Hello. This is topic serves as both a question and introduction. I have just joined and wish to present to you some thoughts which I hope some of you can help me put into perspective. I am by no means great at articulation, debate or even philosophy for that matter, I'm at odds with where I stand and find myself caught between atheism and theism. One of my biggest contentions with theism is the idea of the personal God, specifically when we talk about evil. Personally I have seen many good men and women suffer tragedy, heartache and pain that is often inflicted with no fault of their own, either through injury, disease or crime. Many of these people I know of where devout Roman Catholics, including my own father and mother. 

For every time I've spoke about the tired 'Why do bad things happen to good people' topic, each person has had varying replies, but mostly all of whom deal with the topic of evil as if it were abstract, an entity that is kept at a comfortable distance from them. This can be exampled when we talk of the sad story of poverty halfheartedly, never taking it in until we actually venture to the third-world and see it for ourselves. I've found this to be my experience when talking to the philosophically minded about evil; some (not all) talk of it, but have never been confronted with pure evil. So the following I will share a means to be confronted with extreme evil. 

What I'm about to link is partly why I'm here and is my motivator on asking the question: Where is God when evil strikes? It is a non-graphic video, an audio recording of an emergency service call from a 6-year-old girl in El Salvador desperately begging for help as an intruder butchered her own mother right in front of her, and much later, butchered her. This is not visually violent, but will shake one to the core none-the-less: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dd2_1374431516

I will use this as an example of pure evil. A man enters a home and mercilessly slaughters the little girl's aunt and her mother before her very eyes. At a certain point in the call the little girl screams a prolonged, heart-wrenching and  chilling cry as she watches her mother's life drain right before her, it's right there that the girl's innocence is destroyed in an instant. All the while the man indifferently proceeds to kill the small child. The man was never caught.

So. Where is God here? This God whom created all of existence and is limitless in power, who is beyond space and time and supposedly infinite in his compassion?  A God who was seemingly oblivious to a girl's plea in a city named in his son's honor? I cannot wrap my head around this, and any attempts to think about it using reason always falls short compared to the arguments of emotion that it invokes. How do we begin to address this? It's hard for myself personally to come to terms with such a tragedy nor can I think of a good defense for God. At some point I always hold God accountable. 

An example I think of often is being witness to a potential murder and knowing you could potentially stop it. Should you chose to remain idle and let it unfold, what kind of man would you be? Why then doesn't God seem to hold himself to this standard? Why does he not intervene? And if we can demonstrate that God DOES intervene in some documented cases from tales of miracles, then why is he selective on whom he helps? 

At any rate, I've said all I wanted to say. I apologize if the substance of my post was more emotion than intellect, but this topic moves me on a deep level. Apologies if the above content comes across as too strong for the readers.