Here's a link to an interesting paper(pdf) by Gregory Paul.

THEODICY’S PROBLEM:
A STATISTICAL LOOK AT
THE HOLOCAUST OF THE CHILDREN,
AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF NATURAL EVIL
FOR THE FREE WILL AND
BEST OF ALL WORLDS HYPOTHESES


Thoughts?

Here's a summary I found if you don't want to read the 25 pages. [I suggest at least skimming it though.]

http://tinyurl.com/7zrkmbd

I would be interested in hearing how would get justified. God works in mysterious ways won't cut it here. I wish there was an even more abbreviated way of pointing this out. A timeline might work. The tough part is those that need to listen to this who may be on the fence about their faith will have a tough time getting brought it. It makes complete sense to me that this is a dead end in how Christianity and being allowed to go to "heaven" works, but convincing them to read and think this through is a tough one. Thanks for posting this. The data and facts are really amazing.

Excellent paper; thanks.
Of course, only those people who already think this way will be interested. People who believe in "god's mysterious ways" (to that, what's the point in believing in something you can never understand?!) will simply ignore data and statistics that shows their position to be untenable.
Alas, there is no cure for such ignorance.

Alas, there is no cure for such ignorance.

Prove thought. Prove love. Not all things are physical in nature and generate physical evidence you can log and anylyze. There are many things we still don't understand because we do not yet posses the power of observation to understand them. But since there is no evidence for these things so they also must be a conspiracy too, right? Your piling on comment above doesn't lead to any sort of a discussion at all. There are so very few of us even here anymore to discuss and seek as it is. Why would you want to run the last few that are here off?

Ignorance indeed.

I’m sorry you felt piled on, SlowRoll. I certainly don’t want to run you, or anyone, off. Yes, I can be tearse and abrasive but I speak my mind; take it or leave it.

Certainly there are many things yet unknown. The prime difference is that faith based belief systems claim to know matter of factly; “we don’t know” is not part of the religious lexicon. Ask any religious person, whatever denomination, how the cosmos was created, how humans were created, what happens when we die, etc. etc. and they will give you matter of fact answers. Ask a scientist, atheist or secular humanist and you’ll no doubt get varied answers, most expressed without much certitude. Another big difference is that humans agree thought and love exist, however they are manifest. Not so when it comes to god and religions. Indeed it is the differences over who’s god is whose and which god is THE god and what does this or that god expect of its servants that has been a prime mover in human history, resulting in much warfare and subjugation of others.
Matter of fact claims of virgin birth, talking snakes, resurrection, “miracles” etc. etc. etc. are in no way equivalent with abstractions like “thought” and “love.” Someone claiming these things certainly doesn’t resemble someone claiming thought and love exist.
Ignorant argument and comparison, I must say.

To further the point: If there was a god, we should not pretend that we know it is real, when in fact we all agree, we have no way of proving its existence or not at this time. (BTW, a scientist is the one you will be depending on to prove it does exist, if there is one.)

This leads me to: telling others what a god wants or needs is a ridiculous notion. You can know what it wants or needs, if you can't even prove it exists.

Faith in any god, just makes no sense when you think of it like this. This is one of the reasons why Atheists think religion and faith on gods are crazy.

SO BRAVE.

I must be the slow one. I don't understand what you meant by that.

This was directed at Mr. Mirth above. It's something said sarcastically whenever someone says something that is usually very controversial but does so in the setting of their peers that all agree with them.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfRedd...o_brave_start/

An example would be saying "I support legalization" in a room full of pot smokers. Out in public that would take guts and definitely singles you out; but doing so when you already know that everyone in the room agrees with you is a different story altogether.

I'm just here trying to read, talk through things, learn, and discuss things I don't fully understand(and neither do any of you). What he did just seemed like a SO BRAVE moment. I'm the only Christian even still here guys because everyone else has gotten tired of this crap.

I was mistaken to try and discuss these matters with the guys here, because other than you D, all these guys come off like uppity douchebags. They don't seem to be able to just have a regular conversation.

Take care man, I think I’m done here for a while.