Warning. Likely you will not like it. Many will be offended.

The theist thesis that God is Good does not make the slightest sense, to the degree it is not ethical. And it is not like the problems with religious dogma are not painfully obvious.

We start with how it is, of course, the duty and responsibility of all those who have the ability to do so, to put a very high priority on the comfort, safety and lives of children. To do all that can be done to protect the vulnerable and innocent. That’s common decency.

According to Christian doctrine not only does a creator exist which is scientifically very dubious, but the all-powerful entity is infinite in its righteousness. How and why that is so is never cogently explained. It is a matter of faith which is opinion, not documented fact, yet all must believe. It is commonly claimed that the Pro-life God especially loves the children it has crafted. If so, then the omnipotent creator could easily ensure that no child ever suffered torment and death due to natural causes. And if kids rarely or never did prematurely die, then that would be powerful evidence for the existence of the Good God.

Alas the exact opposite is true. Planet Earth is tragically child toxic on an epic scale that has

gone ignored. Some 100 billion people have been born (www.prb.org/articles/how-

many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earth). I was literally the first person to publish the

historical child death toll in the academic journal Philosophy and Theology

(secularpolicyinstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/PhilosophyTheology.pdf).

Until humans busted their scientific butts to produce modern medicine, half the children died. To the tune of 50 billion children tortured to early deaths. Largely by a too long host of cruel diseases that squeezed the life out of them. Smallpox and malaria alone have snuffed out tens of billions of little ones. The situation could not be worse because higher youth mortality would crash the human population. Even this very day, many thousands will succumb to microbes without the intervention of the divine.

Where, we atheists must ask you theists, is the grace in this? Where was the wise creator when the little girls at the Christian summer camp – yes, we note the irony – were living out the last moments of their short lives in lethal agonizing terror? Where was the grace of God when, as Jesus who Christians claim was God, was curing a few children via miracle spectacles while half the rest of kids around the world died as per the historical norm? These are entirely legitimate questions that believers must provide solid answers to. But they cannot. There is far too much in the way of premature death to do that. Instead, we hear platitudes and clichés that come across as a knee jerk cover up. As per the little flood victims are now in the arms of the same homicidally negligent Jesus who did not see fit to keep them safe in the first place.

Christians love to talk about the angels that protect the little ones. Where were those angels on July 4^th in the flood zone? Why did the good with God Christians running the Mystic camp not ensure that none of their cabins were subject to flooding? But those are human beings and we big brained apes mess up all the time, atheists included. Why did the all-capable God not inspire them to properly protect their charges? Why did the immaculate creator of the entire universe put anyone in danger in the first place? Why did it not with a lift of its little finger ensure that massive rains not drench the Texas hill country and prevent the mess from the get-go? What have required mere, caring thought on its part. Having not done that, how could it stand by and watch the children praying for help as they experienced the tormenting drowning process which often involves vomiting (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8928428) while He in his perfect wisdom prepared to welcome them to paradise without their first making a mature choice on the matter?

That is what we -- appalled at the Christian wave away -- atheists think. As well we should. The problem is not with us. It is with you. Do you not get why so many reject the arrogant God that would be so indifferent about the endless suffering and early death of so many? It is you who need to do a big moral rethink – as increasing numbers are.

And why do so many of you get so offended when we show your deity has no moral clothes, and you are worshipping a cruel master for divine boons? We are merely saying what is obvious.

The vastness of this millennia’s long global holocaust directly disproves the existence of a moral and powerful creator. There is no excuse for such a power to not always doing everything to save the children it made, and instead put the little ones onto a planet upon which the same intelligent designer allows child destroying diseases to run rampant. While failing to equip the youngsters with the potent immune systems they desperately need to reliably survive the microbial soup they are unethically immersed without mature consent in. At best such a being is guilty of callous mass negligence, at worst it is criminally responsible.

As I detailed in the P&T paper (and a follow up at https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-do/publications/eph/journals/volume28/paul-1 ), it is not possible to devise a rational excuse for the Children’s Holocaust. Classic Free Will Theodicy offers that the impeccable and fair ruler of the perfection that is Heaven lets in only those who have chosen to dwell there. But immature kids don’t enjoy fully developed free will, so allowing them to die off enmass denies tens of billions the ability to cogently choose their eternal fate. Either God denies them heaven, or lets them in on a free ticket. In the latter case paradise is mostly inhabited by souls that did not make the effort to get there. So the creator cares neither about child safety nor human free will. No theologian has tried to explain this crippling flaw in believing there is a God that demands all who arrive in paradise have the opportunity to make the choice, and then fails to ensure that even the majority get that opportunity. It is moral incoherence of a high order. Since I exposed this fatal flaw in Christian dogma, the theologians have continued to studiously avoid even considering it. Why? How can they?

Can you? Seriously, can you do so? If you can’t, then why are so many of you getting after us skeptics of the supernatural all the time? We are not the ones worshipping a power that is so indifferent to the lives of children.

Despite the glaring defects of the theory of the child loving creator, most theists continue to insist that all must believe in the divine to achieve moral certainty. But we nonbelievers have to ask why do theists apply this peculiar pressure despite it being an opinion that is problematic at best? Christians have an agenda based on hopes. They want the creator to provide them with rewards in the form of Earthly boons and a heavenly eternal life. Dear theists, we nons know that you are not inhabiting the transcendent moral high ground you pridefully proclaim to stand upon, when you worship a “perfect” deity who rules over a planet so flawed that it kills kids on a regular basis. That you petition for benefits. It looks like you are in psychological denial and a moral bind that we atheists are proud and glad to not be trapped within.

And more and more are catching on. Among them a stunned Texas flood survivor who, with sound moral logic and decency, said, “You question God. How this could happen to these babies? My spirituality is kind of hazy right now” (WashPost 7/11). The growing realization of the nonexistence of a loving lord of the universe helps explain the title of Ronald Inglehart’s book Religion’s Sudden Decline. Polls show that most here and abroad no longer think religion offers the solutions to the problems of humanity [https://news.gallup.com/poll/245651/religion-considered-important-americans.aspx; https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2017-10/GlobalAdvisor-Religion-2017.pdf]. That makes sense. Either there is no creator to look to, or if there is one it is too flawed to look to. And the socioeconomic facts back them up. I am a leader in the sociological research that shows that the more atheistic democratic societies are, the better off the citizens are in terms of societal success.

Including lower juvenile mortality, which is scandalously high in America, especially in the Bible Belt (secularfrontier.infidels.org/2025/06/the-godly-financially-free-wheeling-american-way-is-not-the-envy-of-the-world-how-we-know-that-and-why-the-usa-is-so-bad-at-transforming-wealth-into-societal-and-actual-health).

This should be a major story. About how nature’s incredible suffering and death, from the scale of a summer camp to billions, is damaging the popularity of piety. But mainline media does not want to offend the majority of their patrons who are living in fear that a God will not give them what they wish if they do not toe the divine line. So the media tacitly collaborates with the global religion industry to sweep the loss of the children under the pretense of the prolife creator -- who is dead set against abortion even though the great majority of pregnancies naturally fail. It is casual theopolitical correctness that protects theism from core criticism, while waving atheist opinion away as upsetting delicate religious sensibilities. So folks praise the grace of God who saved their loved ones, while it did not exhibit the decency to preserve the lives of billions of children. We atheists have, of course, no logical choice other than find that unsound and hypocritical to a degree that many – but not all -- believers find offensive.

So now you know.