From a Christian perspective - Yes - even the choking. there's an aspect of God's will that is permissive - it is thought that God permits evil because it could allow for a higher good such as free will. Though this can't be said for sure.
(as does the flying spaghetti monster, the tooth fairy and santa)
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:
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 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.
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.)