Why does God allow such horrible thinngs to happen?

[bb1webs]

Hi all and thank you for coming in.

I just wanted to toss this out somewhere that it might do some good.

Take or make of it what you will.

Q: If there is a god then Why would God allow such suffering and misery and horrible things to happen?

A: To appreciate something you must have scale. If everything tasted fantastic to you ... fit your idea of perfect food... then how would you ever know it was the best tasting or the perfect foods if you had never had any that were bad tasting? You couldn't because there'd be nothing to compare. Only the one ... so without scale there is nothing.
Imagine not knowing the true feeling of joy. Without sorrow to compare .. how would you ever know it? Same is true of pain and pleasure. Imagine not knowing how great sex feels because you gave that option up to avoid the pain of stubbing your toe? And the better the experience ... the worse the possibilities then become on the other end of the spectrum.

It is not God that forces us to visit both ends of the spectrum but he certainly yes .. does make it possible. That's a great gift which we've never used correctly. If everyone did like Jesus .. there'd be seldom times we would ever face the dark side of the spectrum. We as individual human beings generally are in charge of the outcome of our worlds. It may be a cliche but if everybody truly DID act all the time as asking themselves: what would Jesus do? There'd almost be no need to have asked the above question. We make the world we live in whether it be by choices we support or those we did not enough of us speak out against when we had the chance ... that has left us with the world we have today.

[TheMessage]

Except that if this God is omniscient, then the course of our individual lives is predetermined. This of course means that whatever pleasure or suffering we find is known and decided beforehand by God.

Now, let's look to Kenya where children are born, starve, contract horrible diseases, then die knowing a disproportionate level of suffering in relation to any miniscule pleasure they might have found. This alone eliminates any possible notions that God created pain so that pleasure would be better, as if this were the intention no individual would have to shoulder the burden of significant suffering without also gaining significant pleasure.

[shondaypoo]

God made mankind and in doing so he gave us free will.The pain and suffering we have brought upon our self by endulging in Satan's ways. God brings us through the pain and suffering by giving us eternal life after death...No more pain and suffering all for the asking. All you have to do is ask for your sins to be forgiven and take Jesus into your heart. The pain of this life will end! Satan has a strong hold on so repent now and change your evil ways and bask in the light of everlasting love!

[McCulloch]

God made mankind and in doing so he gave us free will. The pain and suffering we have brought upon our self by endulging in Satan's ways. God brings us through the pain and suffering by giving us eternal life after death...No more pain and suffering all for the asking. All you have to do is ask for your sins to be forgiven and take Jesus into your heart. The pain of this life will end! Satan has a strong hold on so repent now and change your evil ways and bask in the light of everlasting love!

Couldn't God have given humans free will without also providing a Satan?
So, the first humans disobeyed a command and as a consequence, they and their descendants face viruses and all sorts of misery? Is your concept of God much different from a sadistic little boy who pulls the wings off of flies?

[OnceConvinced]

A: To appreciate something you must have scale. If everything tasted fantastic to you ... fit your idea of perfect food... then how would you ever know it was the best tasting or the perfect foods if you had never had any that were bad tasting? You couldn't because there'd be nothing to compare. Only the one ... so without scale there is nothing.

Oh ok, so God allows children to be beaten and raped so they will appreciate more the times when they are not beaten and raped? God allows horrible torture and cruelty so that people will be able to appreciate the times when they are comfortable and feeling pleasure. Oooookay.

Imagine not knowing the true feeling of joy. Without sorrow to compare .. how would you ever know it?

Suffering is one thing. Extreme suffering is something different again. I think it's the extreme suffering that people object to. Everyone expects life to be tough.

Same is true of pain and pleasure. Imagine not knowing how great sex feels because you gave that option up to avoid the pain of stubbing your toe?

And I suppose that God allows people to be raped so that when they have consensual sex they will enjoy it a lot more?

