Hi Stinky Pantz: here's my reply, sorry it's so long winded. Tried to get on last night but couldn't. So here goes. Let the chips fall where they may? I'm sure I'll get some criticism from some, but it goes with the territory. Please be kind. I also wrote an analogy at the very end, for what it's worth. I did write this earlier in WordPerfect in case there is some confusion. Please bear with meI have no intention of proof reading, so if I ramble on, repeating myself, I’m sorry, I'll blame it on the fact that I'm very tired.
First of all, as I’ve said before, I don’t have the answers and I’m not here to convince you to believe what I believe. I can’t do that; I can’t prove it to you, no-one can.You have to find it on your own, like all of us. All we can do is support one another and show some compassion. Mouthy where are you? I could use your support right now. I’m sure that this letter will get pretty emotional and I will mention some personal things about me. I’m not at all angry with you, and if it comes across that way, it’s not my intention. You have the right to hang on to your anger about God; I also have the right to hang on to my belief in God. I’m not angry that you don’t believe in God, why are you angry with people that choose to believe. Is it that you don’t believe in God or are you angry with Him? I have a feeling that maybe it’s the latter. As I mentioned before I know the feeling about being angry with God. Whether we believe or not doesn’t change the state of the world. If God doesn’t exist then who do we blame? Is anyone to blame? I believe without FREEDOM we can’t have LOVE. God could have protected us from evil, but what are we then; just robots doing Gods will. Yes, because of our freedom to choose, horrible things happen. If you could be God how would you have set it up? Contrary to what some here have said, I am not that naive, nor ignorant or have a pollyanna view of the world, but I do choose to try and hang on to the positive things in my life. Would you be much happier if I wrote a list of all the things that I hated in this world. Unless we personally try to relieve some of the suffering in this world ( learning how to deal with life’s issues (I'm seeing a counsellor -some will say, see another crutch) the pain in our lives, helping the poor, working on the environment, donating to good causes if we can afford it, trying to be there for children who have been abused etc., can we really complain. There isn’t a person that hasn’t dealt with pain. Yes, some people’s suffering is a lot worse than others. I can’t imagine holding my dead baby because it starved to death, like so many women have to deal with in third world countries. I don’t know why small children have to suffer. There is evil in this world. I don’t know why God created satan knowing what havoc he would create. (can he ask God for forgiveness and would God forgive him?) But satan made a choice too (for those who believe that satan exists). My biggest question was why was I created, just to suffer in this world, then having to choose between door #’s 1 to whatever and gee you chose wrong, sorry!
I don’t know how many years that I have prayed for my son. He’s included in my "happy list", but I could have made a much longer "horrible list". What purpose would it have served. Would that have made some of you happier? I have gone to counsellors; for help anywhere I could find it, but still my prayers haven’t been answered. You know what is worse then dealing with pain, it’s seeing your children in pain and knowing that there is nothing you can do about it.
When I was 12 a friend of my parents tried to rape me. Thankfully I was able to stop him. What hurts much more is that my parents never did anything about it. If we go near that subject my mother will just say that they used to hang around with scum (not taking any responsibility for any of it) I grew up feeling worthless and I’m sure that some of my feelings about myself contributed in some small part to some of the things that happened in my life. Does that mean it was all my fault? No, no child deserves this. I was vulnerable and some take advantage of that. I was raped a number of years later. Should I have been mad at God for allowing it? (why didn’t you protect me?) No this guy made a decision to hurt another human being. What purpose would it have served, if I started to wallow in it and let it destroy me. I was a victim once; I wasn’t going to allow it victimize me for the rest of my life. Something tragic happened in my past, but it’s not who I am.
I would tell you another story but it isn’t mine. I feel I should ask this person permission first, though she would probably let me. All I will say is that this member of my family went through more in 15 years than most would experience in a life time, and she got through it. She has a strong faith in God. I don’t believe anyone could have gotten through what she went through, and it was through no fault of her own. (she didn’t make bad choices, and have to pay the consequences) Would it have been better not to believe in God? Now some may think that to be a perfect human being you have to be able to do it totally on your own, don’t use God as a crutch, he doesn’t even exist, it’s a sign of weekness, your pathetic, as someone else basically said - unrealistic, illogical, naive, ignorant, unable to go through life without their beliefs that have no rationale or absolute foundation...only faith. I could tell you more stories, about some of my friends, what they went through and survived. (was it foolishness to hang on to their faith?)
