This is a previously resolved question. (so called). Although the answer chosen as best had some sentimental appeal, it really failed to address this fundamentally important issue.
2007-07-02 06:13:54 · 39 answers · asked by menchie_sillano 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
The explanation for this is given by Lord Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Chapter 5 text 15. as follows:
nadatte kasyacit papam
na caiva sukrtam vibhuh
ajnanenavrtam jnanam
tena muhyanti jantavah
TRANSLATION
Nor does the Supreme Spirit assume anyone's sinful or pious activities. Embodied beings, however, are bewildered because of the ignorance which covers their real knowledge.
Lord Krishna is describing here how the living entity, covered by maya or ignorance, forgets his relationship with the Lord and takes to the path of fruitive action. Unfortunately, our independence from the Lord comes at a cost; we are held responsible for our actions. Karmic reaction dictates that for sinful activity there is a concomitant response of material distress. For materially pious action the karmic result is material enjoyment. The Lord is also described as karunya navaya or an ocean of mercy. Those rare souls who are self realized accept the tribulations offered by the material nature as the mercy of the Lord only. Nothing whatsoever happens without the ultimate will and sanction of the Lord, including the suffering of this world. The Lord wants us to return to our loving relationship with him, but in the interim he impartially awards the results of our sinful or pious actions – results which may be reflected either in this life or the next.
In either case, the material body is considered to be like a prison uniform. Whether one is an A class prisoner working in the warden’s office, or a low class prisoner in solitary confinement, it is not the preferred position for the soul. After all, prison is not the desirable location for any sane person. In the same way, this material existence is a nightmarish condition of suffering for all living entities. It is constituted thus to ultimately provide us an impetus to return to our original home in the spiritual realm in relationship with Krishna. As described by Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Swami in the Srimad Bhagavatam;
“the material existence of the living being is a diseased condition of actual life. Actual life is spiritual existence, or brahma bhuta existence, where life is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge. Material existence is temporary, illusory and full of misery. There is no happiness at all – there is just the futile attempt to get rid of the miseries, and the temporary cessation of misery is falsely called happiness.”
The material world is just varying degrees of distress and happiness, however in all cases, material existence is described as samsara, the blazing fire of repeated birth and death.
The living entity, or spiritual soul, has an original identity and eternal transcendental relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Due to the minute independence afforded to every soul, the living entity desires to leave the association and service of the Lord and take up a position as an enjoyer of this material world via the agency of the six senses and the mind.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15 text 7
mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva-bhutah sanatanah
manah-sasthanindriyani
prakrti-sthani karsati
TRANSLATION
The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.
The real source of our struggle and suffering is our separation from our loving relationship with God, Sri Krishna. The elevated soul experiences bodily distress as others, however such a personality is practically aloof from such distress because of great spiritual bliss and ecstatic love for Krishna.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18 text 58
mac-cittah sarva-durgani
mat-prasadat tarisyasi
atha cet tvam ahankaran
na srosyasi vinanksyasi
TRANSLATION
If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditional life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost.
It is interesting to note that those who are overly confident of their empirical, Darwinian concept of the universe will consider these words to be deluded religious sentiment.
Such persons don’t understand that they are the ones who are deluded, and that all their attempts to enjoy a comfortable or secure position in the material world must be punctuated by inevitable old age and death. The only secure position is to become Krishna conscious. Everything connected to the body is subject to defect and temporality
The real solution is to surrender to Krishna
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
2007-07-03 08:41:57 · answer #1 · answered by stokakrishnadas 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your answer depends on who Ask a scientist and he will tell you that its all as simple as one of newtons laws of pysics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. There has to be a balance, otherwise the world could not survive.
