dont get me wrong. im a catholic..i go to church every sunday and pray every night before i go to sleep. and i dont doubt god. but my friend last night asked me why does god let so many bad things happen to us..even good people and its been bugging me and i just really want to find a way to give him an explanation for this. i really want to prove him wrong..and make him believe more in god.
2007-03-27 15:12:47 · 26 answers · asked by Mel 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
CT - you should read the book Problem of Pain by CS Lewis, you will find it very enlightening
2007-03-27 15:19:50 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
God is beyond good and bad. He is neutral in all aspects.
Good and bad are human choices. We make the decisions. Most of human sufferings rise from our desires and our want for more and more. People work hard, doing late shifts to earn as much money as possible. As a result you are mentally and physically stressed out. You spend less time with your loved ones and at times you release the tension onto them. Humans are never satisfied. We always want more and better of what we laready have. If you carefully analyse a particular problem you will find the root cause to be some hidden desire.
However there are situations which arise not as a result of our desires. There are people who are born into poverty, broken famlies, people born with physical deformities etc. These are scenarios where we are baffled as to God's intentions. We feel cheated. Why are we put to suffer when we haven't done anything?
Again even the above sceanrios reflect our own doing. You are a Catholic and may not believe in karmas and rebirths. But to explain your question, what we are today is a sum total of our actions in the past. The sufferings that we go through without any apparent reason may be due to our past actions.
God never gives us sorrow. We choose that path through our actions.
2007-03-27 15:24:34 · answer #2 · answered by Rakesh 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Unforunately, there is no real answer to this but I'm going to tell you what my guidance counselor told me when I asked the same question a couple of years ago. She said that yes bad things happen to anyone, no matter wheither the person is 'good' or 'bad', but it is through these things that God uses us to touch others and to grow. It isn't that He doesn't want us to be in a 'good' situation all of the time but He allows this to happen to prove to us that He is real. I have grown stronger in my faith because of this. For any person, it may not seem right to have so many people be faced with heartache, pain, suffering, and more but it is apart of life and it won't go away no matter how hard we try. For us, we can never fully understand the mind of God and why He lets somethings happen and others He stops before they can occur. This is one thing that has been asked thousands of times and each time there is no real answer.
2007-03-27 15:26:41 · answer #3 · answered by Lindsay C 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
One might ask why we should not expect god to be at least as reasonable and compassionate as the average person? Take a simple scenario that was given to me on a yahoo group: You are in the kitchen. You see a toddler headed towards a stove where a pot of oil bubbles away furiously. He reaches up... do you sit there and watch him do grievous harm to himself when he pulls it down, thinking pain, fear, scarring or death are just rewards for wanting to know? Or do you get up and pull him to safety? This is a good one. Where’s god;s warning when people are nearing unknown but certain danger? Here are my ideas: First, it is possible that the value system that is placed on this equation is meaningless in relation to some HIGHER PURPOSE? Perhaps the history of death and pain and suffering is a spit in the pan compared to what the ultimate goal is? Does a mother focus on the pain of child birth when she first holds her infant in her arms? Or is she elated with the result such that the pain becomes meaningless? Chaos, pain and suffering are inherent propensities in this system, but in the evolution of biology toward man they were certainly necessary components of the equation. Unlike the animal, whose pain is a conditioned response mechanism, man (now conscious) has an understanding of these things. He understands pain, suffering, mortality. Now he must suffer the consequences of that knowledge. But given the loftier goal of creating new personalities, perhaps the awareness of the chaotic nature of our environment and the pain and suffering and death we know in our conscious states is well worth attainment of another goal? In other words, maybe the means justify the end. Quite possibly not even the intervention by God would change the final outcomes. Secondly, this scenario assumes god can intervene. I believe god is just another word for perfection or morality and that saying that god could grab the infant or give him some warning is the same as saying your morality could grab the infant and save him. You (being moral or godly) want to save him because you have god (morality) within you.
2007-03-27 15:41:20 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Read the book of Job.
A lot of things happen because we are being tested. Can we pass the test of FAITH, like Job did?
Why is it that every time something "bad" happens the first one mostly blamed is God?
We are not promised a rose garden in life. As another poster mentioned, we make our own bed and we have to lay in it. It comes down to "free will". We know what is right but we do what is wrong... as Paul talks about. God didn't make the plan for His creation to fail, His creation altered what God had planned for them. Big difference!!!!
Remember this, even Satan will appear to some as the light of the world. He deceives many!!!!
2007-03-27 15:19:36 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
That's easy.
1) You're not good. There is no such thing as a "good" human. They don't exist. Rather, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
2) Thus, anything that happens to you until death is very good because, as a sinner, you should be dead, judged, and in hell. You're not because God is patient, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
The problem EVERYONE has with this very simple explanation is that it involves admitting that oneself is a cause of the the evil in the world. Or, as Mel Gibson showed in his movie, he's the one nailing Jesus to the cross.
2007-03-27 15:18:14 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
God made the world perfect for us. Adam and Eve sinned, that corrupted the world and is also known as ' the fall ' . They sinned when they ate of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. God gave us free will and we chose sin. We are now living with the consequences. But don't worry He has already told us He is coming back to take care of all of it.
Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done.
2007-03-27 15:29:21 · answer #7 · answered by The Angry Stick Man 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
"He Who created Death and Life, that He may try which of you is best in deed: "...words from god..if He gives u only happiness and great things in life then none of u will know how to be grateful..bad things and pains are the way for Him to test how strong your faith to Him..when u believe on Him,each time bad things happen to u,the first thing u will find is Him..u will go back to Him asking for strength to continue this life..without pain we would not know how strong are we to live in this world and holding our faith on Him..to those who trust god with all their heart,each pain and happiness is a benefit to them as they trust their god which they admitted that their god is the Wise..He knows what good for us..all the pains are blessing in disguise.."But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not. "so hope this help..we are in different religion but we do believe in the same god..so hope this might help u..
2007-03-27 16:03:08 · answer #8 · answered by DZ9 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
God has given this world to humans. He is a gentleman and will not interfer in their lives without permission. Man makes decisions that affect all those around them. Sometimes those decisions result in bad things happening to others. Sometimes it's our own decisions that create the problem. God does often protect people but they often don't realize it.
2007-03-27 15:19:25 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
if all good things happen people would never apprciate life. people need failure or bad things to happen to them for 3 reasons.
1.to learn from our mistakes. if we never had bad things happen we wouldn't learn as much therefore decreasing our potenial to exist.
2.to appreciate what you have. life is short.God shows us this by having bad things happen so we can get the most of our life that we have.
3.to "test" us. not everyone is a good person. when something bad happens a good person does everything in their will to make it right.
2007-03-27 15:22:29 · answer #10 · answered by Greg L 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Why does God let bad things happen?
What about our being here in the first place, our families,
our homes, our planet that sustains us.
Are those not miracles. God did let good things happen to us first. Bad things happen because of our choices.
We insist on poisoning the planet, no wonder the polar caps are melting.
In answer to this question then there are those who say:
Well then why does God allow us to poison the planet etc.
I think you know the answer to that!.
2007-03-27 15:20:13 · answer #11 · answered by Imogen Sue 5 · 2⤊ 2⤋