The problem of evil

[Bobbieaware]

On April 5, 2016 at 2:14 PM, bluebell said:

Can you summarize it?

Ehrman is a former Evangelical Christian who became an atheist after he failed to explain to his own satisfaction how a perfectly good and loving God could allow evil to exist. Ehrman used the Bible in his failed quest, but if he had used the Book of Mormon he would have quickly come to understand that evil has always existed and that it is co-eternal with God. He would have come to realize that God had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of evil, because evil had no beginning. And because evil had no beginning, it will also have no end. In fact, he would have come to know that God cannot destroy evil (an actual impossibility) without causing all things that exist to vanish into utter non-existence. Lehi's masterful discourse on the necessity of there being a diametric opposition in all things (2 Nephi 2) uses godly logic to demonstrate why evil cannot be destroyed, but that it can be overcome and controlled toward eternally positive ends.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Bobbieaware

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

...I have a question for you, if there were a 4 year old child standing in the middle of the street and you saw a car coming that would kill the child would you do everything in your power to save the child?  If yes why?  If no why not?  What if you saw a child being abducted by a deranged killer?  Same questions.

4:  It is not a pity party to ponder and wonder about such things. I am sorry that your wife is suffering. If your faith gives you strength and this even strengthens your faith good for you and I am happy for you.  But don't demean others who may struggle reconciling such thing with what theistic religions teach about God.

Can I pretend that the child standing in the road is Adolph Hitler, when he was 4?  And what do you mean by deranged?

The point of this test,  as I was saying, is to see what we are made of.

What kind of life would you live if you were placed in the circumstances you were placed in when you were born on this planet? 

Would you have faith to believe in God, or no?

Realize your mortal life isn't over yet when you answer that question.  Either way, you might still change your mind later.

And you also lived in heaven before you came here.

[Teancum]

8 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Can I pretend that the child standing in the road is Adolph Hitler, when he was 4?  And what do you mean by deranged?

The point of this test,  as I was saying, is to see what we are made of.

What kind of life would you live if you were placed in the circumstances you were placed in when you were born on this planet? 

Would you have faith to believe in God, or no?

Realize your mortal life isn't over yet when you answer that question.  Either way, you might still change your mind later.

And you also lived in heaven before you came here.

1:  Deranged means, crazy, nuts, insane.  The Adolf Hitler question in an entirely different question and a deflection to the questions I proffered.

2: I understand the concept of testing our mettle.  I do not understand how I can be put in circumstances which by all standards are better than almost all others in the world ever.  Still I think I have had trials that have "tested" what I am made of.  You may think I am failing.  I think I am searching beyond simple platitudes that may provide false security.  I may be wrong.

3:  So God give some relatively easy challenges and others challenges that would break almost any soul?

4:  Faith is the ultimate test then? 

5:  Your last two comments are simply repeating your assertions of your own religious faith.

 

[Mars]

I'm not God, Teancum. I'm just a dude. Of course I'd save the kid. I'm kinda curious, are you trying to pin my beliefs to the 'you have to be a jerk to believe this crap!" or something else? I think you're trying to get us to see it your way? You are basically saying that your notion of what is right and wrong is better than God's, right? That if you were God and in charge, it'd be better. That's how it comes across. 

So, then, what level of bad stuff is ok, for you? In order to have God exist, what would the world need to look like? How much suffering and what category of people would be allowed to endure it?

Edited April 7, 2016 by Mars

[Teancum]

53 minutes ago, Mars said:

I'm not God, Teancum. I'm just a dude. Of course I'd save the kid. I'm kinda curious, are you trying to pin my beliefs to the 'you have to be a jerk to believe this crap!" or something else? I think you're trying to get us to see it your way? You are basically saying that your notion of what is right and wrong is better than God's, right? That if you were God and in charge, it'd be better. That's how it comes across. 

So, then, what level of bad stuff is ok, for you? In order to have God exist, what would the world need to look like? How much suffering and what category of people would be allowed to endure it?

I think I have been polite in this discussion.  I am only sharing my views and responding to others comments.   I have total respect for those who defer to simple faith even if that does not work for me right now. I think I have said that a few times on this thread,

i am not saying my notion of right or wrong is correct or if there is even a simple notion of right or wrong.  I am trying to reconcile the problem of evil and suffering with what I once believed the attributes of God are.  For me the problem of evil and suffering at least today seem unreconcilable with an involved God of revealed religion.  That's it.  