As a philosopher and he will tell you that while he is a merciful and powerful being ( forgetting the question of his existance for one moment) that history will always show a balance of good and evil, of black and white, rich and poor...god does not willingly give someone suffering knowing in advance they cant handle it. Take a rape vicctim for a moment. If the vic is a 19 year old college freshmen, not beautiful or ugly, not fat or skinny, not popular but not un popular either she's just your every day ordinary average girl. Yet she goes out one night with her friends and gets attacked and raped. Why? Whats the purpose? Well this person was chosen becuase God knows that she had enought strength to survive and make a difference, weather catching the guy so he cant harm again or helping other victims.
On the other hand, another philosophy is that you would never know the good things exist with out some "bad things" to compare them to.
Ultimatley it comes to the fact that people are inheritantly bad. We unfortnuatley live in a black hole of hatred. .
Hope this Helps
2007-07-02 07:48:14 · answer #2 · answered by Stevie Nix 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He doesn't, God created this world fully knowing all this would happen because that's the cost of putting humans here and giving them freewill. God wasn't the one that forced white men to enslave blacks, white men were. God never held a gun to anyones head, the shooter did.
Basically, everything that exists, all the atrocities, was the negative aspect of creating a 'perfect' world of 'perfect' humans... that's God's goal and it's impossible to start the world like that by giving humans 'freewill'.
He could have taken it but it's almost inhuman to do that, it's like a parent forcing their children to go through med school cos they think it's 'best' for them but it would still end in difficulties between the child and parent whereas if the parent gives his child the freedom to choose his/her path then the child will be alot more content and happy with their parents... He made it so that humans can have the choice to believe and follow Him or not and it's BETTER that we CHOOSE to instead of Him FORCING us, understand?
and unfortunatly not enough people have done that, and the further we drift from God the more we are inticed to sin, and do these atrocities.
God eventually wants to make this world into a 'perfect' utopia were everyone is happy and loves the life God has given them where everyone will be at peace with one another.
consider this, all these problems the world is facing, as a step in that direction. You gotta gotta realize very few people actually think about the future "He's not here doing anyhting now so He never will" be sorta thing, y'know? God is already there and already knows what's gonna happen along the way. Unfortunatly He couldn't do anything about all the suffering that exists cos if there is a man in power that isn't in touch with god what is stopping him from oppressing his people or abusing them? For instance, Stalin. Whereas if that man in power was in touch with God then he'd be a good man and be good to his people, make sense?
Also, understand the fact that in the Medievel days the concept of God was a really popular one so people who wanted to justify their actions they'd just use the excuse of 'God told me'... that's like blaming an accident at work on the guy that can't speak english, shifting the responsibility on someone that can't defend themselves.
Just because we haven't made it to the future yet doesn't mean we won't... it's inevitable. And if we leave the world in mankind's hands then all these problems will get worse and worse to the point where it'll be impossible to do anything about it.
The only saving grace this world has to prove God's existance is the return of His son, then there is no denying it and EVERYONE must believe in Him and understand that He only wants the best for us, that's when people will be good to each other and all these atrocities won't exist anymore and we'll be on our way to that 'perfect' society.
2007-07-02 06:17:08 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
This question has always been predicated on a false premise, that is, that God is the ruler of the earth. He is not, the devil is in charge. So if God is all-powerful, why doesn't He do anything to stop the evil? That is also an assumption that God has no choice in the matter. He chooses to back off and let the world go its way via its free will to choose, and take unto Himself those that choose Him despite the evil around them. It's not like this is the end of the story, there remains a day when God will cast all evil into a dimensional plane that is called "outer darkness".
Jesus told a parable regarding the sowing of tares (fruitless weeds) amongst wheat. When they first germinate, tares look just like wheat, so it is incredibly difficult to weed them out. Fortunately, once tares mature (near harvest) they turn black. In the last days, there will be a chasm between those with fruit and those that do not. One group will be harvested and winnowed, the other will be cast into the fire for consumption.
Consider, however, that the wheat still requires winnowing to remove chaff from the grain. That too is happening.
http://www.schneblin.com/studies/pdfs/winnowing_wheat_chaff.pdf
Evil is necessary for free choice to be a reality. You can choose which side you wish to be on. And in reality, that is what you are seeing today. People choosing their sides. Again I will say that this world does not belong to God. Satan is the god of this world. So, give credit where credit is due.
