"If God existed, how could he let such horrible things happen to innocent people?"

This is a common argument I hear atheists have when talking about if there is a god. "If there is a god, how could he let a baby be born with cancer?" Well, here's my take;

First of all, nothing is neither inherently good or bad; humans add such meanings to events but even the worst circumstances could be considered positive if looked at in a different light. For example, if someone dies in a car crash, most would consider it a "horrible event" but you actually can look at it as a good thing. That car crash can raise awareness of the safety of driving and can actually prevent future car crashes from occurring. Another more extreme example is war, and the many innocent casualties from it, but once again, if there is a lesson to be learned from the innocent blood shed to prevent future conflicts, it isn't completely a "bad" thing, and the innocent lives won't be in vein.

Another concept I want to bring up is the Buddhist concept of karmic evolution. This concept intertwines the three seemingly unrelated concepts of evolution, past lives and reincarnation, and karma all into a related theory. In a nutshell, we have lived an infinite amount of past lives (and will continue to exist for an infinitive amount of time) as different levels of plants and animal consciousness, and karma and how much kindness and good we do actually determines if we will either evolve into the next life as a more advanced being (example a monkey evolving into a human) or devolve into the next life (example human devolving into a pig) into a lesser being. If your good outweighs your bad in this life, you evolve; if your bad outweighs your good in this life, you devolve. According to this, we all must have done a lot of good deeds to make it to this current human state of consciousness; this truly is an impressive feat. I know that's a lot to wrap your head around but bear with me. Since we are all "One", the Buddhist take on this is when you harm another being, you are actually harming your self as you are harming part of you, the "Oneness", because you are connected to that "Oneness" as well. This "Oneness" is God, and it is the accumulation of everything in the universe(s) thought up of as a singular point. A good metaphor would be of the human body; there are trillions of cells in our body that make one whole, human, and each of those cells is alive, conscious, and living it's own reality. We are the cells in this example, and the human is God, and it is conscious, all knowing, and all powerful, just like we are conscious, except it's level of consciousness is truly unimaginable; like comparing the consciousness of a cell in our body to human consciousness.


So, how could God let an innocent baby with cancer be born into the world?

Perhaps, the soul knows what it's doing before being incarnated into this world, and does it for a selfless reason to raise awareness of the situation (in this example, cancer) to increase his karma so he will ultimately transcend the human consciousness in future incarnations.

Another way to look at it is maybe people born in horrible circumstances are in karmic debt and are paying back their debt of bad deeds in pasts lives in this current life.


Just my speculation; feel free to debate or add your thoughts, opinions, etc.

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

We are here to learn from our experiences.

People grow best and gain wisdom from the tribulations of life.

It all makes perfect sense in context.

Never mind.

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

BECAUSE, imho,

1. God places an incredibly priceless value on LOVE.

2. LOVE requires--for mortals--the capacity to choose NON-LOVE.

3. The CHOICE FOR LOVE or NON-LOVE must be an authentic, real choice with REAL CONSEQUENCES depending on the choice made.

4. Consequences for NON-LOVE will virtually always involve some level of suffering, lack, missing out etc.

5. Mercifully, Yehovah provided a solution by sacrificing Himself in the form of Yeshua, His only Son . . . on a cruel cross . . . as blood payment for our choices for Non-Love . . . if we would but CHOOSE that sacrifice as our covering.

Queue the glib answers to why god allows xxx

God created a perfect world, sin was introduced
The perfect word was broken, broken people break other people and it all becomes evil and violent.

This isn't the world God created, this is the world after human influence and evil has left us

This s the world God has promised to return to and repair to its former glory and us to ours, created to be in a relationship with God

So god creates cancer, gives it to kids, to raise awareness of his creation.
Then he crashes a car full of innocent people to raise our awareness of car crashes or something?
He destroys the Tower of Babel, separates the people by race and gives them all different languages, creating separation so we don't become to powerful. Then allows wars to unfold so that we are more aware of the atrocities war brings.
Seems like he should have spent a couple extra days making us more aware in the first place.
All makes perfect sence to me though......

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

If there is a god

Your question hinges on which god you're referring to. Zeus or Chronos for example, were not considered to be perfectly good, ominsicient or or omnipresent. Neither was Osiris, Ra, Krishna, Shiva, and on and on.

