I need help answering a question

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Wrigley

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Hello,

Can someone help me answer the below question from a former Catholic aethisist. Thanks
"**So if god exists, and if god exists in some form similar to how I was told in my catholic upbringing (i.e. ‘all powerful’), I think god is doing a lousy job. **
Children are sick and dying in Darfur and all over the world.
Financial crisis puts people out of work.
Hindu’s killing Christians in India
The Homeless
Sept 11th, 2001
The religious are anti-gay
AIDS is still killing people
Hurricane Katrina
Westboro Baptist ‘Church’
ad infinitum

So I wonder why god, if he exists, doesn’t do something about the problems of the world? The nuns told me he was ‘all-powerful’. So the logical thought for me is that ‘god does not exist’ or ‘god exists in some variation in between’. "

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts."

"
 
This is what is known as “the problem of evil.” You are not the first person to ask the question. Start here.
 
Hey, Wrigley!
Code: 
 Such suffering is allowed by God because He gave man a free will.  A free will implies that man can choose to do good, or he can choose to do evil.  Combined with the effects of Original Sin (darkness of intellect and weakness of will), we can see that this dangerous combination produces lots of human suffering.

 God is not the Grand Pupetmaster.  He does, sometimes, intervene.  But more often, He ends up turning something bad into something good.  An analogy might be if someone was playing a musical instrument, sening those notes out into space, one after another.  Suppose he makes a mistake and hits a wrong note.  God can take that wrong note and make that note the first note in another song, which might be more beautiful than the first one.

 Jesus told us to pick up our cross daily and follow Him.  We are not guaranteed to be materially happy in this life, but if we are faithful to Him, we are guaranteed eternal happiness.

  One of the Saints of the Church once said that the most miserable, horrific life on earth, from the perspective of eternity in heaven, will seem no more as an inconvenient night in a bad hotel.  From that perspective, most of us would be more than happy to suffer a thousand times more to reach heaven.
 
Wrigley said:
So if god exists, and if god exists in some form similar to how I was told in my catholic upbringing (i.e. ‘all powerful’), I think god is doing a lousy job.

So I wonder why god, if he exists, doesn’t do something about the problems of the world?

So the logical thought for me is that ‘god does not exist’ or ‘god exists in some variation in between’.
Click to expand...
We asked to be taught about the consequences of sin.

Part of that education is to experience suffering.

God respects our free will decisions, and He will not subvert our request to be taught the consequences of sin by “making it all PERFECT” for us.

How are those who demand that God “fix everything” for them to believe in Him not selfishly wanting what is not best for them instead of gratefully accepting of what IS best for them?

:shamrock2:
 
Wrigley said:
Hello,

Can someone help me answer the below question from a former Catholic aethisist. Thanks
"**So if god exists, and if god exists in some form similar to how I was told in my catholic upbringing (i.e. ‘all powerful’), I think god is doing a lousy job. **
Children are sick and dying in Darfur and all over the world.
Financial crisis puts people out of work.
Hindu’s killing Christians in India
The Homeless
Sept 11th, 2001
The religious are anti-gay
AIDS is still killing people
Hurricane Katrina
Westboro Baptist ‘Church’
ad infinitum

So I wonder why god, if he exists, doesn’t do something about the problems of the world? The nuns told me he was ‘all-powerful’. So the logical thought for me is that ‘god does not exist’ or ‘god exists in some variation in between’. "

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts."

"
Click to expand...
I’m not going to do a lot of quoting here but try to put an analogy forward.

There are three Men each with a son.

The First man Gives his child a great deal of “age appropriate” freedom. Willing to step in when necessary. Providing rules and expectations but does not prevent the son from “Falling off the Bike” so to speak. If the Child gets into trouble, the father listens and takes appropriate action to punish the chaild, but always loving him and welcoming his contritions.

The Second man is always right there with his son, “Protecting” him and running all sorts of interferance for him. The Child is always fed and clothed but rarely gets to even leave the house without “daddy tagging along” to see that he doesn’t get hurt or into trouble.

Which man woud you say is the better father?

God has given us all “Age appropriate” freedom. He has given us guidelines and rules. He is always willing to forgive us and welcome us back to his arms. He has told us all that this world is not one of peaches and cream or milk and honey, but rather a place of both joy and danger, just like any school and playground. If we follow His will then much of what your friend cites in his tirade is either fixed or at least alleviated.

We are God’s Hands, and Legs. – Or we are Satans… It’s our choice.

Peace
James
 
One of the best talks I ever heard on suffering is by Dr. Peter Kreeft. Here is a link to the talk.

