Damned Catholics

[Thor]

This is a mystery, but it would make sense that we would not be able to make sense of the things of God.

You can't lose here, can you? If things made sense, you'd say, "Look! It makes PERFECT SENSE that god would do things this way!". But things DON'T make sense. So you say, "It makes sense that we can't make sense of it!"

Yeah, that makes sense!

So what seems impossible within temporality is apparently possible with God.

If you throw out all logic and reason, I suppose so.

So knowing all things, and granting free will are some how consistent with God.

What does "free will" have to do with a child being born with horrible birth defects?

I do not mean to prove it, because I'm not sure you can, but I believe it.

Yes, people believe all kinds of weird shit.

Well you may call it the "problem of children born with defects" but in philosophy its typically simplified to the problem of evil.

Absolute rubbish!

Where does "evil" come into play when a child is born blind, deaf, missing limbs or with Down Syndrome?

That is a difficult thing to answer. I believe that God allows such things, so that certain other virtues may arise like courage, compassion, and unconditional love. This is sometimes called sould building.

So let me get this straight.... You think this incredibly loving and compassionate deity allows children to be born with life altering conditions so that they can develop "courage", "compassion" or "unconditional love"? And what about babies that are born with such severe problems that they spend their entire lives unresponsive? How does someone with a condition like this ever develop any virtues whatsoever? And if this is how your deity helps develop virtues, he's an incredible prick. I'll pass on developing "courage" if it means I have my sight.

Perhpas he lets them be born because the goodness of free will is so good that it overwhelms the badness of drowning,

And all those tots that were drowned? They never had a chance to exercise "free will", did they?

and apparently without some people drowning there could not have been a maximal amount of good.

Oh, come on! You mean your deity, the most brilliant being in existence, couldn't think of a better way to "start over" than drowning children? If this is true, your deity is a moron!

Typically Best possible of all worlds theories assume that at some point in the future something so great will occur that it will make all the bad seem likei t was worth it.

So drowning swaths of children is justifiable because "at some point in the future something great will occur"? The mind just boggles....

So it would be like practicing football all the time, and it hurts and sucks, but you end up winning the super bowl so all that hard work was worth it. This is not a perfect analogy and will fail on many levels, its just meant to be a simple way of describing what, if is true, would be a most complex thing.

You're right.... your analogy fails on many levels. The simplest of which is that people voluntarily join a football team. I don't think any children VOLUNTEERED for drowning.