Questions for "Our Role(s) as Christians on Atheist Forums"

[Catholic_Lady]

But for God to prevent it, it would mean supernatural devine intervention. The whole point of this world is that it is a natural world where God allows things to happen as they will. If God were to do His magic every time something bad was about to happen, or every time a person was about to use their free will for evil deeds, this wouldn't be Earth, it wouldn't be a natural world. And there wouldn't really be a difference between this life and the next, supernatural one.

I trust that since God can see everything and knows everything, and I don't/can't, that the world being this way will all make sense in the long run and will overall have a net good. We just cant see that in the here and now.

So according to God it must be worth it? This is what I mean by him being a moral monster. Nothing is worth it and nothing can be. Unless literally the only alternative was even worse rape and harm. But surely God can prevent that? Surely God can make the alternative to child rape to be less child rape or, wow, even ZERO child rape. But he chooses it anyway because he's a moral monster.

There is no amount of heaven or reward or free will that can ever be worth the world that God allows. The only improvement is to decrease that suffering, which God is perfectly capable of doing. It's not like he's choosing between the awfulness of the world and hellfire... he's choosing between the awfulness of the world and whatever he wants. And what he wants right now is the awfulness of the world. If he thinks it is 'worth it' he must be a moral monster.

Not a perfect analogy by any means, but it's along the same concept as me taking my cats to the vet. They get extremely upset. They hate riding in the car, they hate being put inside those little carriers, they get freaked out of their minds by the vet poking them with needles and sticking thermometers up their butt. They cry and scream and get mad at me for having them go through that. They can't possibly understand why it needs to happen that way, and that it's all for the better in the long run.

It's a very false analogy because God made it so cats have to suffer like that or that they even need to go to the vet in the first place. God deliberately and intentionally allows suffering and horribly unspeakable things to even be capable of happening in the world in the first place. God either doesn't care or he's the ultimate sadist.

Allowing us humans to have free will and allowing this world to be a natural world, as a whole, will have a net good as far as the big picture goes, yes.

This does not mean that each individual bad thing that happens or bad thing a person does, happens for a good reason or is "worth it." There is no good that comes from a child being raped. Ever.