World Suffering... Why?

[Burgoo]

I wanted people's thoughts on this as I have wrestled with it recently.

I went with a family member to a church she wanted to attend. I am atheistic though went to church from 10-15 years of age and wanted to be supportive and find out whether it'd feel different as an adult.

The minister started by mentioning Ukraine and then moved on to how God has a master plan, that he is good, he is almighty and he is merciful. He went on saying that children of Christ will be with him and the rest of us will perish.

I sat there thinking "God is merciful? Tell that to my Aunt who died horrifically of cancer, or the kids being bombed in Yemen and Ukraine".

So! Firstly, what do people think? Is it a reasonable response to have or am I missing something? For those who are church goers please do feel free to explain because I feel that either 1) god isn't real 2) god is real and can't intervene (in which case what use is he) or 3) god can intervene but opts not to or actively harms children.

Thanks in advance!

Stephen Fry had a take on this when asked what he would say to God.

"How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right.
“It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
Pressed by Byrne over how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, Fry says: “I would say: ‘bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’
“Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him?! What kind of god would do that?”
On how to explain the wonders of the world, Fry then launches an another attack on all seeing, all knowing God creator.
“Yes, the world is very splendid but it also has in it insects whose whole lifecycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. They eat outwards from the eyes. Why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable.
“It’s perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living in my opinion.”'

We can explain the universe, Big Bang etc. There is no evidence that a deity created it. I can’t believe something I have no evidence for.

If I go to a foreign country, I have to produce my passport to prove who I am. I can’t say ‘I’m Smokeahontas and you’ll just have to believe that cos it says so in a very old book’. There is no shred of evidence that proves there is a god.

@Burgoo

I wanted people's thoughts on this as I have wrestled with it recently.

I went with a family member to a church she wanted to attend. I am atheistic though went to church from 10-15 years of age and wanted to be supportive and find out whether it'd feel different as an adult.

The minister started by mentioning Ukraine and then moved on to how God has a master plan, that he is good, he is almighty and he is merciful. He went on saying that children of Christ will be with him and the rest of us will perish.

I sat there thinking "God is merciful? Tell that to my Aunt who died horrifically of cancer, or the kids being bombed in Yemen and Ukraine".

So! Firstly, what do people think? Is it a reasonable response to have or am I missing something? For those who are church goers please do feel free to explain because I feel that either 1) god isn't real 2) god is real and can't intervene (in which case what use is he) or 3) god can intervene but opts not to or actively harms children.

Thanks in advance!

As I understand it, humans wrote various religions in books, therefore they are a product of human creation, therefore even if their was a god, or advanced being, how can we know their true purposes, if we have to rely texts that were written, 're written, translated ect by humans ? Plus when the church changes or 're interpreting the word of God then how can it be God's orders ect ?

I don’t believe in a Christian god but I do believe in deity as part of a different faith. I don’t believe that gods/deities bring about the suffering because humans do that, and we have free will.

I'm not religious but I do sometimes wonder if 'God' created what we needed to survive and then left us to our own devices - like surely it's not God's place who decides who gets to live or die; they've given us the materials we need to create cures etc, we just haven't found them yet.

I agree with both these posts. Honestly, I find it strange that people actually believe God has a job to do of making life wonderful for everyone, it's rather simplistic and child-like to think that way.

Has anyone ever heard this before? I quite like it. It pretty much fits what I was trying to say.

I can’t cope with man- religion any more. I sit in church now (mainly for funerals these days) and bristle at the gaslighting “the truth will set you free” eh?

I think there’s huge value in stories and narrative as a way to make sense of our existence, and I think it’s wise to pay close attention to the stories we tell because they shape both our understanding of the world and our interaction with it.

But I don’t understand why we can’t just accept that there’s a difference between symbol-rich stories and objective scientific fact. Pretending they’re the same is weird.

I’m sadly cynical these days and “don’t worry there’s a master plan” sounds a lot like “don’t despair and give up, because I might not have a job”

As a friend said ‘I don’t get this faith stuff - it doesn’t do anything good - a waste of space!’

It's one of the fundamental problems of religion, I think. People tie themselves in knots trying to explain why there is so much suffering in the world but nobody has yet managed to come up with a plausible explanation. The get out clause that people fall back on is usually that God must have a grand plan and that we're just incapable of understanding it. Pretty unconvincing, I think, but I guess it gives some people comfort.

