You must first have a basic theological understanding of God and His character to understand why He doesn't heal people all the time.
Any theological explanation you can come up with pales in comparison to the more obvious possibility that God is not real to begin with. After all, if God is not real, that would explain why he doesn't heal people, correct? Unless you can come up with any sort of verifiable proof that a supernatural being stepped in to provide a healing of some kind (which nobody has ever done), then why should we accept that such a being exists to do it?
Why does God allow bad things to happen, is basically the question? Right?
Sort of. The WWGHA question is designed to get people to think. It's more like... We are to believe that God heals people of all sorts of maladies that can't really ever be proven to be 'acts of god' to begin with, but when we look at something like the instantaneous return of a lost limb (a more obvious supernatural occurance; an 'act of god' if you will) we find that it never, ever happens. The question then becomes, 'If we know God doesn't heal amputees, then maybe all those other low probability healings which seemed to be acts of God, weren't actually supernatural to begin with. Maybe they were just more uncommon, but completely natural recoveries.' This leads you in the direction of no longer needing God to explain anything in terms of healing.
Non-Christians, or individuals that are not knowledgeable regarding Scripture will not understand.
I think you will find that most atheists are equally as knowledgeable in reading Scripture as you are; if not more so. If you think we disagree with you on the existence of God because we haven't read the bible or that we haven't heard the information that you gave us below, then you are going to be in for a surprise.
Quick and easy..... God created man, perfect and sinless. Man sinned. Sin seperated man from a perfect, holy God. God requires holiness. Man was created with free will, because God wants buddies in heaven that WANT to love Him. The old covenant of reconciliation required perfection and offerings of lambs to God. God realized this would not work and sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. We are now under a covenant of grace. Woohoo! Jesus paid the price for our sins. However, sin still is in the world. Bad things happen, God allows them to. Arms and legs mean nothing, since this world means nothing. It's temporary. Children dying in Africa, actually mean nothing...this world...these bodies are temporary! Our souls are what matters to God. Suffering is the result of sin....God allows it because He has to. If He simply healed everyone and stopped bad things from happening, what would that do? It would erase free will! We view pain and suffering as the end of the world!! Someone gets murdered...their temporary Earthly body dies...big deal.. God did NOT create evil....the absence of holiness is sin...therefore, we brought suffering upon ourselves....not God. LOL, simple right?
Simple, no. Nutty, yes.
Setting aside the multitudes of problems with what you've written here, I will give you quicker and easier. God just doesn't exist and bad / good things happen to us as a result of completely natural events. God didn't create man, man evolved from our ancestors, just like every other living thing on the planet. People don't get arms back because there is no God to put them back on. Children starve to death because they run out of food. Suffering is not the result of sin, it's the result of circumstances, natural events and choices. God did not create evil because things that don't exist, don't create things.
You see, everything you said here is nothing more than mental gymnastics you are using to help cover up the fact that God behaves in exactly the same way as a god that you believe exists, but really doesn't exist. Just re-read the whole thing and see for yourself. Go sentence by sentence asking yourself whether or not each one, in ANY way, steps outside that realm of possibility. When you realize that not a single one passes the test, then you must admit that everything you said COULD be said about a God that you think exists, but really doesn't. All you have, then, is an unproven theological stance.
You have to understand that just because it makes theological sense to you, that doesn't make it true. Lots of religions make theological sense to their followers. If they didn't, they probably wouldn't have followers.
Point is you have to look a lot deeper than simply thinking God is a jerk because He allows suffering. There is far more to it than that....
We don't think God is a jerk, because God isn't real. There is a large difference. The God character of the bible, however, IS a jerk. But what I think some of us do find offensive is the notion that you and other Christians who accept your position have literally chosen to worship a God who allows suffering on such a massive scale all because that's the way he wants it to be (if it wasn't, He'd change it).
BTW, (stepping into your hypothetical world where God exists for a moment) if God wants buddies in heaven that WANT to love him, then He's doing it all wrong down here. Although I live a wonderful life, I am not so narrow minded as to judge the sum total of God's nature by what he does to me alone. I would never choose to love a God that treats me great, but shits on so many other people in this world and then expects me to just deal with it. No thank you. I'm just glad I don't have to make that choice, because the Christian God isn't real.
I answered your post as if you were a legit poster, but my gut is telling me I should call POE here. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt first I guess.
