Desib77, I'm so sorry to hear that your mother is ill. I sure hope she recovers - and soon!
As you stated, "First of all I just can't understand why a God of love would allow us to suffer, get sick and die." Uhm, I could never understand why a god of "love" could destroy almost everyone at Armageddon... Never mind everyday sicknesses...
Sicknesses?? So many sicknesses that were considered a 'curse' or 'judgment from god', such as cholera, diphtheria, leprosy, smallpox, bubonic plague, and so on, have become controllable in recent years due to SCIENTIFIC discoveries. [Some scientists believe the bacteria that caused waves of the bubonic plague to decimate Europe must have eventually mutated to a less virulent strain...]
To ask why a Middle Eastern male god who's only about 3,500 years old would allow this - ??? I'm going to repeat here what I've frequently posted elsewhere - and seems to have fallen on deaf ears so far - the god of the bible is only about 3,500 years old. Goddess worship is 20,000 years old - TEN TIMES older than Christianity. So-called 'animistic' worship - in many ways, similar to current sub-beliefs of the Hindu belief systems - is AT LEAST 40,000 years old and may be up to 100,000 years old.
If one postulates a 'deity' over this planet/the universe, which religious belief system is MOST likely to be the 'true' one?? The youngest, 'Johnny-come-lately' version?? Or the oldest one?? To my way of thinking, the OLDEST religion is most likely to be the 'true' one... To postulate that the 'youngest' or, more accurately, the 'next-to-youngest' version [Christianity] is the 'true' religion, strongly supports the evolution of religion, not a 'divine' origin for belief systems. And please don't EVEN get me started on the hubris of the human race who wants their deities to be blown-up versions of themselves!!
Recently, I was discussing that dread ailment, "Lockjaw" with a neighborhood child who was telling me about the time she stepped on a rusty nail. Before SCIENCE discovered a cure, that was a NASTY way to die! As well as rabies, gangrene... These - and other forms of miserable death - came about because humanity was not sufficiently advanced to find a cure. In addition, the pursuit of such cures was unfortunately hobbled because humanity, under a haze of religious beliefs, thought that some 'deity' would fix the problem if they just prayed enough. So much human energy has gone into specious, empty forms of worship that could have been put into working on solutions. If the human race had never had the 'heretic' burnings, never had the 'witch' burnings, never had the 'Inquisition' - how much more advanced as a species could we be today?? Cancer might be completely curable. Asthma might be cured in infancy with one shot, and so on...
My sort of viewpoint DOES reduce the idea of 'hope' - as in, 'maybe god will help me with - whatever - disease??' It also puts responsibility for one's health SQUARELY on the individual - no smoking, moderate drinking, what WTWizard said in another post about taking vitamins as a cheap form of health insurance, and so on. BUT - it also leaves one without a 'reasonable' explanation as to why some people, who take very good care of themselves, still get sick while others 'break' some or all of the 'rules' and still stay healthy. It also does not negate the fear of death...
I think that the 'chaotic' element of life is one reason there were/are so many Goddesses who 'ruled' or 'supported' chaos. Humans seek rational explanations, but sometimes there is no rational explanation. Primitive humans probably sought 'rational' explanations as to why one member of the tribe was eaten by a saber-tooth tiger whereas the dumb member of the tribe who was standing off by him/herself on a knoll was spared... But ultimately, those ancient humans understood one thing that we seem to have forgotten nowadays.
In spite of the chaos, one must go on with life, anyway.
Zid
