Why does God allow this to happen?

[Robertanthony]

So, because you think that you’re not being treated “fairly”, you’re going to claim that God is a “stingy meanie”. That doesn’t sound at all adolescent.:

Not with everyone. I never claimed I was mature, I think a couple of bad knocks will attack all the concepts starting with “self”, especially in the formative years. Make me relatively bright, give me a freaking working memory, and we’re not having this conversation. You’ve never been complimented on your empathy in real life, have you?

Envious as well as prideful. There’s an obvious reason why God won’t give you everything you want. You’re not even asking for the right things, much less for the right reasons or the right ends.:

Asking for a freaking brain that works well enough to be able to learn a trade which I will love and be good at. God is omnipotent apparently, but, funny enough, I wake up everyday with a brain that guarantees stagnation and an un-exciting life. Give me the grey matter that Jesus had and God will never hear another complain from this loser again. My brain is where 90% of my torments/problems/depression/anxiety originate.

FYI, I’m so sure that you have suffered so much more in your life than Christ did.

Christ suffered **voluntarily**, I had a lousy life crammed down my throat by God, and he expects gratitude. Give me a brain, a future, give me some ability, life changes instantly. All my stupid life, up against a wall, having to fight despair, feeling like **** having to face life and people. Awesome gift.

Again, all I see is an adolescent rant with no serious attempt to take responsibility.:

  If I were homeless you'd pity me, but because I pressed on despite being anxious and depressed and seeing nothing but bleakness in front of me (crummy life and God's hell in the afterlife), you belittle me. I did what I could with the cheap material God sent my way. Why was God so adamant that I should be born? There's a good question. Does he honestly think he did me a favour?

My parents divorced when I was two(both drug addicts). Mother continued to used drugs and my step-father was an alcoholic as well.
Blaming God for your circumstances is absurd. There are millions of people who don’t even have a computer to come on CA and complain about how “******” God is treating them. I know poor people living on the streets here around where I live who have no money, don’t know where their next meal is coming from, yet are totally free and love God.
You’ll claim that this is “ignorance”, and that’s frankly bull.

Money changes everything. With God you beg, you get crumbs or nothing. I want a good life, being a one talent guy, a good life is impossible. With money, everything is possible. If the people you’re talking about are fine and happy being destitute and being treated like less than the lilies of the fields, then all the best to them. You’re on my case, but why does God get a free ride for condemning the whole of humanity not yet created for the sin of Adam? You call me immature, granted I am, but what do you call God’s perfectly reasonable reaction to Adam’s sin?

Your anxiety is because you’re frustrated. You’re frustrated because you’re angry because you’re not getting what you want. You want to stop feeling anxious and depressed, stop chasing the wind. :

No my anxiety is because I'm a disappointment and I fall short, I'm an inferior man. I don't measure up. I can't let my heart take a beating like that. Ask God to give me a functional brain and let's see how it goes.  God loves me so much, infinitely, then he'll be happy to stop a cursed life by making my brain work, right? He has the means to do it, the will is lacking.  God decreed lack and frustration for me, why all of a sudden would he change his will which he loves so much?

Again, you think that you’re the only one who has every dealt with what you deal with? You think that you were the only one ever picked on, humiliated, unwanted, etc?.

Never said that. To put that behind me, though, I need a new brain and/or money. God's useless and sterile love will not do. Jesus had 3 not so good years, 3 days of intense suffering, the other 30 years must have been fun in some way. He was like Adam,  no original sin to weigh him down, no psychological problems to weigh him down, a loving mother, a job he was good at and enjoyed doing.

All God hears from you is “me, me, me.” :

I’m like God in that regard. All about him getting glory, love, worship. You won’t get much selflessness from an angry, religious fanatic, booze-loving daddy, nor from a depressed, self-absorbed, absent-minded, half-crazy mom. Expecting selflessnes and help when it counts from God—>not happening. God is not interested in his menagerie’s broken hearts, he wants to hear songs of praises saying how wonderful he is. Nobody covers my *** but me. Hence the “me, me, me”.

Yeah, better to speak of the God of the universe like a counter clerk at a fast food restaurant who owes you precisely what you “paid” for by being born.

If you hate the cold like there's no tomorrow, why would I be stupid or clueless enough to give you a two-week all inclusive package in a Siberia cottage? God must think very highly of himself to give life to people who wil hate being alive, all the while thinking it was a gift like no other gift. Without the right set of genes, skills, life is essentially a burden, and God, a smiling burden-giver.