Does the  analogy of asking if you could save the child in peril you would but understanding if God is real and does not often save the child bother you?  Is it not a fair question?

I don't have any idea what I would do if I were God.  Best I can come up with is how I try to treat my children.  

It seems that somehow my reasoning and comments irritate you.  You seem angry in your post above   I apologize for that.   It is not my intent to make people angry.  This is an issue I think a lot about.  And even pray about.

[Ahab]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

1:  Deranged means, crazy, nuts, insane.  The Adolf Hitler question in an entirely different question and a deflection to the questions I proffered.

2: I understand the concept of testing our mettle.  I do not understand how I can be put in circumstances which by all standards are better than almost all others in the world ever.  Still I think I have had trials that have "tested" what I am made of.  You may think I am failing.  I think I am searching beyond simple platitudes that may provide false security.  I may be wrong.

3:  So God give some relatively easy challenges and others challenges that would break almost any soul?

4:  Faith is the ultimate test then? 

5:  Your last two comments are simply repeating your assertions of your own religious faith.

 

1. Deranged compared to who?  How would YOU determine if someone was deranged? This is your test so you can answer it in any way that you want or think best, and me too.

2. Not just testing your mettle but testing you entirely.  All your perceptions and paradigms and your own rule of measure. Your own ideas of what is good and what is evil. Everything about everything about YOU.

3. Different things make or break different people.  What is hard for some is easy for others.  Your test has been specifically crafted and/or created for YOU. Don't ask what I think unless maybe you're just a little bit curious or maybe you just want to have a little fun playing with me.  It's your job to pass your own test regardless of who else agrees or doesn't agree with YOU. You get to figure out for yourself what YOU think is good and also what YOU think is evil.

4. No. YOU are the ultimate test, for YOU.  You are just showing God and anybody else who may be paying attention to you the kind or type of person you are.

5. Who else do you expect me to speak as? I am ME. My faith, and my works that are a reflection of the faith that I have within me, are an expression of what I am and what I think. All of my comments are assertions of my own religious faith.

[Teancum]

3 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Ehrman is a former Evangelical Christian who became an atheist after he failed to explain to his own satisfaction how a perfectly good and loving God could allow evil to exist. Ehrman used the Bible in his failed quest, but if he had used the Book of Mormon he would have quickly come to understand that evil has always existed and that it is co-eternal with God. He would have come to realize that God had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of evil, because evil had no beginning. And because evil had no beginning, it will also have no end. In fact, he would have come to know that God cannot destroy evil (an actual impossibility) without causing all things that exist to vanish into utter non-existence. Lehi's masterful discourse on the necessity of there being a diametric opposition in all things (2 Nephi 2) uses godly logic to demonstrate why evil cannot be destroyed, but that it can be overcome and controlled toward eternally positive ends.

Actually Ehrman is agnostic not an atheist.   Ehrman's book God's Problem discusses the problem of evil and suffering and attempts to show the various ways the Bible answers the issue, how some of those ideas conflict and why at least he is not satisfied by them.   I don't know if he has reviewed Mormom ideas on this topic and whether he has read the Book of Mormon but it would be interesting to see how he would react to some of it.  

Also I am not sure the quick outline above is an accurate summary of the Book of Mormom teachings on the problem of evil and suffering.  I don't recall where the Book of Mormom says evil has always existed.  It does teach that opposition in all,things is necessary. It also teaches God created all things and poses some of the similar problems the Bible has.   Suffering in the Book of Mormom is also often tied to the obedience or non obedience of the people.  That is also one of the ways the Bibile answers the problem of suffering. 

[Mars]

Teancum, nothing is irritating about your posts. I confess that I am letting my impression of your character and emotions based on a long history of your posts and tone color your posts here. And I have been trying to show you how accusatory you can come across. I shouldn't presume to know for sure how you feel nor try to change your temperament. I'm the one who owes you am apology. I am sorry. 

Of course your question is a fair one. I do think your answer, or position that God treats His children poorly, that it asserts that your reckoning of right and wrong is better than that of the God of revealed religion. Or your perception of God. 

That's not meant to accuse you of pride, honestly. Wrestling with these ideas when we haven't seen God nor received answers to prayers isn't the same as hearing it from Him in such a way that we can't disagree without pride. So, I'm not trying to blithely paint you as a stiffnecked cuss. 

