Many theists invoke two different reasons why God doesn't intervene in cases where it would appear that it would be helpful if he did. One is that he doesn't want to usurp a human being's free will. The other is that he does not want to influence events that would defy the laws of physics. Because if he did it would be such strong evidence of a higher power that it would eliminate the need for someone to have "faith" given the almost insurmountable evidence inherent in the physics lawbreaking.

To me that sounds farfetched but not completely implausible. But now I want to know why this extends to horrible weather events, especially tornados that almost always strike unpopulated areas. Clearly the free will argument is not applicable. Tornados don't have free will. Less obvious is the fact that where a tornado strikes cannot be accurately predicted by human beings! Not even with a supercomputer yet to be built. Its the famous butterfly effect. (And of course there is also the quantum uncertainty which makes the point even stronger).

Without arguing over the science I would simply suggest that almost nudging a tornado out of the way of children's schools could be done without ever worrying that a scientist will see that and start believing in God for the wrong reasons.

Since schools have been hit and children have died is it because:

1. God doesn't have the power to nudge them?

2. God doesn't care where they go?

3. God has some reason to cause that destruction?

4. There is no God?

if God was here he would move this to RGT asap

guess it's 4. then

also speaks highly of SMP demise in quality

I'm pretty sure scientists would notice if no tornadoes ever hit populated areas.

But not if it never destroyed an elementary school. Or if it hit population area less often then it has. Meanwhile I meant this to go in the religion forum. Can someone who knows how to do that move it please.

I'd probably take tornados being 100x more common and no nudging if He changed human/ocean chemistry by enough to make ocean water potable. Doubt anybody would have noticed.

I don't think this is necessarily true. It may well be possible to pinpoint tornado locations say 10 hours in advance to a 30 mile radius.....such that nobody would have been hurt in this. From what I heard there were predictions days in advance that these fronts were very likely to produce very powerful tornados but it's just not economically feasible to evacuate such large areas of land for such localized ( and small causality) events.

Maybe god thought he same thing about intervening.

I changed the words "populated area" to "children's schools" in the OP so that God doesn't have to worry about statisticians

Just throwing random thoughts out there, but this made me think about when my brother would play SimCity and turn off all disasters. It was boring as nothing really happened. We need that chaos and tragedy in order to have some motivation to work, some community building, and maybe even some meaning.

Well, you you have landed on one of the two big arguments concerning a higher power. The first is that if there was a Big Bang, then what was before the Big Bang, and who created the Big Bang. That is the first brick wall, as if you say that God created the Big Bang, or created the Universe, then someone might rightfully ask who created God? The answer would likely be that God is eternal. Well then why can't the Universe be eternal another might ask?

Your question is the second main question. Considering the fact that the laws of physics/the universe have never been suspended (no documentation of that in human history), then that leads one to wonder if there is an all powerful God. If there is, why would he allow suffering to those who obviously cannot be responsible for their actions, like a child victim of a tornado or earthquake. Human and animal suffering is either real or it is not. If it is real, then any entity that allows for it has be to evil.

I don't think an intelligent person can honorably get away with saying that God chooses not to intervene. If that is the case, then he would fit the definition of evil. Either that, or you have to say that he is not an all-powerful God.

At the end of the day, religion is one of the great hoaxes of the world. You can't possibly see a tragedy unfold without turning on the television and seeing a bunch of irrational stuff being said immediately afterwards.

To those who believe in God, you are wrong even if you are right. If there turns out to be a God, that doesn't bail you out of your current irrational belief, no more than if it turns out that racists are rewarded in an afterlife, that it is honorable to be a racist.

Until society is willing to step up to the plate and confront irrational beliefs, then this will continue forever. Just today two guys chopped up a guy in London. All in the name of Allah. Yesterday, Wolf Blitzer asked a tornado victim if she thanked the Lord for not totally ruining her life. She stopped him and said that she was an Atheist. But it just points out how absurd his question was. Brutal to have to put up with.

If you are not an imbecile and you base your worldview on faith/no evidence, then you really cannot be taken seriously. If someone is not willing to use reason, then I'm not sure they can be taken seriously as a human being.

Zero respect for bad ideas is the only way to live.

One of the goals of my life every day is to prevent myself and others I care about from suffering as much as is practical. It would seem to follow that a caring God would do the same, not allowing me or others to suffer. But as gangstaman touched on with the Sim City example, if God cared about us so much he eliminated all suffering, would we then live our lives in eternal bliss, or would the vacuum left by the absence of suffering only be replaced by something else, like boredom?

I came to the realization a few months ago during a drunken rant that boredom is one of the root causes of most problems these days in the western world, and so I'm not sure suffering is proof of the non-existence or non-potency of God. Not that the inability to disprove God proves anything.

Except that there are plenty of tragedies that God can't stop because of the aforementioned restrictions on stopping free will or obviously showing himself. Why not save a few school children when he can get away with it?

I also might add that your story doesn't lead to thinking that an individuals life would be boring if he wasn't exposed to disasters. Rather it implies that God's life would be.

