"God put me in the seat next to you." Did God also make you choke in the first place?
Religious flamewars and religious litigation are off topic here. They aren't new, they aren't interesting, and they reliably set a bunch of people off.
The annoying bit is that the Christian answer to this question sucks from a rational viewpoint - we humans cry out for our own justice against this God that allows such suffering.
Just be mindful before you assume that Christians are completely crazy, that for from our viewpoint God suffers as well - not only does he love this child, but he also died for this child - in order that all of us could be drawn to him.
The Christian term for this suffering is his "passion" - in that he longs to be with each and every one of us as an individual.
It really seems that from our viewpoint is would seem so!
The Christian viewpoint is that suffering will be redeemed - God promises us that he will "wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Revelation of St. John 21:4)
As Christians, one of the problems that we create is that we try to make all "make sense." We can't - because we don't have the full picture. As such, I have to apologize that my answer for the problem of evil isn't satisfactory.
Here's a good overview from a theological and rational viewpoint:
(as does the flying spaghetti monster, the tooth fairy and santa)
I'm just pointing out the contradictions in "classic" Christianity. Regardless of all that, unless we somehow come up with a coherent and agreed-upon definition of God, I don't suspect anyone's mind will be changed by logical argument. And, thus, I defeat my own argument.
EDIT: I mean, it was Epicurus (~2000 years ago!) who first put this argument forward and I don't think anyone's ever come up with a good answer, so I'm forced to think that the problem is either a) coming up with a satisfactory definition of God, or b) belief in God is not determined by rational reasoning.
There is a pretty cool short story The Egg that relates to this. I won't ruin it by trying to describe it myself. You can read it here: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
I thought that was the whole mandate? I mean, if $DEITY didn't have our best (human-centered) interests at heart, then was does $DEITY actually do?
(EDIT: I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it. I just really don't understand the reasoning behind this and how anyone can accept the reasoning.)
There are no rational arguments for a belief in God, so this is the answer. All belief in any gods is irrational by nature.
EDIT: A mildly interesting observation: There's one kind of evidence that believers use that's actually routinely accepted in a court of law, namely Eyewitness Testimony (e.g. "I saw the Virin Mary!" in the religious context). More interestingly, Eyewitness Testimony has been shown to be incredibly unreliable for finding out what really happened.
[1] The distinction is somewhat technical, but it's a Big Deal(TM) in Philosophy.
[2] Though, it's probably not the sort of evidence that's accepted by anyone else. (Revelation, that kind of thing.)
As you've noted, their evidence isn't the kind worth considering and is thus not good evidence and thus is not rational to conclude a belief with. I stand by my statement, there is not a rational reason to believe in any gods of any sort. That doesn't mean people don't believe, or don't claim they have evidence, it merely means their beliefs/evidence is not rational and is easily picked apart by actual rational thinking. There aren't any arguments for gods that aren't just bad arguments that presuppose God.
The Bible addresses this: "We are fools for Christ [...] We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!" 1 Corinthians 4:10
But then... how do you know anything if you can just "faith it!" instead? I mean, if I could choose to just believe things "because" then that's obviously a lot easier (cognitively) than reasoning my way through it[1], but it's not very satisfactory, philosophically.
[1] Obviously that process could still lead to a lot of wrong, so it's not perfect. The point is that it's adaptive.
The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence: Either we die, or our universe collapses, or we change into something new. Sincere shows us we march to a death so complete that we don't even know we're dead.
The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
I can simplify that further, to be Christian is to deny reason.
The struggle with faith is a struggle against reason, faith stands in opposition to reason and rightly should lose. That faith wins over reason is a testament to the failure of critical thinking on that topic. Belief should never triumph over reason otherwise one can believe anything and wind up forever lost in the infinity of delusions of the mind. Reason is how you separate fantasy from reality, which is a rather important skill to have.
> The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence
Yours might, but I'd assert those thoughts aren't rational nor is your definition of meaningless. Atheists have no problem at all finding meaning in their lives; to say a life without God is meaningless is quite frankly a completely nonsensical statement that can only make sense in the mind of a person unable to see beyond his own presupposition of God and small minded view of the world. You seem to forget you live in a world full of people who don't believe in your God whom you are basically asserting have meaningless lives because they don't share your particular superstition; it's really quite silly to believe that.
> The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
It sounds insane to rational people, because it is. That anyone can actually believe that stuff is a sign of a complete lack of critical thinking skills on that subject.
As I understand it, from all known rational viewpoints everything about our lives are entirely meaningless because the evidence shows that nothing about our lives will remain or will be observed.
Everything about you will not exist in a few short years.
Everything ever built by anyone will either not exist or will be no longer have any energy (and no observer) once the universe collapses or goes through heat-death.
To be a Christian is to accept reason - and then to have hope.
I honestly don't think you do understand it if you think all known rational viewpoints see life as meaningless because that's simply not true. The lack of immortality does not make life meaningless; that's a belief your religion sold you.
"meaningless", you keep you that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
> Everything about you will not exist in a few short years.
So what? The same applies to everyone. Doesn't make life meaningless.
> Everything ever built by anyone will either not exist or will be no longer have any energy (and no observer) once the universe collapses or goes through heat-death.
Again, so what? Doesn't make life meaningless. I do not care what happens to the universe billions of years in the future and if you do, then that's something you could stand to reexamine because thinking that it makes life meaningless is not rational.
> To be a Christian is to accept reason - and then to have hope.
Hope, sure, but reason, I do not think so. You are basically asserting that lack of a God equals a meaningless existence, a completely foundation-less assertion entirely devoid of reason that can't be logically argued, only asserted as a circular argument that pre-supposes God's existence.
This lady could have just as easily been one of the millions of people since the maneuver was invented to have not been sitting next to Dr. Heimlich when they began to choke.
And none of the nonsense about Christians that don't believe in global warming or abortions or something, because you have no idea of this woman's stance on any of that.
Disclaimer: I'm as agnostic as they come.
EDIT: Let me add that I think it's ridiculous to criticize religious people for being religious. It is regressive and promotes animosity between the religious and the rest of us. A truly religious person will sooner die than give up their religion.
I certainly do not think it's ridiculous to criticize religion. It's 2016, some supernatural beliefs should not get a free pass just because people will feel offended. However, choose your battles. Elderly people saying a very common phrase is hardly something to get worked up about.
All ideas should be up for criticism. It is the very nature of religion somehow being off limits for debate that allows bad ideas to go unchallenged and spread.
The difference being that some criticisms are productive (presumably fresh, creative takes on thinking about something) and some simply serve the purpose of making the critic feel good about himself.
In what way do we benefit to hear a criticism of religion for the umpteen-millionth time and on the internet of all places? No one is refining their thought processes, no one is benefiting.
Looks like many have been refining their thought process. Perhaps it's from all of the criticism on the internet?
Just because all minds won't be swayed doesn't mean some won't be.
I do think criticizing the idea is more valid than criticizing the person who believes in that idea.
It sounds like what you mean to say is not all ideas need to be criticized always and everywhere they are present. Makes sense.
If you mean that religion should not be criticized anymore we've done it enough.... I don't see how this is not that same as saying religion is an idea that should not be up for criticism. Why is it special?
Once you can show me the data on the benefit from that single remark, and that it doesn't correlate with the concept of 'diminishing returns' strongly, then I'll concede.
It's totally legitimate to complain about not liking this point of view, but people do know what they're doing when they thank God for everything good and blame people for everything bad. I think it's important for non-religious people to understand that because so much of the world is religious and believes that God sets the standard for what's true, not the appearance of things which we're able to understand and reason through.
You forgot the Devil, he gets blamed every so often.