I am curious about your answer to my question. What level of suffering would be acceptable, if God is there and cares about us? Iow, How much 'bad' would be out there? What would the world look like? 

[Maedros]

My view is that all suffering and evil has its source in Satan and 'the third' who followed him - I think that we sometimes underestimate and discredit their influence and power. I don't think that anything in this world happens randomly; everything is being influenced by a force, whether good or evil. When we trip suddenly or forget where we placed a certain item or disease or death or any tragic event happens, it is the result of the deliberate influence of a force (the force of darkness); the Lord purposefully placed us in a world filled with evil so that we can grow and learn - it sounds so cliche but yet is so profoundly true. While Adam was in the Garden: there was no death or decay or danger but after the fall: decay and death entered the world, why? What changed? My opinion and belief is that the devil and his angels now had opportunity to use their power to destroy us and the world at every level. I also think that when the Saviour suffered for our sins: He suffered the full onslaught of the evil power that the devil wields which attacked him both mind and body and caused his body to bleed at every pore, in addition he also suffered from the complete and absolute separation from God and this bitter cup was so great and all encompassing that it amounted to the full price of all the sins of mankind, he overcame the full might of Satan's evil so that He could receive the full glory of God. He said that if we do not repent then we must suffer as He did, which suffering is actually the might of the devil's power as the result of separation from God through disobedience or failure to repent. I hope that makes sense; its just my personal belief anyway.

[Gray]

14 hours ago, Teancum said:

It does not seem there is agreement among LDS theologians whether or not God is omnipotent, Omniscient, etc.  Elder Maxwell certainly taught He is.  McConkie as well.  Joseph Smith's canon also teaches the principles of the Omni's.   Others like Blake Ostler don't agree.  But they have no authority like the three I have mentioned.

The BOM seems to indicate that there are principles that God is forced to follow, or else cease to be God. But either way, the problem of evil remains 

[bluebell]

19 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I'm not sure that Paulsen draws the same distinction as you. Under the heading of "The Logical Problem of Evil" Paulsen lists both human suffering and moral evil as two distinct subcategories. Additionally, traditionally the "problem of evil" includes naturally occurring "evil." 

I did not see that.  I'll have to go back and reread the first part.

Quote

This reasoning is fine as far as it goes, but it certainly seems to break down in particular instances and seems to raise as many questions as it answers. How does not helping a mother find her trapped kids in the trunk of a car create any greater good at all? If God helps the mother's neighbor find her car keys, but decides not to intervene the case of trapped children, it seems like there ought to be a very good reason. If we understood this reason, then we could say that we have the answer to the problem of evil. 

I can think of a lot of different plausible reasons for that kind of suffering, but every specific we come up with is just speculation since even when God does answer someone's specific 'why' those of us on the outside rarely know about it.

Because of that, i shy away from using actual experiences of God believing people who have suffered to support the idea that their suffering is an example of the problem of evil.  We don't know that they haven't found reason in it, and to use their suffering to support a belief that they might find appalling and incorrect seems wrong.

[bluebell]

11 hours ago, Teancum said:

Actually Ehrman is agnostic not an atheist.   Ehrman's book God's Problem discusses the problem of evil and suffering and attempts to show the various ways the Bible answers the issue, how some of those ideas conflict and why at least he is not satisfied by them.   I don't know if he has reviewed Mormom ideas on this topic and whether he has read the Book of Mormon but it would be interesting to see how he would react to some of it.  

Also I am not sure the quick outline above is an accurate summary of the Book of Mormom teachings on the problem of evil and suffering.  I don't recall where the Book of Mormom says evil has always existed.  It does teach that opposition in all,things is necessary. It also teaches God created all things and poses some of the similar problems the Bible has.   Suffering in the Book of Mormom is also often tied to the obedience or non obedience of the people.  That is also one of the ways the Bibile answers the problem of suffering. 

I think the one thing the BOM has, in regards to the problem of suffering of innocents, that the bible does not have is the teachings in the story of the women and children burned for their beliefs in Christ (Alma 14).

In that chapter the Lord answers the why of this specific experience of suffering.  Verses 10-11 say-

10 And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

 11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.

 

[Teancum]

28 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think the one thing the BOM has, in regards to the problem of suffering of innocents, that the bible does not have is the teachings in the story of the women and children burned for their beliefs in Christ (Alma 14).

In that chapter the Lord answers the why of this specific experience of suffering.  Verses 10-11 say-

10 And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

 11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.

