How do believers justify the suffering on earth?

Question

Although I am agnostic, I can understand if the Bible, and possibly other religious books were true, why God could allow the suffering to go on, here on earth.
But I want to hear your justification, if you believe in God.

I am not trying to pick a fight, I asked believers, so intend to give the best answer to a believer, when I shall also give my justification.

Answer 1

To put a stop to most of the suffering on this planet, God would have to interfere with the free will decisions that people make. For example, a cruel dictator decides to starve out a minority group in his country. The rest of the world sits back and chooses to do nothing. Should God force us to show more compassion and put a stop to the suffering if we lack the collective will to act? He won’t. He will allow us to learn these lessons for ourselves. If we choose to abuse the planet and each other, we are creating the circumstance of our own destruction. We do have choices, you know.

Answer 2

I believe in God but not religions as religion is the structured worship of God, it is not God. It is just were people have got together and agreed a set of rules, beliefs, dogma and procedures for worshipping their God.
I believe we were created and but on this earth to learn grow and develop into the best sort of person we can be. Time and chance has been set in motion, but apart from that we have been given total freewill to do what we want.
So if there is any good or suffering then it is man's doing not God's.
We just haven't as a species progressed yet to the stage where we stop hurting each other and learn to work together for the common good.

Answer 3

Even though you are asking for an explanation from the viewpoint of faithful people, are you going to pick the answer of the atheist that runs somewhere along the lines of: "Suffering on Earth proves there is no benevolent God as depicted in the bible, because such a God would intervene before suffering occurred."?

Your most common answer will undoubtedly be free will. I don't think this will shed any light on this disagreement.

Answer 4

In Christianity it's usually caused by the Devil, because the Bible says, "all good things come from the Lord". Why doesn't he intervene? That is a whole book, and then you still might not have the answer you are looking for. We as Christians understand that not everything in life is spelled out in the Bible. We accept that, and give praise for what is. There will always be evil in the world until Christ comes again, but that won't happen until the Bible has been preached all over the World, which many Christians believe is almost here. Like you, I despise the evil we see everyday, but I have a peace that has no understanding on the inside of me.

Answer 5

Phrases from the Bible are not the answer, the bible is a book that was written by man, for man, so it doesn't carry any weight with me.... If "God" is so powerful, why didn't he write that book himself?? He has to talk through other people?? Then he is not all powerful, is he? Please, spare us the cut and paste from the great old story book....

There is suffering on this planet because we have free will. No one else determines the outcome of anything but us. When we come here, we are supposed to learn all we can, share our talents with the world, and love each other. That's all free will. When something terrible happens to someone, there is usually their own or someone else's free will behind it. Whether it's a mistake or intentional, everything that happens, happens for a reason. That doesn't mean it's "God's" reason or whomever you choose to believe in.

I myself believe in a higher power, but I don't call him "God." That name was used to scare people into behaving.... My higher power is the collective pool of perfect all knowing, all loving, all forgiving souls that have passed on before me. They have come to this physical realm time and again to learn every lesson, a murderer in a past life, may come back as a victim in this life, and so on, then when they no longer need to come here anymore, they donate their souls to the collective pool which is the bright light we all see when we go home. It's free will and mother nature that allows all of mans suffering, not the higher powers.

