Natural Evil

[Gambit]

how come it is unfair when people use arbitrary measurements, on what should be a level playing field, but it is totally logical when God does it?

Because of God's perfect knowledge his judgments are less arbitrary than our own. He is able to take into account circumstances that escape our notice.

How do you know that God is doing any such thing? Can you point me to any scripture which outlines, point by point, where God evaluates situations in such a way? I don't want a guess at why God does something, I want an actual answer.

I know it's been done to death, but let's take starving children in Africa for instance. Can we assume, given the disproportionate amount of suffering they go through, that God has some sort of specific rule for them? Here's another scenario: What if a person is born in a thriving country, to non Christian parents, but they then convert and the worst experience they ever endure is someone cutting in front of them in a line? This means, that like the babies who die before they get the chance to sin, the Christian who led a charmed life is never tested at all. So we now have two ends of an extreme - people who perpetually suffer and people who suffer little to no bad experiences in their entire life. There is also the fact that in the majority of cases these people are born in the same countries, respectively.

Does God hate Africa? Many Christians, when faced with the questions I have just posed, believe that God does hate Africa. Rather than see the problems with the accepted explanations, they blame it on the people. We've all heard Christians make claims such as God brought that earthquake, God caused that tsunami, for example. It's just not good enough, and the defenders of the Christian faith have a lot of explaining to do. For me, assigning qualities to God without evidence is a cop out; with the only benefit being, it helps Christians sleep better at night.