Hi. I personally believe that God intervenes indirectly i.e. never to change a person's mind - that imposes on our individuality and free-will. So, for example, if a child was to pray "Please God make my father and mother be nicer to each other so they won't divorce" is, in my belief, a prayer that God can't really answer directly because it would involve changing the personality of the adults - which imposes on their individuality. So, if the parents don't change, the child might mistakenly attribute this to God not answerting the prayer rather than realising it's not possible without God imposing on personality. If God can change people to be kinder to each other, why not stop violent crimes and so forth. So, in this kind of situation, I think that God can lay "bread crumbs" i.e. might present opportunities to the parents to address their relationship - maybe tweak things so a marriage guidance therapy leaflet comes in the mail, or some other resource that might help their relationship, but whether the couple take the presented opportunity is up to them. God might tweak things so that certain people meet at certain times in life so that they can, if they act on it, be of help/comfort to each other. But I do think it depends on the prayer aswell - if the object of the prayer is righteous and within God's scope (i.e not impose on anyone's individuality) then it's more likely to be answered.


He might have, for all we know. For example, so many people have suffered because of mercury exposure in fillings. It's not their fault, but it's biological consequence of having a toxin in a body. God might have exposed them to info on the effect of mercury, but they might not have acted on that info and thus continued to suffer.

We know that the laws of physics are precise i.e.the laws of the universe are precise. Everything is ordered. Cause such and such has such an effect. The same is true of biological laws. If we were not mortal we would be immortal i.e eternal. But we are mortal and therefore we die. Death is a biological effect that occurs after a cause i.e heart failure in old age or brain trauma in infancy.

Chrsitianity teaches that mortality is the consequence of free-will i.e. because human beings frequently chose to do wrong God ordains it that we cannot live forever(imagine forever of what exists now?) Every human being is subject to the same biological laws - if such and such happens to the body, then death occurs, no matter what the age.

Now, God could intervene and prevent death occuring to every person who is "good", but I'm sure you can see how that would be contravening the laws of physics that govern the world as well as playing "favourites". And as we are all God's children, it would be like (in my opiniion) asking a parent to chose which children to heal etc. A parent might give more attention to a delinquent child beacuse they need it more i.e. as Jesus said "the well don't need a doctor". Also, from God's persepective, what comes after death for that person might be better than this worldy life (though rarely from the human perspective is that view appreciated as we have no confirmed knowledge of what occurs at death)


Letting something happen and condoning what is happening are two different things. A lot of attrocities have happened in history, the holocaust is just one. Towns have been sacked, people have been slaughtered in their homes, thousands have been killed in the name of something or other. If God stopped every single attrocity there would be no world because he'd have to continuously intervene. I think we try to think what we would do if we were God rather than to think what it is like for God i.e. silent invisible observer who has the power to wipe us all out but lets us live despite humanities wickedness. According to the Bible God does get upset at the cruelty of humanity, but allows us to exist regardless because he does love us and rejoices when we show kindness and love to others.


This I don't understand myself. Some of it I understand i.e. some places don't prepare for bad weather and thus when it comes are devastated etc but why they have tohappen I don't know. But the world is subject to laws of physics too, and the world is dying, as are we all, and so earthquakes and so forth may be a consequence. I don't know, but I do believe God is in control of the universe and there are answers.


We have to look at the circumstances of the child's birth. Biologically, the consequence of sex is pregnancy, and so if a couple are intimate, it is no surprise a baby results. If they are poor and know they cannot afford another child, some of the responsibility at least is on the parents for bringing a child into poverty (and I am not suggesting abortion is a solution, but that sexuality comes with responsibility of a possible new life that people should take seriously, even if it means abstinence for a time). Now in some African tribes, women are treated badly. The husbands sleep around, giving HIV to the wife in th e process aswell as fathering children with HIV. The poverty, one could argue is not the father's fault. This behaviour certainly is. A possible reason for poverty is warfare - caused by humans, not God. Another reason is that those countries that can help prefer to buy DVD's and things rather than unite and eradicate poverty.The whole world is our reponsibility, not just our families or countries. God created life to live, which I believe is true of all life (I'm vegetarian) and so I can't believe it's God will babies die - it's a consequence of moratality and humanity.


No there isn't. I don't know why that happens. Maybe God has nothing to do with it. If God does, we have to trust it's for the best because God didn't create us to suffer but to love, be loved, and be happy. I don't know why natural disasters happen. But maybe there are lessons that can be learnt - how precious life is and how important family is.


I don't think God was trying to teach us a lesson by the holocaust etc - it was just a consequence of evil action - humanity at it's worst. I do believe all suffering people inflict on others, and on animals, hurts God because everything is God's precious creation.


Again, I wouldn't say it's God trying to teach humanity a lesson, just that it's an effect of a cause - that certain things happen when certain things happen - which is the foundation of science.

I do believe absolutely there is a God, that this God is all knowing and all-powerful, but as to understanding everything about God, I think it's beyond our comprehension to be honest. But I find atheism - the idea that us and the world evolved through chance to be very hard to believe. Firstly, all life comes from life, secondly nothing comes from nothing, and thirdly there must have been an intelligent eternal uncaused cause that at some point made the infinite finite - resulting in the intelligent design of the universe: a universe of order, precision, cause and effect, but one that is finite. For something to not exist i.e. the universe and then to suddenly exist, requires factor X. Something that did not exist, but then does exist, is not eternal. To exist when previously did not means it had a cause. In the case of the universe, this was either accidental i.e. random chance or intelligent design. If big bang, which caused the universe (so we are told) was random chance, then so too would the events preceeding big-bang have to be random chance. In that way, all we have are endless finites i.e. events with a life-span. All must eventually have an uncaused eternal cause - for what is eternal cannot be transitory.

The idea that we all "just happened" by cosmic accident really is as hard for me to believe as I'm sure God is to other people.