For me, there are only 3 logical explanations, as you say OP. The first is that God doesn't actually have the power to prevent human suffering. Given that he supposedly created the world, this seems to be a bit of a design flaw - did he fuck up at the beginning and then find that he couldn't fix the problem? The second is that he doesn't give a shit and/or is actually vindictive and enjoys to watch people suffering. The third is that he doesn't exist.

I know which I believe. What I don't understand is how people can continue to believe in the idea of an all-powerful, merciful deity who allows the suffering to continue. As a pp has said, even if you go down the route of saying that he allowed humans free will so they have to be allowed to fuck up, it still doesn't explain all the suffering from natural causes, e.g. sickness, natural disasters etc. There is no logical or believable explanation for this, no matter how hard people try to justify it.

I guess for some people, it helps them to believe that their suffering is all part of a grander plan. For me, I can't help but wonder who would make such a shit plan. 🤔

Honestly, I find it strange that people actually believe God has a job to do of making life wonderful for everyone, it's rather simplistic and child-like to think that way.

To many of us it seems rather simplistic and childlike to believe in God at all.

The thing about suffering from “natural” causes is that they most often have an unnatural root cause.

Earthquakes would still occur of course, but it’s the context in which they occur that makes them deadly. If we lived in simple tiny dwellings, eg mud huts or strawbale roundhouses, they’d be able to withstand earthquakes much better. Traditional Japanese building techniques did this. Brick, concrete and glass apartment buildings, office blocks, multistory carparks and houses are a catastrophe in an earthquake.

Likewise the plasmodium parasite causing malaria. It is part of natural existence of course, but it only became a problem when humans modified and destroyed the natural environment and it became massively out of balance. Pre-civilisation, central Italy and the hills around what would become Rome were heavily forested. Early tribes people lived on the land, unplagued by malaria, as the mosquitoes couldn’t get a foothold in the ecological niches. Then the city developed, trees were cleared, the soil washed from the hillsides and the Tiber became swampland... and as more and more people flocked to the city, the mosquitoes did too with their plasmodium parasites. The life expectancy of a newcomer to Rome was only about 18 months.

So, much of the phenomena of suffering is actually contextual... upon the unnatural ways we live our lives, rather than the fundamental processes of life and physical existence themselves. Cell division has to occur for life to exist in the first place, yet it can easily be triggered into being triggered to go out of control and start the cancer process. Many aspects of modern life are carcinogenic... higher levels of background radiation due to nuclear accidents and testing, flame retardant chemicals, agricultural pesticides, vehicular pollution etc etc. They’re arguably a necessary, intrinsic part of modern industrial life, but that is also where the world cracks open and the suffering falls in, alongside all the benefits, comforts and opportunities that industrial civilisation provides us.

@DirectionToPerfection

Honestly, I find it strange that people actually believe God has a job to do of making life wonderful for everyone, it's rather simplistic and child-like to think that way.

To many of us it seems rather simplistic and childlike to believe in God at all.

Well, quite.

Christianity is hundreds of years younger than other religions, so how can it be real?

God is real and eternal, the existence of existence and consciousness is evidence of God, ie existence and consciousness are synonymous with God, yet also transcends beyond. Christianity is merely a human medium to relate with God, so it’s like other human patterns and creations. Is “France” real? The landmass in that place obviously exists. France exists as a concept about how the people in that region relate to that “terroir” and each other with a common purpose.

How does our existing prove that God exists?

If it's just that everything needs a creator, then who created god?

I feel 'god' ( and I include all gods/religions here) is a mythical MALE ...created by MALES

He is there to promise us all heaven a good place to go when dead so that then leaves the earth MALES free to perform all sorts of violence/inhumane acts at free will because the deal is we all go to a better place eventually

We are being taken for a ride

Option 4. We really do live in a simulation and God is a Sims player. Some of us he works to get us to the top of the career track and the top priced TV, some of us he puts in the swimming pool and takes out the ladder.

@DogandMog that sounds less like free will and more like serious design flaws.

I struggle with the concept of end of days. There's lots of destruction, suffering and perishing. I can't believe a loving God would do that?

@Thatswhyimacat

Option 4. We really do live in a simulation and God is a Sims player. Some of us he works to get us to the top of the career track and the top priced TV, some of us he puts in the swimming pool and takes out the ladder.

