The problem of evil/suffering when it comes to children

[Redbeard The Pink]

Something horrible happened recently in my town.


A six-year-old boy was taken to the hospital at the behest of his father, who claimed that the boy fell in the shower. Once he was in the care of medical professionals, he did not survive long. To put it bluntly, his injuries and overall condition were not synonymous with someone who fell in the shower, but with someone who suffered a recent severe beating in a string of beatings that likely took place for a significant portion of this boy's short life.


Needless to say, the father and his woman (not the boy's mother, from what I understand) are being charged with a laundry list of things, including murder, but a child is dead after a short life of horrible suffering, and no amount of "justice" will reverse that.


Sadly, this story is not unique. Things like this happen every minute of every day. Children starve every minute of every day. Children die of both preventable and incurable diseases every minute of every day.


When religious people are trying to explain why suffering and evil are allowed to exist in a Universe created by a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful god, they generally default to some combination of "it's all our fault" and "the Lord works in mysterious ways," claiming that hardship makes us stronger and brings us closer to god.


All of that breaks down when we come to the issue of innocent children who suffer and die. Those of you who serve a god who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent somehow have to grapple with the fact that your god was in the room with that boy and his father every single time he was hit, and he did nothing about it. He did not intervene himself, and he did not send anybody to save the child. The abuser realized the boy was dying and took him to the hospital in hopes of saving himself from a murder charge, and that little boy died of his wounds in front of your god, who was apparently all tuckered out from making sure Denver won the fucking Superbowl.  Sure, the justice system has the perpetrators now, but so fucking what?


That little boy will not become stronger because of what happened to him. He's dead. Honestly, I don't think anybody else will, either, and even if somebody was supposed to have a positive experience or learn a lesson from what happened, that still means that your god's perfect plan involves the suffering and death of countless children. If Superman saw what was happening to that child, what would he have done? Isn't Superman supposed to be good? What about Captain America? Would he have stood by and watched that child suffer and die? If these characters, who are supposed to be good, would have had no choice but to directly intervene when confronted with these things, what does that say about your god, who literally witnesses every bad thing that ever happens and does practically nothing about any of it? How can you call him good?


If saving children is less important to your god than pretending he doesn't exist to preserve free will, then let me ask you this: what if he isn't pretending? What if he actually doesn't exist?

[Ravenshire]

---

Something horrible happened recently in my town.


A six-year-old boy was taken to the hospital at the behest of his father, who claimed that the boy fell in the shower. Once he was in the care of medical professionals, he did not survive long. To put it bluntly, his injuries and overall condition were not synonymous with someone who fell in the shower, but with someone who suffered a recent severe beating in a string of beatings that likely took place for a significant portion of this boy's short life.


Needless to say, the father and his woman (not the boy's mother, from what I understand) are being charged with a laundry list of things, including murder, but a child is dead after a short life of horrible suffering, and no amount of "justice" will reverse that.


Sadly, this story is not unique. Things like this happen every minute of every day. Children starve every minute of every day. Children die of both preventable and incurable diseases every minute of every day.


When religious people are trying to explain why suffering and evil are allowed to exist in a Universe created by a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful god, they generally default to some combination of "it's all our fault" and "the Lord works in mysterious ways," claiming that hardship makes us stronger and brings us closer to god.


All of that breaks down when we come to the issue of innocent children who suffer and die. Those of you who serve a god who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent somehow have to grapple with the fact that your god was in the room with that boy and his father every single time he was hit, and he did nothing about it. He did not intervene himself, and he did not send anybody to save the child. The abuser realized the boy was dying and took him to the hospital in hopes of saving himself from a murder charge, and that little boy died of his wounds in front of your god, who was apparently all tuckered out from making sure Denver won the fucking Superbowl.  Sure, the justice system has the perpetrators now, but so fucking what?


That little boy will not become stronger because of what happened to him. He's dead. Honestly, I don't think anybody else will, either, and even if somebody was supposed to have a positive experience or learn a lesson from what happened, that still means that your god's perfect plan involves the suffering and death of countless children. If Superman saw what was happening to that child, what would he have done? Isn't Superman supposed to be good? What about Captain America? Would he have stood by and watched that child suffer and die? If these characters, who are supposed to be good, would have had no choice but to directly intervene when confronted with these things, what does that say about your god, who literally witnesses every bad thing that ever happens and does practically nothing about any of it? How can you call him good?


