Is it OK to be truly happy living in a world where more than 9,500 innocent children starve to death each and every day?

[tonyrey]

If we carried the suffering of children every day, we would break under the weight of this.

The children of this world show humanity the value of the human being created with a soul, made in the image of God. When they suffer, our very own souls suffer to the core of ouf being, and it is so disturbing how anyone could hurt an innocent.

We must turn to Jesus to make our burdens light. We must will to be joyous in spite of the suffering to witness the resurrected life for humanity for hope, and also that this world cannot make us truly happy but with Jesus in the next.

God loves them so much and when they pass on, they encounter His embrace, erasing any suffering they had on earth.

A physical world devoid of suffering is an absurd fantasy.

 

[tonyrey]

I’ve asked him this on other (extremely similar) threads he has opened. His reply, as I recall, was that supposedly he is unable, physically and emotionally and practically, to do much of anything. However, many disabled people live constructive lives now that computers are a source of communication and even action (spreading the word, organizing movements, etc.).

Disabled people should demonstrate their courage instead of encouraging hatred of life.

 

[tonyrey]

Are you honestly trying to tell us that God demands we be sorrowful and in pain every day of our lives? That’s ludicrous. This world is good, not just good, but VERY good. God created the world because he knew we would enjoy it. God would not fill a world with such beauty and goodness, go as far to call it good, then turn around and demand we never enjoy it, tell us that we must hate his creation.

To hate sin is divine but to hate life is diabolical…

 

[tonyrey]

Well stated, and I agree. Life is not meant to be a burden but a gift which we joyfully partake in. At the same time, our earthly journey is not meant to be a solitary one, divorced from G-d and our fellow humans as well as other creatures. We must therefore do whatever we can to ease their pain and suffering.

Precisely! It helps no one, least of all ourselves, if we deny the value of life. We are not liberated by death because what counts is whether we are slaves to ourselves. Heaven and hell begin in this world:

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”a]) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,**(“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8:31-39&version=NLT#fen-NLT-28116b”)] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[Robert_Sock]

A physical world devoid of suffering is an absurd fantasy.

What about our world prior to the fall?

 

[justice99]

This question is logically the same with questions on the inherent unfairness which exists in the world, to start with: why are people born blind? (including the man who was born blind in the gospel)
.
It is always better to trust in God rather than ponder on our personal evaluation of the world.
The bible both old testament and new testament portray people that were happy, not out of worldliness but out of faith and trust in God.
.
My soul magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour…

 

[DMC12]

“Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
-John 12:25

I think that just means that you have to love God more than your life, that is pretty much all.

besides, is that what he meant in the original text? i mean in a Spanish translation i found on catholic.net

it is read as:“El que tiene apego a su vida la perderá; y el que no está apegado a su vida en este mundo, la conservará para la Vida eterna.”
that is translated (by me) to english like this:
“that who has attachment to their life, will lose it, and that who is not attached to their life in this world, will keep it for the eternal Life.”

As you can see the words change, and in this one i think it gives more the idea i am talking about.

 

[Qoeleth]

Well stated, and I agree. Life is not meant to be a burden but a gift which we joyfully partake in. At the same time, our earthly journey is not meant to be a solitary one, divorced from G-d and our fellow humans as well as other creatures. We must therefore do whatever we can to ease their pain and suffering.

That’s one possible way of looking at it, and no doubt matches some people’s experiences.

But there are others who find life pretty much a trial, and, all in all, would prefer not to have it. Now, such an attitude does not necessarily lead to suicide- many people stay around, simply to obey Divine Law and the will of God, to serve one’s duty.

But for such people, life is experienced either as a duty, “like the slave sighing for the shade” (Job 7), or as a kind of punishment for some mysterious guilt they did not personally commit.

Now, for such people, life need not be continual misery, or a wallowing in self-pity. At times, it may be enjoyable, or neutral. But still, it is a duty, not a gift. And we can do our duty, complete our prison term, with a smile or courtesy, helping and encouraging each other however we can. But that doesn’t mean that it ever stops beind a duty, a trial or a prison-term.

So, for such people (amongs whom I include myself) on the whole, the inevitably of death (whether Heaven or even the cool earth) is something which is viewed with the greatest possible joy- like waiting to finish a hard day’s work.

 

[Qoeleth]

Disabled people should demonstrate their courage instead of encouraging hatred of life.

Well, perhaps that is true, objectively. But who are we to tell others what they should do? There are people in pain, etc., who perhaps cannot deal with it well. I for one am not about to tell them what attitude they should take.

Christ’s own heart is broken from love, and therefore, whoever carries wounds is a brother or sister of Christ, and will not be turned away.

 

[Qoeleth]

To hate sin is divine but to hate life is diabolical…

But it is not diabolic to feel tired of life, to get tired of being alive, to get tired of the body, space, time, the world- to long for a final rest. I think it is the beginning of real conversion.