This is a freaking nightmare to edit. I’m all for a polite, mutually enriching convo, but this is something else.

 

[empther]

Originally Posted by Amandil
All God hears from you is “me, me, me.” :

Right on, Amandil :bowdown2:

 

[Robertanthony]

Right on, Amandil :bowdown2:

Here I am pouring my heart out, detailing why, insofar as i’m concerned, I think God is a fraud, other poster says I’m egocentric, I agree with her, you think that’s funny? I gather that you modelled your compassion on God’s.

 

[empther]

Here I am pouring my heart out, ] detailing why, insofar as i’m concerned,** I think God is a fraud, ** :bigyikes::banghead:

:manvspc:
:takethat:
:slapfight:

 

[Amandil]

Not with everyone. I never claimed I was mature, I think a couple of bad knocks will attack all the concepts starting with “self”, especially in the formative years. Make me relatively bright, give me a freaking working memory, and we’re not having this conversation.

“Bad knocks” only “work” so long as you view them objectively. You’re clearly not.

You apparently have a good enough working memory to use it to berate God as well as have a conversation, and to seem rather sufficiently bright. Bright enough to intuit atheistic/agnostic, or deist arguments. So in regards to your “shortcomings” I’m having a real problem grasping where your gripe is.

You’ve never been complimented on your empathy in real life, have you?

I have empathy towards those who are humble, which is defined as living according to the truth.

I have empathy and compassion for those who say, “I have done everything I can do” without blaming others, including God, for all their problems. And for some reason I have the distinct impression that with you we’re only getting half the story.

Asking for a freaking brain that works well enough to be able to learn a trade which I will love and be good at.

But how do you even know that that is your purpose or what you were called to do? And how can you be so sure that that will make you “happy”.

I’ve met people who got the trade or job that they always seemed to want and who were utterly miserable in their job(myself included).

You’ve got the “grass is always greener” syndrome.

God is omnipotent apparently, but, funny enough, I wake up everyday with a brain that guarantees stagnation and an un-exciting life. Give me the grey matter that Jesus had and God will never hear another complain from this loser again. My brain is where 90% of my torments/problems/depression/anxiety originate.

You’re problem is neither God nor your brain, but how you use it. Calling yourself a “loser” or whatever else you tell yourself is your doing, not God’s. I’ve seen people with “normal” brains demonstrate the same adverse self-destructive behavior. Again, its a self-fulfilling prophecy; something goes wrong you blame it on your brain and not on what you do/done, your choices and actions.

Christ suffered voluntarily, I had a lousy life crammed down my throat by God, and he expects gratitude. Give me a brain, a future, give me some ability, life changes instantly. All my stupid life, up against a wall, having to fight despair, feeling like **** having to face life and people. Awesome gift.

Yes, the God of the Universe humiliated Himself to be born in a feeding trough, be taken off to be partially raised in pagan Egypt because His life was threatened, move back to Him home country after the king who sought His life was dead. Move to a small, very poor town basically in the back-woods of the desert in a small village. Living day-to-day just like the rest of us. Learned to be a carpenter. Then took on the entire Jewish/Roman establishment by proclaiming Himself the Son of God and died a brutal and tortuous death by crucifixion in order to save all of humanity…

Yet for some reason you think you deserve better than what Christ got?

If I were homeless you’d pity me, but because I pressed on despite being anxious and depressed and seeing nothing but bleakness in front of me (crummy life and God’s hell in the afterlife), you belittle me.

That’s the thing, you’re not “pressing on”, you’re making excuses. You’re consciously making the decision that its better to be frozen or stifled by your perceptions of your “shortcomings” instead of doing everything you can to make the best of them. And not only that, you’re blaming your own decision to be frozen and limited by your “shortcomings” on God.

I did what I could with the cheap material God sent my way. Why was God so adamant that I should be born? There’s a good question. Does he honestly think he did me a favour?

The pot is blaming the Potter.

Money changes everything.

I’ve rarely seen a more absurd or ridiculous statement in my life. If “money changes everything” then why are some of the most wealthy people the most miserable? Why do Hollywood stars wind up in drug rehab, alcohol rehab, or wind up O.D.- on drugs(Philip Seymour Hoffman)? If “money changes everything” “rich” people would be the sanest people in all society and poor people the most miserable, yet my experience says the exact opposite.

 

[Amandil]

With God you beg, you get crumbs or nothing.

