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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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As I said to @Hoffmeister25

These are all basically the problem of theodicy written over and over. Nature's Wrath has a long history in Jewish lore of being God's wrath. God created nature, remember.

As to the reason - I don't know! Nobody truly knows the answer to theodicy. Some say it's because the devil is still at work in the world with his demons, implying God isn't fully omnipotent as we might understand it. Others say evil exists to help teach us to become good. Still others say that we couldn't have free will without evil existing in the world.

There are many answers. All I know is that I believe that God allows evil in the world for a reason.

You are basically just restating the problem of theodicy. The fact that you think it's a slam dunk against faith shows that you have not really looked into the history of the Christian church, or frankly almost any other religion, more than at a surface level. Theodicy or the problem of evil is the obvious issue with all religious faith. Religious people don't just brush it under the rug and pretend evil doesn't exist. Of course we have thought about this issue deeply, and come up with various answers to it.

Christian church, or frankly almost any other religion, more than at a surface level

No, the problem is that Christians do not understand the universe beyond a surface level. They don't come up with any good answers to theodicy, only cope like 'it's all part of the plan which is totally incomprehensible to us' or 'somehow free will requires this'. Sensible religions don't try to declare the existence of a omnibenevolent, all-powerful deity and then grapple with how dumb that is when it's a ridiculously silly thing to believe. Of course the universe is not run by such a being, that is immediately obvious from all the random torments and trouble dished out. Coming up with a million philosophical epicycles to justify this bizarre doctrine doesn't help at all.