Why god let's bad things happen

[Bush]

I'm very much a "silver lining"/"lemons into lemonade" kind of guy, a real optimist; but I still have trouble squeezing anything positive out of certain phenomena/situations.

I'm also a pragmatist. Framing a bad thing as a bad thing has its purpose. Framing a bad thing as an opportunity does as well.

 

[Avocado]

[MENTION=18694]The Wailing Specter[/MENTION]

Moses to God:
But who should I say sent me to Pharaoh?

God to Moses:
Say "I am" sent you.

Moses to God:
<argues>

God to Moses:
Say that, "I am that I am", sent you.


Where is this popular abrahamic deity of which you speak? Somewhere locked within some impersonal/personal dichotomy... ? And also you have it backwards, "he" is not just like us, we are like him. When you make the reference to "he", in any particular context, what furnishes it with substance and meaning? What standard have you imbued into the very notion of any contemplated 'he'... the religious answer is "yourself", because it has the same source likeness of whatever is taken for [the grammatical use of] "him"?

He went to the store to buy some flour...

He drove to the beach to go swimming...

He WAS made to sit and endure the afternoon lecture...

What do we think of him? What will we know about the 'he' without an ideal form of "him" to take the sense of meaning after? So we can know (categorically) what he might be like (and not just in some abstracted sense of nebulous description, but rendering a particular sense that includes a clear deliberation of narrative-interchange, that is carried by the might of character- at the source of the him;— the actuator of himself and all action). Character is unseen to the senses, and when source-character is coloured in the terms of temporal-significance, you lie with divergent understandings, inconsistent with unitary apprehensions of a quickening nature. [my first edit was lost to the website disconnect will try see if I can get a hold of that original treatment, because it extended this last point in a more elaborated fashion].

Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Do you take a fundamentalist/literalist approach or are you more mystical and metaphorical?

 

[Zangetshumody]

Do you take a fundamentalist/literalist approach or are you more mystical and metaphorical?

I guess I would be described as mystical... but the bible itself gives clear guidelines about the substance it contains... Jesus says many would read the Scripture and know nothing about him. Because they only take in an understanding concerning the will of a man, and overlook [understanding the] eternal aspect in matters of deliberated action. Also the bible clearly states that it is describing mysteries, and it also says that the mystery shall be at its end in the process of God's revelation, which is alway at hand for those who are seeking the Kingdom of God, which is an intention involving deliberate works of understanding matters of doctrine to help with the spiritual condition chosen on the soul.

I can point to Scriptures that directly lay out all the above claims, but they should be known well enough already by those who might care about the Scripture as a source of spiritual knowledge. Many of these references I have made in some of my earlier posts on similar threads.

In my view, the Scripture doesn't do anything close to the work of Salvation, it does lay out a framework that is vital to follow if you are serious about achieving Godliness: Ephesians and the description of the Church, is a 'spiritual alchemy' of therapy that works by sharing your mind in a communion of flesh and blood, symbolically consumed by the gathered members, by devouring bread and wine together: without communications about flesh and blood, it cannot be transformed into spiritual purity: this work is impossible without the application of the members gifts, fulfilling the functions of apostle, priest, evangelist, prophet, there is no Christ involved in the life of a gathering.

 

[Mole]

Theology and Jesus

Do you take a fundamentalist/literalist approach or are you more mystical and metaphorical?

Neither, I take a theological approach.

Consider Jesus. He was Judaic when Judaism was based on the family, yet Jesus never married and lived at home with his parents into his thirties at a time when life expectancy was quite short.

The chances of any Jew failing to marry and living at home with his Judaic parents are very slim. They are so slim it is unlikely there was any such person in history as Jesus.

On the other hand, Jesus was a supremely successful creation of theology. The story of Jesus makes no sense historically but makes excellent sense theologically. So much so, the theological Jesus is one of the pillars of Western civilization.

 

[Avocado]

Brilliant Observation, [MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION]

Neither, I take a theological approach.

