THE question.?

Question

Faith vs Fact:

Christianity, Islam, Judaiism, Hinduism...it's all religion. Why are such awful crimes carried out in the name of religion? If God does exist, why does he/she/it allow such crimes to occur? I've heard the free will argument to death - if god is love and is all knowing, and is omnipotent and is benign, then WHY, oh WHY would he allow such suffering?

My argument is this, maybe God is out there, but if he is, he's as flawed and scared and as nasty as the people who kill and opress in his name.

What's your view, I'm undecided...

Answer 1

You've heard the free will argument. It is probably the correct one. Closing your mind to its possibility and asking again will probably yield an less correct answer.

Without free will, humanity has no reason to exist. God allows us to reject him and do more or less what we want to each other (for now). But justice will eventually be served in full to every one of us.

Granted: free will does not explain accidents and natural disasters or the general continuing degradation of the universe. That's where Christianity deviates from a principle of free will to more specific facts.

Augustine, one of the most infuential theologians, gave three analogies of sin. All were quite different from each other illustrating its nature from different perspectives.

One of the analogies was a disease (kind of hereditary, kind of commutable). He argued that when Adam and Eve (or perhaps the serpent) introduced 'sin' into the world, it infected everything, making it corrupt.

Another way of explaining it is that as we asked God to be independent of him, God obliged and backed off. However, it turned out that creation required God to maintain it; fix genetic mutations, renew usable energy, enlighten the mind.

Hence our universe is in a downward spiral. Usable energy is finite and running out. Our genetic degradation will eventually destroy all life (that is, if humans can't do it first)
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"Why are such awful crimes carried out in the name of religion?"
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People will use any excuse.

Humans are corrupt. They were created good and created well, but are now messed up.

You may be interested to learn about a theologian by the name of Karl Barth. He stated that religion (or, to avoid ambiguity, 'religiousity' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiousity) is a human invention and is an obstruction to the knowledge of God.

You may be surprised to hear that a large proportion of Christians believe him.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, people are people. Regardles of what religion they are, everyone is flawed. No one is or ever will be perfect until they are in heaven.

When a person truly meets Jesus, He (Jesus) works in that person and perfets them (so they do grow and get better). But it's a lifelong process. Some people progress faster than others. Still some people sincerely have Jesus in their hearts, while some only claim to but actually do not. Then some people are double-minded (one minute they want Jesus and the next minute they do not). Again, no one on earth is or will be perfect, or even good. (Even when Jesus walked on this earth as a man, he said, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except the Father." So if Jesus didn't claim to be good, how can anyone?)

Anyway, as long as there are people on earth, there will be sin, and there will be times when people do evil things. It's not right. It's wrong and it's horrible, but that's the way it is. It's also horrible to do evil things and base it on a religion. But that's all people's doing. Religion has nothing to do with it. Evil people are in all religions and some are no religion.

Answer 3

God created this physicality in order to get to know Him/Herself. God IS love and God is ALL that you can see hear and think - every action we make reinforms God - that is the reason God gave free will so God could understand what God is not.

Humankind seems all too keen to provide God with plenty of information regarding angre, hatred, pain, suffering, selfishness, greed, control, dominance, which are the main cause of fighting, and wars

Individuals have a chioce, so do governments - and we vote them in!

God cannot be flawed but humans ARE!!!!!

PS and there is a huge difference between being spiritually connected and 'religion'...kind wishes my friend

Answer 4

Satan is the real ruler of this world. He misleads people. God would not allow such things to happen if he was ruler, but since men decided to self-rule, God is giving them time to realize that it just doesn't work without him.

1 John 5:19 We know we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the [power of the] wicked one.

Revelation 12:9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.

Answer 5

My understanding of it all, as far as i can remember from what I was told in school etc is that because the people said to God that we can manage fine on our own, God basically said fair enough, He will leave us to it, knowing fine well we will screw it up. It is the human race that causes all the destruction and war etc and is not God's doing. He may be just sitting around watching all the bad stuff happen but He is merely doing what we asked and at the same time proving His point. He is to come back soon tho to correct everything.

Answer 6

I have also thought the same thing, but then I try to assure myself that we have free will, and even though it probably hurts God to see us behave in such manners-good and evil is necessary in order to have a balance. Ansd life has a way of punsihing those that are killing in the name fo God. What goes around comes around.

Answer 7

The point is that the human race existed in one form or another long before we had the ability to think. Now we can, along comes somebody who realises that he or she can make money out of religion. Somebody else decrees they don't like it and off we go. The fanatics who kill in the name of some God or another are not religious. They are using it simply for their own end.

I personally am a humanitarian. I don't wish to hurt anyone and have nothing to fight for! Therefore no reason to argue about religion with anybody!

Answer 8

This question is frankly very good indeed. What God would allow the like of Muslim Fundamentalist Zaqarwhi to murder other muslims in the name of Islam and have the Muslim Deity praise him. What God would allow the Christian Fundamentalist in the White House to claim that he was advised by God to attack Iraq, with the subsequent loss of lives. Frankly I believe that those who wish to do harm to others have the convenient excuse of Religion and God.

Answer 9

IT's REAL SIMPLE , if you learn the TRUTH cause' the TRUTH will set you FREE!!!! Everybody think's that GOD can just do what HE want's to WHEN HE want's to. WRONG!!!!!!
IF you think of the CREATION(EARTH and the STAR SYSTEM) as a HOUSE(for Human Beings to live in)-----and then try to understand AUTHORITY, and how Authority can be transferred:

I own my car(laws's of the U.S. of A.)---I give you the KEY's and full authority over it. NOW I have to come to you and ASK YOU if I can open the door and sit in it, drive it even wash it and if YOU say NO, then you could have me arrested if I touch it!!!!!

It's that simple. GOD gave FULL AUTHORITY to run the CREATION to ADAM(mankind), Adam turned around and GAVE opened it up(authority) to the Devil(satan) and his follower's(angel's that were kicked out of HEAVEN). GOD put a time limit on how long MANKIND could run this place, it's ALMOST OVER. IF GOD ALMIGHTY comes back befor the ESTABLISHED TIME to TAKE OVER, then HE has effectively BROKEN HIS OWN LAW's and HE ain't about to do that.(or we could have HIM arrested----just kidding!!!!!!). That's it!!! That's how it work's.
p.s. ALL RELIGION's are FALSE-----CHRISTIANITY is not a Religion, it is REALITY, it's the TRUTH-----you have to become Born-Again to become a Christian, and that is TRUTH.
MANKIND didnot know how to kill, steal and destroy untill ADAM
let the Devil in, and all the devil has to offer is killing, stealing and destroying.

Answer 10

God is becoming. If all living things are God than God learns through all interactions and experiences. Suffering teaches lessons. Just as good things do.
Love & Light
Sharon
One Planet = One People