Luke 4:5
Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
1 John 5:19
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
But one day soon, that will all change when Satan is cast out as the usurper he is.
Revelation 11:15
There were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”
...and the healing will begin.
Revelation 22:2
The leaves of the tree [of life] were for the healing of the nations.
2007-07-02 06:17:08 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 2⤋
Sin! If sin had never entered into the world Thur Adam and eve then there would be no such thing as suffering "Read Genesis 1" God created all things good nothing bad. Sin corrupted the world.
God Bless
2007-07-02 06:33:50 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, I'm not a religious person, but I did have a religious upbringing. So, the way it goes is: God is all-powerful and all-merciful; however, when he created the world, he gave people free will. So people can choose whether they want to do good or evil. And unfortunately, way too many people choose evil over good.
This obviously leads to the next question, why did God give us free will? We could easily avoid all the pain and suffering if people didn't have any choice but good. However, since God wants us to love him, he wants it to be a real love, thus we have to choose him. Have you ever heard the term cloistered virtue? It means that it's really easy to be good if you're never tempted to be bad (i.e. it's easy to remain virginal when you're a nun in an abbey). Thus, in order for us to truly love God, we must choose to love him; hence God's design for us to have free will.
2007-07-02 06:31:10 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Did you forget about God's will and purpose for each individual and the fact that he did create free will (choice) also?
Yes, in a twinkling of his eye things could be changed or if we knew who we were in Christ and what we poscessed we could help change things more rapidly..If you study you will find that suffering is a part of the kingdom of God some God inflicted and some caused by our own actions....The only relief for man is heaven where there is no suffering....Long suffering one of the fruits of the spirit and a part of love...
2007-07-02 06:35:04 · answer #7 · answered by blahblah 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Have you ever read the book of Genesis? If not I implore you to do so. God created a perfect ideal world and then placed Adam and Eve inside of it. God's original intention was to have us live in a perfect paradise. BUT God gave his creation "free will", he gave us the power to choose for ourselves. He could have given us no choice but to serve him and do no wrong, but he gave all of us a choice. As you know, Eve was tempted by the serpent and fell into sin. God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because they had disobeyed his commandments.
From then until now everything has come as a result of sin. Maybe not your own direct sin, but because of the sinful nature of human beings. I truly believe no one deserves cancer, Alzheimers, etc, but these have come about I believe because of the sins of humans as a whole. I cannot really explain why God allows bad things to happen to good people, but I do know that God is gracious and just and has a future planned for all of us. I know that with God all the bad things this life might throw at me, are easier and bearable.
2007-07-02 06:25:35 · answer #8 · answered by Amanda W 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
He also allows people peace in times of trouble--even it bad times. Is the glass half full or half empty. Bad happens so does good. Man makes choices he must lve with.. Why are there poor--why are there rich. If all the rich people helped the poor--there would be no poor. What will you do. Would it be logical to not allow wealth? There are some answers--God would approve
2007-07-02 06:29:17 · answer #9 · answered by j.wisdom 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Ok, no offense. Although I am atheist and you did state for theists to answer, I cant help but wonder what exactly your purpose is in asking a question that is about as grounded as theists arguments for there being a god. I only bring this up because it makes atheists who have actually done their groundwork and have studied hard to reach their conclusions seem overshadowed by trying to revert theists tactics back on them using the same groundless logic as they try to give us. I make no assumptions about you because you may have done your groundwork and actually have reached your conclusion in such a manner, so this is more of a plea to not use their dumb tactics back on them, it wont work. And to those few theists that actually have done their homework and still reached the conclusion of being theists, it makes them think that atheists are dumb.
Edit:
Evidence rests in lack of logic the answers above have created. A few are creative though.
2007-07-02 06:20:20 · answer #10 · answered by Smile Alway's 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