Although most professed atheists reject religion in general, they usually have a specific religion in mind. The sociologist Peter Berger argues that today’s atheism has roots in “Abrahamic” monotheism, and the term applies only to those who reject the theologies of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Usually they do so when confronted with the problem of theodicy: the idea of a just and benevolent God in a world manifestly filled with evil and suffering:

Suffering is endemic to the human condition, and so is the urge to overcome or at least to explain it. Different attempts to satisfy this urge are not neatly divided geographically. Theodicy in its full force is unlikely to appear in contexts shaped by the religious imagination of the Indian subcontinent, as manifested in Hinduism and Buddhism (the latter could only arise from the former). I have long argued that the most interesting religious dichotomy is between Jerusalem and Benares (now called Varanasi)—the city in which the Jewish Temple stood, where Jesus was crucified and resurrected, where Muhammad began his nocturnal journey to heaven—and that other city, where millions of pilgrims continue to immerse themselves in the holy waters of the river Ganges, and near which the Buddha preached his first sermon after attaining Enlightenment. . . . The fundamental assumption of the Indian view of the cosmos is reincarnation—the linked realities of samsara and karma, the endless cycle of rebirths and deaths, and the cosmic law that the consequences of human actions, good or bad, are carried from one life to the next. I would propose that in this view the “Jerusalem” problem of theodicy evaporates.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.