I find it insulting to my intelligence to be asked to believe something with no evidence, and when I ask for evidence to be told that I shouldn't be asking.
If god is willing to prevent Evil, but not able, he is not omnipotent. If he is able but not willing, he is malevolent. If he is able and willing, then whence cometh evil? If he is neither able nor willing, why call him god?
The problem of pain and suffering is a lot harder to address in a brief comment. Nothing I can say in a few short lines will be very satisfying, unless you already believe or are wanting to believe. Here are a few thoughts...
Pain and suffering are not good in and of themselves, but good can come from them.
In order to escape all pain and suffering, we would have to surrender our freewill - and then what would be the point to life anyway?
My level of understanding will always be limited. I have to approach this journey with humility. I can know a lot, but I can't know everything. I will work to alleviate pain and suffering where I can, and trust that in end, all the pain and suffering in the world will have brought about a glorious end that will be worth it.
Actually evidence is proof. You're just writing a bunch of words. All your mysterious and humble, "can't know everything...", "learn for yourself" patronizing garbage that doesn't make sense. blah blah blah.
How exactly do you decide which particular ridiculous idea to believe, when you don't need any proof?
> in end, all the pain and suffering in the world will have brought about a glorious end that will be worth it.
That's also codswallop.
See, I've worked in health, and to me that sounds like exactly what someone who has been in the privileged position to never have witnessed or experienced real suffering would write as a flippant, shallow and superficial expression to discount how much needless suffering there actually is in the world.
When you see young children struck down with horrible diseases that cause constant pain and ruin the lives of their families, for no reason but an unlucky genetic abnormality, I can't consolidate that with your idea of "a glorious end", and it's also impossible for me to not attribute blame to a supposedly omnipotent being that would allow such needless suffering when they presumably have the ability to prevent it.
So take your godly rubbish and go and parrot it to the rest of the congregation in your echo chamber of useless rhetoric, and give up on trying to convert reasonable people.
Why? I can write a game where you have choice, but no pain or suffering. Is God worse programmer?
> and then what would be the point to life anyway?
There's no "point to life". It's a sandbox game you have ~80 years to experience. Enjoy, while you can, and don't be a dick.
If our choices were reduced to those which could not cause pain and suffering, life would resemble a game; our choices would lack any consequence. Thankfully, life is much more than a game.
> and don't be a dick
This advice is curious to me. How do you derive this from your beliefs? I can understand you saying "don't be a dick just to be a dick", because that would cause pointless suffering. But if I can advance my own wealth or happiness by being a dick in such a way that I can reasonably avoid retribution, why shouldn't I?
