[Acrylic-bob]

At no time would I ever describe such events as an act of God because I do not believe that he caused them to happen. I do not see them as a punishment by a wrathful deity. I would not have the arrogance to label whole sections of humanity (or even individuals) as sinful and deserving of such acts as a punishment.
Perhaps not, but there are those who do, and highly vocal they are too.

Natural disasters are exactly that, natural - usually a result of cause and effect. Something happens somewhere and causes something else to happen somewhere else.

I believe that when mankind was placed upon the earth we agreed with God that we would take responsibility for it. He agreed not to interefere.

Where in Genisis does it say that there was any such agreement? Adam was Told that he was to be given Dominion over the animals. As for an agreement of non-interference, how is this squared with events like the expulsion from eden, Noah's flood, The plagues of egypt and the ten commandments, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the imposition of a messiah? If that is not interference I don't know what is, and can only be viewed as capriciousness on the part of the deity and also bad faith in not sticking to his part of the hypothetical 'agreement'.

Thus we would have the opportunity to learn. It's like with our own children. If we controlled every aspect of their lives for them they wouldn't benefit at all. We have to give them enough rope and hope that they don't hang themselves. More often than not they don't but sometimes they do.

I also believe that we can pray for help and that such help is often forthcoming,

Here again there is the problem of divine interference, which whether invited or not would nullify an 'agreement'.

but maybe, just maybe sometimes it is better for us to "go it alone" and learn from our mistakes.

My "why?" questions are directed to the people who do not share my beliefs because I find it difficult to understand what they see as being the reason behind everything.
Is it really so difficult to accept the possibility of the proposition that there is simply nothing 'behind everything' ?

For me the purpose of life is to learn from our earthly experiences and to progress. Some of us probably need more experience thanothers. Some of us need different experiences. Disciples once asked Jesus why a man had been born blind and if it was a punishment for something he or his parents had done. Jesus replied that it wasn't a punishment. (interesting that they mentioned it could have been something he'd done, that would have had to be before birth considering he was born blind) So what was the purpose? To teach other people compassion? To give Jesus the opportuinityt to heal him? To give Jesus and his disciples the opportunity to discuss life before birth? Lots of interesting possibilities.
And all of them callous and uncaring to a horrifying degree. If I had been born blind just to help someone else understand the need to be charitable I think I would be incandescent with rage and the responsible deity would certainly get no charity from me!

In response to post 95 I also think abortion is unnatural (unless it is spontaneous abortion by the body itself) and that artificially extending life is also unnatural. It's a topic we've discussed previously and I think I said then that we are better not to interefere too much with nature.

I only feel that I want to say all this because A-b described a believer's point of view and I wouldn't like people to think that it was mine.