The problem of evil/suffering when it comes to children

[Expired]

Yes God allowed this to happen to this child,  why is beyond my understanding. What I do know, this child will live forever in heaven. What if God had stopped this horrible thing and the child grew up to be a non-believer and live an eternal life in hell. Seems to me the short life of this poor child brings him into a greater life for eternity.
Now to address this from an evolutionary point of view. You believe there is no God, so this means that evolution is at fault in making defaulty people. What kind of reasonable evolution is going on that would cause a specie to kill off it's own self and all the others around it. No other species does this and we're the one called the most advanced, of coarse we have labeled ourselves. Never in all the supposed millions of years of evolution has this happened, so ask yourselves why now, does this make the least bit of sense?
The way I see it the all loving God wanted this child to live in heaven forever, and evolution just doesn't care about it's most advanced effort, of coarse evolution cares for nothing. I personally choose God, why because this is a short life, eternity is where it is.

GC

All loving god my arse, you make me sick.

And I suppose you are not going to question intelligent design in the making of 'defaulty' people.

[robvalue]

As soon as someone says that God and his plan is "beyond their understanding" then they have admitted they have no way of knowing what his intentions are. How do you differentiate a good god from an evil God, if allowing children to be raped is what a good god does?

Further to this:

God also set the rules up in the first place, apparently. So he decided that child rape would be an integral part of his plan, when he presumably could have just not had it at all, and had the same outcomes. That makes it a conscious choice on his part, which achieves nothing extra.

How can a god even have a "plan" anyway? If it's guaranteed to work, it's not a plan, it's a pre-drawn conclusion. Calling it a plan implies something or someone can actually thwart it. What would that be?

[Redbeard The Pink]

Yes God allowed this to happen to this child,  why is beyond my understanding. What I do know, this child will live forever in heaven. What if God had stopped this horrible thing and the child grew up to be a non-believer and live an eternal life in hell. Seems to me the short life of this poor child brings him into a greater life for eternity.
Now to address this from an evolutionary point of view. You believe there is no God, so this means that evolution is at fault in making defaulty people. What kind of reasonable evolution is going on that would cause a specie to kill off it's own self and all the others around it. No other species does this and we're the one called the most advanced, of coarse we have labeled ourselves. Never in all the supposed millions of years of evolution has this happened, so ask yourselves why now, does this make the least bit of sense?
The way I see it the all loving God wanted this child to live in heaven forever, and evolution just doesn't care about it's most advanced effort, of coarse evolution cares for nothing. I personally choose God, why because this is a short life, eternity is where it is.

GC

As much as it disgusts me, I was kind of hoping one of our neighborhood apologists would swing through here and demonstrate why god-centered thinking is the most odious folly man has ever contrived. Thanks...I guess...


If Gaud really wanted this child to live in heaven forever, knowing that the father was going to behave this way toward it, he could have just caused the child to be stillborn or something. If his plan consciously involved the suffering in this kid's life, then he's a monster not worthy of worship. Pure and simple.


And yes, evolution has produced various species that later ate or bred themselves out of existence. Spotted owls spring to mind, but they're not the only example. Coyotes and wolves have started interbreeding in some places, which could eventually lead to the disappearance of one or both species in those areas in favor of a newer, more competitive one. Change is the only constant.


Regardless of how you see it, that child is gone forever, and all he ever knew was pain. The fact that you can simply console yourself with a thought like "Oh, he's in heaven now," is completely revolting and all too common.

[Reforged]

Yes God allowed this to happen to this child,  why is beyond my understanding. What I do know, this child will live forever in heaven. What if God had stopped this horrible thing and the child grew up to be a non-believer and live an eternal life in hell. Seems to me the short life of this poor child brings him into a greater life for eternity.
Now to address this from an evolutionary point of view. You believe there is no God, so this means that evolution is at fault in making defaulty people. What kind of reasonable evolution is going on that would cause a specie to kill off it's own self and all the others around it. No other species does this and we're the one called the most advanced, of coarse we have labeled ourselves. Never in all the supposed millions of years of evolution has this happened, so ask yourselves why now, does this make the least bit of sense?
The way I see it the all loving God wanted this child to live in heaven forever, and evolution just doesn't care about it's most advanced effort, of coarse evolution cares for nothing. I personally choose God, why because this is a short life, eternity is where it is.

