Have you ever been asked...

[sdzero]

Have you ever been asked, "Does God really care about our earthly existence? If so, then why does he allow bad things to happen?". I am sure everyone one has heard this question one time or another. I can not be the only one who has run into people that do not believe in God (even more so on the internet) to be asked that question. Well, I was not sure if I answered the question correctly due to my low grade biblical knowledge...which means I need to study it more.
But I answered the question as best as I could. I explained bad things can come about due to satans influence and suggestions. Influences, suggestions, deception and trickery are what he is best at and he can take advantage of the fact that we have Freewill. It does not take much to turn something good into something twisted or something wrong into something desireable. Disrupting your senses and feelings into believing something that is wrong into something you desire to be good. The same simple way he influenced Adam and Eve. The entire reason they ate the fruit was to become like God, which in fact is a very tempting notion. People may think Adam and Eve were simple, but the truth is they are no different than the way we are today. We in turn, hurt each other with our own selfish desires, causing a chain reaction of pain. Which is why many people face the same or similar problems in their lives.

It is a good question to ponder. It saddens me that we are the ones that actually hurt ourselves, due to our weaknesses. Staying strong is a tough path to follow, but it is the most rewarding path as well.

Now...as for why God allows bad things to happen. Well, we kind of asked for it when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. We took responsiblity over our actions when we gained the knowledge [ate the fruit] and disobeyed God. Technically, we threw away the CLOSE connection with God when we did that. God was holding our hand during the entire process after we were created and we were free to do and eat whatever we wanted...except for that one fruit tree. But we gained knowledge from it, which is oddly enough almost like a curse, but our greatest strength as well. The fact that we know what we are doing when we do it is part of the strength of knowledge. Whatever we know is wrong cannot be justified, but whatever we do not know will not be held agianst us. Once again, it is a delicate balance. So if you know you are doing something wrong and you keep doing it, you are only causing the pain which you have the power to stop. In fact the knowledge that we have may actually create the problem we are dealing with. Knowledge is also what gets us out of situations as well. I think God really intervenes when we do not have the knowledge or a way out of a situation. So God does care about us, but he does not baby us when he knows we have the power to get out of a situation. We have the will, but when needed, God will make a way.

Alrighty, I think I will stop here. I am not sure if I even know what I am talking about anymore. But I understand there is a balance there. It is really mind blowing if you dwell on it.

I better get to sleep!

[The Banner]

Perhaps this belongs in somewhere else other than "General Discussions".

But nevertheless, I answered the question too in my own way:

The entire purpose of the current universe is, for me, to show Man the sins of the world, realize we're causing them, see that we asked for it, and admit that you became sinful when you got the ability to.

We have a lot of things we need to apologize to God about, and we basically acted as if God is the one who we should blame. The evil problem seems to strengthen my faith nowadays, because although people may say God put the tree of knowledge there in the first place so he is to blame, but really; who are we to say that? We ate it, and we acted upon it.

If God stopped bad things in the world, we'd just forget the lesson we learned like how we forgot how evil lustful desires lead to (porn). One person expects that people will make robots for sexual acts, and although people are disgusted now, they will forget that once they come out. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of the universe (choice between salvation and death), life will become too good (replaces Heaven), and really: we'll never realize the concept of sin.

[goldenspines]

Moved to Testimonies & Spiritual Growth.

[CrimsonRyu17]

Albert Einstein raises his hand.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

With the Christian paradigm, then we can only come to the natural conclusion that God allows evil to occur in this world for various reasons. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote a book titled "City of God" which dives further into such. I haven't really researched enough to give a more educated answer at this time, unfortunately.

Albert Einstein raises his hand.

This epistemological argument isn't a very strong one, unfortunately. The core and most simple reason is that understanding is subjective, therefore our realities are constructed by only ourselves. A mentalist approach, if you will. Many Christians argue that it is then the Holy Spirit's job to help us "discern into objective truth", but that in itself is still a very subjective and phenomenological enterprise (So where is the fine line between subjectivity and an omnipotent transcendent God? Well... I don't know yet, to be honest, lol).

But I'm somewhat of a mentalist myself, so I come at this with a different frame of mind than another person might.

And as a side note: There's no real evidence that Einstein took part in any sort of debate with his professor. In fact, the idea of "needing one extreme to be able to understand the other" goes all the way back to Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy with Heraclitus.

[Cap'n Nick]

Since the essence of this question also happens to be The Ultimate Theological Debate, let's do our best to keep on with personal reflections and not veer off into arguments, so this thread may continue on its happy life.