Amazing quote, as a Sims player, made me chuckle.

@Tryingtoexplain

Ok so Christianity in a nutshell. Our world is broken and it’s not as God intended it to be as a result of our rebellion. We have free will to choose how to behave and the further we move away from Him and live for self the worse it all becomes. Christianity is not a religion it’s a faith - in all other religions you are the one doing things to try and get into heaven, or achieve acceptance, and who knows if it’s good enough. We can never be good enough, or behave well enough for heaven. It’s a perfect place and we are all essentially flawed. With Christianity it’s different in that a thing was done for us out of love- Jesus who was God in human form was a sacrifice to pay for our wrong doing should we choose to accept him. He came to seek and save the lost and the broken -to save us from spending an eternity separated from God. Suffering in this world is inevitable because of the brokenness of it all and that includes disease, war, famine the whole lot, but it’s what happens after this life that is the important thing. We are here for such a short time compared with eternity after. I know that people are likely to come back and say look at all the bad things that have been done in the name of Christianity, and you’d be right to say that, but these are essentially evil people using the name of Christianity for selfish gain. Again living for self.

Phew! Someone who can explain much better than I can! Yes this sums up how I view it.

Comparing the existence of God to the existence of French culture is a new one.

We have evidence of the existence of the French language, French cuisine, French music, theatre, literature, etc. If we want to see how French people interact with each other we can go and observe them! So no, France is not just a concept. 😂

How can consciousness and life forces and processes emerge in a cold, dark, inert, mechanical universe? IMO, there’s an underlying dynamic divine spark that brings consciousness and animation to matter. The wonder and mystery of the universe and its source is where God is. God isn’t some über-Santa Claus in his toy workshop, carefully crafting every single eyeball, pancreas, chloroplast and sea anemone (and sometimes fucking up a creation). God simply allowed that life and consciousness emerged out of his primordial cosmogonic divine love, and everything cascaded out of that fractally, leading to the diversity of matter, consciousness, patterns and arrays here and now.

@Tryingtoexplain

Ok so Christianity in a nutshell. Our world is broken and it’s not as God intended it to be as a result of our rebellion. We have free will to choose how to behave and the further we move away from Him and live for self the worse it all becomes. Christianity is not a religion it’s a faith - in all other religions you are the one doing things to try and get into heaven, or achieve acceptance, and who knows if it’s good enough. We can never be good enough, or behave well enough for heaven. It’s a perfect place and we are all essentially flawed. With Christianity it’s different in that a thing was done for us out of love- Jesus who was God in human form was a sacrifice to pay for our wrong doing should we choose to accept him. He came to seek and save the lost and the broken -to save us from spending an eternity separated from God. Suffering in this world is inevitable because of the brokenness of it all and that includes disease, war, famine the whole lot, but it’s what happens after this life that is the important thing. We are here for such a short time compared with eternity after. I know that people are likely to come back and say look at all the bad things that have been done in the name of Christianity, and you’d be right to say that, but these are essentially evil people using the name of Christianity for selfish gain. Again living for self.

Actually couldn't have written this better myself. Perfect.

Most "gods" are nothing of the sort, by definition most religions must be wrong because they are not the true one. Humans generally need to believe in some kind of supreme power because they cannot comprehend how existence began. Even if you believe in the big bang and evolution, how life was originally created and what created the matter that needed to exist for the big bang to happen is a mystery.

The likelihood is that we're living in a simulation of course. Assuming some "real" species has the ability to create a realistic simulation of a universe, it's inevitable that the simulated entities will eventually create simulations of their own. Therefore not only is it possible we're part of a simulated reality, it's actually almost certain.

This goes a long way to explain why humans create false gods. Because we can't understand how our universe came to be (someone turning on a computer and pressing "run") we either create all powerful deities to explain it or come up with outlandish theories that can never be proven. Our very existence came from nothing - but we're incapable of understanding how something can come from nothing.

The simulation theory also explains all the bad things that happen. Even in our reality someone might fire up "Sim City" and eventually get bored of growing and expanding their city and decide to inflict an earthquake on their citizens, or let a nuclear power plant blow up. They wouldn't feel any guilt because they know the simulation isn't real. Why would the entity powering our own simulation necessarily feel any different?

So is your belief in God is more akin to a Pagan's belief in, say, mother nature, @DogandMog, than the more commonly espoused view of an omipotent, all-good creator?