Took that as an example too? Hope so…… Otherwise, all the best 
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Seeing a child suffer is probably the most horrible thing, but it’s not evil. It’s suffering.
As I wrote earlier in this thread, the idea that ‘God’ is benevolent in the Christian sense of the word ought to be revisited. When I think about something like ‘God’, it’s rather the vision of a wild, dangerous, magnificent energy constantly penetrating every atom of this universe.
‘God’ as a benevolent grandpa with a white beard, watching us with a kind smile on his (of course human) face, is a vision bound to ultimately disappoint those who believe in it.
alot of talk of god and suffering,
i thought the book of Job covered why this happens
God and Satan had a wager, and Job lost? 
But Job never lost faith in God,
and was eventually rewarded with several sons and daughters
When I was younger I used to think of god as an old man sitting on the clouds with a big white beard.
But now I’m older and my faith has matured, I think of god more like a big cloud of gas floating around in space with an eyeball in the middle and all lightning coming out.
Seriously though, all you are doing here is redefining god as something that can be accommodated into our modern sensibilities. By describing his as an energy, you trying to put the idea in scientific terms. This what is described as the ‘God of the Gaps’ - the way god is in a continual process of shrinking to fit whatever space is left by our ever improving knowledge.
Describing God as an undefinable and thus undisprovable energy, is really little different than describing god as ‘love’. It doesn’t really get us anywhere, excepting making the desire to use that idea to justify the modem application of outdated morality in ancient books even more untenable.
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My understanding of god of the gaps is more “We don’t know what causes thunder QED god” etc. Similar idea though.
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What the book of Job taught me is that at any point you might find your life turned to shit because God doesn’t have the self control to tell Satan to eff off.
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Yeah - the idea of god occupies whatever gaps are available to it.
Our modern understanding gives very little space for the existence of a god, so these days you hear people describing god as ‘an energy’ or ‘love’.
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Yes, God replaced the sons and daughters he previously permitted to be killed off in the course of winning his bet with Satan.
So, that makes it alright?
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Good and evil are human constructs. Just as are cowardice and heroism, love and hate, not to mention “justice”. They don’t exist other than in the human mind.
No god, or gods, required.
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who are we to question Gods work?
In the book of Job, despite all the suffering Job experienced, he never gave up on God,
and he was eventually rewarded, with more sons and daughters than he had before the suffering started.
there must be a moral to this story somewhere…
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‘God’ as a big cloud of gas, with an eye staring at us? What a horrible vision… 
It’s the personalization of the notion of ‘God’ which is problematic imo. Grandpa on his cloud or a big cloud of gas is the same. Maybe the word ‘God’ is the problem?
If you read my earlier posts, I know the hypothesis that there is nothing but haphazard and void very well. I had that firm position from around fifteen until I was reaching my thirties.
From that point on, I got an intuitive feeling that it wasn’t enough to explain why I was alive. All of this sheer magnificence around me, just the result of blind chance? Hmm… I couldn’t shake off the intuition anymore that there must be a deeper meaning at the heart of all of this, possibly an intent. But I never got back to personalizing the idea of such a potential intent, or to go back to any form of religion.
But once I opened myself up for the idea of something bigger, for a sort of ‘irradiation of love’ flowing through the universe, I managed to sense it at times, in special moments. Don’t ask me to put rational words on it though. I can’t describe that ‘connection’ I’ve felt since at times, but when it happens, it certainly adds a lot of additional depth to my life. And by nurturing that feeling, those special moments tend to become more frequent.
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I love these bible stories, where the believer thinks it shows some kind of divine morality, when in fact it’s utterly abhorrent.
My favourite is Sodom and Gamorah. The people are having bum sex and god will not stand for that. So he decides to destroy the cities as punishment. But there is one moral man in town, one who is still opposed to going up the wrong ‘un. So god decides to spare him.
God decides to dispatch two of his most beautiful, buff angels down to warn Lot to leave town with his family. But when the people see them, they surround Lot’s house and demand the angels come out so they can bum them.
At this point Lot demonstrates why God has singled him out as a man of kindness and compassion worthy of being saved. He offers his two daughters to the horny mob, to be gang raped and killed, if they will promise not to bum the angels. What a dad!
It’s all OK because the angels lead them to safety while God destroys the town. Except Lot’s wife looks back, despite being told not to, so God murders her on the spot.
Lot is sad about his wife, but it doesn’t bother him for long, because later in a cave he shags both his daughters.
Big problem with that. As I’ve patiently explained to many a Jehovah’s Witness on my doorstep, the magnificence of the natural world has nothing to do with blind chance.
Evolution is design. Natural Selection is the process by which that design takes place.
Not arguing that. But where does that design come from? Blind chance? 
Natural Selection. The favouring of certain characteristics in a population, meaning those characteristics will be more abundant in subsequent generations.
Ok, so where does natural selection start from? Blind chance?
Absofuckinglutely.
No, it’s a natural process. It doesn’t need anyone or anything to get it going.
When organisms reproduce, there are copying errors in the DNA. This is called a mutation. When the mutation conveys on the organism an advantage over other members of its species fighting for the same resources, it will stand a higher chance of passing on those advantages to the next generation.
An animal with a slightly longer neck than others will be able to reach more food. So it will be better able to reproduce. So the next generation have slightly longer necks. And of the next generation, the ones with slightly more longer neck will have an advantage. And before you know it, you have giraffes.