There are some interesting assumptions coming out in this discussion.
Consider, if you will, that in most “God” threads people bring forward the proposition, which I think valid, that there is very little objective phenomenological evidence for the existence of God. (The alternative proposition, that all Creation is evidence of Him, is not objective evidence on this view – a premise I can see as legitimate.)
One primary argument advanced here, with some reason behind it, is that God, having the power to intervene to cause good or prevent evil, fails to do so, and is therefore at fault for the absence of good and existence of evil.
But it is by no means a universally held premise of moral behavior that every person with the ability to cause good or prevent evil therefore has the obligation to do so. If I sold all my worldly goods and gave the money to an appropriate charity, I could probably prevent a few famine-struck individuals from starving for a few days, but I doubt anyone seriously suggests I am obliged to do so.
God, however, is held to a different standard here, in that He is seen to be obliged to do precisely that.
However, such arguments usually assume the characteristics of God as defined by theologians, including omnipotence and omniscience. But omniscience ineluctibly leads to the conclusion that He must know the long-term consequences of events to a greater extent than we do, or even than we can.
Hence, if there is a God and He has the power to act, either He must be judged by the human standard or allowed the judgment to act as His omniscience calls for. This does not mean that we cannot question why He would permit a woman to die in agony; it means that we need to allow that He must have had reasons. Though this sounds like a retreat to “mysterious ways,” it is merely a call to be consistent in one’s arguments – either He exists with the power and knowledge to decide the ultimately right thing to do or He does not.
Also, the Problem of Evil arises from the ability of humans to make choices – even natural disasters, diseases, etc., result from human choice in that one chooses the negligible risk of living in the 500-year flood plain, on the slopes of the “extinct” volcano, in a pleasant climate that rarely (but not never) has hurricanes, etc. It would be possible for God to make a world in which evil did not exist – but at the cost of making whatever He populated that world with into robots, unable to choose anything but the good. I had personally prefer to live in this imperfect world and have the dignity of making choices and living with their consequences.
The other prime argument advanced is based on Scripture. And while the thread has featured Bibliocentric Christians vs. those who point out the evils Scripture attributes to God, it’s worth noting that the majority of Christians do not see the Bible as a literally-true verbatim-inspired document.
And the human characteristic of finding a scapegoat on which to foist off the blame for one’s actions when challenged is universal. Having babysat my three grandchildren for the past couple of weeks has underscored the commonness of this trait.
In short, God is pointed out as to blame for various evil events by the human writers of Scripture or the figures whom they describe – but it is as easy to believe that Joshua was guilty of the genocide of the Amelekites and blamed God for it as that He commanded it.
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