How Does One Reconcile a Loving God? (a discussion)

The loving god that helps a person's favorite team win a football game or the one that allows holocausts?

The "loving god" that unifies reality in one cohesive experience were suffering and pleasure are the two complimentary sides of the same coin that allows value into our lifes otherwise depleted of any meaningful purpose. This "god" is reality itself and the order that grounds its existence.
Truth be told new atheits are good at pointing obvious childish interpretations of metaphysics but lousy at getting the more nuanced points. A petty intellectual debate on the matter is so polarized and superficial.

Save some of these nuanced points from children beaten and starved to death, malformed births and wholesale slaughter of entire populations.

Anyone who wants to convince me that the biblical God has a favourite team would have to show me a biblical premise, I know Tottenham have a strong Jewish following but it is clear that God is not with them ;P

The assertion that mankind is in a very poor state is a valid perception, one we share. Anyone who claims otherwise would be living in a bubble,
I would suggest that indicates an absence of God in mans affairs, while scriptures support that the world is lying in the hands of the wicked one. 1 John 5:19

Some try to remove from the concept of god the old man with a beard. But in my opinion as soon as they grant purpose or magic to the equation no matter how complex and abstract the god they have not really gotten rid of the old man with a beard. When you give it purpose or grant it magic powers it becomes humanized.

No offense Smiley but reconcile with what

I'd guess you mean misfortune, crime, suffering, etc. Easily explained by the almost obvious conclusion that She's not supernatural, can't do anything that's impossible

Not absence but limitation, as above. Us apodictical existential pantheists maintain Universe is Her body and all the activity therein Her thinking

Through tortured and heavily rationalized interpretation?

Magic powers ya say ? Sure not pointing fingers at my grasp of the matter...I absolutely detest any notions of magic whatever is the topic. That has nothing to do with recognizing the ground of all being. Some people really have a cultural prejudice with the wording "Metaphysics"...they immediately assume we all speaking the same bull. Fact fact is that Materialism is bankrupted. Matter per se is of no much importance, nothing without information and order ! Actually the subject its easy to grasp when we reach for it.

Ummmmm .... shouldn't that be "reconcile an unloving god", in that a loving god would not require reconciling?

A thoughtful mind inquires.

People like Tillich lose me in the labyrinth they create. I will stick with materialism.

Those and other horrors are part of the deal when it comes to reality.
All is (must be) at risk if you gone have some value fluctuation. Fragility is of essence too make life and experiencing worth having and protecting.
Its funny Edgar how Christian Eden like world views still prevail in many atheists mind sets. Just when you think you got rid of it you fall into the Christian cultural trap all over again eh..

In the information age where software is more and more indistinguishable from hardware, where the order of things is what dictates what they do and are you gona stick with materialism ? Heck top class physicists are debating everywhere right now if we live in a simulation within a simulation within...see a pattern there ? Many of them just don't realize they debate metaphysics every day...Everett many worlds comes to mind.

Lots of that speculation smacks more of science fiction than provable concepts.

The trade of science is done of stumbling in speculation, much of it philosophy admitted or not, fashionable or not fashionable...besides I don't see the relation. If your source of knowledge is absolute certainty then you don't have much to learn anywhere my dear friend. Information, the very order of things is of essence. Things without order would not even exist. You see "materialism" has a concept is obscure because it appeals to the thing in isolation and not the ordering of the thing information, or its interactions with other sources of information, a far more powerful and insightful concept to have for reference in describing what the world is.
I have always considered you a smart soul at A2K but age is getting the best of you ! Try not to ramble so much old man.

I think you are reading too much into this. I understand that speculation is necessary and leads to discovery. That still doesn't negate what I said about science fiction, re quite a bit of it.

Love is often a tool used to recruit.

Me too Fil. We see everything She is and does as perfectly natural

you can deny God's Omnipotence and wallow in pity, because the world has very sad things in it (we lost a longtime pet this morning) or you can believe that every tear can and will be wiped away.
I am a convert, now a Catholic, and I know that the emotional side of the temporary relief of 'there is no God' is very dark ultimately.