It is not God that forces us to visit both ends of the spectrum but he certainly yes .. does make it possible. That's a great gift which we've never used correctly. If everyone did like Jesus .. there'd be seldom times we would ever face the dark side of the spectrum. We as individual human beings generally are in charge of the outcome of our worlds. It may be a cliche but if everybody truly DID act all the time as asking themselves: what would Jesus do? There'd almost be no need to have asked the above question. We make the world we live in whether it be by choices we support or those we did not enough of us speak out against when we had the chance ... that has left us with the world we have today.

There are many rolemodels throughout history who we should emulate. Ghandi would be one. Maybe even Mother Theresa. I'm not sure Jesus is the ideal rolemodel as he demonised those who did not go along with his thinking.

[colpal19]

Your argument is essentially that without pain, we can never appreciate pleasure. Well if God is omnipotent, can he not simply create us to naturally appreciate pleasure without having to experience pain or naturally appreciate good without having to experience evil? Sort of like we naturally want to breath without having to hold our breath.
If God were truly all-good, horrors like the rape and mutilation of children, global starvation, or disgusting standards of living in places like the slums of India and Africa simply would not exist. Tell a starving African child that he suffers because God wants him to appreciate pleasure of which he has never experienced, or tell the family of a child who is kidnapped and murdered that they suffer so that God could show them how much they loved their child, I think they already knew.
We do not have a choice but to face some of the horrors of life. Disease, starvation, injury, loss, mental anguish are not things we choose! Why would anyone choose that? Even the holiest, the richest, the luckiest, will all experience pain and suffering eventually in their life. How can it possibly be said that God does not force us to feel suffering? Or that living like Jesus can save us of from suffering. (And by the way, according to the bible, Jesus experienced great torture and agony and all of the above mentioned horrors of life. He even questioned God asking why he had forsaken him.)

[handofnergal]

Hi all and thank you for coming in.

Thanks for having us

I just wanted to toss this out somewhere that it might do some good.

Take or make of it what you will.

Q: If there is a god then Why would God allow such suffering and misery and horrible things to happen?

A: To appreciate something you must have scale. If everything tasted fantastic to you ... fit your idea of perfect food... then how would you ever know it was the best tasting or the perfect foods if you had never had any that were bad tasting? You couldn't because there'd be nothing to compare. Only the one ... so without scale there is nothing.

I disagree, in order for something to be appreciated a scale is not required. If that were the case, we would never be able to enjoy anything without a basis for comparison. A newborn baby, with only a few days on Earth, can never be subjected to anything but complete love and still enjoy being caressed. It does not need to experience pain before being able to compare it to a pleasure. Having a comparison is only useful is description, but one is not contingent upon the other. Actually the human body, like the body of all Primates, is hard wired to feel pain and pleasure. No education is required to experience either.I take issue with your analogy.

Imagine not knowing the true feeling of joy.

As opposed to the false feeling of joy? It doesn't work like that, false joy is not really joy. A rock is a rock and not not a rock.

Without sorrow to compare .. how would you ever know it?

Hard-wired into the brain. Even chimps smile. Even blind people who never saw another person smile smile when happy. Built in emotional responses do not require education.

Same is true of pain and pleasure. Imagine not knowing how great sex feels because you gave that option up to avoid the pain of stubbing your toe? And the better the experience ... the worse the possibilities then become on the other end of the spectrum.

Sigh, the first time I masturbated it felt great, and while the idea of smashing my own penis with a hammer never occurred to me, thank God, the fact that it would have pained me terribly does not make sex feel any better or worse. It provides a useful basis for comarison or distinction between feelings of pain and pleasure, but one is not contingent upon the other. BTW, for some people pain is pleasure, that defies your analogy as well.

It is not God that forces us to visit both ends of the spectrum but he certainly yes .. does make it possible.

Excuse me? You have not yet demonstrated that God exists, I'm an atheist you see. Before attributing nerve pulses to a god you have first to make your case.

That's a great gift which we've never used correctly.

Incorrect, all humans are born with the capacity to suffer, and we do use it correctly. It's a built in defense mechanism. A fire burns, if we stand in the fire, we walk away from it before it kills us. People with diseases feel pain as a symptom that they are sick, being sick forces them to seek a treatment. You have not addressed the question in the title, you are playing word games.

