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How can people who believe in a good God account for the existence of pervasive suffering and evil? This is the oldest and most powerful objection to both belief in God's existence and religious practice, and it has been the subject of philosophical discussion and theological speculation spanning many religious traditions for thousands of years. We've run into it in several previous episodes and each time said we'd eventually focus on it. Here we are. This is part one of a two-part episode introducing the problem and some of the major responses to it (called theodicies), as well as how we think about it personally.

Nothing we say here should be considered definitive or even very confident, and we're certainly not done talking about it. We're barely scratching the surface of an unimaginably vast complex of issues, and we approach it with fear and trembling. We hope that comes through in the discussion.

Due to the subject and the tone of this conversation, these episodes do not include a beverage tasting.

Content note: this conversation includes discussion of evil and suffering and is probably not suitable for children, though we make every effort to avoid explicit extreme examples where possible.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

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