If saving children is less important to your god than pretending he doesn't exist to preserve free will, then let me ask you this: what if he isn't pretending? What if he actually doesn't exist?

---

It is amazing just how powerless the all-powerful gawd they describe is. "He can't do this, that or the other 'cause free will." Bullshit. An all-powerful being would know exactly how to prevent a rape, a murder, larceny (grand or petty), starvation, privation, abject poverty or any of the other of the very, very long list of plagues that trouble humanity without violating the free will of anyone. It's all-fucking-powerful after all. I like to ask theists "If you witnessed someone being raped (beaten, bullied, etc...) and had the physical wherewithal to stop it, would you?" When they answer "Of course." I hit them with "Then you're more moral and more powerful than your gawd." Of course they usually reply with the "free will" bullshit at that point so I have to explain to them just how limited they think their all-powerful gawd is. I rarely get coherent responses beyond that.

If such a thing as "free will" is keeping gawd from doing anything (aside from sending hurricanes to punish gays), then what fucking use is it?

[Cecelia]

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."

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Fundamental Failing of the Free Will Argument:

Gawd is perfect and all-powerful. We know this because it's a fundamental doctrine of all abrahamic faifths.

If Gawd is perfect, then he doesn't fuck up anything, not ever, nor does he tolerate those who do, because if he did, then he would not be perfect.

If a god which is claimed as perfect and all-powerful allows people to do evil, then he isn't weak - he is as evil as evil gets!

Therefore, Gawd is either not perfect, and probably evil, or the Free Will argument is horse shit.

Either way, something really stinks about that abrahamic god!

[robvalue]

What a shocking story

Yes, I think the "god's plan" garbage is a way of coping with all the horrible that goes on in the world. Convincing yourself there must be some sort of overall reason for it, rather than just "bad shit happens".

But trying to make out there's actually a powerful being in charge, who has child murder as part of their plan, makes things even worse. And worshipping this being is disgusting.

[Aoi Magi]

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."

---

Two other common excuses are "Past life punishment / Karma" and "Sins of the father".

Past life punishment / Karma:
With this the concept of heaven/hell goes down the drain, and also what's the point of punishment if nobody knows the crime?

Sins of the father:
or in other words the almighty is powerless to punish the actual sinner, and is using a scapegoat because reasons...

[Wyrd of Gawd]

OK, suppose the God character actually exists. Why would that mean that everyone has a "soul"? Maybe only certain people have "souls" and the others are simply experiment subjects to see how the people with "souls" react when the experiments are made to suffer misfortunes. So if you, who have a "soul", don't do anything to make the world a better place then you might be condemned to the lake of fire.

Or suppose there's no God character of any kind. We, as humans, are it and we can do anything we want to do without suffering any consequences after we croak. If our neighbors throw us into prison or execute us for our bad behaviors that's the sum total of our punishment. In such a situation would it really matter how much evil we do? After all, we are basically predatory animals doing what we have always done since we got our chins.

[robvalue]

Yup, a "God" does not logically lead to a soul, an afterlife or any of the other rubbish. It's just been associated with such through popular stories.

A "God" is nothing but a creator which isn't allowed to be an ordinary being in another reality. But the thing is, if there is one, he'll be ordinary. Or more likely, he won't have realized he even created anything.

Think about what "afterlife" means for a second. It would be like a character in a computer simulation we made coming out of the simulation and literally existing in our reality. Yes, that is ridiculously dumb and there's no reason to assume it's even possible.

[Ivan Denisovich]

Already good answers appeared but crown still belongs to Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?.

Problem is that you can't convince one who want to believe. If one thinks that his life is easier with god blanky then one will held to it despite all absurdities that entail.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Yup, a "God" does not logically lead to a soul, an afterlife or any of the other rubbish. It's just been associated with such through popular stories.

A "God" is nothing but a creator which isn't allowed to be an ordinary being in another reality. But the thing is, if there is one, he'll be ordinary. Or more likely, he won't have realized he even created anything.

Think about what "afterlife" means for a second. It would be like a character in a computer simulation we made coming out of the simulation and literally existing in our reality. Yes, that is ridiculously dumb and there's no reason to assume it's even possible.

Although there are no actual gods as those depicted in the literature don't you think that the belief in the imaginary entities acts as a brake upon our more vicious behaviors (except for the guys like the ISIS nuts)?