Consider Jesus. He was Judaic when Judaism was based on the family, yet Jesus never married and lived at home with his parents into his thirties at a time when life expectancy was quite short.

The chances of any Jew failing to marry and living at home with his Judaic parents are very slim. They are so slim it is unlikely there was any such person in history as Jesus.

On the other hand, Jesus was a supremely successful creation of theology. The story of Jesus makes no sense historically but makes excellent sense theologically. So much so, the theological Jesus is one of the pillars of Western civilization.

 

[Pionart]

A bad thing is just a good thing which is less good than other good things.

So bad things happen because good things happening implies that some things are better than other things.

Seriously.

 

[uumlau]

A bad thing is just a good thing which is less good than other good things.

So bad things happen because good things happening implies that some things are better than other things.

Seriously.

The Lost Horse
塞翁失馬
A man who lived on the northern frontier of China was skilled in interpreting events. One day for no reason, his horse ran away to the nomads across the border. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?" Some months later his horse returned, bringing a splendid nomad stallion. Everyone congratulated him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a disaster?" Their household was richer by a fine horse, which the son loved to ride. One day he fell and broke his hip. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?"

A year later the nomads came in force across the border, and every able-bodied man took his bow and went into battle. The Chinese frontiersmen lost nine of every ten men. Only because the son was lame did father and son survive to take care of each other. Truly, blessing turns to disaster, and disaster to blessing: the changes have no end, nor can the mystery be fathomed.

Commentary
塞翁失馬 (sai weng shi ma), the title of this story, is actually a commonly used Chinese idiom or chengyu . It literally translates as "Old Sai loses a horse". Old Sai is the wise man in the fable. The expression is used to remind others to take life in stride because things aren't really as good (or bad) as they seem. Certainly seems like a wise advice for a society that lives only for the present.

From - Classic Chinese Literature, Folk Tales: The Lost Horse

There is no such thing as pure good or pure evil. Moral distinctions are never absolutes: they are preferences. They just feel like absolutes when experienced in the personal context of one's own preferences.

Looking at it from a technical perspective, there is no system that cannot be improved, and even then most improvements require some sort of trade-off, which means that even an improvement is a compromise. Moral systems are no different. In fact, I would argue that the critical feature of any system, technical or moral, is how well it deals with flaws and imperfections. A good technical system has processes that deliberately look for flaws and fixes them to the degree that it is possible and practical. A good moral system has that same feature.

What does that feature look like in a good moral system? Something like this:

Matthew 5:43-48 The Message (MSG)

43-47 “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

48 “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

In other words, love is the moral equivalent of having good technical quality assurance. To be clear, I do not mean that loving your enemies is equivalent to QA on your enemies to fix their flaws. No, it's QA to fix YOUR flaws, not theirs. Loving only your friends doesn't meet God's user requirements.

 

[Peter Pan]

Hey this one time this priest was talking and said that God never says no when you pray for something just that he usually always has an even better idea

And this other time this other priest said that God never let's bad things happen we just don't accept his help when he tries to stop them

Aaaaaaannnndddd then this oooooooother time this other other priest said that of course the bible and religion has all kinds of contradictions and makes no sense and isn't logical cuz neither is the human heart and it's these imperfections that allow us to see our own flawed selves in the bible and religion cuz otherwise we wouldn't be able to empathize to feel any love for it and that it gives us all the opportunity to through these things have the same stuff for everyone else that we have for him and that God's love doesn't have to make sense because love doesn't make sense to begin with and we just accept that it doesn't make sense and when things are done out of love and we accept them for that then everything turns out just peachy keen in the end

 

[Lord Lavender]

This is a topic i have thought on. I have come up with multiple possibilities.

1. God is a troll
We see multiple cases of God trolling people in the Bible (the story of Job, placing temptation in front of people e.t.c). He to me is a teenage boy playing Sims (How can i mess this persons life up as much as possible) or Civlization (How can i cause as much chaos as possible around the globe). He also put oil in the Middle East for lolz IMO.

