Is God evil for allowing all this pain and suffering exist in this world?

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

@MarkD

unchecked capitalism

Tim Keller wrote a good book (that’s almost a given ; - ) called Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just that deals with it well.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@MarkD

But your perspective may be skewed by having however briefly held a godless POV without first having been raised a Christian. My perspective too is unusual in having wondered out the back door of religion before I was literate. All I remember is having sung This Little Star of Mine. But I’ve talked to any number of online atheists who seemingly had to fight to get away who report feeling betrayed and angry.

Well I am certainly not going to agree that my perspective is “skewed,” but I will grant that I came from such a different way of looking at things that it is difficult to make comparisons.

Does your use of the word “godless” refer to any perspective other than fundamentalist Christianity? I was certainly raised quite irreverent and skeptical. It wasn’t atheist but agnostic, where God was simply a big question mark.

I think my parents study of psychology taught them to avoid some parenting mistakes and while I may have embraced Christianity, there is much that I appreciate and emulate in what they did.

Is the “fight to get away” and “feeling betrayed” about their struggle with their own “Christian” worldview or a struggle with the intolerance of their family and community? I would think it is the reactionary perspective which is skewed.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@mitchellmckain

Is the “fight to get away” and “feeling betrayed” about their struggle with their own “Christian” worldview or a struggle with the intolerance of their family and community?

The latter is the hearsay I often encountered.