Why did god allow 9/11?

More of an idiot than the person asking the question?

...I think not.

But if the police were also omnipotent then surely they could instil in the minds of the future criminals the intuition not to commit the crimes?

Theists will spout their usual bull**** about free will and whatnot, but the Christian God (one of whom's attributes is omnibenevolence), simply couldn't have let it happen, if he truly is all-loving.

Kant said something about God as a parent, allowing humans to make mistakes as an essential part of human free will. To God, human suffering must be like a child locked in his bedroom crying because he did something stupid.

A more difficult question to answer, and one which TS would have done better to choose is the problem of "natural" evil, or suffering not caused by humans. I've heard a satisfactory theistic response to that other than

But if they had the "intuition" not to commit crimes instilled in them by these god-police then would that be true free will?

This is the crux of the argument of the FWD I suppose, some would argue that God could, if he exists, have created people with free will and the ability to do evil, but that never actually choose to do so. Others would say that this is logically nonsensical. There is also the other problem that if evil or the ability to do evil did not exist then the concept of good would be come meaningless.

Personally I've never heard the argument resolved conclusively either way. A more difficult question to answer, and one which TS would have done better to choose is the problem of "natural" evil, or suffering not caused by humans. I've heard a satisfactory theistic response to that other than

In the BuyBull.

That argument really only tends towards modern times, and is based around the value of life in our modern day world. In far earlier times people used to be much more accepting about death and suffering, it was a natural part of life and death wasn't something to be agonized over.

Nowadays with medical advancements people try and play God too much - in a historical context the notion that one might be 'risking death' by smoking or drinking was simply ridiculous, death wasn't a risk or something avoidable, it was a fact.

People suggest that illnesses are a natural evil sometimes, but it raises the question of how one imagines one is going to die. The concept of natural evil in the now is anything that takes away or impinges on our manufactured human lives, generally with bias towards the capitalistic way of life. Which, really, isn't any evil at all.

Really, to answer the genuine question of natural evil one must first work out what are lives for, and how they should be best lived for the world as a whole. Then, one should assess the impact natural evil has on this way of life, and to what extent are the evils genuinely evil, as opposed to an essential part of life and death,

Along a different line of argument, human suffering at the hands of nature could easily be attributed to human faults and errors - earthquakes wouldn't kill so many if we didn't build massive cities, famines wouldn't be an issue if people didn't over-breed (which is brought about by advancements in healthcare).

Before, say, the industrial revolution, or even earlier, humans tended towards temperate, hospitable climates and there were generally only as many humans in any ecosystem as it could support. People used to live in a far more harmonius, sensible way with nature - how many natural distasters do you think happened to American-Indians before the white settlers came along.

I'd conclude, in short, that most natural evil is either not actually evil, or is caused by the actions of humans.

But is true free will really that important? I don't take the absolutist view that there must either be complete free will or we will all be robots.

It will never be resolved because anyone can easily say 'we cannot understand God's ways, they are beyond our rational capacity'. There is no real conclusive comeback to that. However, for me, I cannot reconcile the existence of such extensive evils with the existence of an all-loving God. I don't care if my perception of 'all-loving' is based on puny human reasoning, that is all I have to go by.

That sort of works if you look at it as God treating humanity as a whole, but what about the individual people who did nothing at all who died slowly and painfully choking on the fumes from the burning hot jet fuel? Why didn't God show them omnibenevolence? It's all well and good saying that God allows bad things to happen to humanity because he's treating them like naughty kids, teaching them a lesson, but leaving people to die terrible deaths means he simply cannot be all loving.

I guess the dudes flying the planes were praying to God that the attack would work, and no one else expected it so they hadn't bothered praying that it wouldn't. God has to pick a side somehow, after all.