First, you must know some pretty simpleminded atheists if those are the sort of questions you get.
They sound more like questions some Christian evangelist would claim atheists ask in order to deliver his trite patronizing rhetoric.
Secondly... KEN HOVIND?
Really?
At this stage we're still getting links to Ken Hovind?
Ken "arrested on 58 charges of fraud and tax evasion" Hovind...
That's who you use as the backbone of your thread?
Fair enough but I am forced to question his integrity given his history, anyway back to your questions...
TBH, I never ask any of those questions you posit as common atheist inquiries.
But here's a question I do sometimes ask people like you... what kind of God allows Josef Fritzel's daughter to suffer twenty years of rape and captivity at the hands of her father?
What was the "divine" plan for her and all the other countless souls suffering like her right this second?
You don't think they are praying, begging God to help them... but for most of them, for 99% of them... God is callously silent.
What possible lesson did God want her to learn and could only be delivered by twenty years of rape, every single day for two decades of her life?
For her to give birth to his children and then have them forced to watch?
How DARE you preach this drivel about a compassionate God in the face of such suffering, what cheek, what arrogance, what blindness.
I'm sure God works in mysterious ways and all, but I'm just asking you to speculate, hypothesize for us, wonder aloud... what was your all loving compassionate God trying to teach that girl?
Your God created all of existence knowing that one day that girl would be in that basement... Please, justify that with your faith if you can and demonstrate the utter arrogance and lack of any real compassion that typifies the religous believer.
You make yourself feel better with warm and fluffy stories about a caring God benevolently watching over his children... You just ignore the vast unimaginable scale of innocent suffering in the world.
A single child doesn't die in a burning building and you're all praising God's intervention while you ignore the other countless children enduring brutal horrific suffering every second of the day.
Religion isn't a crutch, it's a fluffy pillow you bury your face in and shut out the reality of existence because you can't cope any other way.
I trust my tone was civil enough for your thread, good day.
Quoting: The Ghost of Hitch 15489233 Wow... Whoever would have guessed that the REAL judge of the universe would be a a cranky Irishman?
Obviously one who's never read (or at least UNDERSTOOD) the scriptures, and has no idea WHY God allows suffering in this present age.
I feel really sorry for these types. Who spend their lives running from faith, and relying on their own profound "wisdom".
Sadly, it is these exact types of arrogant and angry types that are the most doomed. Much more so than the repentant murderer, who truly comes to God for forgiveness.
The Irish pharisee who wrote the above has no NEED of God. And certainly wouldn't ever condescend to trust in God.
What a MOUNTAIN of very thinly veiled fury you have. You cannot see the kingdom of God, through a barrier of hatred and fury. You have set yourself ABOVE God, and consider your thought, and your way, above those of God.
You do not understand God, because you do not understand His word. God has reasons for His actions (or inactions) that can ONLY be truly understood by a dedicated study of His word. The things of the spirit are SPIRITUALLY discerned, and are only comprehended by people with a heart that comes to Him with pure sincerity.
Again... I assure you, that with your attitude of hatred and deeply rooted fury, you most certainly can never see the kingdom of God, or understand even remotely His ways.
But I wish you luck.
