God

[ilovesatan]

If god is the one responsible for creating the weather, natural disasters as such and he knows that he is creating them and that they kill innocent lives, I call god the real evil of the world, not satan but god.

[Vanguard]

If god is the one responsible for creating the weather, natural disasters as such and he knows that he is creating them and that they kill innocent lives, I call god the real evil of the world, not satan but god.

When I was a teenager my maternal grandmother died with a colostemy(sp?) bag attached to her secondary to a cancerous condition that caused considerable pain and discomfort for a time before her demise.

A few years earlier my paternal grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack while shoveling snow on the driveway. I can only imagine the brief but exquisite pain he must have experienced before losing consiousness.

My maternal cousin died on the operating table when he was 2 1/2 due to a congenital heart defect. My aunt & uncle still think of him regularly...

I guess it is only for the gental reader to conclude that God represents the purest from of evil possible else how could he have allowed such things?! Indeed!

[msmcneal]

We've all had unfortunate deaths in our families. Death is, unfortunately, a part of life, and one we all have to deal with. The question I had in questioning God's ultimate love in all this was, not that death happens, but the manner and circumstances in which it happens. What is the purpose of chronic diseases, one's that cause immense amounts of pain for extended periods? Especially when one is a firm believer? Or children being taken by horrible diseases or natural disasters. These should not happen if a god is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing. They are contradictory, and I cannot comprehend how someone could believe this. It makes no sense.

[Cathar1950]

We've all had unfortunate deaths in our families. Death is, unfortunately, a part of life, and one we all have to deal with. The question I had in questioning God's ultimate love in all this was, not that death happens, but the manner and circumstances in which it happens. What is the purpose of chronic diseases, one's that cause immense amounts of pain for extended periods? Especially when one is a firm believer? Or children being taken by horrible diseases or natural disasters. These should not happen if a god is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing. They are contradictory, and I cannot comprehend how someone could believe this. It makes no sense.

I too tend to think the ideas about God are hard to reconcile with horrific suffering.
What would we call a person that watches people suffer and they can and don't do anything about it?
What do we call a parent that sees their child hurt and does nothing?
Even comfort seems lacking.
Of course we may hug the child and say it will be OK and most of the time we would be right.
I like to think of love as a sympathetic union where we feel with the other and share joy and sorrow pleasure and pain of living or being alive.
Some like Charles Hartshorne see God as related to everything in such a way as God feels everything and remembers absolutely or without limits.
For Hartshorne God is enriched by our experiences while never being surpassed by anything and that there are limits to what we can even mean by absolute.
Absolute is an abstraction not a real attribute.

[Vanguard]

We've all had unfortunate deaths in our families. Death is, unfortunately, a part of life, and one we all have to deal with.

But shouldn't we also have an issue with the pain the Christian God has allowed to have happen to these individuals who have suffered an "unfortunate death"?

The question I had in questioning God's ultimate love in all this was, not that death happens, but the manner and circumstances in which it happens.

Do you mean like someone suffering a heart attack for 60 seconds at the age of 50?

What is the purpose of chronic diseases, one's that cause immense amounts of pain for extended periods?

By "immense amounts of pain for extended periods" do you mean like more than 3 months? 6 months? A year? A hurricane can strike a community and kill many adults immediately. Though the hurricane did not cause "immense amounts of pain for extended periods" shouldn't it still count as an example of an uncaring god?

Especially when one is a firm believer?

What if that firm believer accepts his fate with dignity and harbors no animosity toward the Christian God for his fate?

Or children being taken by horrible diseases or natural disasters. These should not happen if a god is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing. They are contradictory, and I cannot comprehend how someone could believe this. It makes no sense.

Again, why exactly should children dying of horrible disease not happen? What about the child who suffered a horrible disease that lasted for many decades before a cure was found? Isn't this also an example of an uncaring God? How could a god let a child go through that pain for so long considering that even after the cure was found the now grown man was left with an indelible trauma that would emotionally leave him scarred for the rest of this life? Isn't this the mark of an evil god too?

My somewhat facetious nature aside, I find you are in a bit of a connondrum when you attempt to delineate between actions showing an uncaring god and those actions we "all have to deal with"? If the Christian God were uncaring in some of your more horrific examples how can he not be uncaring for the less horrific ones that also caused pain? Or are we trying to qualify amounts of pain predicated only on our individual sensibilities?

It seems to me the issue boils down to one of two choices, 1) God should not allow any pain to visit mankind considering that he is suppose to be all-loving, or 2) pain and suffering are allowed to happen for reasons. Given that the Christian God is considered all-loving, how can there be any other option?

[Nilloc James]

It seems to me the issue boils down to one of two choices, 1) God should not allow any pain to visit mankind considering that he is suppose to be all-loving.

However in the bible he causes pain voiding this option.
evidence:http://nasb.scripturetext.com/genesis/19.htm

2) pain and suffering are allowed to happen for reasons. Given that the Christian God is considered all-loving, how can there be any other option?

As shown above god is responsible for at least some of these instances.

[Vanguard]

It seems to me the issue boils down to one of two choices, 1) God should not allow any pain to visit mankind considering that he is suppose to be all-loving.

However in the bible he causes pain voiding this option.
evidence:http://nasb.scripturetext.com/genesis/19.htm

2) pain and suffering are allowed to happen for reasons. Given that the Christian God is considered all-loving, how can there be any other option?

As shown above god is responsible for at least some of these instances.

I understand the Bible is replete with passages claiming a vengeful Christian God. I don't believe this is the issue.

Considering the Christian God is believed to be all-powerful by those who worship him how can he not be implicated in all suffering that mankind experiences? Why only those examples of "calamities" that offend any given individual's sensibilities? Or calamities that are only outlined in the Bible? Is he the author of everything or not?

[Rekon]

Considering the Christian God is believed to be all-powerful by those who worship him how can he not be implicated in all suffering that mankind experiences? Why only those examples of "calamities" that offend any given individual's sensibilities? Or calamities that are only outlined in the Bible? Is he the author of everything or not?

maybe this perception that you have of God proves that we in fact see god as what we want to see him and lack the knowledge to see him as how he really is?

[flavi0]

Question: "Why does God allow natural disasters, i.e. earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis?"

answer http://www.gotquestions.org/natural-disasters.html

[Confused]

If god is the one responsible for creating the weather, natural disasters as such and he knows that he is creating them and that they kill innocent lives, I call god the real evil of the world, not satan but god.

Hmm.... Can you show where God created the weather? If I mix two substances together for one reason, and a side effect occurs outside the reason, am I evil for mixing the substances to begin with when the original reason resulted in something positive, like a habitable atmosphere?

[Gonzo]

If god is the one responsible for creating the weather, natural disasters as such and he knows that he is creating them and that they kill innocent lives, I call god the real evil of the world, not satan but god.

Hmm.... Can you show where God created the weather? If I mix two substances together for one reason, and a side effect occurs outside the reason, am I evil for mixing the substances to begin with when the original reason resulted in something positive, like a habitable atmosphere?

Isn't he supposed to be "all-knowing" and "all-powerful"? Shouldn't he have seen those side effects coming? And if not, couldn't he just change the laws of reality to eliminate such side effects?