The problem of evil/suffering when it comes to children

[Pat Mustard]

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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.

Aaand.... I was gazumped by GC. He's still wondering why I dismiss the sum total of his postings on these fora, and yet he manages to get his idiocy out and start waving it around.