Does God Care About Football?

I LOVE reading atheists hating on Tim Tebow! LOVE IT! It's so freaking encouraging. All I can do is laugh. Here is one particularly hateful post about Tebow from a popular atheist blog. Strong language.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/physioprof/2011/12/15/fucke-christmas/

And former CNN news anchor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z_YZObTX64

One common complaint about Tim Tebow and God is that God does not care about football.

I would like to defend God and Football. I would like to discuss whether or not God actually cares about football. I'm only half serious.

So, does God not care about football? I've read this over and over in the comments section of various articles and atheistic diatribes, yet have not seen any given reason or defense for this proposition. This is problematic. If you are going to claim something to be true, you have to give reasons as to why that proposition is true. If no reason is given, I have no reason to believe that proposition is true. So because people who say that God does not care about football give no reason for it, I have no reason to take the claim seriously. If they won't work for their burden of proof, I won't care to listen to them.

I have seen, however, this one liner followed by something like "God has more important things to do like worry about X" where X is something like famine, rape or some natural disaster. I think this is invalid. In a syllogism, it might look like this.

1. God only cares about important things

2. Some evil X is more important than football

3. Therefore, God does not care about football

That's obviously invalid. Even if the premises were true (which is dubious) all that follows is that God cares more about some evil X than football. But it doesn't follow that football is not important at all. It's just not AS important than some evil X. But what about the first premise? What reasons do we have in believing in it? Well, none, obviously, since I've said that I have not heard any good reasoning form Tebow haters. But I'll try to be charitable to the opponents arguments as much as I can. Now, on the surface, the first premise seems true, or at least it is much more likely than its denial. But that seems misguided. In every, or at least most, things in our lives, God, in His divine providence, cares about every single thing. Therefore, it is wrong to say that God cares only about important things because everything actually is important. So if we change the first premise to that, we get:

1a. God cares about everything

2. Some evil x is more important that football

3. Therefore, God cares more about some evil X than football

But if that is true, then God does care about football, which is the negation of the proposition, "God does not care about football."

But what about the second premise? Is the second premise sound? I'm not too sure. It seems like the person pushing this here has an amazing burden of proof, to say that in the long run the Super Bowl is going to have more of an impact on people than some evil X. I wonder, how could the proponent of this premise ever prove that? I have no idea. But I think there are good reasons to be skeptical. First, certainly, some things are evil, and they do happen. Yet God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing them to happen. And in the long run, the best good in existence is to have knowledge of God, since God is a maximally great being. Is it possible then that a lot of evil will not result in people freely accepting God's loving grace? That certainly seems possible. And could it be that football, which is watched by millions of people, and millions of people are affected by it (and those millions of people affect other millions of people, and the affect Tebow thus becomes exponentially incalculable and thus cannot be said that it cannot bring about a great good), could bring more people to Christ (through the faithful example of Tebow) than some evil? I think so. So in some possible world, football is more important than some evil X since football brings more people to Christ than some evil X. And since God cares more about bringing people to have knowledge about him, it would be the case that God cares more about football than some evil X (at least as a means, perhaps not as an end).

And finally, an inductive argument.  For every viewer of Tim Tebow football, God is being represented and thus have a chance to give their life over Jesus. Or they wont. So lets say its a fifty-fifty. That means half of all Tebow viewers are considering looking into Jesus and becoming Christians. That's something God cares about. Or lets say one in a hundred actually consider. And lets say there are one million different Tebow viewers a season. In one football season, about ten thousand people could give their life over to Jesus. God probably cares about football.

So basically, there is no good reason to believe that God does not care about football. And because of the incalculable effect Tebow has on millions of Americans, the burden of proof is practically impossible to shoulder to say that God does not care at all about football. And in some possible world, God actually does care about football more than some evil X. And since everything matters to God, and football matters to some of us, and what matters to us matters to God, it can be said that God actually does care about football.