Evidence God Exists: Part II

[Thor]

[quote='Thor']...What we are saying is that the horrors (such as the laundry list I provided for you) clearly demonstrate that a deity who is "all-powerful", "all-loving" and "all-knowing" does not exist. There may be a god out there somewhere. But if there is, he obviously doesn't give a damn about humans. To believe in this deity, you must believe in a contradiction...

I don't believe it is a contradiction.

You believe in a deity who loves us so much that we can't possibly comprehend it. You also believe this deity is all powerful, knows everything and created everything. You also believe this deity created things that make our lives miserable, harm us and kill us. And you don't see this as a contradiction?

Humans have thrived as a species.

Yes, in spite of horrible things that afflict humans, as a species we have managed to thrive. But you know what has been more successful than humans? Cockroaches. If your standard is that we have "thrived", it would make more sense that "God" is a cockroach.

Victims to those horrors you have mentioned are a minority,

A minority? During the Black Plague nearly half the population of Europe died! Other pestilences have killed millions at a time! Malaria still kills millions today! In some parts of the world internal parasites infect up to 95% of the population!

and we don't know why God allowed them to fall victim.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

There goes my rationalization meter again...

If we were struggling as a species as a result of these horrors, then you might have a point. You've got to look at the big picture.

I'm sure a child dying from malaria finds it comforting to know that we as a species are not "struggling".

Despite these horrors, God does love his people.

Obviously. Because anyone would unleash killer microbes on people they love.

It has been written that he made us in his image, which includes feelings and emotions.

Interesting that a perfect being would have petty emotions like envy, jealousy and anger. Your god behaves more like a spoiled five year old.

If we look at ourselves, we can perhaps get a clue as to how God thinks.

Really? Because for the life of me I can't imagine why any being would send internal parasites to infest people he loves.

We love our children, yet we can get angry at them and punish them.

Would you punish your children by infecting them with cholera? Smallpox? Ebola? AIDS?

My point here is that the horrors we see in this world do not contradict a loving deity.

They sure as hell do! You've just been too blinded by religious indoctrination to see it.

Most people don't go out into the wild and pick berries and mushrooms to eat.

Actually, in some parts of the world this is EXACTLY what people do. Not everyone has access to supermarkets, and some people must forage for food to survive. And what does this have to do with anything anyway? Because only SOME people pick berries and mushrooms in the wild, it's okay that your deity put them here?

They rely on experts or people who can safely provide them those fruits.

Why should we need "experts" to tell us what foods aren't going to poison us?

That's because God provided us with intelligence and discernment.

And how many people do you suppose died before we were able to figure out which foods are poisonous? This wasn't "intelligence and discernment", it was trial and error.

Caveman #1: "Gee, Thag died after eating those berries last night. Do you think he died because of the berries?"

Caveman #2: "I don't know. Want some mushrooms?"

Accidents do happen, but we can't always tell why.

People dying from eating poisonous things that are provided to them as food is not an "accident". It is a foreseeable occurrence. This would be like putting five year olds in a room full of razors and then calling it an "accident" when one of them badly cuts himself.

Though I assure you there is always a reason.

Yes, I'm sure there's "a reason" why your deity allows children to become disfigured, blind, crippled, paralyzed and dead. Maybe your deity just enjoys watching people suffer.

Can you explain exactly how a smart phone, with all its complex technology, works? Probably not. Yet the inventors of the smart phone can.

And if the inventors of the smart phone explained to me how it worked I would understand it! See how it works? But you want to believe that your deity's reasons for allowing horrors to inflict us is so complex that we wouldn't understand it if he explained it to us. Keep running with that argument. It'll get you far.

Then why didn't "God" choose to provide us with immunity to nature's poisons?

Can't really say. I'm not God. Though a possible reason is that nature's poisons are meant to be one of the many tools God has when he needs to punish us.

So "God" is punishing a ten year old boy who stumbles across a rattlesnake and gets bitten? "God" is punishing an 8 year old girl who swims in the ocean and gets stung by a jellyfish? "God" is punishing a kid who inadvertently disturbs a nest of killer bees? Your rationalization is full of holes.

Yes, because life wouldn't have been able to thrive without poison berries, plants, mushrooms and snakes.

Here you missed the point entirely. Perhaps poison berries, plants, mushrooms and snakes are pieces of a machine, each doing their thing to help our world thrive.

How are these things "helping our world thrive"? The world couldn't thrive without poisonous mushrooms?