The atheist proclaims personal tragedy is proof of God’s non-existence.
Or at least proves He is not loving and personal.
They cite extreme examples of natural disaster, terminal disease and man’s inhumanity to man.
They then project and impose their own feelings of betrayal and injustice on everyone else as if their feelings were universal and absolute. As if everyone would feel as they did if it weren’t for religion overriding normal, natural feelings.
But not everyone feels that way.
I for instance go to God instantly and without hesitation for comfort, bypassing any thought processes.
I did this before I became a Christian!
I remember clearly some 3 years before my conversion standing alone in a hotel room in which I was staying on business, spontaneously crying out in anguish to God for comfort over a cataclysmic event in my life.
Why would I do that!? I was a deist and an anti-theist!
When I had time to think about it I was hostile to God, but my pleas for comfort from God in that hotel room were done suddenly and without forethought in response to an unexpected event.
I didn’t have time to think about it!
In that moment I chose not to hate God.
And somehow I knew I had been heard. Somehow I knew I didn’t grieve alone. Somehow I knew the source of my despair wasn’t God’s fault!
Sometime later I pondered this curious event.
“What if?” I wondered.
“Nah, can’t be!” I retorted. “Must be latent childhood indoctrination.”
What indoctrination? I had been to a handful of different churches a few times in my childhood but we definitely were not a Christian or religious family. If anything the indoctrination from home and school was against God!
I don’t think I’m alone in this. I’d wager the most adamant atheist who isn’t outright mentally ill finds himself spontaneously pleading with God for help and comfort a moment before he has time to think about what he is doing.