Why does God allow Trials??

[Unification]

I really like what you said here. I agree full heatedly.

The way you speak of God though I can't help but feel you believe in the philosophy of moral relativism. I don't know if this is the case or not, concerning your beliefs in absolute truths, but concerning which I keep thinking about his quote.

"Relativism means each person is his or her own highest authority. Of course, it is not just those who deny God that subscribe to this philosophy. Some who believe in God still believe that they themselves, individually, decide what is right and wrong. One young adult expressed it this way: “I don’t think I could say that Hinduism is wrong or Catholicism is wrong or being Episcopalian is wrong—I think it just depends on what you believe. … I don’t think that there’s a right and wrong.”21 Another, asked about the basis for his religious beliefs, replied, “Myself—it really comes down to that. I mean, how could there be authority to what you believe?”22

To those who believe anything or everything could be true, the declaration of objective, fixed, and universal truth feels like coercion—“I shouldn’t be forced to believe something is true that I don’t like.” But that does not change reality. Resenting the law of gravity won’t keep a person from falling if he steps off a cliff. The same is true for eternal law and justice. Freedom comes not from resisting it but from applying it. That is fundamental to God’s own power. If it were not for the reality of fixed and immutable truths, the gift of agency would be meaningless since we would never be able to foresee and intend the consequences of our actions. As Lehi expressed it: “If ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery."

I don't know what that means to you, but I really wanted to share it with you.

Thanks for that, friend. Really good stuff.

We are all our own kings(god's).
We have that right to experience infinite potential. The more we are controlled by systems and rules, the more hindrance to our rights to experience and just BE.

If all were light, it would be boring and miserable. If all were darkness, it would be boring and miserable. The spirit of infinite potential exists so we can experience all, any, and endless amounts of infinite potential of experience and feelings. Falls before rise. Failures before successes. Pain before pleasure. The idea is to be content with anything and life and to just be.

I once had all sorts of beliefs, then I'd keep getting conscious thoughts entering into my mind out of nowhere, most of which I'd ignore and wonder where they arose from. Then they'd keep coming and I decided to search and seek out the matters with an open mind. Over time, I just surrendered, and had a complete open mind and wisdom would just come out of nowhere with a still, unbiased, and non-judgemental mind. Then I realized my old mind and beliefs were and have been destroyed and just about everything that I thought that I knew... Was wrong. As intelligent as I allowed my ego to think that I was, I was very wrong, and had myself deceived. My blame changed to self-accountability. My dwelling on past things were destroyed, my impartiality and insincereness to others became seeing them as me, and purely and genuinely. It was painful losing everything I thought that I knew, that I was conditioned to believe. Neuroplasticity is painful as first but incredibly worth all of it. I lost friends, people I'd try to fit in with. Now I have new like minded friends.

Beliefs all were squashed. It became true knowing and experiencing what love was, what forgiveness was, what peace and freedom of mind was. It's as if I were being taught all new beautiful things by simply not doing anything myself but initial surrender. Since then, no harm or evil has come my way.

With that being said, there truly is no such thing as good or evil. They are labels and judgements our ego's apply to things. Just as the bible says, partaking in that tree really does indirectly hinder us and we are mostly unaware of it. It creates judgements to others, it creates emotion, reactions from emotion, and so on.

While those are neither right or wrong to the individual, anything that has control or dominion over ones mind will hinder experience, peace, and genuine love to oneself and others and different minds, the more a mind is conditioned and under any system or control, the hindrance of positive experience will be the result.

Objective truth is fine, such as we all have a brain, mind, blood, body, feelings, same necessities to life, same forces of nature hold everything together collectively, same earth, same universe, the same sun rises and sets, etc etc. Everything that we all have in common is wonderful stuff. Really takes the judgements away on others. See them as oneself no matter how different. It's like in integration of the dual mind, conscious and subconscious becoming one in divine marriage of husband and wife. The single eye. The two becoming one, becoming whole(holy.) Objective mind meeting subjective mind. Everything in the universe is built on opposites, the more we balance, join, and meet in the middle, with no matter what it is, individually and collectively... The more whole we become, individually and collectively. Science and religion. Objective and subjective. Conscious and subconscious. Positive and negative. And so on....

Call it divine,cosmic, or natural justice of cause and effect... We will all reap what is sown. Whether love or hate, peace or divide, joy or pain, etc.

Thanks again for the post!!

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I understand you are probably thinking of such atrocities as the Jim Jones incident. Though there are many of such instances where atrocities have been done presumably in the name of religion, I contend and claim that despite these tragedies the world is still far better off with religion than without it.

I would love to hear your response to this paper I wrote for my final in English 2010.

