> Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smit

> Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack. That is too cynical for my taste. People observe the world around them. They see that sometimes people prosper when they do evil. A lot of theology is an attempt to understand why this is the case. Perhaps the Gods fickle? Perhaps there are no Gods? Perhaps the Gods want to preserve human agency? Any religion that makes it a core tenant of the faith that God will prevent or punish X, and a human being is capable of doing X, will have dilemma when a human being do X and not be punished. So we have a survivorship bias in favor of religions that can bend without breaking. That religion, and human culture in general, is not falsifiable does not mean it is necessarily wrong anymore than ethics not being a science.