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Philosophy/religion

Join our Philosophy forum to discuss religion and spirituality.

If God exists, why all the suffering and evil in the world?

103 replies

MexicanMarissa · 27/06/2005 10:52

Hello :-)

I believe in God and am thinking about returning to church, but if God really exists why all the suffering and svil in the world such as the tsunami, poverty, murder and rape?

OP posts:
Heathcliffscathy · 28/06/2005 13:46

thanks mfft. that doesn't mean don't go to church tho. churches can be beautiful. christenings can be beautiful. all depends what's going on in the hearts of the participants i think.

Rhubarb · 28/06/2005 13:51

Maybe the whole God thing is just to stop us from questioning what really goes on in the world. Blind Faith is another term for ignoramus.

Heathcliffscathy · 28/06/2005 13:52

that's partly what i meant by political control rhubarb...i think you're right to an extent...

Rhubarb · 28/06/2005 13:54

I doubt it, I am never right. I just like looking at things another way sometimes.

horseshoe · 28/06/2005 16:39

Coming from a non-christian,I dont think the "free will" belief of chritians is a cop out when you consider that much of the sufferring in the world is down to human interaction. Hence the reason why the recent G8 discussions are taking place. Also a christian will claim that God speaks directly to them so there is no need for documented evidence. The bible is merely a guide.

This is my take on it all but i dont know whether it will make sense to anyone.....

I believe that everything happens for a reason and that we are all designed to take on specific roles in life, whether it's under the command of a god or what I dont know. I think it is all to do with the ripple effect. (everything has a consequence) and if someone suffers, the ripple effect starts....So my mums cancer ordeal, if her purpose in life was to suffer that just so that the effect it would have on me would be passed to my great great grandchild so that they could find a permanant cure for cancer. There are many paths in my life that I have chosen to take due to influences from someone else. Whatever the purpose in life is...once fullfilled that person goes on to either another life, or reincarnated or whatever.

Does this make sense to anyone? It's the only way I can make sense of losing loved ones due to cruel circumstances.

Nik72 · 28/06/2005 17:11

i think life can be random and cruel and i expect religious belief developed to try and make sense of it and to try and alleviate the fear of death....

Tortington · 29/06/2005 21:02

rhuby??????? you ok?

Rhubarb · 30/06/2005 10:48

Yeah Custy! Don't worry I'm still a Christian, I just like being rebellious too! I must be the only Christian who swears at God on a regular basis, and then humbly apologising when things work out to be ok. Or maybe I am deluding myself and seeing normal life events as the work of some bearded gentleman who lives on a cloud! Oh well, I guess we'll all find out sooner or later!

singleteenagemum · 30/06/2005 11:08

Hi girls,

Sorry coming in a bit late on this one. I;ve been a christian for almost a decade now and was regularly challenged at school by this question. The conclusion i came to was, it's God's world. Who are we to question what he does with his world or why? Yes it's not very nice, but then these things make us stronger as individuals and as a race.

You have to remember that satan is the perpertrator of these wrongs and we'll never know why God doesn't just destroy him in a milisecond. We'll never know the answers to many questions, but what we do know is that God is not a force to be reckoned with, he doesn't ask much from us at all and we can't even keep a few rules for him after all he's done for us.

Both good and bad things happen for a reason, a reason we will never be able to comprehend and we should stop trying.

Sorry if it's been said before. Sorry for rambling as well

STM

Blu · 30/06/2005 11:11

NomDePlume - I think there is a 'niave' (and I mean that in the sense of stages of interpretation, not calling people 'ignorant', iyswim) version of religious faith in which I would absolutely stand alongside you in your opening comment.

BUT I am beginning to realise that my view on my own departure rom the upbringing I had in the Methodist church is based on outgrowing a limited understanding I had of the 'sunday school version' of christiantity. I couldn't begin to have a faith which relies on a bellief in a jealous god who sends thunderbolts - let alone Tsunamis - as a punishment, nor a conscious afterlife in heaven where we languish around in bliss following misery, privation and suffering on earth. The nion of 'faith' sticks in my craw, especially 'blind faith'.

BUT I am interested in a complex approach to a more philosophical, metaphysical, and perhaps almost metaphorical belief on God. one of the intresting things about MN for me is that there are far more actively religious people than I ever come across in my daily life, and I am interested in how some of them relate to their religion - I have heard enough to be sure that it is more interesting than the 'sunday school' version, and it would benefit my understanding to know more about it - even though personally I have no inclination at all to believe in a conscious entity such as a god, of any religion.

