So why do some people eat the very same things and one gets sick and another doesn't? Or why is it that a healthy young man may die of some desease and yet another older person gets well and recovers? Science and medicine do not hold all the answers. They may provide a possibility, but not always a cut and dry rational reason.
But religion does no better at explaining these. How many times have people heard about "God's Mysterious Ways", or "Part of His plan we cannot know".
Good Christian youth die every day just as good atheist youth, and even bad Christian youth and bad atheist youth.
Why do bad things sometimes happen to good people? And vice versa?
Science does its best to explain what it can and indeed
statistics plays a very important role in describing the events of the universe.
Here's a fine example:
Recently I went back home with my wife to my father-in-law's funeral. He had passed away at age 87. My wife's folks were really good Christians, devout Catholics their entire lives. Almost never missed Mass. Right after father-in-law died, mother-in-law came down with a horrible stomach flu which then went through the family like a tornado. My wife had it so bad
she and a couple of her sisters had to miss their dad's funeral. I sat with her while she vomitted and felt lousy for a long time.
Meanwhile, me, the atheist, caught nothing. I
slept next to the woman who got the flu among the worst yet I caught it not.
Is this the "Awesome Healing Power of Atheism"? Or is it far more prosaic that indeed some people have natural immunities to some things, or that I wasn't hugging everyone all the time (I'm not a hugger, all the sisters-in-law know that now after 20 years).
Statistics gives us insight, but not going to tell you where all the coins are going to be that land heads-up. Science, using statistics, helps to lift the curtain just a wee bit. We don't see everything. But I don't see much evidence that religion sees
more accurately in the dark corners.
