on the question why does God allow suffering

a reply to: Out6of9Balance

I fear God, I accept and have never despised God's wisdom or the knowledge it gives me to live my life.

do you?

a reply to: ChesterJohn

I think I fear God. I don't know if I should be a monster or a kind butterfly. Life has been ape# pretty much. I mean, what's wrong with some people? It's hard to find a connection. I'm despised and ignored in life. It's confusing.

a reply to: Out6of9Balance

hey, I hear ya. My life is full of trouble, trials and strife. And people can be very difficult. But how I handle it is more important to God than whether or not I am heard, am right or my life goes right. We are who we are, God knows us better than ourselves. He loved us all equally in that he sent his son into the world. I believed on him and was saved but my life didn't get any better but my attitude and outlook on life changed I am still poor finacially, I still have crazy neighbors, People still misunderstand me(just look at how some of those reply to me in some of my replies here at ATS.

Anyway praying for you earnestly.

Be blessed.

CJ

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
If you believe in religion and the idea of a supreme being which, for lack of a better term we call God, then you probably have come to a few conclusions that most others have also reached.

God created life and He gave that life free will. The fact that God created you does not mean everything you do is ok. It means you have the freedom to do as you like, but there will be consequences. For example, someone from the lgbtqx-yaddayadda community says, "God made me, and God doesn't make mistakes." Fine. God may bigots and gay bashers too. Does that mean its ok to hate and hurt people?" Of course not. Just because you can do something does not mean it is ok to do it or that there will not be consequences for it. And that goes for both sides of that argument.

It's like creating a character in Dungeons and Dragons. I roll dice for the attributes, but I am still the character's "creator".

Did I decide their attributes? Kind of. Not really. Technically, no matter what the dice land on, I am free to write down a different number if I so choose. (Unless I am playing in a group of people, in which case it would be impolite to lie about my die rolls.)

In regards to suffering, that is also a matter of actions and consequences. God does not want us to suffer, but He will not prevent it either. He gave us the world and everything we need to make this work. If we choose not to, for whatever reason, then some will succeed and some will suffer. If one man has more food than he could ever eat and another is hungry, that is not God's fault. Those two men have a choice. They can work that out on their own and neither will go hungry or, at some point there will be consequences.

There is a difference between "suffering" and "harm".

Losing at a video game could cause me intense emotional suffering. - But that doesn't mean I've been harmed.

If everybody is going to get resurrected, then ultimately nobody truly comes to harm. At least not permanently. That's all just an illusion.

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance
You must have heard it before: Why does God allow suffering?

First of all this question suggests God allows suffering.
It suggests God exists and is responsible for the suffering in this world.

Is such thing right to assume?

[...]

I doubt that's right to assume. When we say "allow" that doesn't mean direct responsibility. That is the case when one is *causing* something, then we can say that one is responsible for it.
And the party responsible here for the sufferings is human beings themselves, for something they've done long long time ago, rebellions by these same beings against God and His creations in other non-physical universes, eons ago, in angelic forms.

I've noticed that many people attribute their sufferings to Adam and Eve's fall and that sin started with them. Nothing could be further from the truth and that's escaping personal responsibility. I've for a long time considered the Adam and Eve story nothing but a fairy tale, until I read a very interesting book that had a different narrative about them. And what a sad story it was, things started to make sense about their time on Earth.

So what I wanted to say is that every being is responsible for his/her own sufferings, nobody else. People turned against God and He punished them for that. When a father punishes his children for something bad they've done, they are responsible for the pain caused by the punishment of the father, you see, it's different from saying "the father is directly responsible for the pain of them".