Why does God condemn some children to life of suffering and early death?

[soulcougher73]

This great we have sheep here trying to rationalize their imagined creater of the universe. Now who you sheeps going to send the bill to.

Fixed that for you.

 

[sdifox]

This great we have monkeys here trying to psychoanalysis the creater of the universe. Now who you monkeys going to send the bill to.

 

[Jeff7]

Nope. It's people. People choose to be good. No one forces drugs into your system. No one forces racism and hate into your heart.

No one forces you to show compassion and help someone out.

It's free will either way; good or bad. Nature really doesn't do anything "bad", it's by design that lions hunt other animals and deer graze grass. It's by design that deer evolve into the form they are in now, to survive in nature.

Alright, so this sounds like it's going along with my view - people make the choices. In that case, God's just sitting back and watching. (And perhaps judging along the way.)

It's by design that winds pick up and cause destruction. It's also by design, that humans choose to learn about their environment and protect themselves.

And, God may very well have a few cheap laughs, but does that fall into the concept of omnipotence, compassion and being all knowing/powerful?

It does seem to fall into the "compassion" or "benevolent" category.
1) Make hostile environment.
2) Put humans in hostile environment.
3) Provide no useful documentation or user manual about this environment.
4) Enjoy the lulz of natural disasters and mass extinctions.

Seems there's an alternate definition of "benevolent" going on here...

 

[Kadarin]

The question of "Why does God condemn some children to life of suffering and early death?" boils down to this:

If God is unable to prevent this, then He is NOT omnipotent.
If God is unwilling to prevent this, then He is NOT benevolent.

The correct answer, of course, is that God is a fairy tale.

 

[mattpegher]

The most obvious retort to this question has actually been put forth over the past 50 years, and that is god is not omnibenevolent. This argument suggests that good and evil are man's perception not universal truths. The new definition would therefore be that god is just. This argument does not sit well with many faiths. The hard part is conceiving in good and evil as bias perceptions.

Evil can be defined as anything that causes pain and suffering to a sentient being. But all parts of this definition rely on human perception. What in the universe is sentient, humans, animals, plants? What is pain other than signals of sense. Can one redefine evil without human interpretation?

 

[mrSHEiK124]

The "problem of evil" is purely a Christian construct. Affliction or tribulation can be a test, or a blessing in disguise. God does not will evil for his creations, only good. If shit hits the fan, before asking "What did I do to deserve this?" you should ask "How did I get here? What did I do to bring this upon myself?" Most of you will probably poke fun at me for believing that, but I'm almost certain I'm happier than you lot

 

[mattpegher]

But I contend that good and evil have no definition without human perception. What is green or red, except wavelength, do you like one more than the other? Can something be evil if it causes suffering yet occurs by chance or nature without the actions of human. Are hurricanes evil just because humans may die. Natural phenomena are just that natural void of good or evil yet humans may suffer. A determinist would say that humans cannot commit evil because every act every decision is nothing more than a complex calculation based on prior events.

 

[Jeff7]

The "problem of evil" is purely a Christian construct. Affliction or tribulation can be a test, or a blessing in disguise. God does not will evil for his creations, only good. If shit hits the fan, before asking "What did I do to deserve this?" you should ask "How did I get here? What did I do to bring this upon myself?" Most of you will probably poke fun at me for believing that, but I'm almost certain I'm happier than you lot

Alright, so what about the problem in the OP, such as of children who were born with some manner of birth defect, who are thus immediately condemned to a short and painful life?
"What did I do to bring this upon myself? Let's see, a flaw was present in the sperm cell that fertilized a perfectly good egg cell, which eventually lead to the formation of a fetus that had defective genes and was thus assembled incorrectly, then I was born, all things entirely beyond my control...and that's pretty much it. I guess I should try to avoid doing stupid things like that."

Or killed in a natural disaster. How many places on the planet can I go that are safe from things nature feels like throwing at us? You've got geological threats like earthquakes and supervolcanoes, biological threats, cosmic threats such as asteroids...where can you go, exactly? A supervolcano or sufficiently-sized asteroid could qualify as an extinction-level event. So is God's reasoning then going to be, "Well, you should have thought of that and done something about clearing out all the millions of stray comets and asteroids in the Solar System. I can't do everything for you. </trollface>"

And the concept of a "just" god then means that it's subjective. One culture's idea of justice will differ from another's idea of it, and surely our idea of justice will differ from that of some deity.

 

[mattpegher]

Alright, so what about the problem in the OP, such as of children who were born with some manner of birth defect, who are thus immediately condemned to a short and painful life?
"What did I do to bring this upon myself? Let's see, a flaw was present in the sperm cell that fertilized a perfectly good egg cell, which eventually lead to the formation of a fetus that had defective genes and was thus assembled incorrectly, then I was born, all things entirely beyond my control...and that's pretty much it. I guess I should try to avoid doing stupid things like that."

Or killed in a natural disaster. How many places on the planet can I go that are safe from things nature feels like throwing at us? You've got geological threats like earthquakes and supervolcanoes, biological threats, cosmic threats such as asteroids...where can you go, exactly? A supervolcano or sufficiently-sized asteroid could qualify as an extinction-level event. So is God's reasoning then going to be, "Well, you should have thought of that and done something about clearing out all the millions of stray comets and asteroids in the Solar System. I can't do everything for you. </trollface>"

And the concept of a "just" god then means that it's subjective. One culture's idea of justice will differ from another's idea of it, and surely our idea of justice will differ from that of some deity.

Yes, yes you see the problem with justice as well. This could therefore suggest a god that is indifferent to human perception of justice or ethics. This will certainly not sit well with theists.

 

[Nik]

The most obvious retort to this question has actually been put forth over the past 50 years, and that is god is not omnibenevolent. This argument suggests that good and evil are man's perception not universal truths. The new definition would therefore be that god is just. This argument does not sit well with many faiths. The hard part is conceiving in good and evil as bias perceptions.

Evil can be defined as anything that causes pain and suffering to a sentient being. But all parts of this definition rely on human perception. What in the universe is sentient, humans, animals, plants? What is pain other than signals of sense. Can one redefine evil without human interpretation?

All of this fancy talk is right perdy, but it's about a buncha hogwash because nobody has ever seen evidence that this god or any other god exists so it doesn't matter anyway.

 

[mattpegher]

All of this fancy talk is right perdy, but it's about a buncha hogwash because nobody has ever seen evidence that this god or any other god exists so it doesn't matter anyway.

These arguments aren't new. Many people have contemplated this before. Your argument which is termed empiricism has also been discussed but refuted because lack of empirical evidence does not equal proof of not existence. Let's just say there are better arguments about the logical inconsistencies of god.