Bad things happening to good people.

[PaddlingLikeADuck]

Im sure this has been asked 100 times, but why does God let it happen?

I don’t come from a religious background at all. Most of my family are fairly nonchalant about religion apart from my mother who despises it and gets joy from making sure everyone knows it.

Although I have no sense of belief myself I often come on this board to read threads purely because I find it comforting to read people’s posts where their belief is so profound and they genuinely do believe there is a bigger power ‘out there.’ It must be amazing to have that belief, I imagine your lives are peaceful in the knowledge that better things are coming.

Anyhow, I just need it explaining to me why bad things are allowed to good people whereas some bad people float through life with nothing bad happening to them.

I class myself as a good person but I have a chronic condition that affects my life in so many negative ways and it’s knock on effects mean my husband and children are negatively affected too. I will have this condition for life and I find myself asking myself, “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?”

My auntie, who is so, so kind hearted has just left her husband and admitted he’s been physically abusing her for years. Why was she married to such a monster? Why was it allowed to happen?

A few years ago my friend’s infant, who was 14 months old, was killed in a car accident due to the reckless driver in the other vehicle. Her baby died and he walked away completely unharmed. He didn’t even go to prison? How is this fair?

I’m a paediatric nurse and I see death and severe illness in many children and I just think, “Why them? How can this be what God had planned for them?” So much unfair suffering for completely innocent children whilst their families watch them die.

I just can’t understand why God, if there is one, allows the lives of good people to be afflicted by such awfulness.

A religious friend had a family member commit suicide after a short life filled with learning disabilities and mental health problems. She thought this child had been sent to test the faith of her mother. I thought this was the most disgusting thing I had ever heard. I would never follow anyone or anything that thought torturing an innocent child for their entire life until they couldn't take it any more to make sure that another person definitely believed in me to be in any way acceptable. I could take no comfort from that. I find the whole concept of this 'loving' God bemusing.

A religious friend had a family member commit suicide after a short life filled with learning disabilities and mental health problems. She thought this child had been sent to test the faith of her mother. I thought this was the most disgusting thing I had ever heard. I would never follow anyone or anything that thought torturing an innocent child for their entire life until they couldn't take it any more to make sure that another person definitely believed in me to be in any way acceptable. I could take no comfort from that. I find the whole concept of this 'loving' God bemusing.

Same here with my friend whose baby died in the car crash. The little boy was 14 months old and endured awful suffering and operations for 4 days until eventually his life support was turned off and he died.

Someone earlier in the thread said it was the mother who was being tested. It turned my stomach. If God is happy for a young baby to die, all in the name of wanting to feel loved by people (the mother) then it’s abhorrent.

And what about all the other people involved?

All his other family members whose lives were shattered by his death?

What about the emotional state of the paramedics who had to attend the site of the crash to see a baby with such catastrophic injuries?

And what about all the nurses who were involved in his care, desperately wanting him to survive but watching him suffer until death.

What were they? Just collateral damage in God’s test? Who cares how there life is affected as long as God can challenge the mother to see if she would still love him?

If that is God’s attitude to human life then it’s very messed up and it’s certainly not a loving God. He sounds like a very selfish and insecure being if he needs to put people through suffering just to feel good about himself.

Some years ago work, a work colleague had 2 babies (separate pregnancies, not twins) that died soon after birth, then they had a healthy baby. Shortly afterwards the work colleague was killed in an accident. I can't understand how the widow/family could ever imagine a loving God would allow that to happen

For this and many other reasons, I cannot believe in a God. If there is one, who could end such suffering but chooses not to, he is not worthy of our veneration. Testing people through causing suffering to them and their loved ones would surely be the act of a psychopath. I can cope better with random misfortune, illness and tragedy than imagining it is part of some awful “plan”.

@ZenNudist said it best I believe.

I believe that we have free will, I also believe that we are all connected. Maybe in some way the bad/negative things the humans do to each other and to their selves almost creates like a ripple effect which then effects others/themselves. I've no idea though. It's pretty depressing though but my comfort is that something better is at the other side, peace and love.

