LanDroid! Can you forward that banner to Melvin's doctors please? Wow, we're all set now.

Oh, bother. Do I really want to get involved in this? Frankly, no, but I will make a post. Forgive me if I cover things already mentioned as I did not read the entire thread.

I once visited a couple, a church visit, to try to get them to come to our church. It was a cold call - we got their name from the utility hookup list - new to town.

They were polite and invited us in and over a glass of iced tea they told us they had no use for God because he had caused them great suffering. They had been strong believers in God until one day, while driving their RV on the interstate, the man had a notion that if he abandoned controlling the vehicle God would take over. He closed his eyes, took his hands off the steering wheel and immediately crashed resulting in serious injuries to he and his wife. God should not have allowed that to happen.

Now, my point is not that Melvin did something specific to cause his cancer (is his name really Inocencio) but he is the beneficiary of a fallen world. Perhaps, as his name implies, he is totally innocent, and that is unfortunate, but he suffers due to the guilt of the rest of us. The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

OK, but that does not answer the question posed by this thread: Why doesn't God heal Melvin?
Would that satisfy you atheists if God did heal him? What about Melvin2? If God heals Melvin, shouldn't we demand that God heal Melvin2 also? What about Melvin3? If Melvin, Melvin2, & Melvin3 are all healed isn't Melvin4 just as deserving? And how about Melvin5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ... Eventually, the slippery slope leads to God healing everyone. And how about depression. After God heals all disease why doesn't He take depression away from people? And after He has healed everyone, and taken all depression away, what about people who are just sad; shouldn't he cheer them up? Then what about jobs, shouldn't He make sure that everyone has a good job? and a happy marriage? and ...?

At some point we are responsible for our own choices the atheist might argue. We are certainly responsible for who we choose to marry, and the job we take, and the education we get, at least to a point, but little Melvin did not choose cancer. And that is correct, but as a group of bibliophiles BT participants should be familiar with one of the great literary characters - Tiny Tim. At one point he says that he was glad that he was crippled and in church Christmas morning as it would remind the people who made the blind to see and the lame to walk, or some words to that effect. Notice that Tim was not bitter that he was crippled, or that he was not healed. Tim ultimately dies in the mean Scrooge world but his family does not loose faith due to his death, or due to his lame condition before.

SO WHAT?????
Tiny Tim was a character in a book. He was not real. Dickens made the story up. True, true, true, but authors model their stories and characters based on real life and the Dickens family certainly suffered greatly.

Finally, those who are suffering provide an opportunity for mankind to render help and good works for them. To ease their suffering.

This world was not what God wanted for us. He provided Eden but also gave humans free will. We chose the world we live in. At some point, disease will end. Peace and harmony will reign. The lion will lie down with the lamb for 1,000 years. Yet, at the end of that thousand years there will rise up a group of people who hated being under God for that time and will rebel.

duplicate

Stahrwe wrote:he suffers due to the guilt of the rest of us.

In what universe is such a system moral? That suffering can be inherited. Did god have no control over the way in which the world would become "fallen"?

If He controlled it we wouldn't have free will.

I'm not saying control it. Just lay down different ground rules for "the fall" so innocent people don't inherit suffering.

Do you mean just kids?
What is the age cutoff?
What is your definition of innocent?
Are all Christians exempt from suffering by default?
Is innocence a macro condition or micro?
Does God put a force field around the car of the expectant mother through protect her from the drunk driver?

The thing with most of the atheist arguments in this vein are essentially the atheist putting themself in the place of God

Interbane wrote:I'm not saying control it. Just lay down different ground rules for "the fall" so innocent people don't inherit suffering.

That's actually controlling it.

What Ive noticed over the past 4 years of being among the BT atheists is just how important God is in their lives.

I dont believe in you God, but where are you?

Stahrwe wrote:Does God put a force field around the car of the expectant mother through protect her from the drunk driver?

Don't you believe such a thing happens from time to time? Why not do it all the time? Let me guess, he works in mysterious ways.

Stahrwe wrote:The thing with most of the atheist arguments in this vein are essentially the atheist putting themself in the place of God

No, that isn't the case at all.

Stahrwe wrote:Do you mean just kids?
What is the age cutoff?
What is your definition of innocent?
Are all Christians exempt from suffering by default?
Is innocence a macro condition or micro?

For most of these questions, you'd have to ask your god regarding the demarcation. This isn't to say I can't give you an example, such as Melvin Inocencio. Do you dispute that he's innocent, even if you don't know the age cutoff or the defintion?

Regarding macro or micro condition, it sounds like you're making stuff up as a preamble to prove a point. It's prefabrication. Does guilt for a crime carry down through generations? Should it? Says who? Who made it this way?

ant wrote:That's actually controlling it.

What exactly happened during "the fall"? First, humans lifespans was shortened to roughly a century or less. Evil was unleashed into the world. Suffering became commonplace. Correct me where I'm wrong here, because I'm sure I am. Then consider that these "parameters" to the fall had to be identified by some controlling force. Were they out of god's control? If so, then he isn't omnipotent. If they were in his control, then he knowingly set our lifespans at 70 or so years rather than 200 or so years. He knowingly allowed the guilt of a single person to be transferred to the entire human race rather than ending with the death of the guilty person. Whatever it is that actually happened in "the fall" was either in god's control, or he isn't omnipotent.

Which means, he could have laid down different ground rules.