Why doesn't God stop evil, pain and suffering?

[Beaudreaux]

Most monotheistic religions (certainly Christianity and Judaism) say three things about God:

• He's omniscient and omnipotent (there is nothing he does not know or cannot do)
• He's omnibenevolent (he is all-loving)
• Evil and pain and suffering are real in the world

But one look at the world around us shows us that these three things cannot all be true. Consider:

• The day after Christmas in 2004 an earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a series of massive Tsunami that killed over a quarter million people. Parents who could not hang on to their children watched as they were drowned in the flood.
• A year later in 2005, a hurricane ripped into the southeastern U.S. killing over 1,800 people. In New Orleans, homeowners retreated to their attics to escape the rising flood waters, only to huddle together in fear as the water rose and they watched each other drown.
• Around 10,000 BCE, a virus came into the world that killed 20% - 60% of the people it infected (except for children, where the mortality rate was 80%). This was not a quick death, but often took days of being covered in painful pustules on the skin and in the throat. In the 18th century, it killed 400,000 people per year and was responsibile for a third of all blindness. During the 20th century it is estimated that this virus killed 3 - 5 hundred million people.
• Too many more like this to list them all...

If the Christian God exists, he knew about the Asian Tsunami, Hurrican Katrina and Smallpox before they occured, yet he did nothing to prevent them from happening. Why not?

Imagine the person you love most in the world. Now imagine that person in a hospital bed before you wracked in pain and dying of pancreatic cancer. After attending to your loved one for several days and taking in the full extent of their suffering, a doctor walks up to you and says "You know I have a cure for that type of cancer." You think to yourself "this is fantastic! My loved one can be spared!" But when you ask the doctor to give your loved one the cure, he refuses. You beg, you plead, you take legal action, but none of it works. The doctor refuses and your loved one dies shortly afterward.

What would we say about this doctor? Would we say he was a good man? No! We would probabaly say he is a demon. But God is just like the doctor. He sits back and watches the evil and suffering that plagues humanity knowing full well that he could prevent it, yet he refuses to.

So, what can we say about God?

 

[Caladan]

Well I think there is some inaccuracy in your argument..
consider this passage from the Hebrew bible:

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil"

Makes one ponder, no?

Also to play God's advocate for a moment, maybe God cannot prevent and gloriously triumph over evil (or what we consider evil).
Maybe in a way God is just a slob like one of us.

 

[whereismynotecard]

Most monotheistic religions (certainly Christianity and Judaism) say three things about God:

• He's omniscient and omnipotent (there is nothing he does not know or cannot do)
• He's omnibenevolent (he is all-loving)
• Evil and pain and suffering are real in the world

But one look at the world around us shows us that these three things cannot all be true. Consider:

• The day after Christmas in 2004 an earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a series of massive Tsunami that killed over a quarter million people. Parents who could not hang on to their children watched as they were drowned in the flood.
• A year later in 2005, a hurricane ripped into the southeastern U.S. killing over 1,800 people. In New Orleans, homeowners retreated to their attics to escape the rising flood waters, only to huddle together in fear as the water rose and they watched each other drown.
• Around 10,000 BCE, a virus came into the world that killed 20% - 60% of the people it infected (except for children, where the mortality rate was 80%). This was not a quick death, but often took days of being covered in painful pustules on the skin and in the throat. In the 18th century, it killed 400,000 people per year and was responsibile for a third of all blindness. During the 20th century it is estimated that this virus killed 3 - 5 hundred million people.
• Too many more like this to list them all...

If the Christian God exists, he knew about the Asian Tsunami, Hurrican Katrina and Smallpox before they occured, yet he did nothing to prevent them from happening. Why not?

Imagine the person you love most in the world. Now imagine that person in a hospital bed before you wracked in pain and dying of pancreatic cancer. After attending to your loved one for several days and taking in the full extent of their suffering, a doctor walks up to you and says "You know I have a cure for that type of cancer." You think to yourself "this is fantastic! My loved one can be spared!" But when you ask the doctor to give your loved one the cure, he refuses. You beg, you plead, you take legal action, but none of it works. The doctor refuses and your loved one dies shortly afterward.

What would we say about this doctor? Would we say he was a good man? No! We would probabaly say he is a demon. But God is just like the doctor. He sits back and watches the evil and suffering that plagues humanity knowing full well that he could prevent it, yet he refuses to.

