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I was talking to a man at work who had questions about my atheism. We got to the topic of human suffering. I basically asked him, "if god can do anything, wouldn't it be a good time to intervene when a child is being raped?"

He didn't have an answer. There are no good answers to that question from believers.

Cabsmom 8 Aug 19
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13 comments

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0

Free will is the usual go to. What most don't realize is that free will is a logical paradox when it comes to a god, so then you have to start over.

The easier and more productive answer is that some people are sick and damaged and children should be protected from them, cause no god has showed up to do it for us.

You do have the free will to be raped. The rapist also has the free will to do the raping.

The big problem with "free will" is that believers claim so desperately that you have to have it in order for their god to save you because it is supposed to be entirely your choice. It is so important to them and religion in general, but this same god knows in advance how everything is going to turn out, but he doesn't want a single one to perish. Put that piece of relish together.

1

Yep, the problem of evil gets them every time. Any god that lets little kids be born into starvation in India is not someone I want to pray to. Either he's all knowing and all powerful or he's not. If god is all that and allows it, god is bad. If god has no power, he gets no prayers

lerlo Level 8 Aug 22, 2018

Hey, he’s too busy helping ball teams win games, people choose the right car, picking which little old lady win the bingo game or get a couple of bucks out of the slot machines! How can he be expected to save children from abuse, women from torture and rape, or people from being shot in churches as they pray!

1

I never really understood the whole human suffering thing and God's will. Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden because of original sin, thus having to live a life of pain and suffering, then Jesus came and defeated sin with his sacrifice. Should've been end of story, yeah? So why are we still here, suffering for what should've been paid off? Why is human existence even a thing after the resurrection? You wanna see non-answers at its finest, ask those questions.

0

Just for the sake of argument , I will answer the way I believe a believer might . Since God is not a person [ou.org] , our's are the hands G-d has to rely on to do His work , as these songs illustrate .

,
. But to be completely candid , this is something that people of faith grapple with .
1

Always brings to mind Stephen Fry's comments on Theodicy:

1

I've heard many times people claiming that god cured them of this and that.
And I always retort with ' why then has he never in the history of human beings cured an amputee'?

I posted this on another thread recently:

Do you believe that God can heal people? They will say yes.

Is there any condition that God cannot heal? They will say no.

The Amputee Coalition of America estimates that there is an estimated population of 2 million American amputees. About 70% of Americans are Christians. So there are 1.4 million Christian Amputees in America. If there is a God, and he heals those of faith, then there should be no shortage of Christians regrowing limbs.

Ask to meet one of these Christians.

0

Did you hit him with any follow up questions about churchy involvements?

3

Don’t stop with the one example. What about the holocaust? Remember the Indonesian tsunami, cancer, traffic deaths, etc., etc. etc. Things stuck together out of particles of matter are simply going to disintegrate. We are changing and disintegrating as we speak. Things are as they are, and they are that way for reasons.

The wish for a divine Father, one who holds things together and grants our wishes—that was a foolish idea from the get-go. An alternative is to look at the world in a non-judgemental way—see it as neither good nor bad.

2

They will and do rationalize any and everything. They have to in order to be able to live in the secure world that they have created for themselves in the guise of religion.

0

There are so many occasions that could be stated but are overlooked by faith.

2

I've heard only a couple of explanations, and neither is satisfactory to me.

  1. "God isn't omniscient and/or omnipotent and therefore cannot intervene." I heard this explanation from a Jewish leader, I think a rabbi. Okay, fine, but don't have the gall to tell me that the creator is all good and deserves to be worshipped when this second-rate deity of yours brought us all into being without itself possessing the skill and wisdom to do so ethically. Such a lackluster God should spend eternity begging us all for forgiveness and never receive it.

  2. "God could intervene, but that would interfere with free will." So what? Where is the child's free will to not be brutally raped, terrorized, and psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives? Where is the murder victim's free will to live and not endure a violent death? Why is it only the offender who has their free will preserved? What sort of twisted morality imposes freedom for the wicked but denies it to their victims? Disgusting!

0

Because it is a rhetorical question. They just don't know how to accept or process the idea that there is no God.

2

God's mysterious ways can be a bit too much mysterious to me.

godef Level 7 Aug 19, 2018

It's alright...

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