GC

Evolution; whatever survives passes on its genes. Thats it. Remove this idea that it is a designed process with the purpose of making a perfect being. It is not and you are operating under a false assumption. It is natural selection. Whatever works, works. 
Needless to say that father will not be passing on his genes and other species do kill their children and mates. This does happen in other species but it doesn't happen often percentage wise in any species, including our own, because the genes responsible for that are not conducive to survival or offspring.

[Reforged]

God works in mysterious ways to obtain unknowable but most assuredly moral goals beyond the ken of mortal minds. Goals that accomplish the greater good. We know this because the concept of God is by definition the most moral an entity can be. He is morality. How do we know he exists? Because without some basis in reality the very concept of such an entity would be incomprehensible to us. So removed it is from anything we encounter in our day to day lives yet it is imprinted upon our minds as plain as day. The concept is perfection, the reality is God.

This is the train of thought required to rationalize an all-powerful moral authority who sets into motion a chain of immoral events and does nothing. The words vary but this is as high brow as it gets when it comes down to it. It has extremely low persuasive power on its own to anyone but a child but thats not important.
The people who actually convince adults with this argument successfully don't actually believe in its validity. It just turns out to be the right tool for the right job for that particular person, then that person regurgitates it and it doesn't work because they're a clueless amateur using a hairpin to pick a yale lock thinking that its an actual key. Although not everyone is weak minded we are all emotionally vulnerable on one level or another. Its just a matter of knowing the right pressure points. Fear of death, fear of loss, fear of being unimportant, loneliness, guilt, the list goes on. We all have them to different extents. We all have sheer points, we all have tumblers. Noone is immune.
The right words will draw upon these feelings without you even realizing thats what they're doing. The right words will cause you to warp your reasoning to fit them. The right words will change how your brain works. I find that fascinating.

[Mr.wizard]

Yes God allowed this to happen to this child,  why is beyond my understanding. What I do know, this child will live forever in heaven. What if God had stopped this horrible thing and the child grew up to be a non-believer and live an eternal life in hell. Seems to me the short life of this poor child brings him into a greater life for eternity.
Now to address this from an evolutionary point of view. You believe there is no God, so this means that evolution is at fault in making defaulty people. What kind of reasonable evolution is going on that would cause a specie to kill off it's own self and all the others around it. No other species does this and we're the one called the most advanced, of coarse we have labeled ourselves. Never in all the supposed millions of years of evolution has this happened, so ask yourselves why now, does this make the least bit of sense?
The way I see it the all loving God wanted this child to live in heaven forever, and evolution just doesn't care about it's most advanced effort, of coarse evolution cares for nothing. I personally choose God, why because this is a short life, eternity is where it is.

GC

Did you really just make the argument that god was doing the child a favor? That is disgusting!!!!

 You choose god? You would choose to spend an eternity with a monster who tortures children? Says a lot about you I guess.

[GUBU]

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Theists tend to have a few different responses to this:

#1: The "Free Will" argument.
There's different varieties of this argument.  None of which are any good.  Not everyone actually has free will, because some people are mentally ill and are unable to make decisions because of it.  What about their free will?  Some theists say that Free Will itself is why bad things happen.  God can't or won't interfere.  You know except the time that he came to earth, and healed a bunch of people, fed a bunch of people, and all that stuff he's claimed to do.

#2: "Not God's Job" argument
If God refuses to help people , then what sort of God is he?  Certainly not a loving or caring God.  To sit and watch the horrors of the world occurring around him.  Having the ability to do something, and then not doing it.

#3: "They didn't believe enough"
Perhaps the most disgusting argument.  Even worse than the "Not God's Job" argument, because it's stating that God won't help a child who's belief wasn't strong enough.  This means that child would probably be sent to hell for not believing in God, or believing in the wrong god.  So Yahweh will do worse to this boy than he experienced in life.  What a kind and loving God.