Wars are cause by people fighting for territory - whatever form that takes, and natural disasters are caused because the planet is made of matter, which can only ever be in a state of change.

popadopalis · 30/06/2005 11:20

I am a Christian and I obviously believe in God. My understanding is that the evil, hurt, pain and horridness of the world does not come from God. God allows things to happen rather than makes them happen.

God created a prefect paradise and created us to live in it. However He didn't want to make people like robots so He gave us free will to choose whether we wanted to love HIm or not and we chose to disobey Him and so as God is pure and holy and can't stand sin we were cut off from God. This is why horrible things happen. We made it this way not God. We let sin and evil in.

However, God loves us and didn't want us to be cut off from HIm forever but we couldn't make up for what we had done because it needed to be a perfect sacrfice. The only 'person' who could be the perfect sacrifice was the Son of God, Jesus Christ. God knew this and so sent His only son to become a human being and die for us so that we wouldn't have to. However, death could not hold Jesus as He had not done anything wrong and therefore He was raised to life again and all we have to do is accept that He took our punishment for us and we can be saved. God doesn't want to punish us all, He loves us and has done eberything He can to make sure we can be with Him again in the paradise He planned in the beginning.

This is my understanding of it all. Hope it helps.

ruty · 30/06/2005 12:55

NomdePlume, free will is a metaphor. The point is, if we did not know what suffering was, we would not know what happiness is either. God allowed us to have free will so that we could know what it is to be free, to make our own choices. So many things in this world could be solved if we made the right choices. Wars, famines, poverty, EVEN Tsunamis, given our modern technology. Personal suffering is more complex and more difficult. But as Blu says, philosophy and metaphysics are very complex, and Gos is part of that. If we were not free, we would be like pets in a cage. Safe, protected from danger, and utterly powerless and imprisoned. God gave us freedom, and with it comes infinite suffering and infinite happiness.

ruty · 30/06/2005 12:56

and sophable, the older religions, eg buddhism and judaism, are also abused for power!

ruty · 30/06/2005 13:08

i also believe God gave us cures for many diseases, but as we have cut most of the rainforests down and used pesticides everywhere we've managed to lose a lot of potential cures. A common weed is the latest potential miracle cure for cancer, scientists are using it in experiments at present.

Papillon · 30/06/2005 13:46

Is there anything in the bible to explain why the devil does not just come down here and rape, pillage and generally cause merry hell ?

Or does God have a great big spiritually electric fence around Earth! ??

I mean why the devil does he not show his face... or does he just like to remotely interact like God and play with our minds. Rather a well behaved devil.

Anybody got any ideas?

singleteenagemum · 30/06/2005 13:52

Ruty - that then starts the argument. if God gave doctors the knowledge and ability to perform abortions, does that make them right?

I personally believe that God gave us the knowledge to use as we see fit, but to respect his laws given to us.

However i've had a many debate on that particular subject. Can't wait to get to heaven and ask, but reckon i'll be so astounded with his majesty and beauty i won't need to ask a thing!

ruty · 30/06/2005 14:06

God gave us knowledge and a conscience - that is our free will. There are no easy answers, and God's 'laws' are often made up by man to exert control. I don't personally believe in abortion, but as we have free will, I can't stop others doing it. Even if we made it illegal people would still have them done. I don't believe in dictatorships. As for the devil papillon, i don't know if i believe in the devil as this nasty monster. But yes he does do all the things tou describe, through people, and if you call the things going on in Sudan at the moment, or countless other atrocities well behaved, then i would have to disagree.

singleteenagemum · 30/06/2005 14:10

Agree whole heartedly Ruty

Papillon · 30/06/2005 14:32

Ja but could not that be seen as our free will choosing to be evil and nasty to others?

If some people are, given biblical views, influenced by the devil - then that makes us puppets on a string. God and the devil both toying with the ropes of our lives - that would cancel out or at least diminish free will somewhat don´t you think?

Is this all just dominion echoing dominion.... humans dominion over Earth, the spirits over us etc and so forth?

ruty · 30/06/2005 16:58

No, because we can always choose how we behave. We can always choose to be driven by money and greed, or to be driven by love and compassion. It is always up to us. No one has us on a string. By the devil can work through those who want money and power above all things. Also, we are always talking about the mystery of evil. Why is there so much evil in the world. What about the mystery of Good? Why is there so much amzing beauty and Good in the world? We take it all for granted. We have to fight for it, and that is what makes it so infinitely valuable.

