If God exists, why does he let bad stuff happen to good people? Whats the deal with that?

Answer 1

God does not want his children to suffer at all. Since evil cannot exist in the Land of the Living, Adam (mankind) was exiled from it because he had ingested both "good and evil knowledge." Since he no longer had access to the Tree of Life he had received a sentence of death. He now dwells in the land of the dead where there is no Knowledge, no Wisdom, and no Understanding. Thus Man caused his own death by eating the "fruit" that was poisoned with the "knowledge of evil," and caused himself to be cast into the endless cycle of the fires of Hades. God has never wished to torment Man endlessly in the fires of this world, but He has rather been working for ages on a plan to rescue Man from the place that has entrapped him.

The Scriptures tell us of the plan of God to save us out of the world of the dead and to save us from being condemned along with this world. The theme of the entire Bible (despite its apparent diversity and variety of men who wrote it down) is concerning the plan of God to free man from the captivity he brought upon himself. And man (Adam) has no idea or notion of the sacrifice that God has made for man's redemption -- to free man from the captivity that he works so hard at to retain. The entire Bible, from front to back, is concerned with releasing Adam (Man) from his sentence of death, from his imprisonment in the world, which is "beneath", and restoring him to his former estate.

The Scriptures are the Father's attempts to prod us to remembrance. The beginning of the Book tells us that Man was exiled from the Garden so that he could not partake of the Tree of Life, receiving a sentence of death. The ending of the Book tells us of the resurrection of Man from the dead. The same theme runs through the entire Book, the theme of rescuing Adam from the land of his exile, from the world of the dead.

Answer 2

God exists whether we're convinced or not. Everything around us ..even us..we're the proof that There's a creator and that creator is God. You say God let bad things happen to good people but how do you know that these things are bad?? do you see the future to assume that these things that seem bad are really bad?? Let me put it this way. You might miss your flight and that looks like a bad thing at the moment but if that plane you were supposed to be on, crashes then "missing the plane" turns out to be a good thing after all. So for good people, nothing bad happens. So being fatally sick...being into the worst accidents..etc...might look like a bad thing but for good people this might be the reason to be forgiven by God and sent to heaven for the suffering they had to be through in their life. Our knowledge compared to God is nothing. We don't have all the pieces to the puzzle .So what you might think is bad because you "don't know" might be for the best "when you know"

Answer 3

God doesn't [let anything happen] we do. Once we're born we have free will to do as we please. If a person is in the wrong place at the wrong time bad things happen, or if people get sick, it's because, that disease exits. God did not create bad people, society did, God did not create disease, it came about due to , nutrition, heredity, environment, which are things we are in control of most often. When wrong choices are made, eventually someone pays. It may not seem right, but, that is why we have to be more aware & active in our society, so the innocent don't end up paying the price for our ignorance. We can't all leave it up to someone else, they may not care.

If you want answers to what you can do, God is there, pray on it, you may get some pretty good answers, but will you be willing to put yourself out there to do something about it ?

Answer 4

Good question! When we say why does God let bad stuff happen, we get the impression He should intervene because its beyond our control, but I guess I would wonder whether it really is?
eg if you are talking about poverty, war, murders, rape etc then we as people should be checking whether our reasons for our actions are morally sound.

Lets take good people in Africa dying of hunger as an example of bad stuff. It is infact our governments who created this poverty and then the irony is that we donate money to help them.

Africa used to be the richest country in the world with Gold and produce. Once a year a Monsoon used to rain on the land to last them all year round and because of pollution from the west the Monsoon rain didnt come, they had a drought so their crops died and their economy collapsed. Africa then needed money so asked the UN for help. They lend Africa money with something ridiculous like 80% interest which, lets be realistic, how can that ever be paid back? It cant. But now Africa can be controlled!! So the government negotiate with the Gold, and because of the greedy demands made by wealthy fat cats, Africa is now a poor country with many good people dying of starvation. The rich just keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.

I hope we become more aware of how people cause bad stuff to happen, because otherwise our ignorance leaves us asking the question you did!

Answer 5

What I was told is that He is trying to give as many people as possible a chance to come to Him before He brings about Armageddon. Satan has control of the world (as an overall whole) right now and is doing the bad things to people, and God allows it while more and more come to believe in Him. When everyone has had a chance to hear the message and decide if they are going to accept it or not, then the end comes and the bad stuff that happens to good people stops happening because Satan will be locked up for a 1,000 years. After that Satan is supposed to be let out for one more "romp" as those who died before they heard the message are tested and then Satan will be destroyed forever.

