Mike,

>>You're confusing His all-powerfullness with His choices.
>
>Lets assume god existed.

Good place to start. <s>

>If he didn't want people to suffer, and he was all powerful, he woud not let people suffer.

Not necessarily Mike. Maybe there's something in God's mind that is far far more important. Just looking at this from man's pov can be pretty narrow and selfish I'd think. Perhaps more important to God would be whether or not his creation (us) would want to share love with Him. One of the other traits of God in the Bible is love. IOW, the Bible plainly says, "God is love", which would only make sense I suppose. If God were the perfection of any attribute (hate, love, joy, anger, holy, patience, etc) then He would exhibit that trait perfectly. Well, how would one go about defining that particular trait? Well, from the human perspective it'd be essentially impossible as we're not perfect or infinite. So, if you can think about this a little, and if you can accept that this god might want to share His perfect love with mankind then it's not hard to get to where you can understand a couple of (IMO) very important issues.

The most important IMO is this notion of "free will" or choice. Love isn't love if it's not willing. So, if this God wanted to share love with man he'd want man to want to share this love back - and he'd have to give him a very attractive alternative to choose from, otherwise the choice wouldn't be worth much. IOW, the choice would have to have a price.

That's what the Bible says God did. He gave man a choice. Man chose badly. Now, this was no surprise at all to God (he's omniscient remember <g>) and He had a plan. Provide a way for mankind to be presented with this same choice. That's called faith. I choose God's way willingly, not because of any reward, though there is one, but I've seen His love demonstrated for me (more on that perhaps in another message) and I've just naturally responded.

So, why do bad things seem to happen to good people? Perhaps God wants to instruct them (He already knows <g>) where their loyalties really are. Do I want God's way or my own?

>But, people suffer.

Yes, they do but if you do a little careful reading and think it through you'll discover that the culprit here is mankind, not God. God told man that the day he disobeyed and chose his own path he'd die. We've been dying ever since. Men cannot co-exist with other men without precipitating some form of death - spiritual being the most important.

But.. If you chose God's way that is not necessary as He empowers one to live the kind of life He wishes. I cannot in my own strength do this but God gives it to me as a gift.

>So, either he is not all powerful, or eliminating human suffering is not something he is particularly concerned about.

Nope.. H'e respecting the free will choices of mankind and we're doing it to ourselves.

Gotta scoot for dinner.. I'll add more later...



>
>Could be both, either way, it HAS to be one of them, correct? Whichever you choose, I don't think I want to spend my life pursuing a deity who can't live up to the hype.
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>At this point, your god's existence is not even desirable, much less useful.
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>>None of which changes the facts that God created mankind and He has the right to be soverign.
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>Facts? You mean fairy tales.
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>>Your argument is with God Himself.
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>What argument is that?