This is somewhat of a controversial question but can any theists or anyone offer a reasonable explanation. I hear this question a lot given all the group's I've gone to but I'm never satisfied with the answers given.
Growing up, I was abused, tortured, drugged and brainwashed by religious fanatics. They made me believe this was a way for me to get peace and this pain would let me into heaven. I was force fed bleach and worms. I held a friend in my arms as the died from being drugged by the abusers. If God exists why did he make this thing happen. If he didn't put it into action why did he allow these awful people to continue this horrific act in his name? Some say the devil did it. But the world is his creation he is supposedly omnipotent. An ultimate power. What kind of all knowing power allows such horrific things to happen how can he be all powerful if he cannot stop evil?
If there is a God he abandoned us a long time ago. His throne sits covered in webs of lies and pain. Nothing more than a sick evil man with magnifying glass and we are the unknowing ants.
Sorry for this speech but I had to get this out.
What answer would satisfy you? And what makes you think any sort of answer you'd accept could ever come from a god-botherer?
You have eloquently stated, in your own words, what is generally called the Problem of Evil and which I prefer to call the Problem of Suffering. It is logically impossible for a deity to be all knowing, all powerful and all good, and allow human suffering, particularly of the kind you're talking about. For a god to coexist with / allow suffering, one or more of those three attributes must be thrown under the bus. Attempts by believers to escape this logical problem is known as a theodicy. To avoid dealing with it, theists often come up with word salad about the need for god to respect free will. But there is really no way out of the conundrum for them. So you're never going to get a sound answer from them on it.
The explanation for what happened to you is that depraved, vile, disgusting people did depraved, vile, disgusting things to you, because that's what such people do. And it happens that they did it in the name of their imaginary sky wizard. This is popular because it allows people to behave in ways that otherwise would be seen as harmful, but they can use special pleading to claim that god told them to do it.
This may help you understand how the concept of "God" is processed. It may be worth watching the entire series. Dr. Valerie Tarico also has also written books.
Of course there is no god, so that solves part of the question, the other part is that there are lots of assholes in the world. I didn't cop it quite so bad, my mother is a pious religious twit, my father a violent drunk. He almost beat me to death a couple of times since I was a toddler, both my parents burnt me and my mother slashed me once in a fit of stress. Was never taken to a doctor in case someone stepped in and took us from our parents. My mother fed me crap, it is Gods will, a wife must obey her husband, you must deserve it and so on. In my mind my father has been burning in hell for the past 21 years and my mother is soon to join him. We hear a lot these days about elder abuse. I think in some cases it is justified. If parents can beat kids for some perceived wrong doing, surely when kids are big enough, they can return the favour.
God may forgive, I don't!
How disturbing. Personally, I strive to be better than the people who have hurt me. Descending to their level would mean they won. This is a very real issue for me as my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last week.
When I was diagnosed with colon cancer 2 years ago, my mother completely abandoned me. Chemo almost killed me 3 times, I drove myself to the ER each time. I was 51 years old and for the first time realized that my mother had been as much of an abuser as my father. Hers was quiet abuse, like sending me home to my abusive father every day after school, while my sister was in paid aftercare. I’ve spent my life wondering what I had done so wrong to make my mother hate me. When my sister died 3 years ago, I thought she would have to start loving me, nope.
I cannot leave my stepfather alone to deal with this. He’s amazing, I call him my father, although my mother didn’t meet him until I was in my 40s. His is the only parenting I have ever really had. So this leaves me to treat my mother the way I wish she had treated me.
There is never any justification for abuse.
@Demonica29 Glad you are supporting your step father, he sounds like he needs and deserves it.
It will all make more sense when you see it for what it is. Scared, , superstitious, sadists trying to ruin an innocent life because they think it will please their vengeful, sick, and scary imaginary friend. I'm sorry you had to endure that. I hope it has made you stronger and wiser. I also hope you find the peace you so desperately deserve. Please do whatever you can to remove yourself from that situation in the healthiest way possible. Even if that means severing all ties to those who have done those things to you, directly or indirectly. Life is too short to waste it on people who hurt you.
I'm so sorry to hear of the abuse practiced on you in the name of , and very happy to hear that you've been able to escape, although perhaps more in physical term than psychically.
From what you describe, it seems that you're expending energy searching for an explanation to offer some sort of rationalization for the barbarity was inflicted on you, a blameles child. After a childhood of emotional neglect and abuse at the hands of my father, I spent decades trying to win from him some sign of the approval of which I had been deprived (it wasn't until I'd entered my sixties that I was fianlly able to disengage and walk away once and for all). Like the rationalization you seek, his approval never materialized and never could.
From my own experience, I know that you will only be able to let go of the need for some understanding - even a hint of an answer to the question ? - when you are ready. But, as it took me a lfieteme, I truly hope that you come to a much earlier realization that investing time and energy in trying to address a situation not of your making and, in itself, devoid of rationality, is not unly futile, but keeps you enmeshed in the toxicity of the past.
Take good care of yourself.
"There good and there are bad people in this world. Good people do good things bad do bad but for good people to do bad things. God or needs to be involved." Not sure I totally agree with that but god and has been used on so many occasions to mask evil. Theists use an external morality rather than an internal one. If the program is flawed then its a gigo system. Plus all these religions or cults value the group or organisation over the individual. Read "The power and the glory" by Graham Greene.
Theists will argue free will and that without the ability to be evil, man cannot be good. This leaves us with an impotent rather than an omniscient god. In which case what good is he/she/it?
I will repeat the best joke I have read here (forgive me if you already know it). An old Jew dies and goes to heaven. He meets god and tells him a holocaust joke. God does not laugh. So the old Jew says "I guess you would have had to have been there."
That's... Troubling, for all kinds of reasons. It sets alarm bells ringing, as I'm sure you can imagine. I can't offer you any thoughts on the stuff you've described, but I sincerely hope you have been able to seek counselling to address it. If not yet, then do. Really make sure you do.