I'm curious, if there really is a god, why does he/she permit so many young children to starve to death and be abused?  I'd like good strong sound answers and not excuses please.

People have free will
It is just decided by parents of this children to starve to death or be abused

and those in 3rd world countries such as Somalia? 

Yes at 3rd world especially
Who force them to breed children when they are too lazy to make enough food
Who force them to burn villages and fields?
...
There is fertile land, but is much easier to make children and call to OSN that you are hungry  (It is same situation as families at 1st wold which live from social batches  )

i dont see it as a valid argument as it doesnt answer the question: why are children permitted to starve and go hungry?  Certainly, if there was a god, he/she would put food in the mouths of those starving children

God is as responsible parent
It (god) cant do important work instead of you
And after death go to better place, but guilt is at side of their parents

still doesnt answer the question: why are children permitted to starve to death if this god is an all loving god?

Some cultures see it as long as they live they can always have more children.  Sad as it is, it is the way they see it.

In many developing countries, a combination of a very high infant mortality rate and lack of adequate and ongoing healthcare and any sort of welfare system to rely on means that the only way you can be sure to be cared for in your old age (after a lifetime of bloody hard work) is to have children who will look after you. Hence there is an historical tendency to have many children - as some will die, some will move away to get married or find work, and only a couple may be left to help tend the land and feed and care for their parents and relatives when they get old. And now, thanks to the more developed world having done its bit to make the world hotter, there will be more children starving - because with the weather going more wrong, they'll be less able to depend on reliable harvests.

Those of us in developed cultures can take an awful lot for granted.

please dont get off topic......I'm looking for a well thought out, lucid, intelligent answer to my question, which again is:  if this god is an all loving god, why does he/she permit children to go hungry and starve?  obviously, young children do not have the ability to fend for themselves which is why many in this world go malnourished.  "free will" of man does not answer the question at hand

Sorry, I didn't mean to go off-topic, so much as to respond to those already-off-topic "oh, those lazy 3rd world people and all their babies" posts. I'm surprised to see such generalisations here.

I have nothing to add to the original discussion, being a non-theist myself.

Quote from: Jamie Nicole on August 18, 2011, 09:57:10 AM
"free will" of man does not answer the question at hand

It does if you believe that God gave man free will, and doesn't control mankind like a manipulator with his marionettes.  If you think that believers are just puppets, you're never going to get your answer.

so free will is why so many children go hungry and starve? why so many women and children are abused? why there is so much hate in this world?
I'll use a simple analogy: supposedly, this god is an all loving god, am I correct? As a parent of a 14 year old son, I would never allow him to go hungry, would protect him if being abused, so forth and so on.....because I am an all loving parent.  why doesnt this god step in and feed the millions of children that are starving to death, being abused, so forth and so on?
To be very blunt, "free will" to me, sounds like nothing other than one of the many excuses.....sorry

It seems to me that you're looking for a justifiable reason not to "believe".  If that's the case, you don't have to look very far.  Does it make sense that children starve to death and are abused?  No.  It doesn't make sense either that people survive a 30 foot fall, but a fall in the shower kills them.  Yet it happens, more then you probably realize.  There's no rhyme or reason to it, but to say its proof that a loving God doesn't exist isn't really a strong argument either.  If anything, it makes you believe (it does for me at least).

yeah, but why is there no godly intervention for all those children?  I'm not looking for a reason not to believe, I'm looking for a reason to believe.

Quote from: Padma on August 18, 2011, 10:05:29 AM
Sorry, I didn't mean to go off-topic, so much as to respond to those already-off-topic "oh, those lazy 3rd world people and all their babies" posts. I'm surprised to see such generalisations here.

I have nothing to add to the original discussion, being a non-theist myself.

wasnt aimed at you, just a general response to the few previous comments

Yes, God could step in and feed all the children (both young and old), I have no idea why God doesn't step in right now and correct all the ills in the world.  I am a Christian, and I do believe that every one of those children will be taken care of in heaven for all eternity.

