Here’s the problem that ended my belief in God. If God exists, he’s supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good. But terrible things happen to innocent people. Children get cancer. Natural disasters kill thousands. Either God can stop this suffering but chooses not to — which makes him cruel. Or he wants to stop it but can’t — which makes him powerless. Or he doesn’t know it’s happening — which makes him ignorant. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say God is perfectly good and perfectly powerful while children are dying in agony. Believers have spent centuries trying to solve this puzzle. They say suffering builds character, or it’s part of God’s mysterious plan, or it’s the price of free will. But none of these explanations work when you’re looking at a five-year-old with leukemia. Either God exists and isn’t what believers claim he is, or the God they describe doesn’t exist. I picked the second option.