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Original poster

Why bad things happen

96 replies

niminypiminy · 07/04/2015 11:59

Since a few posters have started doing this one again on a thread where someone was asking for advice about prayer, I though I'd start a thread and encourage people to come over here.

So, if you want to talk about why bad things happen to good people (and otherwise), determinism, free will, God's goodness or otherwise, the problem of suffering and/or evil, and whether God is a child-murderer, here's a good space to do it....

OP posts:

headinhands · 08/04/2015 18:35

Why is it that the god you find depends almost exclusively on your locale?

headinhands · 08/04/2015 18:37

There is some stuff I have no firm belief over. I don't know you or what you know.

It shouldn't matter what I do or don't know. If I ask you to explain why god will drown babies because their parents don't obey him while allowing a paedophile to hurt children I would expect that you have formalised an explanation yourself. It is a fairly profound inconsistency.

capsium · 08/04/2015 18:46

head I am patient regarding my understanding. I don't expect to understand God overnight.

headinhands · 08/04/2015 18:52

But it is such a massive failure of goodness. If you found out your DH had watched an old lady get mugged without acting how long would you wait before deciding you no longer wanted to be married to him? Minutes? Days? Years?

capsium · 08/04/2015 18:55

head Is forgiveness is a difficult process for you?

headinhands · 08/04/2015 19:01

That's an ad hom fallacy, it shouldn't matter how forgiving I am, I'm not sure what you are insinuating?

capsium · 08/04/2015 19:04

I was just interested head. How can a question be a fallacy?

headinhands · 08/04/2015 19:14

You asked it in response to my line of questioning as if my character would make any difference to your answer? I could be the nastiest person alive but it is neither here nor there when it comes to explaining how god does not intervene when a child is abused.

headinhands · 08/04/2015 19:16

Do you have a problem with thinking? (for what it is worth I don't think you do but you get my drift)

CarbeDiem · 08/04/2015 19:37

This is something I'm struggling to answer or make clear in my own head lately.
I've not been very religious as an adult, when I was young I went to Church but stopped because I wrongly blamed God for something traumatic that happened in my childhood. In my young brain - he didn't save me nor help me. Obviously as an adult I do understand my way of thinking wasn't so clear cut.
Over the last few years I've been really trying to allow faith back into my life little by little. I sometimes attend RC Church with my Dh (even though I'm not RC) I also restarted praying sometimes, it helped a little when my mum was diagnosed as having a brain tumour around 6 weeks ago, until further tests showed she has the worst kind of brain cancer you can possibly get - literally 1 in a million. So I'm back there again, like I was when I was a child, I can't help but doubt and question with the biggest one being WHY MY MUM? WHY NOT evil people, my paedophile family member for example? (I do realise that's not very Christian but can't help how I feel)

I don't know what I want from posting this, no one can give me the answers that I want, just to get it off my chest, because it's making me feel tired and sad, I think.

capsium · 08/04/2015 19:39

And why is what I would do or think, regarding anybody else's behaviour relevant to why bad things happen, head?

capsium · 08/04/2015 19:44

Carbe I can't give you any real answers either but, I hope you can find some peace somewhere in all of this. You must have been through so much.x.

Hakluyt · 08/04/2015 19:46

Bad things happen for the same reason good things do. Random chance.

CarbeDiem · 08/04/2015 20:21

Thank you capsium

Hakluyt I really want to believe that as the quantum theory suggests (and sounds very plausible) that randomness is at the core of everything in the universe but my messed up brain is currently struggling.

headinhands · 08/04/2015 22:26

carbe sorry about your Mum.

CarbeDiem · 09/04/2015 08:09

Thanks Head

Still stuck on the random chance thing. It's weird because when you say 1 in a million chance about something it's not so much a big deal when it's the lottery, for example. We accept that and often offer good wishes - 'Oh wow! congrats! Lady luck was smiling down on you' or whatever.
But when it's something bad and you are or know the 1 in a million it's just seems so cruel and very difficult to believe.
Sorry I've gone off on one and I'm probably not making much sense - not enough caffeine yet :)

headinhands · 09/04/2015 12:59

It's natural to wonder 'why me'. It probably ties in with the Just World Hypothesis

Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 15:49

I find it easier to think "Why not me?^. I am just as deserving of good or bad fortune as anyone else- there is no intent in either case.

BigDorrit · 09/04/2015 23:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 23:51

1 in a million things happen to 64 people in the UK alone every day........

CarbeDiem · 10/04/2015 12:49

Realistically I know it's got nothing to do with God - I'm just struggling so much to make sense of anything at the moment.

Wow, that's quite a lot of people daily when you see it written down Hak

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