For this and many other reasons, I cannot believe in a God. If there is one, who could end such suffering but chooses not to, he is not worthy of our veneration. Testing people through causing suffering to them and their loved ones would surely be the act of a psychopath. I can cope better with random misfortune, illness and tragedy than imagining it is part of some awful “plan”.

Once again, do you seriously think God is responsible for every single thing that happens to every single person in the world? It's just life - God is not "testing" people, he is simply there for those who believe in him (and no, I don't mean he is not there for those who don't believe, just that true believers often gain comfort from their beliefs). If you don't want to believe in God then that's fine, your choice, just as other choose to believe.

I believe he can and does intervene in response to prayer but is not a magic wish granting genie!

How does he decide whose prayers to listen to?

And I doubt it’s that simple is it? I doubt as many people would die awful deaths if it was as easy as pray to God and he’ll stop it from happening.

And if he can end suffering simply by being prayed to, why allow people suffer in the first place?

And if suffering is there to “test people”, doesn’t God removing the suffering (just because a prayer was said) completely defeat the purpose of it all?

I've no idea though. It's pretty depressing though but my comfort is that something better is at the other side, peace and love.

What makes you think that what’s coming next is any better than what we have now?

Why are those people “up there” any different to the ones down here?

Or is it because only the “good” people (in God’s eyes) are allowed entry?

And what about everyone else? Do you think there is a Hell where everyone else gets sent to?

And I wonder what people view Hell as being like? People talk a lot about what they envision Heaven to be like but there is never much talk about what Hell will be like.

It's abhorrent, isn't it? In the case of my friend's relative, that poor girl won't even get to go to heaven apparently.

Have you ever seen the Atheist Experience? Their old shows on YouTube especially are excellent. 'Atheist Experience' TV Host Shocked By Caller's Statement About Child Rape (VIDEO) | HuffPost UK Religion (huffingtonpost.co.uk)

I personally don't believe there is a hell, only love and if such a thing as 'hell' does exist i think it is here on earth and I guess when we die if you decide you don't want to be part of where we came from (our source, which is love) then that would be pretty hellish in my view. Or maybe we re-incarnate and come back here to learn lessons.

A religious discussion on mumsnet is pointless as there isn't a hard and fast answer and everyone has different theories to the existence or non existence of God.

God hears all prayers. The answer is yes no or wait. No prayer is unanswered. God is not bound by time. To him humanity looks like a connected entity (like a tree of life... or a fungus!!). We are not blobs of matter doing specific things at specific times. We are everything we ever have done, are doing and will do. We make our decisions. Our suffering has consequences. He truly sees the big picture.

That's before you get into parallel universes. I can only conceive of God tending one tree. Perhaps there is a forest.

The thing I love is that Jesus is infusing through that tree, a flash in the history of humanity.

The universe is a strange place. There is so much we don't know. I choose to embrace the strangeness and reach out to the God who made me. Sometimes I feel him reach back, and these are moments to cherish.

I don't believe that God is only there for those that believe in him. He is God of those who know him, and those who don't.
Everyone's knowledge of him is imperfect, who's to say mine is better than yours?
My 'reward' for faith, if you like, is comfort and a sense of purpose from doing his will as best I can. I'm not expecting a 'better seat in heaven', 'faster route to heaven' or any other such inducement.

Heaven is in the presence of the creator, hell is being apart from him. Some people prefer to isolate themselves from God, as is their right. I don't suppose they would feel his absence as a curse.

I'm well aware though, that interpretation of the Bible is extremely subjective. So many translations and scholars, so many opinions. I don't believe you can 'prove' anything through biblical argument.

We have to discuss, read, think, and feel; examine our hearts and experiences; try and sift nuggets of truth out of the dross of every day life; test them out against what we believe about God.

That's life, imo- a constant exploring and testing of truth to see what makes the world better. Then we die, and get a good long rest!

