Why did the Christian God create a world full of suffering?

Question

Can you please help me?
Why has the Christian God created a world full of suffering, violence, fear, hate, pain, disease, murder, rape, wars, loneliness, isolation, opression, deprevation, starvation, genocide, drought, floods, famine, torture, sadness, distress, torment, ill-health, mental illnesses, disability, slavery, rape, premature infant death, child abuse etc etc etc

This is a very interesting discussion...
thankyou...
So I'm told that God created us with free will and in his own image.
So why did he create us with the capacity to commit acts of horror and evil?
Is this because God has the capacity to commit acts of horror and evil but chooses not too?
But then what about earthquakes and tidal waves? So God does actually commit acts of horror.
But why?
To punish the human race that He created?
Why did he create us at all, if he was just going to punish us?
He must have known that Adam and Eve would eat the apple because he is omnipotent?
Confused.

Answer 1

Because ‘god’ was constructed under the guidance of powerful men - they wanted more bang for their buck so they had to make him into someone didn't take any shït.
He had to be a tough muthu.

People forget he was a construct and try to explain his psychopathic characteristics from a human male's point of view and try to excuse this evil by saying 'he loves us unconditionally' which is patently untrue to anyone who analyses this whole thing critically rather than as a subservient psychological slave.

Answer 2

For some, the experiences you have listed bring on wisdom. and make them stronger. For others, it turns them away from life and they become isolated and cynical, but I think if you give these people enough time and the loving they need, they will also become stronger and wiser.

Perhaps more importantly, in the Book of Wisdom, which is in the Catholic version of the Bible, it says the righteous shall judge nations.

If the above is true, then its possible that God allows us to experience pain, war, death, starvation, mental illness, etc., to build our experience base and the experience base will be used at some point in the future (either during our normal lifetime, or afterward). Perhaps God needs people who have starved to death, experienced the suicide of a loved one, lost a child, etc. If so, these experiences may be deliberately thrown in our paths.

Unless you've experienced pain and suffering, I doubt if you could fully understand someone who is going through them. Further, "Nations" is undefined, so it's conceivable that we may be judging nations that don't exist yet or maybe aren't even human.

Answer 3

God created Paradise here on earth. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and Eve was tempted by satan. When they ate of the fruit, God removed them from the Garden of Eden because they now had knowledge of good and evil. They had free choice and chose to dis-obey God. This led to eveil being in peoples hearts and the bad things on earth.

Answer 4

First, the "Christian God", as you put it, is the same God as that revealed in the Torah, psalms and prophetic writings of Judaism (i.e., YHWH) and the same God revealed in the Holy Qur'an of Islam (i.e., Allah Subhanna wa Ta'ala). The Christians simply extended God into three persons of the Trinity and then claimed that three equals one in a rather strange theological mathematical twist.

Secondly, who said that God, regardless of how you feel you should address HIm, created all of the suffering one finds in the world?
A great deal of what you list (violence, fear, hate, murder, rape, wars, loneliness, isolation, oppression, depravation, starvation, genocide, famine, torture, sadness, distress, torment, ill health, mental illness, slavery, child abuse, etc.) can be traced directly to the actions of man.
It is man and not God who is polluting the environmnet which may be the major cause of a lot of the problems man now faces including illness, famine, starvation, mental disorders and the like which lead to loneliness, isloation, deprevation, sadness, etc, which can lead to wars, rape, muder, genocide, etc.

Perhaps what the real problem is relates to the subjective view with which man all too often sees the world. This often leads to a sense of separation from all else that exist instead of a sense of being a part of the whole.
When one sees ones self as a part of all else the exist, one tends to take better care of the "all else" as by doing so one is taking better care of ones self.

God, regardless of how you choose to address Him, has given us free will which allows us to decide to be of benefit to all else that exist which includes ourselves or to be non-beneficial to all others and ourselves and pollute, kill, destroy all else and ourselves. The choice is ours and ours alone. Please, don't blame God.

There are also enough resources in the world that if the same were distributed equally and to the benfit of all without regards to monetary or material gain, everyone in the world could have more than enough of all that they need to live happy, healthy and beneficial lives on this planet.
When humans begin to take seriously the directions of God to love and help one another, to treat one another fairly and honestly, to honor one another as other creations and children of God while working in earnest to make such a reality everyone and everything will see a significant change in the quality of life for all persons as well for all living things and for the planet.

We are only victims if we choose to see our selves in that manner however, being a victim does not help anyone in anyway.

As the God of the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims is One, you might find it helpful in furthering your understanding to learn about how the Jews and the Muslims understand God, their relationship with Him and the revelations He has given to them as such forms an unbroken chain of revelations.

You might also learn about Buddhism and HInduism and their perspective on this matter.

Solutions are found through education, reasoning and seeing clearly what is for what it is and not for what we may want it to be.

As God gave us the marvelous gift of being able to reason, to think and to find solutions that will benefit everyone, you might also find it helpful to study modern science which seems to be working to explain some of the way in which God created all that is as well as teaching us ways in which we can work with creation for the benefit of all.

Shalom, pax vobiscum, as sallamu 'alaikym, my friend. May it all be well with you.

Answer 5

He didn't create the world this way. Adam and Eve decided to make it this way when they ate of the fruit.
God gave them a choice, they made it.
The listened to Satan.
They decided they knew better than God.
And, in your list above: most all of those are the result of someone imposing their "free will" upon others.

Answer 6

God's plan is for all of us to return to Heaven to be with Him.

The "admission," into heaven requires that those who enter must be clean of sin. So no sinful person can enter into heaven.

When Jesus died on the cross, he died for the sins of the world. He redeemed the world from sin. He taught, during his life's ministry, the gospel (holy conduct) in which would be acceptable means of entering heaven. When the laws were broken, we were to repent, asking Jesus for forgiveness and be made clean since he is the person that paid for own mistakes, we need to confess to him so we don't suffer a rejection from entering into heaven.

God wants us to do good and to choose good out of our own conscience and not by force. He wants to make sure we sincerely mean to follow in his plan and in his gospel.

It seems you understand that the bad in the world is part of the temptations put in place to weed out those who have no intention to do good and those that do. Those that endure past the wickedness in the world will be greatly rewarded in Heaven.

Answer 7

It was not so from the beginning...

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Nor will it be so in the end...

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." 6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

For now we have to live with the consequences of sin in this world but for all who will trust the Lord Jesus as their Savior our time of painful probation in this fallen world will pass away like a bad dream in the glorious eternity to come!

Click on the Get Saved button @ http://www.angelfire.com/rock3/cornerstone0/ for more info.

Answer 8

(You said rape twice)
He made it full of suffering because if it wasn't full of suffering, it would be all boring and stuff, there would be no challenges, and the world would just be one slap-happy, millenia long episode of Sesame Street. We're better off.

Answer 9

As well as beauty, kindness, love, hope, joy, laughter, fun, music and fellowship.
I guess we see what we want to.
Sorry your view is so horrible.

Answer 10

god did a good job of torturing his own son to death, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the wickedness continues.