Stinky Pantz I understand you have a wonderful husband. Cherish that. Realize that not everybody has that. I left my husband 7 months ago. I’m not angry with God because I had a bad marriage, and I have to be prepared that I may never have a relationship, that I will be alone when I’m old. I made the choice (along with my husband) to get married (my gut told me not to-that life probably wouldn’t be great-but I ignored it) So partly because of that my children have to suffer the break-down of a family.
I’ll try to answer your questions (obviously these answers are only my opinion); I’m not trying to be flippant. If you think my answers are wrong, why do you think these things happen?
while being abused by a cousin, after my best friend was killed by her father, when my family disowned me, while the earth is polluting
(all the above people made bad choices)While children starve everyday:
I don’t have the answer, but as a society shouldn’t we take
some of the responsibility; the governments or leaders where these children live should take a large chunk of the responsibility (with mismanagement, civil war, genocide etc); the environment (how much is caused by us, because of pollution, mismanagement etc?
)
But I know that the reality is nothing is going to change , because evil exists.
Where does that evil come from?
or what about Acts of God: floods killing hundreds, earthquakes destroying property and people, forest fires killing wildlife, tornadoes destroying everything in their path:
These are horrible tragedies, and I don’t know why. How many people die each day at the hands of others?; things that could have been avoided. (this is not to justify the acts of God, though I do believe that He is a just God) Do you think that maybe because of the pollution (which I think we cause) we might have a hand in creating a few of these natural disasters?
Do you think that God created all diseases like cancer, aids, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, sickle cell etc. to torture us, because we deserved it? Could it be, that maybe we made bad choices right from the beginning of time; that we could do anything we wanted, and who cares about the consequences. We all always blame others for destroying our lives, God, yes the JW org., our families (me included), the Government, etc. But what do we personally do to make it a bit better place for us, and for those around us. Do we stop to think when we pollute our environment; we all do it, some more than others, but we are all responsible. I am responsible for my life. I was given the freedom to choose what I do with my life. Yes there are obstacles, we get through it, with people that care about us, and some of us through faith. And if there is something we don’t feel is just then we can do our small part to help. Pollyanna kicks in: can you imagine what we could do collectively for the good of mankind. Realism kicks in: it won’t work because we are all too selfish and self-centred to really do anything about it. (is that un-pollyanna enough) (no I didn’t say it in anger)
Let me give you analogy:
Suppose you knew a guy that had several children. After the first time they messed up (very young) he left them to fend for themselves. Once during their lives, he writes them a letter explaining how he thinks their life should be and basic suggestions on how to take care of themselves. Then he decides to randomly help out some of his children financially, emotionally, however they need it, but the others he disregards. Is this father being fair? The children that he disregarded were just as good as the ones he blessed; so is it so surprising that the ignored children despise him?
My feelings about your analogy: I don’t think God left us, we left Him. I like the Prodigal Son. The son abandoned his father. He wanted his inheritance. In Jewish tradition what the son was saying was, "so father in my eyes you are already dead, I don’t need you". The son squanders all his money, doing what he felt like. In the end he crawled back home, his father welcomed him back with open arms, the past is forgotten, lets have a party, because my lost son has come home. After I read that I realized how much God loved
me. (I never felt that before, I always felt that He couldn’t have cared less) But because of that incident including what I had been through this past year, and what I had gone through as a child, for the
first time I felt loved. That’s when I felt God’s presence. You want to take that
away from me? There is no value in believing in God? So then what or who do we turn to? Ourselves, our friends, no-one?
This is how I feel about "god". According to you and others like you, "god" blesses some and not others and the process is totally random. As a child I was adamant about my beliefs. You couldn't tell me there was no "god", and I did everything in my power to demonstrate this. I prayed constantly. I read the Bible. Even still I had horrible things happen to me. Why was I, being one of "god's" children not blessed? To this day I have deep emotional scars and he still offers no help.
I don’t know why things happen. My one friend and I have discussions about that. We both
feel that miracles usually don’t happen, but who are we to say so, we don’t know. Why didn’t my brother-in-law survive cancer, my grandmother, my uncle? We prayed for them. Some people survive; were they better people, did more people pray for them?; I don’t have the answers.