God is not a vending machine.

I want a good life, being a one talent guy, a good life is impossible.

If you say so, then it must be true…

With money, everything is possible. If the people you’re talking about are fine and happy being destitute and being treated like less than the lilies of the fields, then all the best to them.

That says a heck of a lot more about you than it does abut them.

You’re on my case, but why does God get a free ride for condemning the whole of humanity not yet created for the sin of Adam? You call me immature, granted I am, but what do you call God’s perfectly reasonable reaction to Adam’s sin?

I call it perfectly reasonable because I understand what Adam did. You apparently don’t. So how you be in a position to judge God on the basis of something that you don’t understand yourself?

No my anxiety is because I’m a disappointment and I fall short, I’m an inferior man.

…Said every person in human existence. You’re problem is that for some reason that you should be something more than what you are: human.

What precisely would that “more” be exactly?

I don’t measure up.

Nobody does. We do the best with what we do have and don’t complain. That’s what it means to be mature and responsible.

I can’t let my heart take a beating like that. Ask God to give me a functional brain and let’s see how it goes. God loves me so much, infinitely, then he’ll be happy to stop a cursed life by making my brain work, right? He has the means to do it, the will is lacking. God decreed lack and frustration for me, why all of a sudden would he change his will which he loves so much?

Obviously because it would do you absolutely zero good. You’d misuse it to your own destruction. You’d be a terrible steward of any wealth He’d give you because you’d spend it completely on yourself in the obtainment of “pleasures” instead of using it for others. The withholding of His hand is absolutely for your benefit, but you seemingly lack the ability to see because all you do “see” is what you lack, not what you have.

Never said that. To put that behind me, though, I need a new brain and/or money. God’s useless and sterile love will not do. Jesus had 3 not so good years, 3 days of intense suffering, the other 30 years must have been fun in some way. He was like Adam, no original sin to weigh him down, no psychological problems to weigh him down, a loving mother, a job he was good at and enjoyed doing.

I’m like God in that regard. All about him getting glory, love, worship. You won’t get much selflessness from an angry, religious fanatic, booze-loving daddy, nor from a depressed, self-absorbed, absent-minded, half-crazy mom. Expecting selflessnes and help when it counts from God—>not happening. God is not interested in his menagerie’s broken hearts, he wants to hear songs of praises saying how wonderful he is. Nobody covers my *** but me. Hence the “me, me, me”.

There it is, I knew it would come out eventually. Classic clinical projection. You’re projecting the negative imagery of your own human father onto God.

Secondly, broken hearts are the only way you learn wisdom. You don’t learn wisdom by getting everything you want, and relationships are not one-way streets where you get everything you want at the expense of the other. I can guess, probably with 99% accuracy now where this is coming from now, but I’d rather not say on a public forum.

Suffice it to say that your problem isn’t God, you’re problem isn’t even forgiving God.

Your problem is that you feel that you have been victimized, and that you refuse to forgive yourself for it, and so you remain frozen in this fortress you built for your self-loathing. Money, the perfect job, etc., won’t change that. In fact it will only exacerbate the problem and then deepen your misery. That’s the thing about things like money, even when you get it and the things which they buy, the pleasure from it is subject to the law of diminishing returns, they simply don’t last. That’s something the poor know more than you probably ever will. And that’s why they are so content and utterly free.

So long as you continue in this, by neither forgiving yourself or others or even God, you’re going to be frustrated, even eternally so, because you’re not storing up the treasure which is eternal.

 

[cheezey]

…I can’t understand how God’s mysterious ways work? How can he let children die in such terrible ways, how could he let us kill even the unborn? …

No one really can. Thus, faith.

God respects our human freedom.

Even when that freedom leads to the choice to do shabby or worse things to each other.

ICXC NIKA.

unfortunately, true

Please be assured that this child is now in the hands of the Lord and he is experiencing the Love of God in a way we cannot even imagine.

Fortunately, true.

I agree with Dorothy; this little baby is now in Heaven and has no memory of the suffering he/she endured at the hands of evil people. The baby is now well taken care of and happy. Rejoice!!! :harp:

Yes.

Jerry to God: “how can You permit all the suffering?”
God to Jerry: how can I permit the suffering? I don’t permit the sufferring, you do. Free Will"

I sometimes think that even God and His Son look down upon us and wonder why the heck we are doing some of the things we do.

