Raw LLM Responses

@aqup_ I was an atheist/agnostic for a long time but today I would say I lean towards a sort of non-denominational Aristotelian classical theism, that is, non-Christian, non-muslim, etc. That said, I think Catholicism and Orthodoxy do probably have a pretty good interpretation of God. If there is one, then omnipotent and omnipresent for sure, not sure about Omni benevolent per-se, but only because I think people define goodness and morality in weird ways. God is probably maximally “just” in a sense but it may seem hard to see that from our POV. I’d be hesitant to call suffering evil, as I think evil requires a kind of intentional malevolence on the part of a conscious agent, but it’s certainly a privation of good, so I think it’s fair to lump in suffering under the problem of evil for the sake of convenience. I don’t have kids, but in the cancer scenario you laid out, if I was 100% sure there was a God, then I could be sure that my daughter was in heaven, and that her pain had some greater providential meaning, and that it pales in comparison to heaven, much like the minor discomfort from a dentist visit, in the grand scheme of things. Additionally, I could imagine that someone who never deals with hardship or personal loss in their life might live a more shallow life or take things for granted, so I may grow more deeply in empathy and compassion from such an experience. Again, I think that sort of suffering is only really a problem for atheists, as they don’t think there is an ultimate balance/justice to that kind of suffering after death. Also, it might be distasteful and kind of callous to say that such suffering would be ultimately not that significant in the grand scheme of things, especially to say to someone in the midst of that suffering, but that would basically be the conclusion if you follow the logic.