There is definitely no loving God. Fact.

Please don't put words in my mouth granjura, I made no mention of religious discrimination or making children suffer. Free will refers to the people inflicting the crimes.

I so wish I'd never started this thread - in October last year.

Are people so short of things to occupy them that they have to resurrect threads long dead and forgotten?

And have they no taste? Have they read the original post? Is it pure thickness?

How ill you use your free will to save little children then? And do you save only Christian ones- of your denomination. Is the sufferring of a child from a jungle tribe or Muslim less or more important. Free will for little children ... how, why...

if anyone made a child pay with their suffering for my failings- I'd cut them into little pieces, slowly ...

Free will- for 3 year olds!?! What would that poor child have done for free will? Please- tell me what was God's purpose in making him suffer so? Pray tell.

Exactly practical, I agree although it's probably a simplistic view in theology terms

God gave us free will, if he interfered all the time what free will would we have.

Google "Why does God not save innocent children". Lots of interesting reading.

So which children does he save Jamila? Does he send down lighting bolts to kill one side only , does he kill all the adults and so leave a country of children . I am not a God Is On Our Side believer , too many wars have been carried out in this belief

Sorry, jingls it took me so long to post I didn't see yours in between.
Tablet will be thrown out of the window having been jumped on first! Slow, slow, slow

because your post would seem to agree with me but disagree at the same time annie.
You agree with me that it must be man causing all this hatred and killing in the Middle East - which was going on in Old Testament times too before 'the West' existed.

Your hypothesis is that God cannot be blamed for the evil done by man, even killing of little children. However, he does nothing to save them, so my hypothesis is that if he is supposed to be 'a loving God' he would save innocent little children, therefore how can he exist?

Definitely.

Amen to that!!

Strangle it now Jingl? It may be the kindest thing to do.

ab your reply to joan's completely innocuous post was unnecessary. I don't think you can expect to carry on a serious discussion after twisting the thread in the way you did.

I too wish this thread had died a death long ago.

Jamila, do you believe God arrange the wars in the middle east, arranged for children to be targeted ? Vengeance comes from man not God, we condemn the violence in the Middle East but accept the sale of arms.

Have the west no responsibility for the hatred which is the root of much ?

Let us suppose God steps in to sort out the Middle East, does he support the west ?

God cannot be blamed for the evil done in his name

Sorry, typos, cannot get to change them on this tablet
(Including your name Wilma)

Wilm I suppose that is what happens wuth long threads, but in fact I think the essence of the OP was still there.

While the eyes of the world are on Syria and the dreadful events there, in particular Aleppo at the moment, the situation in Yemen is just as desperate.

If there is a God he seems more like the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament, not the loving God people imagine him to be. Though why he should feel vengeance against little children is beyond my comprehension.

So, no, how can there be?

Yes, this thread was'born under a wandering sky' all right.

This thread was dead for over 2 months and I wish it had stayed like that. It's gone way off topic.

The times that joan has posted on threads, has always been interesting and sensible, but I don't blame her for ignoring this thread now, having read all the comments. Jalima I have enjoyed reading your comments, equally interesting and sensible.The 'racism' card often comes out when people have nothing else to say!

Eloethan I am confused about what you say. Joan said, "I’m pretty sure we all agree that the Middle East is a place of horror, and no-one, let alone little children, should be suffering as they do, just because of matters out of their control,"

Nothing to argue about there. And she is right. The existence or otherwise of God isn't really the important thing here.

I think you've summed it all up very well Jalima, and as far as I'm concerned that's the end of what has become a rather pointless conversation.

Eloethan
she raised the situation in the Middle East

FYI Yemen is in the Middle East.

^ I would suggest that such a dismissive response hardly represents a "thoughtful and respectful answer".^
Lots of posts are not thoughtful and respectful but that is not a reason to hound someone off GN imo.

If you don't understand that the people of the Middle East are as diverse and varied as any other part of the world and comprise people of every and no faiths then you won't see it as racism.
That is precisely why it is not racism. Do you not see that trisher?

jings, sorry, and it is probably because your OP is right that all this is happening in the Middle East - in the name of God!!

Just can't stand unfairness and posters telling other posters they shouldn't be on GN, they have no right. If people can't agree to disagree on here in an amicable way then what hope is there for the world?

Eloethan your post re Australia and relatives there did not specify me too, but I would just like to point out that, just because one may have family in Australia you should not infer from that that they are all exclusively white, or that, if they are, they are of British origin, or that they do not work with Aboriginal people, are not friends with Aboriginal people.
One of my relatives works closely with Noel Pearson.

Just because you have been to Australia nigglynellie and have relations there does not guarantee that you are any more knowledgeable than me or anyone else about Australia
Really? Have you researched it? Spoken to people there of all origins?

Do not assume that the Australians are racist. Some are. So are some British people, people all over the world, and people in the Middle East certainly have their prejudices, otherwise there would not be the wars that there are in that region.