Ok, to make this argument though, you will have to make the argument that suffering is always beneficial. So for instance, what is beneficial about a young child suffering horribly from bone cancer and then dying; what could they possibly gain from that? You argue that suffering in this life prepares us (somehow) for the afterlife: in what sense does being born only to suffer and die prepare someone?
Tell me why I have to make the argument that suffering is
always beneficial. Why does suffering
always have to be beneficial? I only ever sais that that suffering has the potential to be beneficial, and whether it is beneficial or not depends on many factors, not the least of which depends upon our
attitude towards the suffering and how well we deal with it.
Let's talk about my suffering. I was in an accident that caused irreparable damage to my laryngeal nerve. It rendered me unable to speak, and for a while immense difficulty breathing or swallowing (at least that doesn't linger). Now, I could make some soppy story about how this has forced me to be a better listener and observer in life, and things like this. I could talk about how I'm used to it now, and find ways around it. But at the end of the day, I don't really think this suffering has "made me a better person." I'm pursuing the same dreams (in fact this threw me off quite a bit, I'm finishing my MS in my 30's because of all the depression and roadblocks and stuff). My ethical and moral decisions weren't affected by this. I'd just as soon rather had this not have happened to me. Where is the benefit?
I have serious setbacks from age 18-32 which I would rather not share on a public forum. It was not physical, it was emotional, but it prevented me from any kind of normal life all those years. The only thing I was able to do was complete the BA and MA first degree program and get a job and maintain it but I almost lost my federal job after I was sent for a psych assessment and deemed disabled. The only way I was able to hang onto my job was by going on antidepressants just to stay enough above the depression to function, but the antidepressant did not get rid of my depression and I almost died because in desperation a psychiatrist combined two different types of antidepressants that were never supposed to be combined, a MAO inhibitor and a tricyclic. This all happened in the early 1980s when I first went into recovery. I was in recovery for over 15 years. Fortunately I discovered homeopathy I 1988 and was able get off all the antidepressants and never needed them again. My endogenous depression was cured but I still had life circumstances that caused a lot of grief and anxiety and I will probably always have some residual PTSD.
In my case I saw immediate benefits as I was able to deal with my issues and recover from my childhood issues in counseling, 12 step programs and with homeopathic remedies. After about 10 years I went back to school for a second MA degree in psychology and a degree in homeopathic medicine. However, I was never able to utilize the degrees because of more life circumstances that interfered. My life has never been free of suffering for more than a few days, weeks at most. I never gave up but I finally accepted life as it is because some things cannot be change, at least not right now even though I have a will of iron.
In 1985, a couple of years into recovery I got married three weeks after I met my husband and he had just been released from a psych hospital for suicidal depression. He was on disability for eight years but I have always been employed despite my depression. We are still married but it has been a rough road. Probably the only reason we are still married is because we are both Baha’is, and have been since 1964 and 1970. But he is 10 years older than me and has medical issues so that is an ongoing source of suffering for both of us.
Regardless of the fact that you'd have to support the premise that all suffering is beneficial in order to avoid the PoE's conclusions, do you have any particular examples of suffering you can bring up that are beneficial; where an omnipotent-omniscient deity would have literally no other way to reach the beneficial outcome?
Again, I do not see why I would have to support the premise that
all suffering is beneficial in order to avoid the PoE's conclusions. That is black in white all or nothing thinking and it is illogical. Given the variation on humans and the various life situations they find themselves in, suffering will not benefit everyone, and it will be beneficial in various degrees. But one thing that is universal is that the suffering we endure in this physical life will end when this life ends, if we played our cards right, but if we die angry at God we will be in a sorry plight. That is one reason I have struggled so hard to have the right attitude towards God, because till recently my attitude was that it is all God’s fault I was suffering. You see, I had done all I could do to alleviate my suffering, so what was left of my suffering had to be God’s fault, right? Some of my struggles to understand are posted in threads I posted on this forum.
Do you understand that it is a moot point if an omnipotent-omniscient deity
would have had another way to reach the beneficial outcome since He didn’t USE another way? If your goal is just to prove God is malevolent have at it, but I have to warn you that is not in your best interest because I lived at that address for 10 years and I was really miserable. I guess God was waiting for me to move, and when I finally did that in 2013 my whole life started to turn around. Now I
know God is good even when I
feel He is bad because I understand that feelings just are but they do not represent reality. My only goal in life is to help people and that is why I went back to school for seven years when I was almost 40. Do you really think I care about “winning” arguments on a forum? I could not care less. My primary focus on forums has always been atheists so I know all the arguments but I don’t care about winning, I only care about people. I know what God is because God was revealed by Baha’u’llah, I don’t need to rely upon Bible stories.
I am not saying I know more about people than themselves. I am saying that for any such testimony (I would have to see examples first), there is probably a better way to reach the outcome than if a person has suffered to get there.
Did you ever see the biography of Joe Biden? He suffered terribly and look at where he is now. As I said above, why would it matter if there
would have been a better way? There is not a better way because the world is what it is and God is not going to revamp it. I am not saying we should go out of our way looking for ways to suffer just so we can grow stronger, but if we are faced with unavoidable suffering we should try to make the best of the situation.
How do you know that God causes suffering for benevolent reasons though? How do you know it isn't simply because God doesn't care that suffering exists, or has malevolent reasons for it to exist? Is this just based on faith?
Everything that I know about God comes from the Baha’i Writings and that is how I know that God is benevolent and that God cares in spite of the fact that we suffer. I have faith but it is a reason-based faith, not blind faith, because there is so much evidence that shows Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God.
It is possible to have a physical world where physical things cannot harm you, though. That's the point. An omnipotent/omniscient being could create such a world. Pointing out that in this world that isn't the case is a moot point.
You do not know is such a world is possible, you just
believe that because you believe an omnipotent-omniscient God
can do anything, but that is still a moot point because there will never be that kind of world since there will never be
another physical world.
Do you see how if there were no sex offenders because sex offense would be impossible in another world, that you wouldn't have to learn to avoid renting to sex offenders (because you would never have that risk to take)? This is like the example of the hot stove: you don't have to suffer to learn not to touch a hot stove if a hot stove can never harm you in the first place. So why should that kind of suffering exist?
The only way that sex offenders would not be possible is if humans had no free will to choose in which case humans would be robots.. Please don’t say God could make it possible because an omnipotent-omniscient God
can do anything.
I certainly don't want you to do anything that would make you uncomfortable. Hypothetical examples and other examples are fine if giving an example of suffering that benefits.
However, I predict that for examples involving physical suffering, it will always be possible to have reached a beneficial outcome without that physical suffering having ever taken place. (Or, alternatively, that if the physical suffering leads to some beneficial outcome, that beneficial outcome would be a moot point if there was no physical suffering in the first place; like the hot stove example I keep giving).
I already gave you some examples of my own suffering and it has benefited me, but it was not physical suffering. As long as humans have physical bodies there will be physical suffering. There will be no physical suffering in the spiritual world because we will have spiritual bodies.