 

[tonyrey]

Logical possibility is not the issue at all. Consistency implies self-restraint and limitation of further action. A competent inventor doesn’t wreck his machine by constantly interfering with it. To suspend the laws of nature too often would defeat the purpose of creating a predictable universe. That is the reality of the matter and to think otherwise is sheer fantasy. If you cannot produce a feasible blueprint of an earthly Utopia your objections are worthless.

Apart from being irrelevant to my points your fractions have no foundation in fact.

You claim you would prefer not to exist… but then you wouldn’t be able to take delight into venting your spleen. You must admit it gives you satisfaction…

 

[Robertanthony]

Secondly, broken hearts are the only way you learn wisdom. You don’t learn wisdom by getting everything you want, and relationships are not one-way streets where you get everything you want at the expense of the other. I can guess, probably with 99% accuracy now where this is coming from now, but I’d rather not say on a public forum…

Then please shoot a PM my way and tell me what it is. I’m sort of a mystery to myself at times. Even if I have my beefs with God, my hunch is that he didn’t create me to have my heart trampled on by a steamroller and never recover. Perhaps this hunch is more a groundless hope than something that is based on reality, though. I’ve neevr understood how a Christian can say, in one breath, that we deserve Hell, that God owes us nothing and that God is love, infinite love that is. Perhaps I’m like Satan, there are quite a few things about God which are simply beyond my comprehension.

 

[Robertanthony]

Apart from being irrelevant to my points your fractions have no foundation in fact.

You claim you would prefer not to exist… but then you wouldn’t be able to take delight into venting your spleen. You must admit it gives you satisfaction…

Be God for a second and offer me the choice between the satisfaction in expressing indignation and nonexistence itself. Coffee may or may not be your thing, being around people may or may not be your thing, this life with all its demands and so little return, the chance to go to Heaven, but the risk to be doomed, in my appreciation, is not worth it. Not for me, not my thing. In a perfect world, God would be a gentleman about it and would offer a one-way ticket back to “where” I come from. Let others who want to be here be here.

 

[Richie24]

Firstly i would like to ask you what do you think about the death of Jesus.His agony in the garden,scourging at the pillar,crowing with thorns,carrying of the cross and the crucifiction.Do you think it was easy for him.you might say he was filled with the power of the holy spirit but let me tell you even the little boy was filled with the power of the holy spirit through baptism which gave him the strength for him to bare everything until his last breath.But what is more important is that jesus rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father.it was his eternal reward for all his suffering.in the same way the little boy as also received his reward in heaven.we all have suffering to bare with the help of the holy spirit.All u have to do his surrender everything to him and live in peace because everything is taken care of.

 

[Amandil]

Even if I have my beefs with God, my hunch is that he didn’t create me to have my heart trampled on by a steamroller and never recover. Perhaps this hunch is more a groundless hope than something that is based on reality, though. I’ve neevr understood how a Christian can say, in one breath, that we deserve Hell, that God owes us nothing and that God is love, infinite love that is.

God can’t “owe” us anything more because He has already given us everything. The problem is that so many of us are so caught up in ourselves we never have the wit to “see” it.

I don’t see how any reasonable or rational person can say that non-existence is a better thing than existence. Even the most wretchedly poor don’t hold such an idea.

I’ve contemplated non-existence, not just abstractly but in a very real level, and no matter how bad I have had it or could have it I could never make such a statement. I would rather experience pain unbearable than never to have been at all.

Even in the attempt to escape your temporal self**(not saying that’s what your contemplating but just solely for the sake of discussion)**, what happens when you accomplish this only to enter into eternity to find that you will be stuck with your miserable self for all eternity, with absolutely no hope for happiness at all?

Non-existence for either of us is simply not possible because we DO exist.

What God asks of us is that we remain faithful, that no matter what crosses we bear in this life are for our spiritual growth, and that so long as we’re faithful and recognize our utter dependence on Him for what we have and need, and seek out a relationship with Him through prayer and the sacramental life, that whatever we suffer in this life will be restored, with interest, in the next.

Perhaps I’m like Satan, there are quite a few things about God which are simply beyond my comprehension.

Deism denies the existence of satan.

 

[cheezey]

God can’t “owe” us anything more because He has already given us everything. The problem is that so many of us are so caught up in ourselves we never have the wit to “see” it…

 

[empther]

There are some people whose top priority is getting noticed, getting other people’s attention.
They’ll do anything to get attention.

