Could I invite any Christians please to answer ...

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
depriving children of their life is not god's doing. so he is not responsible for them. just as a parent isn't responsible for his 20 year old son.

if god's starts making decisions and actions for us, what does that leave us to do? sleep, eat and sleep again?


"5 year olds getting leukemia isn't man's fault. There are a host of things that are not m ter say, yes, we assume blame and we will strive to never let it happen again.

“…depriving children of their life is not god's doing. so he is not responsible for them. just as a parent isn't responsible for his 20 year old son. …”

Parents don’t normally allow their 20 year old son from suffering and dieing a horrible death if they only need to lift a finger to stop it.

“…if god's starts making decisions and actions for us, what does that leave us to do? sleep, eat and sleep again? …”

What is being asked here is not why “god” doesn’t make “decisions” for us.
What is being asked here is why “god” would allow small innocent children to die.
If I put food onto the plate of a starving child, it would be a bit inappropriate to say that I am “making a decision” for the child because it would be much more appropriate to say that I am “preventing unnecessary suffering” of the child.

“…we don't require god's help. so why should he give aid and encourage laziness in man? and encourage dependency and the need for a all powerful father figure to help us whenever we find things a little harder…”

Why would an all-powerful “god” be powerless to prevent “laziness” and “dependency” while preventing suffering?
After all, this is even within my power! I can bring up a child to not be lazy nor dependent on me and yet prevent any real suffering in that child -I can make that child have a perfectly happy life. If this is even within my LIMITED power to do that, then why wouldn’t it be within the power of a “god” that is supposed to be “ALL-powerful”!?

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]“…depriving children of their life is not god's doing. so he is not responsible for them. just as a parent isn't responsible for his 20 year old son. …”

Parents don’t normally allow their 20 year old son from suffering and dieing a horrible death if they only need to lift a finger to stop it.

“…if god's starts making decisions and act then why wouldn’t it be within the power of a “god” that is supposed to be “ALL-powerful”!?

While it may be difficult to see why Adam was allowed to make a decision which brought Man out of a Paradise Situation into a world of sin, death, unbelief, rebellion, desease, and other calamities of the "curse" which resulted in Adam's disobedience, we do, nonetheless see God moving in the direction of restoring His creation to a Paradise.

Read about this in Revelation 21 and 22.

The closing pages of the Bible depict where history is moving - a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and in which death is no more and Christ reigns.

Granted it is not that way now, due to Adam's wrong excercise of his free will. That may be hard to explain. But at least we have the assurance that history is headed towards a climax free from the death and sorrow which so plague us.

God's track record for fulfilling His promises are impressive to many of us, especially in the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ, and His death and resurrection. This gives us confidence that His vindication and our salvation is assured. History is indeed moving in the direction of the state that you complian is not present now.

The death of children, while very sad, does also spare them from accumulating more and more offenses such as you and I as adults have accumulated. And I am not quick to assume that their story is completely over because they have expired. To our sense thay may be off the human radar map. Biblical indications are that death has not removed them off of the divine radar map.

Further more, your moral outrage at the death of "innocent children" assume a standard of morality. If you have an Ultimate Standard of Morality, we well might call that "God" which would of course defeat your atheistic concept of there being none.

If you do have some Ultimate Standard of Morality by which you are outraged at the death of children, yet you have no inforcer or no final reckoning or final judgment of those who have violated it, then it is pretty useless. In that case it has no force and we might as well not care because we all will simply melt peacefully into dust and never have to account for outrages against your Standard.

If you wish to blame God then you have given up your cherished atheism for the opportunity to blame the God who does exist.

As a Christian I am involved with young people. The burden of all the world's young people is not upon me. However for the few that I have enfluence with I seek God's guidance that they would not die or suffer pematurely.

We had one who was counciled to get off of drugs. But he seemed to have gone back and died because of his return to that against which we faithfully warned him. This is sad. However, God took him before he got into worst backsliding in which he might not have hurt not only himself but someone else also.

I think God is very good at being God. Sometimes we do not understand. But in all situations and all circumstances we have an opportunity to "gain Christ" more by being pressed out of our limited self reliance into trusting the God Who raises the death.

This causes all things to work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

The best possible thing you personally could do for the suffering children of the world is to turn YOUR life over to Jesus Christ. Then they will have the hope and peace of seeing Christ's goodness in your life. And He also will direct you how to care for the few children in your realm of enfluence.

For the sake of these children then, are you willing to turn your life over to Jesus? IF not for YOUR sake. How about for the sake of those children you are so concerned about?

You will be richly rewarded for giving your heart to Christ for the sake of children.

Originally posted by PawnChop
How does that work for a baby that dies due to no fault of man such as cot death syndrome?

The reason, according to the Bible, for all calamity or disease or death or anything else that's wrong is sin.

There are three things that contribute to all our problems.

1. This world. (of which Satan is in control over to the extent that he is allowed to be; if he had his way there would be no life on this planet.)

2. The flesh. (which is were sin is)

3. Satan. (who ultimately controls the minds of those who refuse to accept God's provision for the forgiveness of sin in the person of His son Jesus Christ.)

