God vs. Evil

[Country020]

If God is almighty and powerful, why does he make life hard for some people, and other’s have it so easily?
Why is there suffering in the world?

I generally have an idea but, I would like to hear anyone else’s idea.

 

[rpp]

First, one must be careful not to discount or underestimate the impact free-will has on our actions and our relationship with God.

Suffering, when offered to God, can purify the soul of a person. This can and indeed does shorten a person’s time in Purgatory.

In light of that, a reasonable questions to ask might be, are people who have and easy or comfortable life really better off?

 

[quasimodo]

If God is almighty and powerful, why does he make life hard for some people, and other’s have it so easily?
Why is there suffering in the world?

I generally have an idea but, I would like to hear anyone else’s idea.

free will - yes, but also …

Read Genesis. The world was not created in perfection. Humanity was told to have dominion & subdue it. (Your translation may vary). In any case, there is no need to have dominion and / or to subdue a perfected harmonious creation. There is some chaos present in creation and stuff happens in a chaotic environment. Why would God do this? One of his gifts to mankind was work to occupy us.

 

[Ghosty]

free will - yes, but also …

Read Genesis. The world was not created in perfection. Humanity was told to have dominion & subdue it. (Your translation may vary). In any case, there is no need to have dominion and / or to subdue a perfected harmonious creation. There is some chaos present in creation and stuff happens in a chaotic environment. Why would God do this? One of his gifts to mankind was work to occupy us.

Genesis doesn’t say that we had to work to have dominion over the world until after the Fall. The term subdue is used in Chapter One, not in terms of us needing to work for our dominion, but in terms of us acting as having the dominion God gave us.

Upon Falling we had to work for it, as God says in Chapter Three of Genesis.

17] And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
`You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18] thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19] In the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
20]

Peace and God bless!

 

[Caldera]

Hiya Ghosty

Are you saying in light of the big bang & evolution theories, that:

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

Is to be taken literally? If so, can you please explain how God suddenly gave humans sweat glands? (Which is something that would seem that he didn’t intend if they were living in paradise)

 

[Ghosty]

Hiya Ghosty

Are you saying in light of the big bang & evolution theories, that:

Is to be taken literally? If so, can you please explain how God suddenly gave humans sweat glands? (Which is something that would seem that he didn’t intend if they were living in paradise)

No, I’m saying that what would have come with little effort, namely our dominance over the world, now comes with hard work. I don’t see how sweat glands factor into it.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Caldera]

Ghosty,

No, I’m saying that what would have come with little effort, namely our dominance over the world, now comes with hard work. I don’t see how sweat glands factor into it.

Well, i would argue that there are many times in life while working hard and breaking a good sweat completing a particular task, that it makes the end result of it a more enjoyable accomplishment compared to being able to do anything with ease all the time.

So, if God really “cursed” the world… er, wait. If God specially created us humans to live perfectly in some garden of eden as long as we didn’t commit any sins so we can accomplish anything we want with ease, then i’m not sure i can believe we were created with sweat glands.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

Please stick to the original topic, everyone. Take side discussions to new or existing threads. Thank you all.

 

[brockmac]

If God is almighty…
Why is there suffering in the world?

In the Gospel according to John (Chapter 9), a blind man is brought to the Lord. Jesus is asked if the man’s condition is a result of either his or his parent’s sins. Jesus responds that the man was born blind “so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” (John 9: 3) He then procedes to give the man his sight.

While the miracle of giving sight to the blind is a wonderful evidence of Jesus’ divinity, and a very appropriate comparison to His giving us the sight of faith in our blindness, I think this miracle causes a lot of people to miss what He said. He did not say “I am going to give him sight so that the works of God…” He said, “This man was born blind so that …” God is revealed to us in the poor and the suffering. He is also revealed to us in our own suffering.

Additionally, as Catholics we believe that our own sufferings are a participation in the Cross, that when we offer our sufferings up, they can be acts of penance that actually draw us closer to Christ. If he had to suffer, do we really think we can avoid it?

I could go on and on, but I will stop here for now.

 

[joseph_virgen]

evil is weak, if it were strong it would destroy everthing, itself included. that, is the nature of evil.

evil gives way to righteousness. as the catholic church says "suffering occurs so a greater good can spring forthe.

evil knows its limitation. we should, too.

 

[Brian_Millar]

The world will hate you for my names sake, this is what Jesus taught, and it’s so true. The closer you are to God, the stronger your faith, the more the world will hate you and there is no getting around that.