 

Yes I know that passage well.  Amulek also wondered if he and Alma might be burned as well.

Interestingly God later intervenes and saves Alma and Amulek.  So it seems that God was fine with letting the people doing the burning so he could pass judgment in his wrath but did not need the blood of Alma or Amulek as a witness against them.

So God allows agency in most cases even  for murder (which takes away the agency of the victim) in almost all cases except a special few. 

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Personally, I think that story is actually one of the very worst, most despicable parts about the Book of Mormon. It is nowhere near a successful theodicy, particularly when one takes into account that after God lets the innocents be burned alive, just a single chapter later Alma and Amulek are using the power of Christ to heal Zeezrom from a fever. 

[bluebell]

21 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Yes I know that passage well.  Amulek also wondered if he and Alma might be burned as well.

Interestingly God later intervenes and saves Alma and Amulek.  So it seems that God was fine with letting the people doing the burning so he could pass judgment in his wrath but did not need the blood of Alma or Amulek as a witness against them.

So God allows agency in most cases even  for murder (which takes away the agency of the victim) in almost all cases except a special few. 

And earlier in the BOM God lets Abinidi burn, which I know you are aware of. 

God seems to allow agency unless it thwarts a greater plan. 

Alma knew that it didn't matter if he lived or died, other than that he had work still to do.  He mirrors the example of many people in the scriptures who are protected  for a time but who eventually are killed. 

It's like parents (good parents I should say) who intervene when the greater good is served by doing so. When greater good can be done by not intervening, good parents stay their hand. 

[Ahab]

So can we all say now that God does not stop or prevent all bad things from happening? 

And can we all also say now that no good thing could ever happen if it was not possible for any bad thing to happen?

Seems pretty obvious to me.

You can't do anything good if you can't also do something bad. 

And the only way to overcome evil is through righteousness. 

[Teancum]

4 hours ago, Mars said:

Teancum, nothing is irritating about your posts. I confess that I am letting my impression of your character and emotions based on a long history of your posts and tone color your posts here. And I have been trying to show you how accusatory you can come across. I shouldn't presume to know for sure how you feel nor try to change your temperament. I'm the one who owes you am apology. I am sorry. 

Of course your question is a fair one. I do think your answer, or position that God treats His children poorly, that it asserts that your reckoning of right and wrong is better than that of the God of revealed religion. Or your perception of God. 

That's not meant to accuse you of pride, honestly. Wrestling with these ideas when we haven't seen God nor received answers to prayers isn't the same as hearing it from Him in such a way that we can't disagree without pride. So, I'm not trying to blithely paint you as a stiffnecked cuss. 

I am curious about your answer to my question. What level of suffering would be acceptable, if God is there and cares about us? Iow, How much 'bad' would be out there? What would the world look like? 

1: To your first point, I can be strong and at times rude but I have constantly over the past number of months attempted to temper and modify what I say and how I say it.  I don't always succeed.  We all can be strident at times and some more than others.  I have also asked others to call me out if my side of the dialogue is going downhill.  Mystery Meat did that for me recently.  I agreed and toned it back down on that thread.   Also there are some here that no matter how someone says something that is critical and the Church those persons will constantly brand the poster as hostile, irrational, mean spirited and so on.  Yet IMO some of those defenders I find the most belligerent, pompous and lacking in civility posters on the board.  Perhaps it is just perspective from whatever angle one is arguing for or against. 

Anyway thank you for your apology. And again if you find me overly strident I have no problem with you pointing it out. I enjoy the board. I enjoy discussing things like this. I am open to being wrong in how I view things currently.  I want to be a positive contributor here even though some may never view me as such.

2:  If God is there then your next point if correct in that I view a God that allows us to suffer so very much and in such inequitable ways a God that I am struggling to worship.  If God is real I don't think I am better or my reckoning is better. Heck my reckoning may be off the mark even if there is no God.  I find the God of much of Orthodox Christianity especially from a Calvinist view point a flat our monster.  I have much more affinity for the God of Mormonism but I am not sure if that God is finite and limited like some really smart LDS theologians argue or if that God really possesses all the Omni's.  That would make a difference in my current conclusions. 

