To put it simply, if the God of the Bible is all loving and all powerful then there would be no suffering. I watched this video to the end and he never gave any cogent answer to this question. If I missed something then please point it out? With respect, John.
Can I suggest that one solution to the problem of evil and suffering (given the assertion that the world was created by an omnibenevolent God) might be to say that this God doesn’t exist. The problem of evil and suffering is really only a problem for Christians. Materialist don’t have a problem with it, rather they expect both good and bad things to happen given the natural character of the world. Predictably, Preston and Chris agreed with each other that if you are atheist and a materialist you must, of necessity, be a nihilist. This is completely wrong. Atheists and materialists are not happy or complacent about bad things happening, and are certainly not nihilists. I’m an atheist and the fact that life is short, and I believe that nothing follows it, gives my life tremendous meaning and purpose. Nihilism is far from what most atheists feel, most atheists have families which they care about, most atheists don’t steal, kill, or rape, most want to live in a fair and just society just like everyone else. Atheists and materialists certainly don’t live their lives nihilistically as is nothing matters and there are no values or morals worth trying to uphold. Far from it. Linked to the accusation that atheist and materialist are nihilists, Christians often say . . . "If you don’t believe in God, where do you get your values and morals from? The best answer to that might be . . .“Well, I certainly hope I don’t get my morals from the Bible which seems to portray God as a moral monster who for example, he commands genocide, commits genocide, condones slavery, commands sexual slavery, condemns homosexuality, and does many other deeply morally problematic things”. As I say the problem of evil is a problem for Christians, most of whom are decent people. Preston and Chris seem decent people and it's just sad that they find themselves having to defend a moral monster and wrangle some sense of the claim that their God is all loving. Meanwhile, we materialists get on with cherishing this brief life, giving it positive meaning and purpose by our actions and sense of common humanity.
@@PrestonSprinkleRaw The episodes are there, but I'm getting a playback error on Pocket Casts, and on Spotify the podcasts keep getting hung up buffering. These issues seem to be specific to Theology in the Raw right now as other podcasts on the app are working fine.