The people I see that are well off and comfortable, most, if not all are spirtually weak, they fit right in with the status quoe, they conform to the world, not to the word, and the world rewards them by making things easier on them, allowing them to exist in a spiritual lull, or even to reinforce the ways of the world on others, especially the believers and followers of Christ.

I also like to consider facing opposition from the wold and being forced to handle the oppression to temper the soul, like you are turning a lump of iron ore into tempered steel. I can take from my own experiences, where I can handle facing serious opposition, it’s because I’ve had to face it before and I know I will triumph over it eventually, but for someone that has never faced it, they would crumble under it’s weight. So you see, that person that’s comfortable and well off, they are not better off in the end.

 

[Dameedna]

The Big escape clause in this debate is “Free Will”. He created us, but he gave us free will, therefore it’s our fault that people hurt. That may be true…it’s our fault.

But then there’s the other side. God MADE us with free will, knowing what we’d do. He decided, despite the pain, we would still be created. And while people live horrific lives, the comforted, sit in the knowlege, that all will be right in the end.

Doesn’t really stop the pain though does it?

Why create an entity with free will, if you knew it was going to create such suffering? It seems inhumane.

The free will clause, is no clause at all, because God still gave us the “will” to make other’s suffer.

The cherry offered by christianity to make it all seem right, is Heaven. God will make it right in the end, he’s just. It’s the biggest detrimant to human progress I’ve ever seen.

 

[Brian_Millar]

I look back at my life and see what I faced, the struggles I’ve dealt with, and then look to my own personal character which is formed from it. If 1/2 of the struggles never manifested, I would only be 1/2 of the person I am now. This life is short, only a small spec considering the existance of your eternal soul, weigh the suffering you face in regards to that, and it will actually seem insignificant no matter how horrific it may presently seem. Does it bring comfort during the struggle, no, the Holy Spirit does deliver comfort during those times if you let him though, that’s the one consolation we have as Christians.

I think free will is pointless unless you have full free will, not just part of it, and think of it as a test if you use it unwisely, for having failed it in this life time you fail for eternity afterwards being cast into the lake of fire. Yet, make the right choices and you gain treasures in heaven, and in some ways, in this life as well, but know the world is always going to be against you during this one simply because you are a follower of Christ. The latter element is what throws any system out the window.

Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4).

 

[Mystic_Warrior]

If God is almighty and powerful, why does he make life hard for some people, and other’s have it so easily?
Why is there suffering in the world?

I generally have an idea but, I would like to hear anyone else’s idea.

Read the book of 2 Esdras in the Catholic Bible. Best explanation I’ve seen for it. Also, read the book of Job. To me, the non-canonical book of 2 Esdras is one of the best texts ever to exist. Although it is believed to have been edited quite a bit (especially the first two chapters) and the Hebrew and/or Greek manuscripts don’t exist. The only translation we have is in Latin.

Peace…

MW

 

[Hastrman]

“You!” [Gregory] cried. “You never hated because you never lived. I know what you are all of you, from first to last-- you are the people in power! You are the police–the great fat, smiling men in blue and buttons! You are the Law, and you have never been broken. But is there a free soul alive that does not long to break you, only because you have never been broken? We in revolt talk all kind of nonsense doubtless about this crime or that crime of the Government. It is all folly! The only crime of the Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. I do not curse you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for being safe! You sit in your chairs of stone, and have never come down from them. You are the seven angels of heaven, and you have had no troubles. Oh, I could forgive you everything, you that rule all mankind, if I could feel for once that you had suffered for one hour a real agony such as I–”

Syme sprang to his feet, shaking from head to foot. “I see everything,” he cried, "everything that there is. Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, ‘You lie!’ No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, ‘We also have suffered.’

“It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell. We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have not been happy. I can answer for every one of the great guards of Law whom he has accused. At least–”

He had turned his eyes so as to see suddenly the great face of [deleted so as not to spoil it], which wore a strange smile.

“Have you,” he cried in a dreadful voice, “have you ever suffered?”

As he gazed, the great face grew to an awful size, grew larger than the colossal mask of Memnon, which had made him scream as a child. It grew larger and larger, filling the whole sky; then everything went black. Only in the blackness before it entirely destroyed his brain he seemed to hear a distant voice saying a commonplace text that he had heard somewhere, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?”

–GK Chesterton, “The Man Who Was Thursday”