See MA, the sad thing is I actually agree with you on almost everything you said. I would only seriously contest the whole downplaying of the act by trying to upgrade the children into adolescents or even young men. Check the passage on the WLC yourself, where it uses the phrase "נְעָרִ֤ים קְטַנִּים֙" which directly translates into 'little boys'. Which really is stretching it saying that actually means young men. To further the point, go search for other uses of "נְעָרִ֤ים קְטַנִּים֙" and you'll strain credulity further by trying to say that it should actually translate as 'young men'. This is just downplaying. And why even bother? What's the difference if God kills 42 men or 42 children? You were fine with it with the Egyptians.

I'll grant you this though. Let's say everything you have said is correct, INCLUDING that these 42 people are grown men and not children.

Now to the crux of my argument. No matter what God does, it HAS to be viewed as a just and good act. Because you have axiomatically, a priori, as your starting line, declared God omnibenevolent, utterly just, utterly good, INCAPABLE or UNWILLING to do evil. Therefore any act, ANY act is a just one, a good one. For how can it not be? To say otherwise is to say that God is NOT omnibenevolent, that he is NOT just, or good, or incapable of evil.


But where is the evidence for this premise of omnibenevolence? Why is this assumption held? For an atheist, this is looked at from completely the opposite way.
- We look at God's actions, and then reason backward as to what God must be (a tyrant, a dictator, a slave-master).
- When we see God killing 42 people with bears because they insulted/threatened a prophet, we contrast this to our own moral standards today. Such a thing is abhorrent to us. Why?? are our moral standards higher than a supposedly omnibenevolent God?

Yet for the theist, these hideous actions, and the omnibenevolence of God, NEED to be reconciled. That is why it is a 'problem' of evil.
- You reason FROM God is omnibenevolent TO how can these actions be justified/reconciled. As I have hopefully elucidated, this is a complete 180 from how an atheist does it.


So as you see, in order to convince any atheist using your current reasoning, you have to FIRST explain why God's omnibenevolence is already an established fact. I am not just accepting it prima facie like you are. And it is my sincerest belief, that as we examine this, we will find that circular logic has been employed.



Prima facie omnibenevolence quotes.


I will make a thread in Lite Discussion called "Problem of Evil" with a copy/paste of this post, so we can sate the people whining about derailing.