3: Your next point is I guess where I really struggle. I so want answers to these questions.  I want God to speak to my soul on these things.  My soul, my heart, my mind grieves over this issue, over the suffering that so many have.  I don't expect no suffering at all. The only answer that I have ever come up with is that all these things will give us experience as JS wrote (as a revelation from God). I have thought that this must be the only way we can learn what we need to learn to make the graduate school Christ Like attributes a part of what we are.   And I can roll with that to a point.  But there are things that seem to go beyond that point and I struggle with such things.  I do pray and this is one of the main issues I pray about.

When I was a bishop a member of the stake lost their teen child to cancer.  The daughter was a lovely young woman. It was so tragic.  Her grandmother lived in our ward.   She was just devastated over the loss of her granddaughter.   When I saw her I went and hugged her.   And I said something like this "I have no words of comfort for you other than to way I love you and your family. I am hear for a shoulder for you to cry in if you need and want it. I will not tell you she is in a better place or God needed her on the other side or anything like that because I just don't know why for sure she was taken from you.  But I can weep with you and pray with you and love you."  Later she thanked me so much for those words.  Maybe they were what God wanted me to say to her then.  She told me she just could not have handled one other person telling her that her granddaughter was in a better place, that God wanted her and so on.  She wanted her granddaughter back. She knew she was not coming back to this mortal sphere at this time. She also wanted better answers. There were none to give.

I recognize I may be acting in pride.  Maybe God will say to me like God did at the end of the book of Job when he came in a whirlwind to Job.  When Job asked God why he had been inflicted with all these tribulations God essentially said "I am God and you don't have a right to ask why this happened to you." 

4:  As to how much suffering I think God should allow, I am not sure I am prepared or smart enough to answer. Again I think this issue really moves to the heart of the question of whether there is a God or not, and if there is a God is this God what is this God really like?  Scriptures, prophets and philosophers wrangle with it all the time-historically and currently.  The crux of historic Christianity is that God intended for humans to live in a paradise where there would be no suffering but the first humans disobeyed and brought sin and misery into the world.   The BoM has some of that element as does the D&C in its earlier sections.   But of course the BoM also teaches that it was intended that Adam and Eve would sin and fall from paradise that that was necessary for our progression. 

 

[Mars]

On 4/6/2016 at 3:18 AM, Meadowchik said:

 

[Mars]

this board software is really a drag.  ignore that last post.  substantive response coming up soon.

[Mars]

@Teancum

I think you did the right thing with the girl's grandmother.  You gave her what she needed: Permission to grieve and be angry at the apparent senselessness of it all.  Understanding or acceptance is the final stage of grief, not the first.  Everyone who tried to get that grandmother to avoid her pain by embracing the hope that her grand-daughter was in a better place was insulting the woman's pain by trying to remove from her the right and necessity to feel the full force of love (which was the source of her pain).  People can be unintentionally harmful and thoughtless sometimes.  But they were trying to remove from her the pain she felt by giving her reason to circumvent it.  In this instance, however, the pain was eternally linked to her love and there would have been no way to extricate the one from the other.

There is no direct Q&A style answer to why she died.  Or more appropriately, I believe that the answer could only come from God to the people who lost her, and their answer would be theirs.  Dad would receive an answer.  Mom would receive an answer.  Anyone else who needed one, as a function of their relationship with the young girl, would receive one.  And their answers would be for them, and not to be shared.  This is the reverence and sacredness of personal revelation.  Accepting it or declining it would result in spiritual direction on the part of the receiver.  Those who chose faith in the acceptance of the answer would grow in such.  Those who saw no rhyme nor reason, nor couldn't understand how a God could let that happen, would, by the same force of metaphysical law, see their belief in God go a different direction. They would, perhaps, begin to think that there *is* no God, or none that would care about such trials, else why would He let it happen?  And their confusion would be an answer unto itself, and their faith would change or even die.

And, in microcosm, it's what we all go through.  I tend to call good things 'blessings,' even though I don't necessarily believe God came down and gave it me without me doing anything to receive it.  Good fortune or luck falls in there, too.  I'm happy and willing to attribute good things to God as a reminder that He loves me.  I'm less happy but still very willing to attribute bad things to God as a reminder that He wishes me learn something, even if the lesson is painful.  I'm always trying to find God, because I believe He's there.  Were it not for the spark of personal revelation, an experience and incident I am fully convinced came from outside of me, this whole exercise would utterly foolish and a textbook case of confirmation bias.  (Certainly it may appear to be such to others, but that's my business and not theirs.)

I do think we have the right to ask "why did this happen?" of God.  We have the right to ask, even get a little angry, that it happens.  But the frustration and anger should not control our discourse with Deity.  