Not as random as you think. One of the responses to the Problem of Evil is that our suffering is required for personal and spiritual growth. This is somewhat similar.

How do we reconcile the deaths of those children with the miraculous and divine saving of Reshma from the ruins of that clothing factory?

This is a rant. The idea that there are "laws of physics" which cannot be gainsaid is a paragon of tripe. Too often there are those who preface their skepticism of non scientific matters by the "laws of physics". I am tired of seeing this and find this disingenuous.

Our modern science is about "hypothesis" and this is not a bad thing but when the "born again" scientists on this forum preface things with "laws of physics" it becomes to all believers, "come, we will act again and together and deny the "other worlders"". Nausea and more nausea.....

It should be obvious to you "born again s" of science that even something like the "law of gravity" is a theory to which some real scientists see as disprovable. The "conservation of matter and energy" is another which reeks of superficiality.

So, all of you "born again" scientists have a "rock" to place your antlers on but its only superficial and further insight should make you realize that the "rock" is not the "laws of physics" but totally related to one's self, the proper study of the scientist in our time.

It would be interesting if one would start a post on the "laws of physics" or at least one of these so called laws such as gravity or energy. i would love to see the critical intellects of this forum go to it, sans authority, for this could be truly enlightening.

To suggest that a tornado would not behave in such a way that it would defy our understanding of physical laws is not an assertion that any proposition prefaced by the phrase 'laws of physics' is irrefutable.

Also, an hypothesis is just the starting point, a proposition that may not have any evidence to support it. The accumulation of evidence results in a set of principles based on that evidence, that's a theory, and theories with enough evidence become scientific fact. Evolution is one example. An example of a hypothesis for which there is no evidence from which you could develop a theory might be Russel's Teapot.

So all our scientific understanding cannot be undermined or made to look of equal value across the board simply by calling it ''hypothesis", that is an error. (And even if it weren't an error it would equally undermine the god hypothesis....)

One of the more (most?) common arguments is that all this stuff is the result of "the fall." That is, Eve bites the apple, sin enters the world, everything gets ****ed up. Things like floods, tornadoes, school shootings, whatever, are all a result of that fall from grace.

So it's not like God is sending tornadoes to punish the gays or the muslims or whoever the villain of the week is or anything, it's just that, as a result of sin being in the world (which humans are incapable of removing, since according to the Bible all people sin), bad **** like this now happens.

Yeah, being raised in a church, this is one of the standard answers. Bad things happen because of sin. I wonder if it's truly Biblical or simply a churchism that was constructed to keep the masses pleased/secure in their beliefs.

Some thoughts about the discussion thus far:

1) I disagree with the idea that God doesn't break the laws of physics so that it would be easy for people to believe in him. I think you have to disregard huge portions of both testaments if you want to claim that. The Bible claims that God stopped the sun in the sky for awhile during one of Joshua's battles so that Joshua would have enough time to fully destroy his opponents. (I also think there was a second, more minor instance of this happening during Isaiah/Hezekiah's time?) In the new testament, you've got stories of Jesus calming storms, of Peter walking on water (for awhile at least), of kids raised from the dead, of convenient earthquakes that happen to open jail cells but not destroy buildings, etc, etc, etc.... So, yeah, I'm pretty sure God chooses to break the laws of physics sometimes.

2) I have never heard of quantum uncertainty leading to tornado location/direction. That is (imo) too far of a stretch of the limits of the butterfly effect. Yes, quantum uncertainty exists in small sample sizes, but once you get to anything the size of a butterfly wing, the laws of statistics have taken over, and it's more of a determined system. No, I'm not saying the butterfly effect is bunk. It exists. But in no way does quantum uncertainty affect human-scale events (unless you want to plug the tornado into a quantum cpu I suppose).

3) The more I personally have struggled with the problem of evil, the closer I've nudged towards the idea that, compared to infinity, a life of suffering is meaningless, same as a life of pleasure. We humans tend to dismiss the idea of extremely long periods of time, and focus moreso on stuff less than a couple thousand years or so. Christians (imo) allow their warped time scale to bias their arguments/logic too much. On the one hand, they usually hide behind the infinity argument while worrying nonstop about what they're going to wear tomorrow. On the other hand, they dismiss a non-God evolutionary scheme because they cannot wrap their minds around just how long 15 billion or so years is. Meh, sorry for the rant. Anyways, the one internal struggle I have left with the infinity vs. lifetime of suffering idea is that, if I understand correctly, the Bible states that we only have this short lifetime to determine whether or not we get an infinity of heaven or an infinity of hell. I'll probably come to terms with that in the next few years though I suppose.

IMHO if and when a Christian-type God intervenes in the world, he does it through people. He gives humans the will and the means to make changes. They have to care enough to ask for it. If people don't care, then God won't care.

In the future, deaths from natural disasters like tornados ought to become less and less because people can build many more storm shelters, can build stronger dwellings, and heed early warnings better.

I agree with a lot of this ...

The problem is that people, in general, are very hypocritical and they don't truly care about the lives and well-being to those around them.

