Why is there pain and suffering and Evil in the world ? I believe this is the most important question about life that everyone has to deal with. I would like to hear what some might have to say.
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Of course there is a creator, but its probaby nothing close to what the bible says. The creator is not someone, it's something way too powerful and strong for us to understand.
Of course there is a creator, but its probaby nothing close to what the bible says. The creator is not someone, it's something way too powerful and strong for us to understand.
There has to be a creator for everything, but like Rob said, we just can't even grasp what this creating force really is. And probably we will never know.
I think that is an interesting way to see "god". I like it. It can just be a force that is far from our capacity of understanding.
I will tell you something that reminds me even more of how unrealistic it is to believe in god as some sort of entity that watches over us. I have this aunt who I care about very much, and she has a daughter who is 47 and always had good health. My aunt is extremely religious, her daughter is the person she cares for the most in this life, and she was abandoned by her worthless husband when her daughter was still only 8 or 9.
This woman has always been very faithful of god and the things that god does to test her. According to her, everything bad that hapens to good people is some sort of punishment for the sins of our parents or ancestors. This has no logic in my opinion, but I care about her very much and I never argue with her faith. I respect her use for it and she is truly a great human being that never has anything bad to say about anyone.
So this brings me to the most horrible thing I have had to hear in my life as far as unfair punishment from god to a devoted believer. My aunts daughter, who is by the way one of my personal favorite relatives, also a great, caring and very beautiful human being, is now dying of lymph node cancer. She was diagnosed with it just a few weeks ago and has only months to live.
At this point the family has decided not to tell my aunt that her daughter is going to die. Those of us close to both of them havent even been able to tell this to the patient herself, as we are still hopeful that there will be a way to fix this, but we will have to break the news to both of them within the next days, and even the rest of the family does not know.
I know my aunt will be destroyed completely by this news. Her faith will be tested to the core now, as she is already acting very resentful towards god and she doesnt know the cancer is terminal, she thinks it will be treatable and her daughter will be ok.
So for all you religious people that visit this forums, please tell me how that is in any way fair. They only have each other because neither one ever got involved with anyone else again. How is it fair that god punishes good people in ways that are sometimes more brutal than the punishment of those who deserve it.
The answer is simple......because there is no god watching over us.......there is nothing watching over us.
I'm very sorry that this is happening to you. I do believe that that question of god is totally irrelevant in personal suffering, and I'm also sorry to hear that your aunt has not found her own core of strength stable enough to handle this situation. I sincerely hope that you do!
That said, religion allows people an external locus of control that in some, may actually cause them to bring about their own problems (highly unlikely for the cancer and it's not even helpful to think that, I'm just saying in some *other* cases) and then shirk responsibility for their part in fixing problems. It also stops them from taking pride in their own power and achievements, dismissing it as God's will and providence.
Especially in times of struggle, I think it's most important that we realize our own role in our situation, and take as much control as we can.
Think of it this way - due to her denial, your aunt is now failing to appreciate the importance of what will be the final months of her daughter's life, and turning into a struggle against a God who is at best, disengaged.
That was bitter,and I know exactly how it feels like. That's why I'm no longer a devoted and religious person, but that doesn't made me an atheist. Now still believe in god but not according to the bible's description. I also believe that everything has a purpose.
Mystic:
If everything has a purpose. What is the purpose of lets say, a child dying of a horrible agonizing cancer?
if there was a creator, it forgot about us a long time ago; just like a kid forgets to feed and care for pets...
Sometimes suffering can make us a better not only a bitter person. Oftentimes pain lead to a lot of lesson and discovery. An illness can lead to discovery of treatment and medication. We will all die and we will die in different cases. We can learn lessons like proper caring to ourselves from others' sickness. Others can also learn from our pain when it's our time to suffer, and that can help us evolve into more intellectual and smart species.
Is there a creator? You must first define what you mean by creator. Is this deity conscious or more of a natural event?
I think it would be hard to explain a creator with a conscience or one that still has control over the affairs of his creation with there being pain and suffering in the world.
If what you mean is a conscious deity that has lost control or just set in motion what we now call the universe? There is no way to determine if this is or isn't true, so it would be unreasonable to believe so. The celestial teapot argument comes to mind here.
I like Bertrand Russell's ideas on the subject.
yes there is, but it's not a WHO and WHY question, it's a WHAT and HOW question..
The fact that there is a creator, has been pondered many, many times before, but I believe what they need to question is "what". I also believe even if there IS a scientific explanation, we will never really understand or grasp the reality or idea of it. There is always a creator of anything, but it's not always "who", but usually
what. We have hypothesizes of the begging, the most popular being "The Big Bang".
We also get to the point where nothing in the past really matters, and if you look at it that way, this subject shouldn't bother you much. So that's my idea on this subject, and sometimes I think about it, but it's not really something we MUST know. On the other hand (I know I'm kind of rambling here) if it was some kind of energy source that created it, other than an exploding star, and we can harvest it, this research can definitely be beneficial to man-kind.
Also, your question about pain and suffering can be entirely different from the topic of there being a creator, for the creator might not be the CAUSE of them. Maybe, just maybe, even the effect.