Answer 6

From a bible standpoint; The Bible says: “Far be it from the true God to act wickedly, and the Almighty to act unjustly!”—Job 34:10. So why does he allow suffering?The Bible clearly states: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) When you think about it, does that not make sense? This world reflects the personality of the invisible spirit creature who is “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (Revelation 12:9) Satan is hateful, deceptive, and cruel. So the world, under his influence, is full of hatred, deceit, and cruelty. That is one reason why there is so much suffering.A second reason why there is so much suffering is that mankind has been imperfect and sinful ever since the rebellion in the garden of Eden. Sinful humans tend to struggle for dominance, and this results in wars, oppression, and suffering. (Ecclesiastes 4:1; 8:9) A third reason for suffering is “time and unforeseen occurrence.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).When Satan led Adam and Eve into disobeying Jehovah, an important question was raised. Satan did not call into question Jehovah’s power. Even Satan knows that there is no limit to Jehovah’s power. Rather, Satan questioned Jehovah’s right to rule. By calling God a liar who withholds good from his subjects, Satan charged that Jehovah is a bad ruler. (Genesis 3:2-5) Satan implied that mankind would be better off without God’s rulership. This was an attack on Jehovah’s sovereignty, his right to rule. Adam and Eve rebelled against Jehovah. In effect, they said: “We do not need Jehovah as our Ruler. We can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.” How could Jehovah settle that issue? How could he teach all intelligent creatures that the rebels were wrong and that his way truly is best? Someone might say that God should simply have destroyed the rebels and made a fresh start. But Jehovah had stated his purpose to fill the earth with the offspring of Adam and Eve, and he wanted them to live in an earthly paradise. (Genesis 1:28) Jehovah always fulfills his purposes. (Isaiah 55:10, 11) Besides that, getting rid of the rebels in Eden would not have answered the question that had been raised regarding Jehovah’s right to rule. Let us consider an illustration. Imagine that a teacher is telling his students how to solve a difficult problem. A clever but rebellious student claims that the teacher’s way of solving the problem is wrong. Implying that the teacher is not capable, this rebel insists that he knows a much better way to solve the problem. Some students think that he is right, and they also become rebellious. What should the teacher do? If he throws the rebels out of the class, what will be the effect on the other students? Will they not believe that their fellow student and those who joined him are right? All the other students in the class might lose respect for the teacher, thinking that he is afraid of being proved wrong. But suppose that the teacher allows the rebel to show the class how he would solve the problem. Jehovah has done something similar to what the teacher does. Remember that the rebels in Eden were not the only ones involved. Millions of angels were watching. (Job 38:7; Daniel 7:10) How Jehovah handled the rebellion would greatly affect all those angels and eventually all intelligent creation. So, what has Jehovah done? He has allowed Satan to show how he would rule mankind. God has also allowed humans to govern themselves under Satan’s guidance.Why, though, has Jehovah allowed suffering to go on for so long? And why does he not prevent bad things from happening? Well, consider two things that the teacher in our illustration would not do. First, he would not stop the rebel student from presenting his case. Second, the teacher would not help the rebel to make his case. Similarly, consider two things that Jehovah has determined not to do. First, he has not stopped Satan and those who side with him from trying to prove that they are right. Allowing time to pass has thus been necessary. In the thousands of years of human history, mankind has been able to try every form of self-rule, or human government. Mankind has made some advances in science and other fields, but injustice, poverty, crime, and war have grown ever worse. Human rule has now been shown to be a failure. Second, Jehovah has not helped Satan to rule this world. If God were to prevent horrible crimes, for instance, would he not, in effect, be supporting the case of the rebels? Would God not be making people think that perhaps humans can govern themselves without disastrous results? If Jehovah were to act in that way, he would become party to a lie. However, “it is impossible for God to lie.”—Hebrews 6:18.
Sorry it is so long, but this is how Jehovah's Witnesses justify suffering.

Answer 7

I believe in reincarnation. If you are a good person in this life you will be rewarded by God in the next life. If you choose to live a bad life you will be punished in the next life. He allows all the suffering so we can learn from our mistakes, in the same way a parent punishes a child if he/she does something wrong.

Answer 8

YES. I LOVE when people ask this question. I won't give you the old "God's plan" speil. Here it is:
God had a perfect garden, Eden (stick with me, I know you've heard this), He created Adam and Eve and gave them one simple instruction. Don't eat from that tree over there. They did anyway. God knew they would. He could have prevented this. But He had to give men and women free will, because He loves them. It's kind of like a parent letting a kid go somewhere, even though they know the kid will give into some temptation. They don't interfere at all, because the kid has to make his own mistakes. The parent and God must punish their charge. God cast man out of His presence, the Garden. And He made Satan "the Prince and Power of the air" meaning he gave Satan control over natural disasters. But then He gave us an out. Jesus. With Jesus, we can go through the trials of life than be in God's presence for eterinity.
All suffering is caused by humans or Satan. But God uses misfortune to reach people. Sacrificing the good of the few for the good of the many. He won't purposefully hurt someone, but once they are hurt He will use the pain to reach his/her friends and family.

Answer 9

If ''god'' is supposed to be so freakin great and he knows everything before it happens why doesn't he ''strike down'' those who would intend to do evil to the innocent before they do it. Kinda like the movie Minority Report. Then the only free will that would be interfered with are the free will of those who do not deserve to be free. Of course this does not explain why a supposedly loving god would have created a world full of ''natural evils'' such as tornadoes, hurricanes, drought and harmful bacteria and diseases There is no reason for these things to have been created and put into a world along side a loving gods children.

There is no god. If there were a god he she or it would be a sadistic son of a *****

Answer 10

Why blame God? Mankind is doing a great job in destroying itself. God gave us a beautiful planet to live on and look what we are doing to it ourselves. Satan is also very busy at the moment 'running to and fro' around the world messing up peoples lives. God is only allowing this so we can learn that we can't do it on our own, we need Him in our lives. We are looking for the most part at a Godless world and just look at the results. It hurts God to see what is going on in the world with His children and He's going to put a stop to it very soon. God bless.