It's easy to talk about how "evil" God is by not doing anything to help those children -- then not think twice about doing something themselves.

It's easy to talk about how "evil" God is by not feed all the starving people in (insert poor country here) -- then walk right past the homeless man on the street.

I'm not trying to undermine your "facts" but asking you to examine your principles of time and space in lieu of these "facts". I'm also not undermining "hypothesis" in the sense that its all totally wrong for a scientific 'fact" cannot be gainsaid. there is no approach to "facts" which can deny a truth of science.

Now, the obverse, you spoke generally and gave credence to the being of science in that , as a movement it brings us to a picture of the world of immense quality. This is hyperbole, almost a prayer, to an entity in your mind who cannot be wrong. How can i speak to you if you throw out crap about science that at the very least approaches the metaphysical but you accept as a given without contention or better yet you will not allow me any contention because this is important for you, not in the least the world.

To accuse a person of denying science by looking askance at religion or the religious is a non starter. The science of the day does not hold the true reality, forever and always, even with a mobile 'hypothesis". Justifying "hypothesis' as if I were an unwashed being doesn't speak to the problem.

The only way to get around this, if that is even possible, is to speak specifically to the "law" which is made to be broken and morph into another "law" which is nearer to" hypothesis".

Now you, as a scientist, arrogates some sort of feedback system in which a "fact' or finding is categorized and others add to and clarify the same about nature, or other matters. Somehow posts on this forum seem to arrogate this only for the scientist and this, to them becomes virtuous also implying that only science does this. Of course, anyone who has bowled a line of 10 pins knows that if the alley is dry and the hook large he moves to the left and changes his spot more to the middle of the alley in order to control his hook.( assuming right handed of course) Damn, bowlers and scientists rule the world.

The above is of course a "thinking" process, a process to which we all, in some manner are within and this is the reason why the study of "thinking" is primary before we deal with the "facts" of existence. A scientist may be able to weigh a potassium mineral but remember, this is a relative measurement to a weight somewhere in Europe as is a length or centimeter. These are the "facts" of modern science, or better yet those allowed within the periodicals of our time. This is the "fall back" in case someone goes beyond the ken and disrupts the home of materialistic magic.

If the structure of science is "measure" then it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. if you can't measure it it doesn't exist ,scientifically that is. We all know that there is more to the world than measurement; experience of hate or envy or the wondrous enthusiasm of the poet and for certain this will not be considered the realm of the metric scientist. Disparagingly it is spoken of as "qualia" a despicable term which contains its own dismissiveness, in the scientific eye.

Having a sound mind full approach to the world is not the exclusive ownership of the scientist. the word "science" comes from the Latin word "scire" or "to know" and this implies not only "measured facts' but a much broader activity of thinking and thought to which, in the last resort, the modern scientists denies, perforce, so long as the material is taken as the only basis for reality.

So god could have deflected the tornado but presumably either chose not to, or he made it hit the school deliberately?

He did have the power to change the course but the jury is out on whether or not he cared. If punishment was the goal, who is being punished, the children or their grieving relatives?

Do you think it's more likely that you'll come to terms with it rather than deciding it makes the existence of god less likely than you currently believe?

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If the Bible is a correct description of God, then yes, he could have deflected it. As to why he didn't, I'll refer to your all-time favorite Christian-under-a-rock answer: mysterrrrrrrrrrrrious wayyyyyyyyys.

So I can't say whether or not punishment was the goal. I would tend to disbelieve that it was. Using Sodom and Gomorrah as the only Biblical example I can think of, there weren't even 10 righteous people in the city. It would be pretty presumptive of me to assume there were less than 10 righteous people in the path of the tornado.

I doubt I'll ever flip on the existence of God, due to personal experience. Several months ago, I listed a number of reasons I might flip, but I highly doubt any of those instances will happen within my lifetime. But we'll see.

On a side note, I would be interested in a discussion of what the critical mass of suffering is before one should doubt the existence of an omnipotent God who claims to be love.

I don't see how god can intervene to the point you suggest while avoiding detection by statisticians. However, if he intervenes just enough to go unnoticed, then the claim can be made he has been doing this all along. How else can people thank god for their good fortune that they or their loved one was spared, while others around them lost loved ones? In these cases, god did just what you suggested and intervened, albeit discreetly so no one would notice. And remember the tornado on April 6th 1984 tornado that was on direct course to hit a day care center until got nudged it away? Thank you lord!

Everyone is punished because they exist in a world where sin exists, and mankind is the one that allowed that. The tornado and who got hurt in this specific incident is, well, incidental. The whole system is broken (and humans broke it), and that's why bad things happen. Trying to figure out why one specific bad thing happened or why God didn't intervene in any one time/place is a red herring. The whole world is full of sin (according to the Bible, everyone has sinned) and that has consequences, one of which is suffering and death.

Probably should note now that I'm actually an atheist, but I had a Christian upbringing and studied theology to a limited extent in college, so that answer, while I believe it reflects Christian orthodoxy, doesn't reflect my personal beliefs.

4.