[WhiteMage212]

Well, in my opinion, I think God allows evil into our lives to see if we truly believe in him because, if there were no tribulations in our lives, then we would problably take God for granted and say, " Well, i geuss since I'm a Christian, I'll go to heaven." I just think of the book of Job when God allows satan (until I read the book of Job, I didn't know that unless God gives permission to satan, satan can't harm us.) to tourment Job. That really tested him to his limit since he goes from having everything he wanted, to having almost nothing. Remember, this only my opinion, I actually need to brush up on my Bible verses and studies.

[Solid Snake]

Now...as for why God allows bad things to happen. Well, we kind of asked for it when Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. And I'm glad to see someone else finally agrees with my thoughts on the subject .

I would add, though, that each one of us have individually asked for pain in our own lives. When we chose to lie. To steal. To lust. At the end of the day you can't change the fact that it's our fault. And the way I look at it, if Christ Himself had to suffer, what are we griping about?

Think about how much sooner the Holocaust would have ended if more people ahd stood up and done something about it. "Evil triumphs because good men do nothing" is what Winston Churchill said (paraphrase). And he was right. At the same time, "Good triumphs because God allows men a chance to repent" (by Solid Snake!). If God destroyed all evil on earth, we'd all be dead and in hell (Romans 6:22-23). His mercy, then, gives us the chance to be saved.

Summing it up, why does God allow bad things to happen? So you could be saved. IMO. Okay, not like you hadn't already said all that. Rant over .

- Solid

[rocklobster]

Solid Snake, you are right on the money.
I believe God allows bad things to happen because he can often bring good things out of the tragedy.

[sdzero]

Wow! Sorry guys...I had a bad case of insomnia when I wrote that. I just could not go to sleep without typing that for some reason. I usually sleep like a baby.

[Nate]

Now...as for why God allows bad things to happen. Well, we kind of asked for it when Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. And I'm glad to see someone else finally agrees with my thoughts on the subject .

I wouldn't say that's a satisfying answer, why should we be punished for what two people did before we even existed? If my grandfather committed murder, they wouldn't throw me in jail too, so why should I be condemned for something I had nothing to do with? [/devil'sadvocate]

Obviously I don't really believe what I just said, hence the tag, but I just would like to point out that such statements are satisfying only to Christians, not to non-Christians, and thus accomplish nothing except preaching to the choir to use a tired old phrase.

Since the essence of this question also happens to be The Ultimate Theological Debate

I thought the Ultimate Theological Debate was "Can God make a rock so big that He couldn't lift it?"

[sdzero]

I wouldn't say that's a satisfying answer, why should we be punished for what two people did before we even existed? If my grandfather committed murder, they wouldn't throw me in jail too, so why should I be condemned for something I had nothing to do with? [/devil'sadvocate]

Obviously I don't really believe what I just said, hence the tag, but I just would like to point out that such statements are satisfying only to Christians, not to non-Christians, and thus accomplish nothing except preaching to the choir to use a tired old phrase.

I thought the Ultimate Theological Debate was "Can God make a rock so big that He couldn't lift it?"

If you really think about jail, it is just a place where you lose all the privileges that you once had. You have to live in the conditions that are set in order for you to understand what you had and what you lost. Once the time of the punishment of the prisoner is up and they are released from jail they will appreciate what they had even more. So in the long run, it is really helping us, even though it is difficult.

[The Banner]

I wouldn't say that's a satisfying answer, why should we be punished for what two people did before we even existed? If my grandfather committed murder, they wouldn't throw me in jail too, so why should I be condemned for something I had nothing to do with? [/devil'sadvocate]

Obviously I don't really believe what I just said, hence the tag, but I just would like to point out that such statements are satisfying only to Christians, not to non-Christians, and thus accomplish nothing except preaching to the choir to use a tired old phrase.

I thought the Ultimate Theological Debate was "Can God make a rock so big that He couldn't lift it?"

You're quite right. It indeed seems to not conclude the debate and thus keep the nonbeliever hanging. It IS a first step, though, and I say above a (hopefully) more conclusive argument somewhere up there.

I'm not trying to start up a debate. But this is a very important question for a Christian to ask, so I think I'll recommend these pages to most likely answer and conclude the question. Best read in order going downwards.

[url=Why are we condemned for Adam and Eve's sin?]http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/original-sin.html[/url]
[url=And then, to put the question on rest, Why does God allow evil and suffering?]http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/evilandsuffering.html[/url]

Soon, it can go on to talk about why evil exists in the first place, and it will continue to make me put three more pages anyway. But nevertheless, hopefully these pages will put this to a well-deserved rest, and we can all learn from this, hopefully.

[KeybladeWarrior]

I am still wondering why God put us here in the first place.

[rocklobster]

C.S. Lewis had Aslan answer that question this way. He said that we were brought here (in this context, that meant Narnia. But I like to think Earth can apply as well) to know him a little so that we will know him in Heaven.