Papillon · 01/07/2005 13:46

ah ruty thats why I recall we both find George Bush devilish.

As we are in fact in charge of our behaviour, I am unsure how Christianity can draw a line on naughty free will and demonic intervention. (???)

Using GB as an example, how many Christian leaders, or dominations regard him as being influenced by the devil. Not many I would guess in the States considering they all voted him back in - especially the central states where religious beliefs are popular.

The mystery of Good! Why is that not talked about... well it is not considered news worthy to begin with! We embrace violence in/on various mediums every day. Like me and others have said earlier, you cannot have one without the other, because then there would be no balance - which is how this Earth functions in all Her extremes.

I like talking here on this board about the Good all the time. Negative states are not good, but I am cautious of over zealous positive happy states, because they can disregard the status quo of the negative.

Our consciousness of course gives us the opportunity to not to control or have dominion over other people, animals, plants etc. But, imo, we light years away from reaching that kind of mental/physical/spiritual state.

This is some garble about the power of thought.

When something bad or upsetting occurs in our life, we often CREATE around us negative THOUGHT FORMS of such magnitude that they come to life. Most of us receive all our physical data first through our minds and then automatically hand over that information to our emotional body. When you RECOGNISE what those thought forms are and how you react to them emotionally then you can set about clearing them from your life.

We create our own thoughts and if they are negative thoughts or negative situations occuring around us then it is easy to give away your own personal power. Our greatest POWER lies within our THOUGHTS. We create first and foremost with our THINKING. All that we are is what we THINK. As we THINK so go our lives. We create ALL that exists around us and we can create all manner of sentient relationships, whether real or unreal, to appear. Sometimes we even attract back to our current lives, emotions and THOUGHT FORMS from our previous lives (or the lives of our family past and present) to dwell here with us now, for all things EXIST NOW and FOREVER.

Anything, THOUGHTS and/or THOUGHT FORMS, that are obsessive in our lives are to be considered a side-path (as opposed to our main path... like the fly that is buzzing around our head) and must be delt with in such a manner as to diminish it and then, quite literally, kill it out of our lives. We feed bad luck, negative thoughts and emotions by making it REAL in our lives.

Whilst we often learn from our life situations. Most of the time a person who experiences negative situations are not learning from it but are rather LIVING THROUGH THEM. This is not a learning or a lesson because all their physical, astral and lower-mind energies are given over to REPEATEDLY EXPERIENCING a specific THOUGHT FORM. To alter this we therefore must REGAIN our POWER by REGAINING CONTROL OVER WHAT WE THINK UPON IN OUR DAILY ACTIVITIES.

ruty · 01/07/2005 14:36

I agree papillon that an over zealous positive state is just an unaware as a negative one. Neither are in touch with how things really are. Also agree about a lot of christians who support Bush, I think its got a lot to do with education and intelligence. I don't believe Christ would support Bush for one minute! But for me, all the Good in the world is evidence of a loving creator, for an athiest, all the bad in the world is evidence of no creator at all. I have my own share of sufferings to be aware of the negative, but I still am amazed at the Good, tho I forget it sometimes. Agree with your power of thought stuff, but I am wary of this kind of thing getting rather self obsessive. Don't mean you are at all, just yes, positive thinking is essential to living well, but Christ came to show us how our spiritual lives are connected and that we should live as a society, not just as individuals, and so politics and human rights are essential to my faith.

monkeytrousers · 08/07/2005 20:33

I'm an atheist of I suppose the Richard Dawkins school so with respect I really can't agree with you Rudy or with your purely negative assumptions about atheism. I see beauty and wonder in the world all around me, but I still don't see the hand of god in it.

Funnily enough, I just recently watched The Passion of the Christ and what struck me most about it was its universality. A memento mori for us all. It perfectly illustrates that sometimes life is brutal. We're shielded from that in the west but we don't escape it in the end. We all suffer - that's the human condition. It's because we're conscious of this that we need something to make sense of it all. God, religion, philosophy does that.

ruty · 08/07/2005 20:56

no, no monkey trousers, sorry didn't claim athiests have purely negative view of life. I was just using the suggestion posted here by some athiests that they don;t believe in a God because there is suffering in the world, and that seems to me a rather simplistic argument. But some Christians have simplistic arguments too. Anyway, totally respect your right to see beauty in the planet and not believe in God.

monkeytrousers · 08/07/2005 21:17

No probs, Rudy (soz for getting that wrong)