i guess that the children in third world countries who are born with HIV and who die of starvation and / or infected drinking water before their first birthday must have such strong faith (as opposed to original sin) in order for God to allow them to be tested so.

especially since they have never even heard of 'Christ' or 'Jesus' or 'God' and lack the cognitive capacity to commit to follow any of the above or to confess / repent from their sins.

or perhaps they are being punished for the sins of their ancestors.

God loves us to much that he made the world such that... people needed to suffer in order to have greater faith... why couldn't he have made it such that suffering wasn't required for faith to increase? oh, but God can do anything so I guess the question becomes: 'why did God choose to make it such that we needed to suffer in order to have greater faith?'

Was the holocaust to increase the faith of the Jewish peoples do people think?

Personally...

I think it is a cop out. It is a way of attempting to explain why bad things happen to good people. I don't think it does explain why bad things happen to good people, however. It just shuffles the problem back one step to 'why did God make it such that one had to suffer the bad in order to increase our faith'?

Another thing that it does is shift (or absolve) us from responsibility. Instead of intervening (to help those in the third world, to help those like Job) one can simply proclaim 'it is God's will! God will help him when he is ready to be helped!'

Sometimes things suck IMHO. It would be great if we took steps to doing something about it. But... They will reap their rewards or if they don't seem to be reaping their rewards then God will surely give them their just desserts in the afterlife. So... Doesn't matter really. One just needs to be apathetic and have faith in God!

What does it matter that the holocaust happened when the people will reap eternal reward in heaven?

I do struggle with this... Considerably...