So, what can we say about God?

Have you been watching a youtube video with a sort of bald guy talking about this stuff? This seems a lot like a youtube video with a bald guy. He pretends to be a Christain and points these sorts of things out...

 

[Beaudreaux]

Have you been watching a youtube video with a sort of bald guy talking about this stuff? This seems a lot like a youtube video with a bald guy. He pretends to be a Christain and points these sorts of things out...

No, but I'd love to see it. I myself am completely bald, but I didn't do this on video, though I thought about it.

 

[.lava]

when it is time, God ends EVERYTHING.

.

 

[Caladan]

when it is time, God ends EVERYTHING.

.

Fanna fi Allah

 

[.lava]

Fanna fi Allah

mm? you mean like Fena Fillah?

.

 

[Caladan]

mm? you mean like Fena Fillah?

.

No :sarcastic like Fanna fi Allah...

فناء في الله

 

[.lava]

No :sarcastic like Fanna fi Allah...

فناء في الله

what do you mean by that?

if it is Fena Fillah, then it would mean like 'disappear/vanish away/evanesce IN Allah. that would be a makaam (a degree) in tasavvuf. yet you keep living on Earth after that level.

.

 

[Caladan]

Normally it is translated as 'Annihilation in God'. and yes that is a strong motive or teaching in Sufism.
after all the Qur'an does say that Everything returns to God.

 

[Alla Prima]

Most monotheistic religions (certainly Christianity and Judaism) say three things about God:

• He's omniscient and omnipotent (there is nothing he does not know or cannot do)
• He's omnibenevolent (he is all-loving)
• Evil and pain and suffering are real in the world

But one look at the world around us shows us that these three things cannot all be true. Consider:

• The day after Christmas in 2004 an earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a series of massive Tsunami that killed over a quarter million people. Parents who could not hang on to their children watched as they were drowned in the flood.
• A year later in 2005, a hurricane ripped into the southeastern U.S. killing over 1,800 people. In New Orleans, homeowners retreated to their attics to escape the rising flood waters, only to huddle together in fear as the water rose and they watched each other drown.
• Around 10,000 BCE, a virus came into the world that killed 20% - 60% of the people it infected (except for children, where the mortality rate was 80%). This was not a quick death, but often took days of being covered in painful pustules on the skin and in the throat. In the 18th century, it killed 400,000 people per year and was responsibile for a third of all blindness. During the 20th century it is estimated that this virus killed 3 - 5 hundred million people.
• Too many more like this to list them all...

If the Christian God exists, he knew about the Asian Tsunami, Hurrican Katrina and Smallpox before they occured, yet he did nothing to prevent them from happening. Why not?

Imagine the person you love most in the world. Now imagine that person in a hospital bed before you wracked in pain and dying of pancreatic cancer. After attending to your loved one for several days and taking in the full extent of their suffering, a doctor walks up to you and says "You know I have a cure for that type of cancer." You think to yourself "this is fantastic! My loved one can be spared!" But when you ask the doctor to give your loved one the cure, he refuses. You beg, you plead, you take legal action, but none of it works. The doctor refuses and your loved one dies shortly afterward.

What would we say about this doctor? Would we say he was a good man? No! We would probabaly say he is a demon. But God is just like the doctor. He sits back and watches the evil and suffering that plagues humanity knowing full well that he could prevent it, yet he refuses to.

So, what can we say about God?

I agree with these thoughts of yours. My understanding is a creator god cannot possibly exist to begin with but if he did exist he certainly cannot be both an all-loving god and an omniscient/omnipotent god considering how he treats his creations. My best guess is he's off his meds.

 

[.lava]

Normally it is translated as 'Annihilation in God'. and yes that is a strong motive or teaching in Sufism.
after all the Qur'an does say that Everything returns to God.

i am sorry, i do not know the best word for it therefor i wrote three options yes, Fena Fillah is a makaam where your Spirit joins and disappears in Allah. that's like a drop of water disappearing in ocean since Spirit is from Allah. i was trying to tell you that it is not the end. it is actually the first makaam in tasavvuf.

.

 

[Luminous]

Q: why doesn't God...
A: Deism.

 

[Alla Prima]

We're talking about God as if he actually exists. God is a thought only. We're discussing a thought. You can make your thought be anything you want. Just write a book about talking to God and find people who are needy enough to buy into it and bingo - instant religion.