When Satan turned Adam and Eve (the first humans) to evil, Satan called into question whether anyone could follow God. Now God is allowing time for that question to be answered so that no one can ever ask that question again (since God will have proven that He was right originally) and then allowing people to take advantage of that question being answered (by Jesus) by learning about God and His ways. We must remember though that this is occuring more on a cosmic scale of time and not on our sense of time, which is why it is taking so long by our standards. This is giving Satan enough time so that he knows he had the time to change things and he failed and so that all spiritual creatures (God, Jesus, the angels, Satan, and the demons-angels that followed Satan) can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was right and Satan was wrong and they won't question it themselves later.

Answer 6

God does exist and he never allows bad things to happen to good people, but first you must know what is good.

We, as individual spirit souls have decided, through mis-use of free will to leave our real home, the spiritual world and exist separately.

As soon as we make that choice, we become covered by the material energy, there are five gross material energies which constitute the material body and three subtle energies, namely mind, intelligence and ego.

To identify the material body and subtle conditioned mind as yourself is false ego, to identify yourself as an eternal spiritual person, temporarily covered over is your real identity.

You are not a material person having a spiritual experience, you are a spiritual person having a material experience.

In this world, there is the universal cosmic law of duality or cause and effect, every individual is responsible for their own actions, as you sow, so you shall reap, the measure that you give, will be the measure that you get, etc etc.

The difference, when we speak of Karma, is that these actions and reactions are taking place over past lives and future lives.

There is no one to abdicate responsibility to, like a mythological devil, who evolved in Christianity from the Greek God Pan and the horned Pagan God of the animals, no-one can compete with God, God is absolute.

To transcend the cause and effect of material activities, you must perform spiritual, devotional activities that bring about no resultant reaction, these activities revive the original spiritual body by purification of consciousness, allow you to perceive spiritual reality and produces happiness and satisfaction beyond your wildest dreams.

For further discussion for anyone interested in this science of self realisation, contact:-Sriman Sankarshan Das Adhikari ([e-mail])

Answer 7

God does exist. The bible says that God allows it to rain on the just and the unjust. That means that bad things happen to bad people just as bad things happen to good people. The good news is that

1. God will never give you more than you can bear.
2. There is always a way out of whatever you are in.
3. God will never leave you nor forsake you.

Also, some people just have it coming. The bible says that vengeance is mine, thus says the Lord. Could he possibly be getting vengeance for something you have done?

Answer 8

A religion is not only about if God exists. Almost all religions that beleive in god tell you that this life is not all the story and even that it's negligeable compared to the real life ater death ...
Then, a bad thing happening in this life to good pople doesn't seem as bad for a beleiver because simply this life itself doesn't worth much and the real deal will be more fair and merciful.
Peace...

Answer 9

Sometimes people bring on what happens to them. I sure do believe there is a God. Bad things have happened to me but when things did go bad, another door opened and I thanked God for the bad that did happen because it ended up being the best thing for me.

Answer 10

Your question may not be the most original question ever asked, but you hit the nail on the head by raising the issue of the existence of evil in a supposedly godly universe.

There IS evil around us, there are freaky accidents to perfectly nice folks (not just to the ones who drink and drive) and life is not always just.

However, we do enjoy free will and we are not "pampered" by a superior entity (like God) into bliss and happiness. Imagine a world governed only by the rules of beauty, happiness and classical aesthetics. A world where if you fell, you wouldn't bleed. Where a girl wouldn't ache for the man she loved and a mother would not sacrifice something important to her for her children. What would we ever accomplish in such a world and what would we ever learn? How would we evolve and how would we be able to better ourselves? What kind of people would we be in an Eden where the apple was never eaten? (For more info on that alternative you can look up the philosopher's Leibniz theory of the Best of All Possible Worlds. )

The world was envisioned by the ancient greeks as being held upon the titan Atlas's shoulders. Wouldn't it be great if each one of us felt as responsible for the future of humankind as an Atlas bearing the globe on his/her shoulders?

But also, in the Christian tradition, there is the story of Job who was the victim of a "deal" between God and the Devil to make his life miserable just to see if he would lose his faith. After myriads of unjust destructions that happened to him and as he was bedridden with some horrible disease, unable to take it anymore he raised his arms and asked "WHY, WHY ME, LORD??" and God answered something along the lines: "You ask why? Where you there when I created the Universe?", intensifying the mysterious aspect of the question you just asked!

Also, there is a great book on the subject "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Harold S. Kushner.

Answer 11

God allows bad things to happen because of the mistakes adam and eve made in the garden, but when something happens it is an agreement with the devil that God will allow the devil to come in and do something for a period of time, this is called times of trial which everyone goes through it makes people stronger, God still loves everyone regardless of what happens he must put people through this which will bring people closer to God for a more meaningful relationship.