It's not a matter of if I believe in God. All I have to do is look at nature in all of it's diversity and I know there is a God. And as a Christian I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. My question is whether he/they are benevolent, kind, and loving as my fervently Catholic mom and stepdad and my other, Protestant, family members believe. Or is He a son-of-a-bitch who doesn't give a damn?
   I can't talk to them because they will argue to their dying breaths that God is benevolent and He/they are watching everything that happens to me and all of mankind.  If God is so good then why does He allow, not only my own, suffering?
    I have had hydrocephalus and spina bifida since birth. I have also had over 150 surgeries in a little over 45 years. I have also known of children who have had cancers or other diseases that require multiple rounds of chemo only to kill them, painfully, in the end. What did they do? What did I do to deserve this?  What did people in Africa  and other places around the world do to deserve years of drought, starvation and disease?
   When I was a kid I believed in a benevolent God. When I was a teenager I believed He was a son-of-a-bitch who delighted in my suffering. I would pray fervently for my I.Vs to last and not infiltrate my veins so I wouldn't be painfully stuck multiple times. They never did. I would pray fervently that I would die during surgery. I always woke up and and cursed Him. I prayed fervently for God to take Charles Manson and not a good man like my father. My father died when I was 15 and Charles Manson is still in prison. Now, as an adult I want so much to believe in a benevolent Being, but I have been through and been made aware of too much suffering.