When discussing this with a friend of mine she said something like: Well all of these people like you will get to go to heaven and that's how "god" makes up for all of the bad things. Puh-leeze!! What about NOW?!
Yes what about NOW. What is happening in your life right now that is good. Yes your cousin abused you. I’m not belittling the grief you went through when you were a child, but this is not who you are now. I understand that you have a wonderful husband? That’s more than a lot of us have.
Answer a couple more questions for me (w/o the use of the bible): how do you know "god" isn't behind all of the evils in the world? If he isn't, why does he allow them to happen knowing he has the power to stop them? How can you love and accept someone who blesses you but not your equally deserving fellow humans (doesn't this bother you at all)?
How do I know that Satan isn’t the good one then and God is the evil one. I can’t believe that a God that has created so many wonderful things, would even want to create evil, for me it wouldn’t make sense. I’m just a human-being. I brought two children into this world, knowing how cruel the world can be. I love my children with all my heart, and would never intentionally do harm to them. But because I’m human I sometimes do unintentionally hurt them. I make that choice. I can’t blame anyone else.
I wish God would protect small children, but how would that work; for how long do we protect them? Whom do we protect and whom don’t we protect. Where is our freedom then; we choose to hurt others. God wants us to come to Him on our own free will. When my kids do something wrong should I not punish them or should I just let them get away with things. I don’t punish them thinking, "Oh I’ll get you. It’s because hopefully they will learn, so that when they are on their own, they will know what is best for them. If I’m blessed, it’s because I feel blessed, (and honestly I don’t always feel that way) not because I’m more special than anyone else. You assume that my life is perfect. I think we in the western hemisphere don’t know what true hardship is, compared to the third world countries. If I question anything, it’s that. Children didn’t ask to be born in that kind of environment.Here’s my analogy:
A man built a beautiful town which provided everything that his children would need for a happy, contented life. All he asked in return was for them to love him and their siblings, but he wanted his children to give it freely; what was in their hearts. If they were forced to love and have a relationship with him it would be meaningless. He loved them all very much and was very fair. When they were young he showed them how to live, laying down some rules: not because he just wanted to be a dictator and make them follow his silly rules; but because he loved them and he knew that it would help them have a happier life. (simply love and respect me and love your siblings, and everyone else). But his oldest son refused to follow his fathers rules; he created havoc in the home, so eventually for the sake of all the others he ordered the son the leave. It grieved the father very much and hoped that the son would change his ways and come back home. But the son wanted revenge: he wanted to take control of the town his father had built and take the siblings along with him so he could destroy them, like he felt his father had destroyed him, not realizing that it was him that made the choices to turn away. The father cautioned his children about the oldest son; if they valued their happiness and freedom, they would stay away from him; he would only bring them sorrow.
When the children grew up they moved out and started a life away from home. Father stayed in the family home and his grown children always knew that he would be there for them; he would always love them. He wanted a relationship with them, but he wasn’t going to force himself on them. If they got into trouble, their father would welcome them back with open arms. But he wasn’t a pushover. If the children were sincere, he would know, all would be forgiven and he would help them. If the children just wanted to be baled-out and leave and continue to get into trouble, there would come a time when he would have to say to them that they were on their own, but it was a choice that they had made. Some of the children lived by the rules, and were happy with their lives; but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have their struggles. Some chose to do what ever they wanted, not caring about the consequences. They could do it on their own, nobody would tell them what to do. They got into a lot of trouble, some even asked the older brother to live with them, and eventually those children also turned on the father and the other siblings. So for the sake of the children that tried to live right, he banished the oldest son and the children that followed that son from the town.
I don’t believe in hell-if there is, I think it’s a separation from God, but we chose that. Personally, I can’t believe that God who is loving would torment people for eternity. Hope I’m right.
I know this very simplistic, and I know it doesn’t deal with a lot of issues, like child abuse, but what do you want. I’m thinking this up as I’m typing. I think we can debate this till eternity and we would never get an answer. Suppose if Adam & Eve didn’t eat from the tree, would there be evil, sickness, sorrow, poverty etc., or would we be living in Paradise? There are so many questions. I still think it comes down to freedom of choice, and no that doesn’t console a child that is suffering and doesn’t understand. So this is the end and just more questions, and yes I still believe.