#4: "If God interfered once, he'd have to interfere all the time.  Then faith would be meaningless."
Faith already is meaningless.  Why not interfere all the time?  He doesn't sound like someone who would be worthy of worship if he did exist.

#5: "God works in mysterious Ways."
AKA: "I don't have an answer, and my goto of "God did it" is out the window so uhh.. mysterious ways!"  

#6: Satan did it.
This is basically god did it, with a name change.  God is good, so obviously Satan caused the bad thing to happen.  And god won't stop satan because... either: A. He can't (in which case Christians are worshiping the wrong guy!) or B. He refuses to because he plans on punishing Satan at the end of time.  (In which case, why wait?  If there were a serial killer on the loose, and you knew where he was, and you knew you could take care of him, why would you wait until the end?  He's already done enough to warrant punishment.)

#7: God would do something, but then you'd just claim he's immoral for it!  Remember the flood!
Why does God care if we consider him moral or immoral?  If he bases his actions around our morality, then morality doesn't come from him at all.  

The excuses for Yahweh are absolutely disgusting.  We're expected to live by his rules, and trust in a book that we don't even know who authored it, and believe in him or face eternal punishment.  Yet he does absolutely nothing for anyone.  Oh, he supposedly 'died for our sins'.  Which is absolutely meaningless when he still requires belief for that sacrifice to count for anything.  What a sacrifice!  

Children and Teenagers are kidnapped, molested, and murdered, and this God sits by idly.  Some make the claim that he answers prayers.  Either to the ones who truly believe, or the ones that are only part of his plan (he just likes hearing you beg, I suppose).  Everyone else is basically just saying in their prayers "Dear God.  Your plan sucks.  Please change it."

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You forgot one argument the christers love bringing out when it involves the childern. "God let him die because now he's in a better place basking in god's eternal love". Which is a whole other level of disgusting.

[abaris]

When religious people are trying to explain why suffering and evil are allowed to exist in a Universe created by a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful god, they generally default to some combination of "it's all our fault" and "the Lord works in mysterious ways," claiming that hardship makes us stronger and brings us closer to god.

Well, yes. So why do you even go there? It won't convince any christian otherwise. The only religious conversations I had, way back in the late 80ies and early 90ies, were about the suffering of innocents. I saw the futility of bringing up that kind of argument right there and then.

[Expired]

When religious people are trying to explain why suffering and evil are allowed to exist in a Universe created by a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful god, they generally default to some combination of "it's all our fault" and "the Lord works in mysterious ways," claiming that hardship makes us stronger and brings us closer to god.

Well, yes. So why do you even go there? It won't convince any christian otherwise. The only religious conversations I had, way back in the late 80ies and early 90ies, were about the suffering of innocents. I saw the futility of bringing up that kind of argument right there and then.

We need to keep reminding them of how disgusting their delusions are.

[Edwardo Piet]

The problem of evil itself utterly defeats the claim of any truly omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God.

If someone all powerful that knows everything was truly all loving, they'd exercise that power to do something about the horrible suffering in the world that they would know was going on.

The "Well, God gave people free will" counter to this is so fucking ridiculous. I don't even need to get into how retarded the concept of contra-causal free will is, even if it were possible--"Oh, he gave people free will" is the worst fucking excuse EVER. Seriously WTF? If "Gawd" was real he would be the SHITTIEST FUCKING CARETAKER THAT EVER FUCKING LIVED!

If criminals are running around murdering people do the cops say "Oh, it's okay because they have free will. It would be wrong to encroach on their freedoms we'll let them run around murdering. It's the new policy."?!!??

ETA: Any time any theist, (I don't care who they are), truly thinks, truly thinks, that God giving people "free will" is more important than stepping in to encroach on their "free will" if only to prevent murdering, torturing, starvation and raping, then I really really, really want to tell the aforementioned theist to go fuck themselves. And not in a sexy way.