Very old question: why would an all-powerful and all-loving god allow us to suffer?

[BigBlueHead]

MShark: Those who believe in God have crises of faith all the time... hope is not universally conferred by belief in God, to be sure. We all know that something as mundane and blameless as a car accident can lead people into despair, so what about those people who die under torture? Will their belief in God make them strong when other people have broken under less pressure?

The degree to which God reaches out to you depends on your ability to interpret the ways of the world as being meaningful to you. A belief in temporal help given by God assumes that God is affecting the world to make you happy - this is where many people fall, because they are taught to believe that God does this, and then they break their spine and are confined to a wheelchair (or suffer some other such disaster), and spend the rest of their life weeping that God has abandoned them.

I should warn you that if you choose to believe in God because the idea gives you comfort, you should make very sure that you don't expect that God to do anything for you before you die. This way lies despair... the great lie.

Finally, is it good to profess that you believe in God for your own benefit, that of comfort? The Big One may not be that interested in followers incapable of imagining that anything bad will happen to them. What if Heaven is in fact a place of some greater struggle, where a strong will is needed and the "lambs of God" are useless? What if the afterlife is also hard?

 

[MShark]

BigBlueHead:

I agree that faith is fragile but I do think that hope is universally conferred by faith in God. Dispair comes from a loss of faith.

Belief in God has made many people strong.

I already have blessings beyond compare. What more should I ask for?

Certainly God can do as she pleases with the afterlife but if this life is any indication, she has good things in store for the next.

 

[wesmorris]

I guess my point is that the world is a cool place and for me the idea of a loving God gives me hope.

I sincerely appreciate that. I simply do not need the idea of a loving god to have hope. *shrug* I have a lot of other things that serve that purpose. I think it's mostly my love of life that gives me hope. Hehe.. kind of circular. I like it like that. Self-containment baby! Yeah! LOL. See what a good attitude can do?

Yeah so I'm retarded. Get off me. :bugeye:

LOL

 

[SnakeLord]

Certainly God can do as she pleases with the afterlife but if this life is any indication, she has good things in store for the next.

I would question over how 'good' you think this life is, when you're already concerned over the next one.. :bugeye:

Why would there even be a next life? 1 isn't sufficient enough? In honesty I could cope with a further 80 years or so, but the often considered afterlife of eternity sounds extremely boring. Even if you had total and utter freedom to do anything, after the first few millennium, it would have all been done, and would have lost its flavour. Not to mention, I do love my family, but I think i'd even start to dislike them after 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.

 

[MShark]

SnakeLord:

I am guilty of being concerned about aging and dying beliveing that God will always be there for me helps me to live this life without fear. I guess 1 life would be enough but I suspect that eternity with God would be interesting, fulfilling, and possibly a hoot.

Wesmorris:

I am glad you are happy with life. You must be living right.

 

[wesmorris]

I am glad you are happy with life. You must be living right.

It seems that way, I'm not sure exactly what "right" entails, but whatever I'm doing is working for me I think. I feel fulfilled, yet ambitious - motivated, yet contented and somewhat easily distracted. I think I'm a hell of a force if I (or you) can get me rolling in the right direction (and then give me a little direction once in a while if I start jacking around).



I hope you're happy (or at least get there) too unless of course that's not what you're after.

 

[alain]

Mshark - "Belief in God has made many people strong."

So has belief in; oneself, ones country, ones family.