2. He has far too much on his plate to worry about each person and must care more on a big picture
Think about you looking at a petri dish or even an ant mound and just try to look after one small bacteria or ant. You cannot as your thinking is far beyond theirs and therefore you probably wont care if a single bacteria or ant suffers or dies as along as you can keep them from getting wiped out. This is probably how God views mankind (I love mankind as a whole but cannot look after single bodies. Hell you are like that with your own body, You dont care at all if you kill skin cells when you wash yourself with chemicals or blood cells when you bleed but you would care on a more big picture way (You dont want to die or lose large amounts).

3. He doenst exist and therefore cannot care at all.
This is probably the simplest explanation and would explain a lot. I personally believe myself in the 2nd possibility as it seems despite humanity almost getting wiped out (WW2, Black death e.t.c it seems in the end humanity always came out better than worse).

 

[nonsequitur]

Looking at it from a technical perspective, there is no system that cannot be improved, and even then most improvements require some sort of trade-off, which means that even an improvement is a compromise. Moral systems are no different. In fact, I would argue that the critical feature of any system, technical or moral, is how well it deals with flaws and imperfections. A good technical system has processes that deliberately look for flaws and fixes them to the degree that it is possible and practical. A good moral system has that same feature.

What does that feature look like in a good moral system? Something like this:

The full idiom is 塞翁失马焉知非福 - but yes, the basic meaning is that we can't tell if something is good or bad, because we can't tell what it will cause in the future. Kind of the same western principle of the butterfly effect. So it's a way of looking at life philosophically - that often nothing is as "good" or as "bad" as we reckon it to be in the moment.

One of my favourite authors, Madeleine L'engle, once compared life to a sonnet. There's a strict form to which life keeps. Birth, death, joy, grief, connection, loss, love, fear, anger, forgiveness, the wheel turning between one moment and the next, one feeling and the next.

But we have absolute freedom to write whatever we want within the sonnet. We have the freedom to emphasise certain subjects, the life markers that are important to us, the beat and rhythms that pulse around our words and thoughts. I believe that our lives are the ultimate form of self-expression.

We colour in the dark parts, painting outside of the lines and drawing contrasts to beautiful pastels and luminescent skies. Without the darkness and the shadows, our eyes wouldn't be drawn to the light and the angles used to construct the unique perspective that is ours. God doesn't "let" bad things happen. They're a part of our light, interminably and inextricably linked within our identities and the narrative of our lives. They give the light meaning. Forgiveness has no meaning if we don't feel anger. Grace has no meaning without the freedom to hold a grudge. Faith, work, persistence, and patience have no meaning if everything goes our way, if we don't experience fear and doubt.

The "bad" things are the dark canvas, the opportunity life gives us to express our goodness.

[/embarrassed]

Er yeah. I didn't intend to get that personal.

 

[ilikeitlikethat]

Because of the survival instinct of being selfish wired into each and everyone of us.

 

[Litsnob]

This mythical God guy of whom you speak is either a cruel being or a powerless one. It's a safer bet it doesn't exist at all.

 

[uumlau]

This mythical God guy of whom you speak is either a cruel being or a powerless one. It's a safer bet it doesn't exist at all.

There are more alternatives than that. Look up "theodicy". Or just peruse my prior reply here: http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...8-god-bad-happen-post2739206.html#post2739206

I'm not saying you're wrong or trying to start a debate. Just pointing out that the question doesn't reduce to a syllogism, and that there is a lot of useful philosophy and wisdom to be found in the non-syllogistic answers, even if the ultimate answer is that God doesn't exist.

 

[Litsnob]

There are more alternatives than that. Look up "theodicy". Or just peruse my prior reply here: http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...8-god-bad-happen-post2739206.html#post2739206

I'm not saying you're wrong or trying to start a debate. Just pointing out that the question doesn't reduce to a syllogism, and that there is a lot of useful philosophy and wisdom to be found in the non-syllogistic answers, even if the ultimate answer is that God doesn't exist.