I read it.
If you want honest feedback, start a new thread and link it here, or PM me.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I truly believe that everyone has power over themselves to choose to be happy and positive in any circumstance. I've seen it. and I've experienced it. The majority of people really struggle to stay positive in their trials. But when I stay positive, I always get through it and grow from it. Its just how life is. You struggle, you endure, you grow. OR You struggle, you quit, you become full of resentment and hostility. Everyone has power to choose for them self. All athletes know it takes pain and endurance to grow and achieve great things. Trials are the same way. Most do not see it. and most hate it. I know I hate my trials too. But when I choose to see them not as obstacles but as stepping stones, I ALWAYS grow <3

Interesting. My take is substantially less spiritual, which would surprise no-one who knows me, but despite that I tend towards optimism generally.
I see 'trials' as something we learn from. What we learn can be both helpful and unhelpful. Your struggle to stay positive in your trials is simply your determination to emphasize the positive learnings from a given situation and downplay the negatives.

Consider a simplistic and completely made-up example to try and illustrate what I mean;

I am in a car which is hit by a drunk driver. Not my fault, but my child was severely injured by the incident.

What do I learn from this? IN what sense do I 'grow', and in what sense do I 'scar'? Ask the same question for the drunk driver. And the same for the child.
So perhaps the drunk learns not to drink and drive, or not to drink at all. Positive lessons from a negative situation. Perhaps he is overwhelmed with grief. Perhaps I learn that safety is more valuable than saving money when buying a new car. And my child could learn that they can cope with anything after enduring skin grafts and physiotherapy, and that even the removal of an eye is nothing that can't be overcome with the right attitude.

He also might learn fear, of course. Fear of that which is beyond control. Or hatred of drinking. Or end up drinking to numb the physical pain. Who knows? But he'll learn something.

The point I am clumsily trying to make is that the lessons are not mutually exclusive. We learn. Positive and negative, good habits and bad. An over-emphasis on the positive, keyed with unwillingness to acknowledge the negative is actually every bit as simplistic a coping mechanism as a 'woe is me' attitude determined only to see how unfairly put upon one is.

At least, in my opinion. And regardless of your belief in God.
But, if over-emphasis on the positive works for you, more power to you. I would humbly suggest acknowledging how any advice to 'pick yourself up by the bootstraps' can come across. In a theological sense I've never quite understood 'There but for the grace of God...', but at least it does have the function of reminding one that you are never fully in control of your situation.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I guide them the absolute best I can and love them the best I can. I can only say and do so much. When parents grab their child and try forcing them to do this do that, dont go there dont go here... We know most kids are driven further away in rebellion anyways. God doesn't control others daily choices., but we make their own decisions and we all make our own mistakes. This is my belief.

With respect, you haven't answered my question. Would you ever allow your child to be seriously injured or hurt in order to teach them a lesson?

 

[psychoslice]

God doesn't leave us in trials, we most the time put ourselves in trials, lets take responsibility for our own selves and leave god out of it.

 

[Awkward Fingers]

I truly believe that everyone has power over themselves to choose to be happy and positive in any circumstance. (snip)

Curious.
EVERYone, or only people that have a god belief?

 

[Koldo]

God doesn't leave us in trials, we most the time put ourselves in trials, lets take responsibility for our own selves and leave god out of it.

That can't be done if you believe in an omnipotent God that watches you eating cereal every morning.

 

[Koldo]

I am going to quote Hume on the subject:

"… as this goodness is not antecedently established, but must be inferred from the phenomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference, while there are so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might so easily have been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on such a subject. I am sceptic enough to allow, that the bad appearances, notwithstanding all my reasonings, may be compatible with such attributes as you suppose: But surely they can never prove these attributes."

Food for thought.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I understand you are probably thinking of such atrocities as the Jim Jones incident.

Not particularly. I'm talking about pervasive, everyday harmful types of religion.

Though there are many of such instances where atrocities have been done presumably in the name of religion, I contend and claim that despite these tragedies the world is still far better off with religion than without it.

I'm not talking about religion in general here; I'm talking about the especially toxic version of religion that you're selling. I'm less concerned about psycopaths like Jim Jones who use religion as a tool than people like Mother Teresa: did you know that her hospital didn't use proper, normal pain management? It wasn't for lack of money for drugs; she had plenty. This was done because of her belief that if her patients suffered, this would earn them reward in Heaven.

That's the sort of thing I'm objecting to here. Psychopaths are a different matter; I'm talking about the less sensational but absolutely harmful way that toxic beliefs hurt people over time.

I would love to hear your response to this paper I wrote for my final in English 2010.

Sorry - I'm not in the habit of downloading random files from strangers on the internet.

 

[dust1n]

I believe that like God, we have always existed and that the term created does not mean out of nothing, but rather means organized and led.

Well, we are all free to believe whatever it is we believe, but if you find that others have a hard time seeing how any tragedy could be a means to a positive experience solely for the potential to find God, whether we picked out life before or after, it shouldn't really be surprising. I'm free to speculate on pre-life as much as I want, but I'd never have access to knowledge about it.

 

[Nakosis]

Buddhism teaches to end individual suffering.

Does this defeat God's purpose?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

God allows trials because non-existence projections of the human imagination have no power to influence or control events.