This world is a sinking ship. Jesus Christ is the life raft. Get in the life raft or go down with the ship. It's that simple.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
When I ask theists why does god lets innocent people suffer, I have heard some theists claim that “god is testing us” by that I assume they mean that god is testing our faith in his existence. But very young children and babies don’t know what “faith” is let alone have any faith to be tested so letting them suffer would not appear to make much sense ...[text shortened]... abandoned so no adults are aware of their suffering? -I mean, who’s faith would be tested there?

The world is what we make it for the most part, crimes against people
are only done when we act against one another. Things like sickness
or diseases are in large part due to other actions that have been
made by us, for example STD would pretty much go away if we really
did live according to scripture and sleep with the 'one' person we were
married too and no one else. If we kept our lives in balance and didn't
over do other things like over eating and drinking, many more of nasty
things that happen to us would go away, if we took better care of
ourselves some of things that happen to our children would go away
too.

Do not think for on second that people are innocent of much of this
they are not, but for the most part they are the direct cause of the
innocents being hurt, because children are bound to the adults in their
lives they suffer. This isn't always a testing, it is more times than not
just a result of poor choices we make. We can act to change things, or
we can keep doing what we know is wrong, that too is on us and we
are the cause of those types of results as well.
Kelly

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
he is arguing that a benevolent god with the power to stop evil would do so. if god has the power to stop children from dieing and he doesn't do so then he doesn't exist or he is not benevolent.

that's bullshlt. not only you are asking God to do something you are not willing to do but you are also asking him to do your job(our job). why not ask god to ma ...[text shortened]... trength and intelligence to alter the world. what happens on earth is entirely man's fault

God is benevolent and once He stops it, it will be stopped forever.
Kelly

The answer to the question is pure and simple. THERE IS NO GOD and some little children suffer because this is not a perfect world.

Originally posted by 667joe
The answer to the question is pure and simple. THERE IS NO GOD and some little children suffer because this is not a perfect world.

If you know it is an imperfect world then do you have an idle of what a perfect world should be?

Do you have an ultimate standard of justice beyond this world? We could well call that absolute standard of perfect knowledge and perfect justice by which you imagine a perfect world - God. In that case you have to affirm God in order to deny God.

Joe you seem to be assuming God in order to attempt to disprove God.

Originally posted by 667joe
The answer to the question is pure and simple. THERE IS NO GOD and some little children suffer because this is not a perfect world.

Duh, one has nothing to do with the other. This world was created
perfect, and it is still running under those conditions; however, since
we introduced sin into it, now there are actions that cause the results
under discussion. That will be remedied in short order, and the
causes of all of those types of pain and suffering will be put where
they belong, forever.
Kelly

Originally posted by 667joe
The answer to the question is pure and simple. THERE IS NO GOD and some little children suffer because this is not a perfect world.

Where did you came from?

Originally posted by ahosyney
Where did you came from?

His parents, but where did everything come from?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
His parents, but where did everything come from?
Kelly

The same place as you and your parents........ the primordial ooze.

The world was obviously not created peerfect, or it would have stayed perfect.

Originally posted by twhitehead
If you understood even the basics of typical theism, then you would be asking: "Why does God make us adults live and suffer?"

If people who die in childhood get a short-cut to heaven then they are getting let off lightly. It of course raises the question as to why we cant be let off so easily.

This is a question that is really at the heart of Judeo-Christian theology that is not talked about as much as it probably should be, and generally doesn't go into much depth. It should because it's a huge theologic quandry.

Jewish theology really hasn't recovered from the Holocaust. That a god would allow God's Chosen People to nearly be exterminated doesn't give much reinforcement to the notion that the Jews are the chosen ones. It would seem that no group of people are the 'chosen', and no sooner do any try to lay such a claim and events would seem to refute it.

Just the framing of the problem of evil is an enormous task, much less trying to dialogue about it. Some of these seemingly simple questions are not quite so simple.

Originally posted by Badwater
This is a question that is really at the heart of Judeo-Christian theology that is not talked about as much as it probably should be, and generally doesn't go into much depth. It should because it's a huge theologic quandry.

Jewish theology really hasn't recovered from the Holocaust. That a god would allow God's Chosen People to nearly be exterminated do ...[text shortened]... g to dialogue about it. Some of these seemingly simple questions are not quite so simple.

Suffering is used by God to wrought Christ into them.

Suffering is used by God to work Himself into people.

Suffering is used by God to drive you out of the Adamic nature into the divine nature.

Suffering is used by God to get you to trust the God of resurrection.


Suffering is used by God to conform people to the image of Christ Who has and can pass through all kinds of suffering victoriously.


Suffering is used by God to force people to enjoy God Himself in the midst of thier suffering and therefby overcoming their suffering.


Life is like going down a river in a boat and hitting a rock which is in the way. The human concept is that the rock should be removed. The concept of God is that the water level would rise causing your boat to ride OVER the rock.


If you are in the purpose of God you will one day turn around and be exceedingly thankful for the suffering that God allowed you to pass through for because if it you gained more of the divine nature of Christ into your personality.

Don't look for suffering. It comes. Turn your eyes to Jesus and enjoy Him in all situations and circumstances.

Originally posted by 667joe
The same place as you and your parents........ the primordial ooze.

can you prove this?

where the primordial ooze came from?

what cause life to raise from primordial ooze?