But, man is who created all the wars and strife in those areas, man is the one who steals large amounts of the aid money that is sent to those areas in hope of feeding some of those children.

Mankind can be very evil and uncaring.

I doubt that my answer will be sufficient to answer your question, I'm not sure anyone can give you an explaination that would be acceptable.

what intervention you want, lightning from blue sky to kill "bad" people and food raining? 

Quote from: Jamie Nicole on August 18, 2011, 12:51:58 PM
I'm not looking for a reason not to believe, I'm looking for a reason to believe.

Quote from: Sarah Louise on August 18, 2011, 01:00:44 PM
I doubt that my answer will be sufficient to answer your question, I'm not sure anyone can give you an explaination that would be acceptable.

The great thing about free will is that we're just as free not to believe.  If you're looking for a reason to believe, you will use reasons not to believe as proof of your desires.

My pastor has talked about how his faith was challenged as a child when a tree fell on his best friend, killing him.  Why would God allow such a thing?  I believe that God has a plan, and maybe for that plan to work, trees have to fall on children and kill them.  No it doesn't make sense, but there has to be a reason for it.  Maybe some day we'll understand God's plan and that's where "believing" comes in.  Given that bad things happen to good people we have to believe in something, even if what we believe in is "nothing".

Quote from: Jamie Nicole on August 18, 2011, 12:27:18 PM
so free will is why so many children go hungry and starve? why so many women and children are abused? why there is so much hate in this world?
I'll use a simple analogy: supposedly, this god is an all loving god, am I correct? As a parent of a 14 year old son, I would never allow him to go hungry, would protect him if being abused, so forth and so on.....because I am an all loving parent.  why doesnt this god step in and feed the millions of children that are starving to death, being abused, so forth and so on?
To be very blunt, "free will" to me, sounds like nothing other than one of the many excuses.....sorry

So is God directing you to feed and care for your son?  If you stopped, would spiritual sustenance alone keep him alive and healthy?  And I supposed God directed my stepmom to starve me and beat me and torture me?

I'm going to come out right now and say that I'm not a Christian, but I harbor deep spiritual beliefs in a power larger than us.  I've experienced a great deal of abuse, but I've seen too many examples of humanity banding together for the common good to believe anything BUT that we come from a common source.  Does this common source control every minutiae of our lives?  I don't think so.  But I think we're set on a path, we have a destination, and that destination is enlightenment.  Enlightenment is simply moving closer to the source, closer to God.  How we get there and what happens to us in the meantime is the result of free will and our interactions with the wills of others.

The next time you laugh, have a genuine smile, feel your heart swell with joy, see something of exquisite beauty, stop and ask yourself: where did this come from?  Why did you feel it?  If you want to believe that it's all chance, that it's all a biochemical reaction, or that it's just a total crock, then that's your prerogative.  But I choose to believe that I'm experiencing firsthand a sliver of the numinous, the great unknown beauty.  Call it God if you wish.

Nobody can give you a reason to believe, it has to come from your heart.

And as for the question of the children, I still maintain that it's free will.  Are the people who abuse/starve them removed from God or the source?  No.  For whatever reason, it's where they've chosen (at least temporarily) to walk their path.  If they're mentally ill, it's probably not even a choice.  The act itself is appalling for those of us who see its cruelty, but the important thing is that the person learns from their mistakes and grows.  That's where compassionate, more-enlightened souls enter the picture.  And what of the unfortunate victim/s?  Is it fair?  Hell no!  Was it their spiritual destiny?  No, if you believe that destiny is enlightenment.  But that little soul continues, grows somewhere else, and gets another chance to flourish.

Christians might say that little soul enters heaven, which is much the same as what I believe, in that we always grow closer to God.  Even my ideas that the perpetrators of heinous acts may eventually find enlightenment (even if not in this life) have a Christian analog in salvation through belief in Christ.  Belief in Christ, I should add, is another exercise in free will.  You choose to or you don't.  The Bible is full of examples of those who did not.