I think believing in god makes things harder to understand- not easier.
As an atheist I think that bad stuff happens and that's it it is random.
Bring god into the equation and it raises a lot of thorny issues.
The idea that people are someone deserving of illness or misfortune is clearly wrong, and as a peadiatric nurse that idea is magnified- of course children don't deserve bad situations, they haven;t had time to hurt anyone.
The christian faith would have us believe that we are all born sinners, because of he fall in the garden of eden, so even newborns have a mark on their soul.
We are told that the christian god is all powerful. If that is true then he chooses to let people, babies, children, the vulnerable suffer. So if he has the power to change that then he must be sadistic and uncaring.
Again the christian get out is that " god moves in mysterious ways", and we "can't understand god's plan".
In my mind god must either not exist or be a hideous monster.
I plump for the former.
My sister and mother are "born again" christians, they pray for parking spaces, and truly believe that god answers their prayers.
Why would you worship a god who chooses to spend his time giving someone a parking space rather than saving the life of an infant.
The bible outlines gods nature in detail- he is jealous, wrathful, fond of retribution, and has anger management issues, smiting as he goes and thinking nothing of global genocide saving a few in an ark because he fucked up first time.
I wouldn't have a coffee with this guy, never mind worshipping him.

God is there for everyone who chooses to accept him, whether that's throughout their lives or a few seconds before death

I do believe he gave humans free will (& that a world of robots would be pointless) and most of the awful things that happen in this world are down to people doing them deliberately or causing them through thoughtlessness

It's not an easy world to live in, and faith is very hard to explain as it's believing in something you can feel, but cannot prove. It would be like proving the level of your love for someone - for example, you might know you love your child with every fibre of your being and would do anything for them, but it would be very difficult to scientifically prove that.

I have found hard times easier to bear as I feel a support from God and also from other Christians I know. I have this from non-Christians too who are close friends or family, but it's the encouragement and lifting up from people I don't know that well, but are doing it because of our shared love of Jesus and desire to do what he would do.

I have seen miracles happen and prayers answered - but not always in the way expected! I have also seen people go through horrendous times that I cannot explain or understand

The Bible is hard - you're talking 66 different books/letters/songs/poems/histories by multiple people, in various languages and cultures written over around 1500 years.
As Christians the most important thing is we follow what Christ said and I do believe that if everyone just followed one of his commandments 'love your neighbour as yourself' then the world would be a much better place

As Christians the most important thing is we follow what Christ said and I do believe that if everyone just followed one of his commandments 'love your neighbour as yourself' then the world would be a much better place

But people can’t love everyone? There are some really awful people in the world so why should we love them? I’m pretty sure God doesn’t love them either.

I think all religion is built around fear of death. We understand and are afraid of our mortality so we look for reassurance.
Enter religion and its live forever in paradise message.

I think believing in god makes things harder to understand- not easier

Absolutely this. I spent many years believing in God and all of those years wondering why he was letting such awful things happen to me. I can remember sobbing and begging him to make things better. 0f course "he" never did.

One day I just stopped believing. Almost overnight. Since then I have been a lot happier. I have accepted the randomness of life and that sometimes things just happen and you just have to ride it out. An ironic coincidence is that my life massively improved anyway once I stopped believing. I know a lot of that is my own outlook has changed but I have faced far less challenges.

Not having to ask "why" and accepting it just is, has been very freeing. My MH has improved dramatically.

@PaddlingLikeADuck I do believe God loves everyone, yes
He doesn't necessarily love their actions or behaviors, but loves them enough to want them to change and be better (a bit like any parent!)

Loving everyone is not easy, and it's not a romantic love but more treating people in a loving way - I would go to the example in Corinthians 13:

“Love is patient and kind, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love isn't selfish or quick tempered. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs that others do. Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil. Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. Love never fails"

I don't believe. My husband had schizoaffective disorder and took his own life when my son was a young teenager. It would be almost cruel to outsource all that to a God. Neither my husband, my son, myself, his parents, family and friends 'deserved' any of that to happen. Nor was a God testing him to see if he could stand decades of recurrent mental agony, or testing me or the health services to see if we were up to the job of easing his suffering, or testing my son to see if he deserved to keep his father. He couldn't stand it any more and we did fail him but there wasn't an external authority involved.

