re: Seven year old Long Island child killed by stab torture

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Those are difficult enough concepts to grapple with, but you also have to deal with the fact that God intervening to stop every evil act would effectively rob us of our free will. We could commit no wrong; only right. We'd be automatons; robots.

If that were the case, we couldn't even call good "good." It would just be...nothing. Not bad. Not good. It would just be what humans are "allowed" to do. If I can only help people and not hurt them, then what would even be commendable or virtuous about helping them? We may as well commend dogs for barking.

God doesn't want that. He wants people who choose love out of their own volition; not because it's impossible to commit wrong.

That's the whole point of love -- that I can choose love over hatred. That I can forgive instead of seek revenge. That I can sacrifice my own selfish wants and desires for the good of another.

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As parent, I choose to sometimes not intervene, even when I know my children are probably not making the wisest choice....of course its determined by the severity of the consequences. The God of the Bible or any creator that one believes is interventionist , certainly hasnt leveled the playing field from birth for its children and introduced the many to a brutal existence all the while expecting them to learn to love their fellow man. The consequences for not learning the lessons he commands is to be damned for all eternity. As far the innocent that are subject to the cruelty of this world....they are on their own to endure it. This does not make sense to me...so Im left with just accepting what I'm being told is God's nature, even though it makes no sense to me....or reject it.

Thanks for the dialogue

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Provocative thought: if there is a loving and compassionate God, why does he let children suffer through things like this?

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No really provocative, it is kinda the cornerstone of Christianity

Most innocent person in the course of human history is tortured, suffers, and dies for the sins of man

Suffering isn't a punishment, it is part of the state of humanity

The handful of folks on here typing paragraphs of total nonsense and thinking that it makes them look like an authority on God and that they have it all figured out as to the excuses necessary to explain why it appears there never is an intervening God, and hasn’t been for centuries
are really pathetic people, and come across to me as psychotic.

Are you provoking Theists or being thought provoking?

So on one hand, a benevolent God must not exist if he fails to intervene in this sort of evil and likewise, he must not be a benevolent God because he does intervene and destroys the Canaanites for their evil and devotion to infant sacrifice.

It’s an ironic contradiction to explain away a God you likely don’t believe exists in the first place.

(Maybe more provocative-given the barbarous, cruel, and evil world we live in and where horrific things like this happen with almost numbing regularity-how and why did the idea of a benevolent God ever arise?)