Why bad things happen to good people...

by milligal 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  milligal

  One thing that JW's teach that I can't abide by is that God allows bad things to happen so that he can vindicate his name after Satan challenged him in the garden of eden. If you tell me that God is loving, than you cannot also state that he would allow an earthful of people to suffer starvation, cancer, war and countless other atrocities simply so that he feels better about being challenged. He's God -right? It's logical to me, that if challenged he would have destroyed Satan and protected his creation. I simply could not ever watch my children suffer -even if they did something to hurt me. So these two teachings coming from the same organization are contradictory.

  This teaching alone, is part of why I became agnostic.
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  Fisherman

  Although I am convinced in the existence of God, I too cannot understand why bad things happen to peopel and why God allows it. Problem is understing God not questioning His existence.
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  zeroday

  YES and when God spares the life of a little child dying of cancer and yet 50,000 die in a typhoon one has to wonder what to make of this selective redemptive God...or maybe it is all just (GASP) chance...and not God at all...
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  Gopher

  THe problem of evil and suffering in this earth is very real. A reasonable person surely could question the existence of God, based on what evidence is available.

  How can one understand a God who never reveals him/her/itself, and leaves mankind grasping at straws as to his/her/its nature and purpose?

  Charlatans have claimed to understand and represent this divine person, and will "tell" you mystical secrets for a price. Bad people who claim to represent God get ahead in this world, and innocent people cry out to God for relief and get none. If there is a god up there, he/she/it is either very disengaged or has a sinister sense of humor.
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  WTWizard

  God Almighty makes me want to . He is cruel, selfish, unloving, and extremely intent on causing as much misery as He possibly can. And He still wants me to be saved for His Value Destroyer Training School sometime in late 2009 after He uses me up to pioneer the preceding year. Otherwise, He wouldn't have condemned me to everlasting celibacy.

  Repeat:

  God makes me want to puke!
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  CandleLight

  Psa 82:1

  A Psalm of Asaph. God stands in the congregation of the mighty; in the midst of the gods He judges.

  Psa 82:2 How Long,

  will you judge unjustly and lift up the faces of the wicked? Selah. :3 Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. :4 Deliver the poor and needy; save them out of the hand of the wicked. :5 They neither know nor will understand; they walk on in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. :6 I have said, You are gods; and all of you sons of the Most High. :7 But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

  Psa 82:8

  Arise, O God, judge the earth; for You shall inherit in all nations.

  The Psalmist had questions too, He was always asking for Justice, righteousness and the ending of the Wicked. It is not wrong to wonder, to ask and plead. You can have faith and do such things, for example Job, when enduring more then I ever have, questioned our Father deeply too. He wants us to ask, to keep asking until we understand.
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  Sirona

  OR maybe "God" exists but is not a separate consciousness?

  Therefore cannot intervene?

  Sirona
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  FlyingHighNow

  It's interesting that there gnostic teachings that God didn't create the earth and humans but that an undergod did and that is why this place is so imperfect and full of strife. Sometimes I think it almost makes sense.
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  FlyingHighNow

  I recall that some gnostics believed that the undergod was evil and that his name was Jehovah.

  Here is one quote from this link:http://www.sullivan-county.com/id2/gnostic_files/gnostic2.htm

  This lower God created the earth and its life forms. This is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), a deity who was viewed as fundamentally evil, jealous, rigid, lacking in compassion and prone to genocide. The Demiurge "thinks that he is supreme. His pride and incompetence have resulted in the sorry state of the world as we know it, and in the blind and ignorant condition of most of mankind."
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  Terry

  Theodicy.

  If God is Righteous and all powerful there can be no suffering without his permission.

  The Bible has attempted two explanations which have overlapped in scripture.

  1.God rewards faithfulness and punishes wickedness. Consequently, when we suffer we DESERVE IT. This means ALL suffering is what we deserve.

  2.God is opposed by Satan and it is the adversary who makes us suffer evil (with God's permission). This means suffering allows humans a way of supporting the heavenly Gipper by refusing to blame God (directly) and praising him only.

  Neither explanation works very well by way of FAIRNESS or JUSTICE when little babies are the victims.

  This leaves three possibilities (as far as I can see.)

  1.We are all thoughts in God's mind as he rehearses the actual plan of creation and our suffering seems real to us because God's imagination is fantastically accurate! The consequence of this is that none of us have actually died or suffered YET! Let's God off the hook.

  2.We are all of us deserving of whatever God wishes to allow because we are like toys made for amusement. We are loved like dolls and toy soldiers, but, we are playthings meant to be enjoyed. Our "suffering" is merely part of the spectacle. Time and space have bored angels and God for eons and we are their only form of REALITY entertainment! There is no morality/immorality in this because we are vessals made for this purpose; some for one use and others merely for destruction.

  3.There was no Creator person responsible for our welfare. We became what we are by millennia of natural processes. We are our own best hope and worst enemy.

  Take your choice!