On the other hand, we didn't 'deserve' to be born and live in a peaceful country with clean running water and functioning services and nobody invading us or bombing our homes. How ridiculous to think there is any kind of moral dimension to that, or some kind if external consciousness watching it all happen.

I do believe that religious practice is full of things that are good for humans but I dont believe in God and it is hard to think now that I ever will again.

@PaddlingLikeADuck I do believe God loves everyone, yes
He doesn't necessarily love their actions or behaviors, but loves them enough to want them to change and be better (a bit like any parent!)

Loving everyone is not easy, and it's not a romantic love but more treating people in a loving way - I would go to the example in Corinthians 13:

“Love is patient and kind, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love isn't selfish or quick tempered. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs that others do. Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil. Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. Love never fails"

Even Paedophiles? He loves men who sexually abuse and possibly kill young children?

God needs to realise that evil, evil people like that don’t change. And the fact that in some way still he loves them despite their wickedness is abhorrent.

I am assuming then that those who believe in God are also happy to love Paedophilles then if that is God’s wish?

Or would you say that you may not love their actions of raping children, but you still love the person he is and care about him enough to want him to change.

I’m horrified.

But he doesn't love their wickedness or their actions at all - he loves them as the innocent newborn they were once and desperately wants to change them

Many abusers were also abused - not an excuse ever - but it's a downward spiral. The more love and less abuse everyone gives can start to make a difference. I can't bear to believe we just leave awful people to carry on being awful - we have to do whatever we can to stop it. Some may not be able to be changed, but others can

I can't bear to believe we just leave awful people to carry on being awful - we have to do whatever we can to stop it.

Which is what? Show them love and compassion?

I don’t know if you’ve watched the film “Face Off” with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage but the idealism makes me think of the prison they were in, where criminals were made to watch videos of birds flying amongst the trees and flowers waving about in green fields in cinema like screens whilst peaceful and serene music is played in the background. I’m assuming those who worked in the prison believed this had the power to reform the most horrendous of offenders……..

Shouldn’t God spend less time showing compassion to the ‘once innocent paedophiles’ and spend his efforts showing love to all the suffering children in the world instead? Or any innocent person who is suffering to try and make that stop instead?

I just can’t believe in a God that has that mindset of allowing innocent people to suffer whilst he shows unconditional love to awful, evil people.

As another poster said, if God is alive then he’s a heinous, sadist beast (or
words to that effect) so she’d prefer to just accept that he isn’t real.

I wish I could believe there is some wonderful God-like being ‘out there’ who deserves idolising but the awfulness of this world makes it very hard to.

I have noticed as a Christian that the thing people hate the most is that God loves everybody, including paedophiles. People generally find this offensive. To me it is one of the most amazing things.... that His love is that strong for every human being.
I was sexually abused by a family member. I reported it as an adult, when I discovered they had also molested a cousin and my best friend from school. He went to prison. I believe it was my faith that enabled me to continue to show that man care and compassion.
I would not have let my children near him but I actually felt pity for him. He was a desperately sad and lonely ( and by then old) man and his life was pretty miserable. Being attracted to children must be unbearable to live with. It is an illness that must not be mentioned, there is little effective treatment, and yes....to act on it is despicable and ruins lives but these people are still precious to God.
I think the reason it is so hated by people is because we all like to think of ourselves as okay and then' other' the people whose behaviour we disapprove of.
Jesus was perfect. In comparison to him we are all way short of perfect. Every negative thought, every time we are unpleasant to someone, ignore someone in need, gossip or say negative things. Everyone we objectify someone, watch porn, get angry, feel jealous, or even eat too much through sheer greed, these are all things that let God down.
The sacrifice of Jesus was to enable God to look at each of us, and despite all that imperfection, still love us unconditionally. He does not decide who is worse than who.
It is only when we realise how far away from perfect we are ourselves that we get a sense of our need for God and knowing how wonderful it is to be lived despite our failings guess some way to helping us understand that God offers that to all and it is not for us to question that.
I do understand that is hard though and it is not without responsibility on the' sinner'.