faith writes:
It's been explained pretty well already
I disagree. maybe I'm missing it... can you show me where that particular question:
how a christian can reconcile that with the notion of a benevolent/merciful (non-cruel) God.
has been answered?
I have carefully read through this entire thread and I don't see a direct answer to this question either.
I see plenty of people using the reverse of the argument to say that their basic premise is that they do not accept that God is cruel or unjust and therby concluding that the evidence that we think we see must be flawed in some way to make us think that he is.
This is just faith speaking IMO
Nobody ever said faith had to follow logic.
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