With the release of my new book - The Little Book of Unholy Questions - I thought it would be nice to share some of the questions from the Problem of Evil section. Here goes...



1.              During the 2004 tsunami where, say, 250,000 people died, would it not have been more caring of an all-loving God to have made one less person die?

 

 

2.              (One question I have seen online) What am I supposed to be learning from my disabled son?

 

 

3.              What is he supposed to be learning from his predicament that is more valuable than the joy of not having that disability?

 

 

4.              How do you sleep at night knowing that people are being raped and murdered around the world?

 

 

5.              Why don't you come to earth and try to survive for a while as a lower level socio-economic status individual, and then decide if you're taking the best route to not only having followers, but to guiding humanity down a good path?

 

 

6.              Is it possible to be all-loving when there are so many species in the world?

 

 

7.              In other words, to be all-loving to humans is probably detrimental to field mice, and to be all-loving to mosquitoes is not to be all-loving to humans and horses; so is the term ‘all-loving’ or even ‘maximally loving’ incoherent?

 

 

8.             Since many people believe that evil exists as punishment for original sin; and since Christianity preaches forgiveness: When are you going to lead by example and forgive mankind for original sin?

 

 

9.              With your divine foreknowledge, would you not have foreseen that nakedness would be shameful to Adam and Eve, that they would have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge?

 

 

10.          Therefore, why did you not arrange for us to be born permanently clothed to spare our blushes, or for Adam and Eve not to have had the Fall?

 

 

11.           The world’s population is increasing unsustainably (we have increased from around 2½ billion in the early 1950s to some 7 billion 50 years later) to the point that population control is the elephant in the room. Why have you let us get out of control, and is this fair on the wildlife and other humans with whom we share this planet?

 

 

12.           Would you like to live on a crowded rubbish dump in Manila?

 

 

13.           If not, why do you let others if you have the power to stop it (do unto others as you would have done unto to yourself…)?

 

 

14.           Why should you be in need of a race of sinners who are also capable, occasionally of repentance?

 

 

15.           In January 2009 a roof collapsed on a church in Sao Paulo killing nine and injuring one hundred others. Why did you let this happen to your faithful flock?

 

 

16.           If my child was to walk on the flowers in my garden, trampling them, it would be immoral to punish him without telling him what he had done wrong. This would communicate to my child his misdemeanour so that he would not do it again. What have we done wrong to deserve cancer, malaria, the tsunami, the Holocaust, disability, cholera etc., and is it right that you have not communicated to us why we have had these ‘punishments’?

 

 

17.           Given that you are perfect, all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, it necessarily follows that this must be the maximally perfect world that you could create, otherwise you would not be perfect or all-loving. Is this really the maximally perfect world that could ever be created?