I don't believe we were meant to stay and live in the Garden of Eden - metaphorically speaking, a place without pain.  I believe conflict, pain, suffering, 'bad,' whatever we want to call it, is inherently binary.  It is either there, in full force, or it is not.  In other words, I can't envision a reasonable or just line in the sand, before which there is no bad and after which there is.  I can't come up with a world where all suffering is reasonable or justifiable to all people.  As such, I don't believe it could exist.  And we need conflict to grow.

I will do a better job of remembering your renewed attempt at turning over a new leaf.  There are a few 'apologists' on here that certainly describe themselves as Mormon, but I find them ill tempered, impatient, uncharitable, condescending, and all around curmudgeonly. I can say the same for some of our self described critics. Fools wear all stripes.  Try not to let them get to you.

 

Edited April 7, 2016 by Mars

[Ahab]

I don't understand all this talk about not understanding why someone has died, or why someone is suffering.   I know there are some cases when we don't know EVERYTHING involved in someone's death or suffering, but generally we can know and understand the reasons why.

Some people died or suffered severe injuries in Belgium recently because some people blew themselves up with some bombs,  with the bombs designed to cause all of that damage. That's why, generally, in that case.

In many parts of the world people often die of starvation, or suffer severe hunger problems,  because they don't eat enough food to sustain their mortal bodies. It's just cause and effect.  If you don't eat well enough your mortal body will die.

Most reasons for death and suffering are easy to understand. Let's cut out the talk about not being able to understand the reasons. 

[Mars]

ahab, those answers are how someone died, not why.

[Teancum]

Just now, Ahab said:

I don't understand all this talk about not understanding why someone has died, or why someone is suffering.   I know there are some cases when we don't know EVERYTHING involved in someone's death or suffering, but generally we can know and understand the reasons why.

Some people died or suffered severe injuries in Belgium recently because some people blew themselves up with some bombs,  with the bombs designed to cause all of that damage. That's why, generally, in that case.

In many parts of the world people often die of starvation, or suffer severe hunger problems,  because they don't eat enough food to sustain their mortal bodies. It's just cause and effect.  If you don't eat well enough your mortal body will die.

Most reasons for death and suffering are easy to understand. Let's cut out the talk about not being able to understand the reasons. 

Many in the world starve because the DON"T HAVE THE ACCESS TO THE FOOD NEEDED TO SUSTAIN THEIR MORTAL bodies like you and I do.

I hate to be condescending but your post above is simply nonsense.

And if you don't want to try to understand the reasoning behind such inequalities of the human species and why some are born into situations where incredible suffering is going to be what they live why are you even trying to discuss it.

You strike me as someone who really has not thought much about this or that you simply do not care.

So let me ask you a question. 

5 years ago our family lost a niece that was 16 years old. She was fine one day. Two days later gone. Dead.  Kaput!  She died of a strange virus that even the smartest doctors in the country have no answer for.  She was like a daughter to us and the same age as my youngest.  Tell her mother that most reasons for death and suffering are easy to understand.

On second thought don't bother.

 

[Ahab]

2 minutes ago, Mars said:

ahab, those answers are how someone died, not why.

The how is also the why.

We can get more specific in most if not all cases and by understanding the how and why we can stop it or at least reduce it. 

The only full cure for the flaws inherent in the mortal body, though, is resurrection. 

[Gray]

47 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I don't understand all this talk about not understanding why someone has died, or why someone is suffering.   I know there are some cases when we don't know EVERYTHING involved in someone's death or suffering, but generally we can know and understand the reasons why.

Some people died or suffered severe injuries in Belgium recently because some people blew themselves up with some bombs,  with the bombs designed to cause all of that damage. That's why, generally, in that case.

In many parts of the world people often die of starvation, or suffer severe hunger problems,  because they don't eat enough food to sustain their mortal bodies. It's just cause and effect.  If you don't eat well enough your mortal body will die.

Most reasons for death and suffering are easy to understand. Let's cut out the talk about not being able to understand the reasons. 

The question then is, given the premise of a God who intervenes in human affairs in order to stop evil/suffering in some cases, why does God fail to intervene to stop evil/suffering in other cases.

If the how is same as the why, then we've stopped talking about an interventionist God. We're just left with natural law, and a God who does not intervene. If we say God is unable to intervene at all, there is no more problem of evil. 

Edited April 7, 2016 by Gray