Michael Novak writes about the idea that belief is a crutch for those who need psychological comfort, over at First Things. Does belief provide a simple, comfortable explanation for the way the world works? Not so, he says:

It is the believer who suffers great pain internally in coming face to face with horrid poverty in Haiti, and in the heat of swarming, overcrowded Bangladesh, and with images of human brutality and sadism, generation after generation. For the believer holds that God is good—all-seeing, all-powerful—and yet he allows so much human suffering to continue.

Who feels in tumult internally about evil in the world—the believer or the unbeliever? [...] If it is comfort that you seek, do not go to belief.

That's an interesting way to look at things. There is, of course, great comfort in believing that God is ultimately in control. But that's a pretty long-term hope, and one that can be excruciatingly difficult to reconcile with what we see and experience each day.

For that matter, there's over a year's worth of posts and comments on this blog alone that testifies to the difficulty of figuring out what to make of this fallen world, and how we are to live as Christians in it. If Christianity is a psychological crutch that's supposed to make me feel better about what I see on the news each day... well, I guess it's not a very good crutch.