But, if you're talking about the Christian god, then contradictions abound.

Because there are no innocents. Every life has one purpose, redemption. Past life choices are rewarded justly, and the spirit experiences these while enjoying the opportunity to experience spiritual rebirth.

The beggar may well be a spiritual giant, experiencing a needed challenge, the rich man a hell bound fool. The physical condition is not a measure of wickedness, or sanctity.

None are good but God, only by becoming good - becoming like God will God appear.

A monotheistic deity embodies all aspects of good and evil.

If an 'only good' god existed, there would be no concept of 'evil', thus no way to define 'good' with nothing to contrast 'good' with; which for anyone living in a world like that would be quite boring.

yeah i dont know why people assume god equals an entity that controls everything. why would god let this and this happen. well because god doesnt have any say in it, things just happen. free will.

a reply to: GodEmperor

So for a genuine dollar bill to exist, there must be an opposite ie a counterfeit note?

Good doesn't require evil to exist to be interesting or existent.

a reply to: RudeCherub

That is not a very good analogy. It would be better stated for a counterfeit dollar to exist, there must be a real one.

The Christian god is derived from the Judaic god, which is derived from zoroastrianism; which consisted of two gods, one of good and one of evil. It's the whole dual nature of reality thing, most people like to attribute everything good to God, and everything bad to the devil.

If God is money, then being poor is a sin. That would probably be a better analogy. It wasn't an answer to if good/evil exist, but if God existed then how is there evil.

a reply to: sekerofknowlege Short version:
The concept of good and bad are meaningless in an atheistic world. The concept of good and bad necessitates their being a Creator. By definition, the Creator and His reasons are far beyond our understanding, just like string theory to a salamander, likely even more. Since the only Creator we can live with is the One introduced by Jesus, I will use Him as the example. He created a perfect World, told us to take care of it and avoid a particular tree, and visited us once in awhile. We disobeyed, which brought thorns, thistles, and bad things. It's not His fault, He told us, and it was only ONE thing. We couldn't even do that. So, there you go.

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

Pigs, birds, bugs, I don't consider these "lesser beings" as you referred to them as. That's all I care to comment on at this point

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

This gets to the paradox of organized religion.

"God is great, all powerful, all knowing, all compassionate, all good" etc.

But then theres free will and good vs evil.

So while "God" could easily wipe out hunger and suffering and starvation and disease and wars of aggression etc., "He" wont.

Why?

Because life it a test. Or because we make our own choices. Or because [insert whatever excuse here].

The more reasonable answer is that there is no "God". Or if there is a "God", stop telling us "He's" so great and powerful only to sit back and do nothing.

"But 'He' does do things".

Yes, yes. You prayed to "God" and your home pregnancy test came up negative, THANK GOD!

Trust me, if "God" isnt doing anything about the 2-headed babies that are being born in Iraq as a result of all the Depleted Uranium bombs we've dropped, "He" sure as hell doesnt give a crap about your pregnancy test or whatever the hell else you think "He's" done for you.

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

What they want is called Heaven.

We are on Earth, where things can get challenging.

So let's say you were a murderer or rapist in a previous life. You did those things willingly. Should you not pay for those things just because you don't remember.

There is a story in Chinese history of a famous monk who could see people's prior lives. A couple with a disabled child went to him because although they understood the principle of "good is rewarded with good...evil with evil", they really wanted to understand their predicament.

The monk explained to them that their son was a powerful drug lord (assuming opium probably), and they were his right-hand helpers. As retribution, the son was born as an animal (can't remember what kind), then as a retarded child. For their retribution, they had to take care of the burden he created on them.

If you don't believe in reincarnation, well, so be it, but it makes a lot more sense than that the divine would put an "innocent" person in a state of suffering without cause. Many people have reported similar past-life experiences that directly link to present suffering.

a reply to: Jim Scott

It's not His fault, He told us

Where do you get "us"? Were you there?

At any rate, it is "God's" fault and it became "God's" fault the moment he said "It is NOT good".....and he fractured Adam, pulling a part of him outside of himself, creating duality and "unwholiness".

God created sin the moment he said "Thou shall not."

all i,ll say if god existed then acorrding to the masses hes the saviour even tho i have seen no proof what so ever, all we,r basing it on is a story from 2000 years ago,you would think if it was true he mite have popped in to say hello once in a while.