"How do you explain this?"

The title question is what someone often asks after calling attention to an event that appears to contradict one of the responder's beliefs. Its implied meaning is "If you can't fit this actual occurrence into your perspective convincingly, why do you continue to think that your foundational assumptions are right?"

However, this line of argument generally isn't persuasive...for any side. Since nobody can cause the event in question to recur nor investigate it more exhaustively after-the-fact, nobody should expect to have the event be perfectly explained...by anyone. Hence, events of this type fall partially or completely into the realm of the unknown. And the way that someone explains or understands the unknown is just his or her own preexisting assumptions.

1. "Horrible event X happened. But you say that your god is good. How do you explain this, Christian?" One of the rather standard Christian stances is that an omniscient God is to some degree unknowable (well, "unfathomable") in His thoughts and actions in relation to the "big picture" of the whole of creation in time. So the true, full morality and/or purpose of an event is unknown to all but God. Therefore, all that we can honestly say about how we explain a specific event is that we continue to believe that God is good (or bad, or nonexistent, etc.).

2. "We prayed earnestly on behalf of X's health, and a few days later the sickness is almost gone. But you say that based on the evidence of the universe, God must be either nonexistent, morally ambiguous, or even evil. How do you explain this, atheist?" An atheist might retort that a specific regression of illness is impossible to analyze completely, and in any case medical knowledge isn't absolutely complete. So the true, full physical cause of an event is unknown. Therefore, all that we can honestly say is that we continue to believe that a god wasn't involved (or that He was, etc.).

The upshot is that people can usually find sufficient "wriggle room" within any evidence to support what they already believe. They answer "How do you explain this?" with "I can't examine the evidence as much as I would like, to remove all doubt; nevertheless, I still assume _______."