Where is God when awful things happen?

[Koldo]

Name something you can experience without conceiving of it.

Our very lives. We experienced what it is like to be living before we had any conception of it in our minds.

You can't, because to experience something you have to conceive of it.

An experience is "practical contact with and observation of facts or events."

How can one observe facts or events if one can't even comprehend those facts or events??

If you can't comprehend the significance of your endorphin high, if you can't comprehend the sensation of happiness, how on earth can you experience it??

That's what I'm getting at.

Much of our comprehension only arises after our experiences, if it at all.
Why would I need to comprehend the sensation of happiness to experience it ?
Why do you see this as necessary ?

 

[Sanzbir]

Our very lives. We experienced what it is like to be living before we had any conception of it in our minds.

You did not experience anything before you had a brain. Once you had a brain you began experiencing life. Again, with the definition of "experience" necessitates "practical contact with and observation of facts or events." If you cannot conceive of things, you cannot observe things either.

You conceived of the concept of life long before you had a word for it, if that's what you are getting at. But you still conceived the concept of being a living thing. Again conceiving and vocabulary is not the same thing.

Much of our comprehension only arises after our experiences, if it at all.
Why would I need to comprehend the sensation of happiness to experience it ?
Why do you see this as necessary ?

Observation is necessary for experience, by the very definition of it. If you were passed out in a bank when suddenly it is robbed, and you remain unconscious for the duration of the heist, you did not experience that robbery.

You need to be able to conceive of the events happening around you to have experienced them. I've explained why you have not experienced "life" until you could conceive of it, so do you have a better example to set forward?? Something you have experienced but never conceived of in your mind??

 

[Koldo]

You did not experience anything before you had a brain. Once you had a brain you began experiencing life. Again, with the definition of "experience" necessitates "practical contact with and observation of facts or events." If you cannot conceive of things, you cannot observe things either.

You conceived of the concept of life long before you had a word for it, if that's what you are getting at. But you still conceived the concept of being a living thing. Again conceiving and vocabulary is not the same thing.

I experienced life long before I conceived of life.

Observation is necessary for experience, by the very definition of it. If you were passed out in a bank when suddenly it is robbed, and you remain unconscious for the duration of the heist, you did not experience that robbery.

You need to be able to conceive of the events happening around you to have experienced them. I've explained why you have not experienced "life" until you could conceive of it, so do you have a better example to set forward?? Something you have experienced but never conceived of in your mind??

I disagree. Conceiving what's happening to you happens during the experience, but it is not a requirement for the experience itself. I do agree that you must be conscious to experience something in any meaningful way though.

 

[JustWondering]

Is the fact that awful things happen to people who don't deserve them good grounds for denying that god exists?

For gods that claim to be all-powerful and good, yes. I don't see a logical alternative to that. However, the biblical god said that he creates both good and evil. As far as I can tell the biblical god is a narcissist that mainly cares about himself and is capable of great evil if he feels slighted.

 

[JustWondering]

There's so much evil garbage that happens every day all over the world and my biggest question is where God is when any of this stuff happens. Does God just not care? If the Abrahamic view of God is true, then he has the ability to make it all stop and to, essentially, remove evil from all of existence, but instead God chooses to let evil run rampant and lets unspeakable things happen to babies, children, the elderly, and good people. Why would any loving and merciful God allow for any wicked thing you can think of to exist in his world? No matter how I look at it, it just doesn't make any sense to me and the question puts me that much closer to being an atheist.

Why do you assume god/s (if it/they exist) have to be good? If a god exists, perhaps it's idea of what's good is alien to us. I think any gods humanity worshipped past and present are fabrications of man. Why would a god need or want to talk to us? Why would a god be interested in a species that in comparison to itself are no more then bacteria? Since I've seen no credible evidence for any god, I don't worry about it. I figure that if a god wants my attention it can easily get it if it wants to.

 

[The_Fisher_King]

There's so much evil garbage that happens every day all over the world and my biggest question is where God is when any of this stuff happens. Does God just not care? If the Abrahamic view of God is true, then he has the ability to make it all stop and to, essentially, remove evil from all of existence, but instead God chooses to let evil run rampant and lets unspeakable things happen to babies, children, the elderly, and good people. Why would any loving and merciful God allow for any wicked thing you can think of to exist in his world? No matter how I look at it, it just doesn't make any sense to me and the question puts me that much closer to being an atheist.

Are you only interested (in this thread, at least) in 'the Abrahamic view of God' (whatever that is), or in any conception of 'God'?