“Come to me all ye who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.”

 

[meltzerboy]

That’s one possible way of looking at it, and no doubt matches some people’s experiences.

But there are others who find life pretty much a trial, and, all in all, would prefer not to have it. Now, such an attitude does not necessarily lead to suicide- many people stay around, simply to obey Divine Law and the will of God, to serve one’s duty.

But for such people, life is experienced either as a duty, “like the slave sighing for the shade” (Job 7), or as a kind of punishment for some mysterious guilt they did not personally commit.

Now, for such people, life need not be continual misery, or a wallowing in self-pity. At times, it may be enjoyable, or neutral. But still, it is a duty, not a gift. And we can do our duty, complete our prison term, with a smile or courtesy, helping and encouraging each other however we can. But that doesn’t mean that it ever stops beind a duty, a trial or a prison-term.

So, for such people (amongs whom I include myself) on the whole, the inevitably of death (whether Heaven or even the cool earth) is something which is viewed with the greatest possible joy- like waiting to finish a hard day’s work.

I agree with you that some people feel that life is more of a seemingly endless trial or prison sentence than a joyous and wondrous experience. I live in the real world and therefore realize life can be tough at times for many people and much tougher than the norm for some. I don’t deny this. At the same time, however, I don’t believe this is how G-d wants us to feel about our lives here on earth, and I reject the notion that this earthly life is a “vale of tears,” largely because such an idea has no place in Judaism as it hinders us, even if not entirely, from giving of our best to help others and help ourselves. The domain of life is life, not death, unless you are Freudian and believe in the death drive as an equally powerful and opposing force to the life drive.

 

[SpidersfromMars]

I would say yes so long as you help those less fortunate, and don’t become oblivious.

The sad fact is that if you mourned each tragedy in the world, you would go mad with grief after about 5 minutes

 

[epan]

I do what I can, and leave the rest to others to do what they can. There will always be suffering in the world. That does not prevent me from enjoying my life, and the positive things in it.

 

[pnewton]

As Jesus promised happiness, by the only useful definition, to certain groups of disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, it is an act of disbelief in the promise of God to deny the possibility. Then we have all the “rejoice” and “count it all joy” admonitions in the epistles.

 

[pnewton]

I think that just means that you have to love God more than your life, that is pretty much all.

In the same sense, we are told we must hate father and mother to be a disciple. Logically, either Jesus used hyperbole or he was schizophrenic.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Take the hypothetical situation where everyone but you were starving to death but you felt happy towards life. Would this happiness be warranted? If not, where would you draw the line? Would it have been appropriate to feel happiness during the terrorist attacks of 911?

 

[DMC12]

when sadness can be eaten or used to stop terrorists, i guess you’ll have a point.

stop your nonsense, we live in a world where people suffer, and we must care for them, but we can and try to be happy while we are here.

anyway I hope that you can live a life in Christ as an atheist, because that is where i see you going if you continue with those toughts.

 

[Robert_Sock]

when sadness can be eaten or used to stop terrorists, i guess you’ll have a point.

stop your nonsense, we live in a world where people suffer, and we must care for them, but we can and try to be happy while we are here. [highlight mine]

anyway I hope that you can live a life in Christ as an atheist, because that is where i see you going if you continue with those toughts.

You avoided my question? Why?

What do you do when the world continues to turn a blind eye to the problem?

And thanks for those kind thoughts.

 

[Gricken]

Take the hypothetical situation where everyone but you were starving to death but you felt happy towards life. Would this happiness be warranted? If not, where would you draw the line? Would it have been appropriate to feel happiness during the terrorist attacks of 911?

This is moving the goalposts. The orignal question was “is it okay to be happy in this world” this question is “is there a time where it is not appropriate to be happy.” That’s two very different questions.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Take the hypothetical situation where everyone but you were starving to death but you felt happy towards life. Would this happiness be warranted? If not, where would you draw the line? Would it have been appropriate to feel happiness during the terrorist attacks of 911?

Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream, Robert. You are attempting to claim that the absolute extremist view (one happy person, 7 billion starving) is obviously wrong, and using that to try to claim that there is NO place to ‘draw the line’. But nobody is trying to draw a line except you. None of us feel that there is some magic ‘number’ of people who can starve while we enjoy ourselves, and that one ‘over’ that number means that we stop enjoying ourselves.

There are people who gave birth on September 11, 2001, not just in the world, but in the US, and even in New York City itself. Do you think the parents of these children should not have felt happiness in the birth of their children because of the terrorist attacks? How about the children, ‘innocent little children’ who on that day perhaps won a game or a prize or made a friend? Should THEY not have felt happiness in that?

I was 7 when President Kennedy was shot. We were, all of us, shocked (even little children knew something very terrible had happened to an important man). But none of us were told by the good sisters to go home, sit in sackcloth and ashes, and find no joy from now on in the love of our parents, family, and friends, because of this terrible event.