 

[zenzero]

Friend Beaudreaux ,

Why doesn't God stop evil, pain and suffering?

Because he never started it in the first place.
It is human beings who created god.
It is the human MIND that perceives DUALITIES.
When dualities does not remain good/evil too does not remain.
Love & rgds

 

[herushura]

Because god created evil, pain and suffering, and the Religions that encourage it like islam and judaism aka Gaza war today

 

[Heneni]

When god created man and the earth...he said..'rule and dominate'.

He did not say..YOU rule and dominate...and ILL take the responsibility for your mess.

God created the earth and said it was good. Everything for this earth to sustain and keep it going was created with it. Part of that included volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural phenomena. To live in harmony with nature was the idea. Mother nature would provide us with food and all the likes to keep us fed and healthy. What have we done to our mother?

When mother earth has an earthquake and a volcano errupts we blame god for it, when infact these things are exactly needed to sustain earth.

You cant have your toast buttered on both sides. Either you live off mother nature and let her get on with it, or you blame god for letting her get on with it, and be ungratefull that she is trying to sustain herself. And she is having to try much harder the last few hundred years, since our idea of rule and dominate means search and destroy.

Heneni

 

[Scuba Pete]

Evil, pain, suffering and even death are bio-feedback mechanisms God has given us to AVOID them.

We are indeed sentient beings. How did we get here? How did our philosophy, science and religion develop? Largely from these very same bio-feedback mechanisms.

Look at the cleanliness laws in the OT. They were in direct contradiction ot the science of the day. There is a list of treatments that were in effect during the time of Moses, coming from Pharaoh's court. They thought that scratches and cuts should have horse manure spread on them. HORSE MANURE. Yet, in the OT we find this tribe of people doing these ceremonial washings rather than using horse manure. Was their Science any better? In fact, it has been postulated that if these had been used during MANY of the plagues, that they would have never reached such epidemic proportions.

God designed evolution to work in a particular manner. That includes pain, pleasure, life and death in order for it to work. They work hand in hand like the night works with the day or hot works with cold.

 

[Alla Prima]

When god created man and the earth...he said..'rule and dominate'.

He did not say..YOU rule and dominate...and ILL take the responsibility for your mess.

God created the earth and said it was good. Everything for this earth to sustain and keep it going was created with it. Part of that included volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural phenomena. To live in harmony with nature was the idea. Mother nature would provide us with food and all the likes to keep us fed and healthy. What have we done to our mother?

When mother earth has an earthquake and a volcano errupts we blame god for it, when infact these things are exactly needed to sustain earth.

You cant have your toast buttered on both sides. Either you live off mother nature and let her get on with it, or you blame god for letting her get on with it, and be ungratefull that she is trying to sustain herself. And she is having to try much harder the last few hundred years, since our idea of rule and dominate means search and destroy.

Heneni

This is making the mold fit the jello. We're twisting our heads in knots to get this god idea to fit reality.

Look it's very simple. If an all powerful loving god wanted to create people he would have created them happy people. Why? Because he's a loving god. So either he's not a loving god or he's not all powerful.

 

[Heneni]

This is making the mold fit the jello. We're twisting our heads in knots to get this god idea to fit reality.

Look it's very simple. If an all powerful loving god wanted to create people he would have created them happy people. Why? Because he's a loving god. So either he's not a loving god or he's not all powerful.

After the 'look its very simple' comment...you continued to do what your first sentence said i did ...which is

'This is making the mold fit the jello. We're twisting our heads in knots to get this god idea to fit reality'

If you dont know god how can you possilbly feel inclined to comment on his motives?

Humans are unhappy because they make themselves unhappy. Thats reality.

Dont blame god...cause you missed the mark. Most people blame the devil for that but its become unfashionable so its quite the in thing to blame god for our missery.

Humans like to do whatever makes themselves look good. Its that burning feeling of 'oops i screwed up' and now i have to find someone to blame. Who shall it be today? God?

Unless we find someone else to blame...we cant sleep well at night. But the nagging feeling that humanity has screwed up is not going to go away..and neither is god. What might just end up in oblivion are humans who blame god.


You must therefore make sure that your accusations of god is correct, because if they are not, your accusation stands for eternity until it is judged. Your accusations against god, doesnt go away either. Who are you going to blame when you are judged as being an inaccurate judge of god? Will you blame GOD because you didnt judge him correctly?

Heneni

Heneni