I like your response. On first reading of it I would say I agree with it. I just don't think it actually answers the question. The question is not why do bad things happen to good people the question is why does God let them. The simple answer is that there is most probably no God so nobody is doing any letting. After that, there are many things to say about morality, ethics, good and bad and how to deal with them.

The question makes an assumption that God exists and the rest follows. If God does not exist then the question means nothing and there is no good reason to believe God exists.

Clearly there are people who think that there is a God and that they have good reason to believe this. There is no point in my debating that one. The only people who could actually answer the question about why God allows bad things would be people who share the fantasy that there is a God and then they can continue to spin the story.

The original post/question here is begging the question.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

I would call this more of a chart to theodicy than god itself.

 

[ilikeitlikethat]

RE: Why god let's bad things happen

Subject: answer

From: ilikeitlikethat xNTP




Entropy and freewill/life style choices, you understand.

"Sorry."

 

[human101]

If a deity exist, it is either impersonal or non benevolent. Anything else is just humans finding a way to deal with reality.

 

[Yuurei]

Without God there would no evil.

If we are basing our ideas here on the Christian there really is only one sin/evil. Heresy. The "origional sin" was going against God. Before Eve ever existed to eat the apple -which if we break that down; what was so bad about that apple that they cast out of Eden for eating even just one bite? Nothing-was heresy.

Lucifer was not cast out of Heaven for any one act.
" ...he becane vain in his beauty and position and his heart became rebelious agaist God."

Yes,he was proud but that lead him to become rebellious. Heresy.

Satanism, as a religion, is not evil. They do not commit murder and gang rape in pigs blood ( that's Dionysus)
they worship the idea of themselves, the individual; free will.Because Lucifer himself is not about murder, raoe and violence, he is about free will.

If there were no God and no law to rebel againt, there would be no concept of "free will" or "heresy".

And even more simply; God is the origional Judge. If there were judgement there would be no concept of good evil.

God connot destroy evil. With no evil there is no reason to judge. No judge judge, no God.

So I guess, God really is the first Father. " If you're gonna live in my house you'tr gong to follow MY rules!"
....or maybe a cosmic toddler who throws a huge fit when people don't follow the arbitraty rules of the nonsensical game he just made up "...because it's MY side of the playground you guuuuys! And if you don't like it you can go to the other side of the playground with the crappy slide and that wierd kid our parents say we're not appose-to talk to!"

( or something, I dunno, it's 4am.)

 

[Mole]

Because of the survival instinct of being selfish wired into each and everyone of us.

What is extraordinary is the banality of evil.

 

[Fluffywolf]

Evil, ignorance, tragedy and sadness.

I hereby thank you for your existance. For it is awareness, perception and thought that has allowed me to both recognize and transcend your existance. I could not be the whole that I am now, without you. I thank you, but I also despise you. You now only exist to bother and obstruct me. I no longer have need of you. Begone and fade away like a puff of smoke in the scape of my consciousness.

God however is even less than an obstacle in my journey. I have no need for him. I most certainly have no need to blame him. And I absolutely would not credit him for the things you believe he is responsible for.

God is not responsible for your life. You are. The future is ours.

God is not responsible for the bad things that happen. Sometimes it is us. Other times it is bad fucking luck. Don't deal with Him. Deal with that.

Every second of life is a second to be treasured. It's a wondrous thing, to exist. It will be sad to leave. But no one can say they are deserving of set amount of seconds. Hoping, wishing, yes. Just be happy you exist at all. To have been born from the stars themselves, through evolution and sheer luck. Under the exact right circumstance and events. All the way to the sentient beings we are now. The thought of God's existance only devalues that.

I am here because of someone or something else? I don't think so. To be here, to exist freely, free in the truest sense of the word. Nothing fills me more.