winstonjen

He's nowhere, which goes to show that he doesn't care (or exist). And I can't stand this theist rhetoric bullshit about everything being all right in the afterlife - justice delayed is justice denied, and the concept of the perpetrators doing nothing to pay for their crimes and going STRAIGHT to heaven (it wouldn't be too bad if they stayed in hell for a while before being accepted into heaven) is totally sick and disgusting. A deity that gives out undeserved forgiveness is not worth worshipping.

Hmm. That would imply that she wanted to commit suicide (given her being in prison, I'm not surprised). Ironic. Catholics are supposed to oppose suicide.

ju'iblex

Hindley, who was Britain’s longest-serving female prisoner, died of pneumonia last November after suffering a number of health problems.

- www.news.scotsman.com

winstonjen

So? That doesn't mean that the suffering didn't exist now, does it? Why couldn't your god just pluck them from this world painlessly, or better yet, stop the criminals from commiting the act?

Treacle Worshipper

Originally posted by missus_gumby
Oddly enough, Hindley was incarcerated in the prison only a few miles from where I live near Cambridge. She recently died, and was buried in an unmarked grave.
I suppose the reason she has an unmarked grave is to stop people desecrating it. How ironic, considering how she & Brady desecrated those children in life.

missus_gumby:
A couple of years ago Bradey was refused permission to commit suicide.
winstonjen:
Hmm. That would imply that she wanted to commit suicide (given her being in prison, I'm not surprised). Ironic. Catholics are supposed to oppose suicide.
AFAIK, Ian Brady has never converted to any religion, altho' feel free to correct me.

Magus55:
To her and her family and friends it was a big thing. In the scheme of the world, its a daily occurance which is what i meant by little.
You are right, up to a point. Lots of bad things happen, and until we are personally involved with them, we do not appreciate what it is like to go through them. Several years ago, a good friend of a good friend of mine was brutally murdered. Watching my friend go through the pain she felt brought home to me how it must be for everyone who has a family member or friend murdered. There are no "little things" where murder is concerned.
TW

Magus55

If God stopped the criminals he just removed their free will. THEY made the choice to committ that atrocity, they disobeyed God and used their Free will for evil, if God took away their Free will then he would have to take away everyone's free will in which case we would all be mindless robots with no choice or personality of our own.

winstonjen

But the criminals took away the free will of their victims, so what's your point? Do you even have a point? If you do, it's not very convincing. We lock criminals up, which takes away a significant portion of their free will - specifically, to stop them hurting innocent victims again. But your god doesn't do that - apparently it is better for him to preserve the free will of rapists and murderers than their victims.

Beetle

I'm a little hesitant to weigh in here, not being a trained philosopher or anything, but it sounds like the argument is that God allowed the evil to occur because he set up the world according to certain rules (free will, etc.) and he has to abide by those rules. If that's the case, doesn't this begin to look a bit like Deism? (Deism on steroids, perhaps?)

orac

Part of the reason we lock up criminals is also to rehabilitate them - it's often considered better to teach people why their crime was wrong, rather than to just punish them for it. People are sent to hell for punishment and revenge, not for rehabilitation. Apparantly Jesus likes revenge.

Magus55's point is that he has to explain why bad things happen even though he's sure that a perfect and omnipotent God exists.

Oddly, this means that he has to believe that a rapist's free will is more important than a child's freedom from being raped and murdered. After all, if God is as powerful as the Bible says, then there must be some reason he choses to do nothing to protect children. (My favourite argument is that God is so weak that he can't allow free will without also allowing rape and murder - but the same people then go on to argue that God is so superior to humans that there's nothing he can't do. They don't see the contradiction here, either. Often they try to claim that anything a human can't figure out is "obviously" logically impossible.)

The "it's all for the best, God will sort it out once everyone's dead" argument doesn't work well when you're looking for any form of compassion or empathy - but he has to cling to that, because if he acknowledges that God has an obligation to protect innocent and defenseless children from the actions of evil adults, then he has to explain why God did nothing - and he can't do that while believing that God is good and omnipotent. Once you define God as either evil or weak, then he's not the christian God.

I'ld love him to state clearly that his god will protect innocent children, but everything he's said so far suggests he won't do this. (To be fair, if he did say that, people would want to know why God hasn't been doing so.) This leaves him with the problem of explaining why innocent children can't or shouldn't be protected, and he's not going to be able to convince anyone that this is a good thing. It probably doesn't help that he's trying to justify God's lack of action, rather than explain his own view - arguing that God has to do something that is obviously wrong can't be an easy thing to do.

As I said in an earlier post - this discussion is important, because people need to know what christianity leads you to believe. It's just a pity that noone has come up with any compassionate and decent reasons why God shouldn't protect children. (Who would have expected that?)

I wonder if any other theists can come up with a compassionate and decent reason why God choses not to protect children?

MrDarwin

Magus is still ignoring a couple of important questions:

Magus55

1. Who knows, her prayer could have been for her suffering to end and thats when she died. Maybe had God not answered her prayer, she would have been tortured for alot longer. Since we don't know what her prayer was or even if she did pray, there is no answer. And you don't know what it is either so don't go making assumptions.

2. She was 10, i don't believe she had the capability to fully know who God was and what the wages of sin were. Nonetheless, i believe God to be just. He will do the right thing.