One easy way to do this is to come on a Catholic website and say things which are contrary to Catholic beliefs. This guarantees that the person will get plenty of attention. It will never end.

On a Moslem website, the strategy would be to criticize Mohammed. That will bring lots of attention. It will never end.

On a Democratic party forum, the strategy would be to propose Republican policies. That will bring plenty of attention. It will never end.

etc
etc
etc

 

[Robertanthony]

There are some people whose top priority is getting noticed, getting other people’s attention.
They’ll do anything to get attention.

One easy way to do this is to come on a Catholic website and say things which are contrary to Catholic beliefs. This guarantees that the person will get plenty of attention. It will never end.

On a Moslem website, the strategy would be to criticize Mohammed. That will bring lots of attention. It will never end.

On a Democratic party forum, the strategy would be to propose Republican policies. That will bring plenty of attention. It will never end.

etc
etc
etc

Believe it or not, there is no strategy. Just someone overwhelmed by his negative emotions at times and expressing them inadequately. In a way, similar to someone who is bipolar, or has borderline personality disorder. I’m an introvert and when it gets too much, I explode in rage. Next time you get angry by one of my posts, think about the time I’ll have to spend in purgatory to atone for all this irreverence/insolence, if all else fails, think about me being in hell, which is not an impossiblity, either.

 

[Amandil]

Believe it or not, there is no strategy. Just someone overwhelmed by his negative emotions at times and expressing them inadequately. In a way, similar to someone who is bipolar, or has borderline personality disorder. I’m an introvert and when it gets too much, I explode in rage. Next time you get angry by one of my posts, think about the time I’ll have to spend in purgatory to atone for all this irreverence/insolence, if all else fails, think about me being in hell, which is not an impossiblity, either.

As a father how also has a sister with bipolar, I sympathize. She has her extreme highs and lows as well.

Be certain that the greatness by which you view your shortcomings, your weaknesses, your sins, etc. are as a tiny molecule of water in the ocean of God’s mercy and love for you.

If you think God is so uninterested that He won’t take into account those circumstances you’re tragically mistaken.

 

[tonyrey]

Be God for a second and offer me the choice between the satisfaction in expressing indignation and nonexistence itself.

God couldn’t have given you that choice before you existed!

Coffee may or may not be your thing, being around people may or may not be your thing, this life with all its demands and so little return…

What are the demands of life?

…the chance to go to Heaven, but the risk to be doomed, in my appreciation, is not worth it. Not for me, not my thing. In a perfect world, God would be a gentleman about it and would offer a one-way ticket back to “where” I come from. Let others who want to be here be here.

You are demanding the impossible! God is the Creator not the Destroyer. Would any loving father put his son or daughter to death, let alone make sure it doesn’t survive in any shape of form? To do so implies that the child will never be happy **in any circumstances whatsoever **- which is clearly absurd.

There is no “risk to be doomed”. We **choose **whether to live for ourselves or for others.
The misery of hell is self-inflicted but it has its compensations. To be totally independent, have absolute power over ourselves and do precisely what we want is a great temptation. Yet independence has its advantages and disadvantages. It is unrealistic to expect to have everything for nothing.

Even in this world the lust for power makes people isolated and unloved. Love entails self-sacrifice but self-love entails ignoring and sacrificing others. We can’t have it both ways: either we live for ourselves or as members of a family. To choose to go it alone is asking for trouble - and, sure enough, we’ll get it - and no one is forced to go it alone…

 

[tonyrey]

Believe it or not, there is no strategy. Just someone overwhelmed by his negative emotions at times and expressing them inadequately. In a way, similar to someone who is bipolar, or has borderline personality disorder. I’m an introvert and when it gets too much, I explode in rage. Next time you get angry by one of my posts, think about the time I’ll have to spend in purgatory to atone for all this irreverence/insolence, if all else fails, think about me being in hell, which is not an impossibility, either.

It is only possible if you make it so…

 

[GEddie]

That’s not humility; that’s pride, egocentrism and self-will.

“Humility” is desirable in itself only if one is coming from a Christian or otherwise theistic perspective; the person you responded to is not.

ICXC NIKA

 

[tonyrey]

Here I am pouring my heart out, detailing why, insofar as i’m concerned, I think God is a fraud, other poster says I’m egocentric, I agree with her, you think that’s funny?

Therein lies your salvation! The wisdom of the Catholic Church is demonstrated by its recognition of the need for confession… and yours is even more effective because it is public.