SAYING IT IS OKAY FOR GOD TO LET NATURAL EVILS HAPPEN ATTACKS US AND IS THUS IMMORAL

Religion argues that the problem is that we sin and do wrong.  Tell it about earthquakes and plagues and it says that they are not the things to worry about and they just happen and are not really evil.  They are really natural evils in the sense that they are unpleasant but are not literally evil.  They are acts of a true and loving God.  Despite the fact that if natural evil did not happen, we would not feel so encouraged to do harm they try to pretend that natural evil and moral evil are separate issues.  You drink drive for example in the hope that if you kill somebody some fluke will make sure you do not get caught out.  Maybe the witnesses will be swept away in a flood and drowned.

Some say that they are indirect acts of God.  It is just nature doing things by itself.

To make it clear:

Creation means that God makes condoms in factories. Saying the workers do it is fine but it is not accurate and we have to use that kind of talk to avoid confusion. It is not meant to be precise if there is a God. It is practical. So God sings when the pop star sings. He is far more the cause than the workers or the pop star. It may not look like he is directly doing it but indirect does not necessarily imply he is not fully involved. He is more involved than they are. Indirect can be as strong or stronger than direct. He uses them to make condoms and sing. If he is that involved in human action then he is more involved then in things that just happen. Or is he? No creating is just creating and causing is just causing. The murder is as much God's doing as the creation of a new disease is.

If what you choose is your creation and you are really all-self made then your virtue is declared independent of God so you intend to create good regardless of what he thinks. It is arrogant defiance of God. It is however a virtue for it is reaching out to people not God. But then if you are self-made there is no God! True but that is not the point. It is still intending defiance of God if there is one.

Accept?

It makes no sense to tell people to accept the natural evils they cannot change such as meteorites crashing into the earth and wiping out cities and to tell them they don’t have to accept the behaviour of others towards them. They cannot change others any more than they can deflect the killer superbug. People are comforted by religion and its refusal to admit how terrible natural evil is. The sugarcoating is manipulative in the extreme.

It is important that we abhor belief in God and the teachings about natural evil being good enough to be engineered by God out of sheer compassion.

Accepting is one thing. Embracing is another. It is a wonder they don't tell you to embrace the evil when it cannot be avoided.

Speeding

The evil of a man driving too fast and risking his life is bad and evil because of the potential to lose his life.

It is evil yes but you would not ask for him to be condemned with moral outrage or punished. The evil is in the situation not the person.

This example proves that if nature can do non-moral evil so can people!

You see too that justice and punishment are not truly about concern for people but for order of a cherry-picked variety. People want enough order and orderliness but not as much as they should want.

Free will and moral evil are problematic so you cannot blame any evil on them

Moral evil is controversial so natural evil should be MORE controversial. If there is no free will or if it plays a tiny part in what we do then all or most of the evil we do is natural evil as well. Free will may give birth to how you use your fists to hurt people but natural evil does most of the work. Your free will did not give you the strength and the knuckles. Plus when we do right or wrong there will be unintended results direct and indirect that may be harmful. Even if we have free choice and misuse it there is a lot more to evil than misusing it. We rage against evil choice when we see the damage so it is not choice that matters so much as the harm done. So it is not natural for us to affirm that natural evil is not so vile that it confutes the doctrine that God loves us.

It cannot be shown that free will is logically possible or real. So free will amounts to a guess. If it is real then guessing it is all about a yes or to God is a guess. If free will is a guess that version of free will is a bigger one!

A man with free will who thinks he could be drugged to do things has no proper free will so free will requires that you know it is working and that you have it. But you do not know. You have the right to do evil of your own free will and say you didn't know you had free will and thus evade responsibility. Free will is supposed to be given by God because he wants us to freely decide if we will be immoral or moral. But what use is it with the loophole? To see it as a gift is to insult goodness never mind God.

Our problems with detecting free will, the power to do moral evil, are natural evils so natural evil is the bigger deal than moral evil.

Sufferer becomes a means not an end

God belief forces believers to use the suffering of others so they can be grateful for the good side.

People talk about their faith in this God who brings good out of natural evil. Examples. There would be no brave people if there were no human savages. There would be no good doctors if there were no terrible diseases. There would be no aeroplanes to go to Gran Canaria if people didn't die when aviation was finding itself. It goes on and on.

This is putting value on human good intentions and nothing else. The good that is concentrated on is only good intention wise. It is not good any other way and has NOT THE SLIGHTEST THING WITH SHOWING THE SITUATION OUGHT TO HAPPEN. It is good to be brave if there is nothing else you can do and the situation really is down to blind forces completely and ultimately. Believers end up being almost happy that cancer exists so that nurses may grow in virtue! Many believers clearly are!! Would the pope give a kidney to save somebody with kidney cancer? It never crosses his mind!

If it is good to develop a bad disease as long as nobody is doing it to you (including you!) and it is just blind nature that totally violates what we mean by good. Bad has nothing to do with whether a person is doing it or it is just happening.

You cannot brag that there is no compassion or courage without serious illness for that is you taking the attitude: "Little Mary suffers and screams. I choose to see the good in it." You use her to see the allegedly good side. You use her pain to tell yourself it ought to be.

Placebo

Natural evil is terrifying and we know if it is going to happen there is nothing we can do. The help that comes from God amounts to him helping us be more virtuous or brave in the face of such evil. That is supposed to compensate for the evil! We are using the thought as a placebo to deal with our horror of natural evil. That is the reason we justify it. That is the only reason. But what right have you to make the suffering of others which is far beyond your own a placebo? It is not about you. It is not an opportunity for you to find a way to dull the horror and filth of natural evil.