[quote="harmony"
God is no respector of persons. Therein lies the greatest blessing he could give us. The rain falls on the rich and the poor alike. We are required to care for our brothers, love our enemies, comfort the grieving and feed the poor. Do we? Or do we expect God to do it for us? Do we give what we have freely, or do we complain that we are made to feel guilty because we only grudgingly give it away? People are dying in Africa, yes, and everywhere else around the world. They always have. They always will. It is the nature of life. The only thing we can change is How. The choices we make in life is what determines the how of our death. Does the African tribeman choose to weild a machete in order to steal another's land and home? Or does he choose instead to be a healer, a peacemaker, a leader of his tribe in more modern ways? He chooses his own path, just as we choose ours. God will not take the agency given to anyone, not even those who do evil or whose choices mean dire consequences for others.
All of the suffering in this world is caused by men, not God.
I agree with many of your comments. God isn't supposed to interfere with another's agency. I believe it is up to each of us to change the world and the suffering we see. When it comes to my needs here in America, I just can't accept that He would bless me with finding my car keys while He ignores the millions of pleas and prayers to Him of those suffering at the hands of the most wicked actions on earth. My needs are very superficial in comparison. I don't want Him to help me if He won't help the child starving and orphaned because their parents were massacred.
So why do LDS believe that he intervenes for
them? My MIL fell asleep at the wheel when my DH was a baby and flipped her car over a few times with all the kids inside. There were some minor injuries but no fatalities. She believes God intervened to save them because they had missions to fulfill as Mormons/God's chosen. I have a really hard time believing God protected them from her poor choice of driving tired while he allows consequences of other peoples choices to play out all over the rest of the world. We see people make the same poor choices all the time and some get off lucky.
How can they attribute their luck to God without feeling they are more special than another? My TBM friends & family tell story after story of how God answered their prayers for a bigger house, moving, warning them of danger, getting a new job, having another baby, etc.
Much of the attitude I see in Chapels or testimony meeting indirectly comes from the belief that each of us are placed in our conditions based on our faithfulness to the law before we came. The teachings on the pre existence tell LDS that Africans are suffering because they were not good in heaven and LDS are so blessed because they are God's chosen/elect. That attitude makes me sick and I hear it all the time when I discuss the incomparable suffering of our brothers and sisters that were born in horrific circumstances.