I want to pose a question to all of the believers. Why does your God keep abusing and killing so many children?
So many times, we hear of criminals that find God while in prison. For some reason it is only after the crime is committed that they can accept Christ into their heart. Some people go as far as to say that it was the crime itself that brought them to God, that he put them in that situation for the specific purpose that they needed a way to see God’s plan for their life. Fine, I can see where they are going with that. They didn’t believe in God, as a result they did wrong, the suffer the consequence and with that learn that they need God to live a life without sin. It is nonsensical to me, but I can at least follow the “logic”, but what about the victims?
There was a case here in Pittsburgh where a man named Matthew Franks killed a 12 year old girl named Tia Wright in a drunk driving accident. The driver was sentenced to 2 years in prison with 8 years of probation and that should have been the end of it. However, Matthew felt the need to push make this about his life and not the life he stole. At sentencing he stated “Throughout the past three years, I’ve become a very religious person,” and a believer in “divine intervention,” he said. “I believe that Tia Wright saved my life and was sent here to serve that purpose.”. That means that God, the same God you worship each day, created her only to have her suffer a gruesome, painful death right in front of her father and best friend. Just the thought of that makes me ill. Where is the compassion, the love that this God is supposed to possess for all those that worship him? How can you continue to support a God that creates innocent souls for no other reason but to cause them pain?
I suppose that up to this point the cases could fall under the no true Scotsman fallacy. That the Christian could say that these killers don’t have true a relationship with God. I don’t know how you could possibly prove that but for the sake of this argument I will let it slide. That being said I must ask what do you do when it is under your own roof. When the abuse is happening in the church. When the people committing the abuse are the ones that have found God, devoted their entire life to God, that have a relationship with God that the organization recognizes them as the people capable of delivering his message. How can you accept that most holy beings alive are the ones that take away the innocence of God’s children?
In the case of the recent ring of pedophile priests that spent years abusing, molesting and raping children, what did the children due to earn a lifetime of pain. Children whose only mistake was entering the house of God now have to live with trauma they endured at the hands of God’s most trusted servants. They have lost the ability to trust because not only were they hurt but when it was exposed, it was dismissed. If the God that they thought loved them could allow the ones he put in charge to cause this pain and the very highest leaders to pretend it never happened. How would it be possible to ever trust again? When the accusations are proven to be true and still there is no justice. There is not a punishment, no consequence for hurting innocent children, God knows the truth, and this is how he wants his leaders to proceed. Just today I had someone reply to this question with “God allows evil to happen to bring goodness out of evil.”. This explains a lot, of course the believers would be willing to cover up crimes and allow abuse to continue, in their minds they are actually benefiting from it. I find this disturbing and disgusting and so I have to ask again, how is this the reality that believers choose to live with.
I would really like to hear the reasoning. I would gladly listen to the justification. Please show me the evidence that makes you continue to believe in God despite all the pain he causes. How do you justify the suffering of children? How do you rationalize the pain? Feel free to message me or reply here, speak openly because if you’ve got an answer and the evidence to back to up I really do want to hear it.
just a couple of atheists... 
Excellent write up as always. I will never understand any of the religious ”logic”, no matter how many which ways its put forward.
Thank you. I have been engaging in discussions on Twitter and no one ever has a good answer for this question
Never heard/read one myself.
If you’re on Twitter feel free to join in lol you won t get a real answer but you might get a laugh https://twitter.com/ColourMeSkeptic/status/1034925067136843776?s=19
Thanks, I am on twitter with the same username.
It’s an interesting question. There’s a lot to unpack here.
Disclaimer: I don’t share an Evangelical worldview so I’m playing devil’s advocate here purely for philosophical exercise.
Your question begins with the assumption that God is responsible for child molestation and other suffering. I’m guessing your premises for arriving at that conclusion go something like this:
God created the children and their abusers. God created the system within which the abuse happened. Furthermore, because of his omniscience, he knew that the abuse was going to happen and, because of his omnipotence, he was able to stop the suffering. But he didn’t and therefore, God is culpable for their suffering.
– Correct me if I formulated this wrong.
Christian theology’s central message is Christ’s liberation of humanity from the wages of sin. While Fundamentalist Christians and progressive Christians argue about how Genesis should be interpreted (literally vs. allegorically), they all believe that man and woman were created with free will. They were given rules to follow and were given the freedom to choose whether or not they would follow those rules. As the story goes, mankind chose to not follow the rules (sinned) and were separated from God’s perfect nature, which meant they would ultimately die (no heaven – bad) because it is not possible for humans to live a sinless life separate from God’s presence. Jesus paid that price and made salvation attainable (heaven – good) for those that accepted him as their savior.
The crux of this narrative is choice. In this theological framework, God awarded man with free will. The choices that we make determine who we become and how successful we will be and how positively or negatively we affect those around us. There are consequences, good or bad, to every choice. In the Christian framework, our choices determine whether heaven or hell awaits us in the afterlife. Atheists believe that there are real-world consequences for choices in the present because they don’t believe in a heaven/hell. Christians push the ultimate judgment until after they die. Their choices determine their eternal fate. Hell is key to Christian theology, because without it, there’s no need for Jesus. Choices determine fate. Therefore, choice and free will are what give life meaning. Without choice and free will, life doesn’t have any meaning and sin wouldn’t be a viable concept since sinning, by definition, means choosing to do wrong.
If God were to intervene every time a tragedy happened, it would violate the principle of free will, which is foundational to Christian theology. Divine intervention to save a child from the disgusting clutches of a pedophilic priest would violate the priest’s free will. Again, in this theological framework, the priest will have to answer for his sins on Judgment Day. If God were to intervene and prevent him from committing the act, it would in effect be protecting the priest from the punishment of the crime that he was planning to commit.
Basically, it’s all about the freedom to choose good or evil, which lies at the heart of the Gospel.
Seth, why the disclaimer? I’m not a believer, so I can’t answer the question, but we non-believers want to hear what you believe and maybe why. Would you mind?
The disclaimer is there because I’m a non-believer approximating the orthodox rationale of most Christians. This is what I was taught as a child.
Seth, thanks. GROG
I actually took my response and turned it into a blog post where I test the logic: https://torthodoxy.com/2018/08/30/god-hates-us-all/