If everyone did like Jesus .. there'd be seldom times we would ever face the dark side of the spectrum.

considering that theists also suffer that is clearly not the case

We as individual human beings generally are in charge of the outcome of our worlds.

Really??? Soooo, I can make myself win the lottery? There are many things completely outside of my control.

It may be a cliche but if everybody truly DID act all the time as asking themselves: what would Jesus do? There'd almost be no need to have asked the above question.

LOL, wrong, and that is special pleading. All those people fighting in the Crusades were fighting for Jesus too, and yes, someone told them that killing for the Holy Land was a noble cause. Something tells me that if I told people that it's better to pluck out one of your own eyes or chop off one of your own arms than get thrown into hell that I would have a miserable life because even Christians would be telling me to shut the hell up.

We make the world we live in whether it be by choices we support or those we did not enough of us speak out against when we had the chance ... that has left us with the world we have today.

The way the world is is completely not up to me, it's up to the collective human race. If I had it my way there would be no religions at all, but luckily I can't possibly achieve that. And you still havent asnswered your own question, so I'll do it for you.

God is imaginary, and imaginary beings can't do anything.

[florin3k3]

Except that if this God is omniscient, then the course of our individual lives is predetermined. This of course means that whatever pleasure or suffering we find is known and decided beforehand by God.

Now, let's look to Kenya where children are born, starve, contract horrible diseases, then die knowing a disproportionate level of suffering in relation to any miniscule pleasure they might have found. This alone eliminates any possible notions that God created pain so that pleasure would be better, as if this were the intention no individual would have to shoulder the burden of significant suffering without also gaining significant pleasure.

u're forgetting one thing. those kinds would also have to be christians in order to go to heaven;)

[sleepyhead]

Hello,

I just joined the forum recently. I believe in reincarnation. Instead of starting a new thread I want to respond to all of the responses to the original thread from the perspective of reincarnation as taught through the Edgar Cayce readings.

the message>>>:Except that if this God is omniscient, then the course of our individual lives is predetermined. This of course means that whatever pleasure or suffering we find is known and decided beforehand by God.<<<

The bible isn't really clear that the future can be known by God or anyone else. For a more in depth definition of open theism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism

the message>>>Now, let's look to Kenya where children are born, starve, contract horrible diseases, then die knowing a disproportionate level of suffering in relation to any miniscule pleasure they might have found. This alone eliminates any possible notions that God created pain so that pleasure would be better, as if this were the intention no individual would have to shoulder the burden of significant suffering without also gaining significant pleasure.<<<

Reincarnation views the world as one of many classrooms. This particular one was designed to teach us self discipline. Other worlds were designed to teach us somethingelse like loyalty, love, charity, truthfulness, etc. We all come here to work on an ultimate goal. The achievement of that goal means that we need to learn certain lessons and sometimes those lessons are hard.

McCulloch>>>Couldn't God have given humans free will without also providing a Satan?
So, the first humans disobeyed a command and as a consequence, they and their descendants face viruses and all sorts of misery? Is your concept of God much different from a sadistic little boy who pulls the wings off of flies?<<<

The difference between God and the sadistic child is that we (the flies) chose to come here in order to work towards an ultimate goal.

once convinced>>>There are many rolemodels throughout history who we should emulate. Ghandi would be one. Maybe even Mother Theresa. I'm not sure Jesus is the ideal rolemodel as he demonised those who did not go along with his thinking.<<<

Jesus got into some religious arguments in the NT. I don't think he was aware that his comments would be used in the future as an excuse to persecute the Jewish people.

florin3k3>>>u're forgetting one thing. those kinds would also have to be christians in order to go to heaven;)<<<

In my opinion there are basically 2 types of faith systems, the ones who claim life is a test, and those who claim life is a learning experience. Those who claim life is a test usually provide some sort of ace in the hole for members of their faith. For Christianity this is usually Jesus. Reincarnation (at least the version I believe in) believe life is a learnign experience. We have no ace in the hole.