The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[Catholic_Lady]

I don't think Steve's point is to try to give you evidence/proof that God exists, merely explaining why he thinks the God he believes in doesn't show Himself, and why the God he believes in doesn't contradict the existence of evil.

Well, sure, but those explanations also have to be valid to hold any weight, and just appealing to another portion of the narrative doesn't do that. It might convince him, and it might convince you, but in this respect, that's not hard, since you're already invested. That doesn't prevent us from pointing out the problems with the arguments being made, nor in responding to Steve's claims regarding the circularity of the responses he's getting, which is what I was doing.

None of us can know for sure why He makes that choice, but Steve has already given his theories (which are also the widely accepted theories in Christianity) in the past several pages.

As for why we believe what we believe, I think that is a topic for a different thread. This one isn't meant to be some sort of "proof" to you guys that God exists.

I guess my problem is that why a person believes what they believe is way more important than the content of the beliefs themselves. With respect, talk is cheap, and discussing the content of your beliefs divorced from why you believe it is little more than particularly cheap talk, because without knowing why we have no way of assessing how good the belief actually is. I don't consider "why?" to be a different topic, I consider it an integral part of propping up the "what?" as something that merits serious consideration.

If there is no proof of God that can be shown in the first place, then obviously there is no proof that evil and our God can co exist. So that's not the attempt here.  

Again, the point of this thread is simply to explain our own understanding. How we can reconcile the 2. Not to convince you to believe in God or to believe the same thing. If you're simply looking for us to give you proof of God, you won't find that here, or anywhere else I'm afraid.    

We are a people of hope. Some of us have logical reasons for believing in God, others have been lucky enough to actually experience something supernatural which to us, has served as evidence. But as far as proof of God's existence, like proof that birds can fly or something, we have none. We can only hope that He does exist. If someone wants to know how we reconcile our belief in Him with things like evil and His ambiguity, we can explain how we see it, and that is what Steve is doing here. But we can't give proof.