Psacramento said the following:
"A god of love can still choose HOW and WHEN to express that love and it may be in a way that we find horrific based on our understanding."
"As some hard-line fundamentalist would say, 'No one is innocent, so no one is above suffering'.
We may not like the argument, but it is a valid one."
"I openly admited I do NOT have an answer for this question that would satisfy an unbeliever and presented one that I personally have a hard time refuting myself and believe MAY hold part of the answer.
All I know is that God does allow suffering and I do NOT know why."
"It may seem to you to be morally repugnant to allow the death of 250K people and I agree 100%, even the death of ONE person is one too many if it can be avoided, BUT that doesn't have any bearing on whether there IS a reason for it happening.
We may not like the reason or agree with it, but it is still a reason."
"If it doesn't then suffering has no point, if there is a purpose (such as to develop compassion) then it (suffering) has a purpose."
@Psacramento- So.. even with all of your theological training, after spending time putting together the main points that you've made regarding the topic, from your posts on this thread;
the best that you can offer in defense of the Christian God, in a discussion of the important and life-altering (life ending for many victims) issue of why God allowed the tsunami to kill those people and berieve countless others, is basically:
"All these death must have benefited someone, although I don't know how they did.
This is an argument that even I don't feel comfortable with or find entirely satisfying. I may or may not agree with it morally depending on whether or not it was necessary, which I do not know.
All suffering may or may not have a purpose, but my point is that we should understand that it could have a purpose, although nobody knows what it is yet."
Without your even providing a specific example, this is comparable to defending illogical nonsense like the Trinity doctrine merely by saying:
'Well, God COULD BE (from a human point of view) entirely illogical, contradictory and incomprehensible, or He may not be, but you must admit that it is possible that such a God exists, although I am not entirely convinced that he does, I just have a hard time refuting it as being a possibility. Just because the Trinity's existence is wholly unverifiable; along with being contradictory, illogical and nonsensical, doesn't mean that there is not a valid and believable explanation of it that we are yet unaware of.'
... After all, nobody can PROVE that all suffering from natural disasters has no hypothetical greater purpose to make us 'better' people;
except, that is, by looking at the available evidence, such as stories from events like the Tsunami (if you have even read or seen the accounts of what some families have been through), or by using our own human logic. Logically, for instance, the people killed in the Tsunami are not now 'more compassionate' people..
And if the people who lost loved ones are supposed to have been purposefully allowed to go through that horrible experience, then their loved ones were seemingly nothing but cannon fodder, expendible pawns that were better able to serve a greater purpose once they were dead.
Therefore, your statements seem essentially meaningless, unless I've missed something.
To summarise:
Your hypothetical God, (who IS love, but at times can choose not to show love, according to you)
that you defend with a hypothetical argument about all suffering having a purpose, hasn't told us, even if he existed, what the hypothetical purpose for allowing suffering is...
(maybe because he doesn't exist, therefore there is no purpose? No, that's too simple.)
