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I wanted to revisit this thread with a lengthy response. I've taken several weeks to "digest" the topic and come up with this "essay" if you will.. You can see the original discussion wt this link. I pick up my thoughts from there. Original Thread http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?/topic/74397-if-stephen-fry-met-god/ Due to the length of my post, I'm dividing it into 4 posts for 'readability' all though they all address the same topic and should be read as a 'whole'. Post # 1: God and the Problem of Evil & Suffering I’ve been thinking long and hard about this subject since HuskerX posted it. I am neither a theologian nor a philosopher but I am a thinker – or try to be. And this topic has given me a lot to think about. So, I did some research with the few related books that I have as well as the Bible. There are a lot of rabbit trails one can go down on a subject like this and we have done a good job of going down those trials (in the original thread). But I want to get back to the main topic of the thread: The existence of God and the existence of suffering in this world. Let’s make it personal. We don’t have to talk about kids with cancer, or eye eating bugs, etc to bring this discussion home. We all experience suffering/evils directly or indirectly almost every day. For me, my wife has been dealing wt debilitating pain for 21 years, which has greatly affected her quality of life. I, personally, have a medical condition I have to deal with daily. My twin brother died 3 days after birth. I’ve had relatives who: died of cancer, heart attacks & strokes, had legs torn off by a combine, drowned, injured in war, fight long term illnesses, and others who have been abused and who were abusers. I have as well as relatives have been affected by ‘acts of god’ – the calamities of nature. So suffering affects all of us, Christian and non-Christian. Also, we are all skeptics in one way or another. Even believers have moments of doubt (“I believe, help me with my unbelief”). Skeptics range from ‘near belief’ all the way to atheism. On some topics I’m a skeptic – certain political views, certain religious views for example. Thus, I like to think all of us are on the same journey – the journey of finding truth in our lives and a world view that makes sense of life. It does no good to show the arrogance of thinking you have cornered the truth on knowledge. There are many brighter lights that have debated this subject throughout the centuries then those of us on this forum. For every ‘believer’ who has become an unbeliever, there are atheists who have become believers – at the highest level of this debate. So criticism of another person’s belief in ‘an invisible friend’ only shows unfounded arrogance in my opinion. Instead we should respect each other’s path they have walked. We aren’t all that different and we can gain from each other in different ways if we allow ourselves the freedom to ‘listen’. In this discussion, the burden of proof seems to me to be wrongly placed on the Christian alone. I think the skeptic also has much to prove (skeptic: again just a general term to describe the non-believer – not meant to be derogatory – we all are skeptics as I note above). With this topic there is an emotional and an intellectual component that needs to be looked. I think we experience pain (our own or observed), react to it emotionally. We then make an intellectual decisions about suffering, life, and God. It is the skeptic or atheist who claims that the coexistence of God and suffering is impossible or improbable. If so, then it is up to them to support their conclusion and prove that God cannot have or does not have a good reason for permitting the suffering in the world. I would ask the skeptic, “Are you saying it is impossible for God and the suffering in the world to both exist or are you saying that it’s merely improbable that God and suffering both exist? The skeptic often compares God & suffering to the ‘irresistible force and the immovable object” both cannot exist at the same time. They claim that the following 2 statements are logically inconsistent: An all loving, all powerful God exists Suffering exists However, the 2 statements have no explicit contradictions between them – the statements are not opposite of the other. Perhaps the skeptic believes there’s an implicit contradiction – there then must be a hidden assumption(s) that would bring out the contradiction and make it explicit. Those assumptions most likely are: If God is all powerful, He can create any world that he wants. If God is all loving, He prefers a world without suffering. Therefore, it would follow that the world has no suffering. But that contradicts #2 – suffering exists. Therefore, God must not exist. But are the assumptions of #3 & #4 true? Let’s look at #3 If God is all powerful, He can create any world that he wants. Is that necessarily true? Well, not if it’s possible that people have free will. It’s logically impossible to make someone do something freely. God’s being all powerful does not mean that He can bring about the logically impossible – for there is no such ‘thing’ as the logically impossible. Since it’s possible that people have free will, it turns out that #3 is not necessarily true. For if people have free will, they may refuse to do what God desires. So there will be any number of possible worlds that God cannot create because the people in them wouldn’t cooperate wt God’s desires. We know it’s possible that in any world of free persons with as much good as this world, there would also be a much suffering. In order for true love to exist, true free will must exist.God’s fore knowledge does not control our actions.In the same way, that I knew with 90% accuracy that my wife was going to pick the pistachio nut ice cream when we walked into the ice cream shop (because I know her intimately – her tastes for ice cream included, and I saw the sign “new pistachio ice cream”) – I still didn’t control her choice – I knew it but it was still her free will choice.God, even with greater certainty, knows our actions but still allows us the freedom to choose according to our free will.God doesn’t remove the choice of our action ( or the consequences –good or bad)or gives us the appearance of a choice.For real love to exist – real choices have to be made. Let’s look at #4: If God is all loving, He prefers a world without suffering. Is this a proper assumption? God could have overriding reasons for allowing the suffering in the world. We all know of cases in which we permit suffering in order to bring about a greater good. While the skeptic might say that an all-powerful God would not be so limited and could bring the greater good directly without suffering; I would counter that given freedom of the will that may not be possible. It may very well be the case that a world with suffering is on balance better overall than a world with no suffering. Can the skeptic prove that free will is impossible and that it’s impossible that a world with suffering would be better than a world with no suffering? It is very plausible that God and suffering are logically consistent. Consider a 5th Statement: God could not have created another world with as much good as, but less suffering than, this world, and God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering that exists. Given human freedom, God’s options are restricted and it may be that a world with as much good as the actual world, but with less suffering wasn’t an option.Nevertheless, God has good reasons for the suffering He allows.If statement 5 is possibly true, then it shows that it’s possible that God and suffering both exist.We may not understand why a good God would allow terrible suffering.But this just establishes that if there is a God, we do not know everything he knows. Why should this surprise us? You may disagree wt this premise but it does not contradict the others.To disprove the God of the Bible exists, the skeptic must demonstrate there can be no moral justification for an all- good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God to allow evil.Has this been proven?NO. This doesn’t mean the question isn’t valid, only that a question is not the same as a proof. We as finite individuals are not in position to say that it is impossible that God lacks good reasons for permitting the suffering in the world.We would all agree that much suffering in the world looks unjustified.Can we say, however, that when suffering looks unjustified is it really unjustified?I don’t believe we can say this with confidence.We are limited in space & time, in intelligence & insight & wisdom.The God of Christianity sees the end of history from its beginning & providentially orders history to His ends through man’s free decisions & actions.Suffering that appears pointless within our limited view may be justly permitted through God’s fuller view.

Okay well maybe part of that, but here's a really long but pretty good article about the NCAA which really gives some perspective about where it's come from and where it's ultimately finally going to end (the courts). http://www.theatlant...ge-sports/8643/