Only through the prism of Jesus Christ does suffering make sense. One of the analogies he used was that while in the world of the womb, a baby has feet and wonders “why do I have feet, there are no sidewalks.” But in the next world, he will need them. So too are we made for another world in which the suffering we endured will have value beyond our imagination.
 
Ask him to describe in detail the world they think God should have created, and ask him what life would be like in that world. It’s a case of put up or shut up, and it will lead to some startling realizations.
 
Okay, suppose you are all powerful. Now I as your child and creation, trip over my own feet and skin my knee and I complain to you that you should run things better so I wouldn’t hurt myself. The next day, I trip over my own feet again and this time I break my leg. Again I complain to you that as all powerful, you’re doing a pretty crummy job because you should run things better and since you didn’t I’ve got a broken leg. So, the next day I again trip over my own feet only this time I roll down the hill and fall off the cliff. On my way down to what will be my certain death, I complain that this is all your fault because as all powerful, you are doing a really crummy job. So you decide to step in and suspend the law of gravity. I do not land at the bottom of the cliff and die.

**QUESTION:

As all powerful, have you really done better for me and/or the world and its inhabitants by taking this action?**
 
Wrigley said:
Hello,

Can someone help me answer the below question from a former Catholic aethisist. Thanks
"**So if god exists, and if god exists in some form similar to how I was told in my catholic upbringing (i.e. ‘all powerful’), I think god is doing a lousy job. **
Children are sick and dying in Darfur and all over the world.
Financial crisis puts people out of work.
Hindu’s killing Christians in India
The Homeless
Sept 11th, 2001
The religious are anti-gay
AIDS is still killing people
Hurricane Katrina
Westboro Baptist ‘Church’
ad infinitum

So I wonder why god, if he exists, doesn’t do something about the problems of the world? The nuns told me he was ‘all-powerful’. So the logical thought for me is that ‘god does not exist’ or ‘god exists in some variation in between’. "

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts."

"
Click to expand...
Since God has given us free will, evil must also exist. God brings great good out of evil - just look at Jesus’ Crucifixion, for instance. Greatest evil (diecide) turning into the greatest good (man’s salvation won for us by Christ’s sacrifice). God allows (not causes) evil to draw a greater good from it. He is all powerful and certainly has the ability to stop all evil, but then that would take away free will of all men (because everyone commits evil, no matter how minor). So, while our earthly life is in existence, so is evil, sin, sickness, and all the horrible things that go along with it.
 
I realize this may be completely useless in answering your question. But what I can tell you from personal experience although my faith was never as strong as it should’ve been, it never died because He was the one I turned to when all else seemed lost. And He, in His own time, brought me all the way back to Him. I truly believe our Father wants us to be happy, and I can say now, from personal experience, there is no greater joy than to have Him by ones side. God did in fact give us free will. And even in the throws of the deepest darkness, we have a choice. We can either let a disaster completely destroy us, or ultimately make us stronger and bring us closer to Him. We can either disregard a terrorist attack or a war as evidence of either a non-existent or unloving God, or we can do all within our power to remedy the problems in this world caused by the neglect of free will by that fallible creature called Man and become a better world for it. Our relationship with God, in my mind, is like a marriage. A marriage that goes through a hard time and comes out the other end is often a lot deeper and more meaningful than a marriage that never faces any difficulty.
 
And…in the final analysis, people give an almost universal kind of tacit agreement with God that it’s all worth it one way or the other-even in this messed-up world of pain and suffering-because we all, nearly unanimously, cherish and cling to the existence we’ve been given-preferring it way more than the alternative no matter how much we complain or shake our fists at the God we may or may not believe in. And even those in so much pain that they seek death don’t want to stop existing but rather to stop the pain, as St Augustine pointed out.
 
Wrigley said:
Hello,

Can someone help me answer the below question from a former Catholic aethisist. Thanks
"**So if god exists, and if god exists in some form similar to how I was told in my catholic upbringing (i.e. ‘all powerful’), I think god is doing a lousy job. **
Children are sick and dying in Darfur and all over the world.
Financial crisis puts people out of work.
Hindu’s killing Christians in India
The Homeless
Sept 11th, 2001
The religious are anti-gay
AIDS is still killing people
Hurricane Katrina
Westboro Baptist ‘Church’
ad infinitum

So I wonder why god, if he exists, doesn’t do something about the problems of the world? The nuns told me he was ‘all-powerful’. So the logical thought for me is that ‘god does not exist’ or ‘god exists in some variation in between’. "

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts."

"
Click to expand...
I recommend the following books:

Making Sense Out Of Suffering by Peter Kreeft

Arise From Darkness by Father Benedict Groeschel

Why Does God Permit Evil by Dom Bruno Webb
 
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