If that question has ever crossed you mind, you really need to listen to this podcast of a recent hour from Dennis Prager’s radio show, which his website describes this way:

Dennis talks to one of the world’s most renowned Biblical scholars, Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the early Church and the life of Jesus. His latest book is God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer.

This is really a fascinating hour. Among the professor’s positions I found to be most astounding:

• He finds the state of the world so inconsistent with the existence of a loving God that he turned from evangelical Christian to atheist.
• Life is no more meaningful if there is a creator than if there is not one.

Prager raised one of my favorite arguments, which I’ve heard from him before. That is, mankind would ask why a loving God would allow suffering no matter how little suffering was in the world. Take away suffering from earthquakes, and we would demand an answer from God as to why he allows tornadoes. Take away tornadoes, and we would demand to know why God allows floods. Take away all natural disasters, and we would demand why he allows cancer, then diphtheria, and eventually we’d be demanding to know why he allows the flu, the common cold, bee stings, or even stubbed toes.

There is a place where God removes all suffering, but it’s heaven, not here.

By the way, the podcast omits commercials and the discussion takes about 35 minutes. Tells you how little of the typical talk radio “hour” is really filled by what you’re actually tuning in to hear!