Serious question for theists: [Spirituality & Religion]

I know on this site I'm mostly known as one of those edgy atheists who make fun of religion and its followers all the time, but I do have a genuine question for the theists on this site:

How can you still believe there is an all-powerful, all-good god while looking at the world as it is?
Whenever I think about all the crazy and horrible stuff that happened and is going on the world rn I just [i]know[/i] that there cannot be a god who is omnipotent as well as omnibenevolent. It just doesn't add up.
Please don't be offended, I'm just genuinely curious.

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CopperCicada · M

I'm just going to throw this out there.

I come at religion more from a contemplative angle. Generating inner qualities. Looked at from that angle, no religious narrative needs to make sense. It needs to create an inner experience. One that informs how we relate to others. The unanswered questions we have in life, which includes some absolute-- God, enlightenment. Our meaning in life. Trying to reason through religious narratives is as fruitless and pointless as trying to defend them through science.

The problem of evil is perennial. There is no answer. Every answer we come up with is, hopefully, unsatisfactory when we actually face evil. But that's sort of the point. To keep asking and keep coming up with unsatisfactory answers. That might sound ridiculous, but if you approach faith from a contemplative angle-- that's a great gift. It brings the problem of evil up as an open question for us. Always. There is no complacency. There is no resting on the laurels of our faith, our reason.

Just an endless eternal "why".

And that only matters because of what it does to us. To our insides. Makes us vigilant, compassionate. Loving. Makes us ethical. What it does to our faith and confidence.