Pain and Suffering

My biggest obstacle to accepting the existence of a god is Pain and Suffering. I have watched very kind and loving people go through hell when they died and while they were alive. And I can not reconcile the existence of a god with this kind of suffering. Yeah I know "god works in mysterious ways" but I don't buy that, I think it is a weak substitution for a real and rational explanation. If what god does, does not make sense to us, then it is not sensible. I watched several people I loved dearly go through hell and I do not think I can ever forgive a god that does that to kind and caring people. Is god a sadist, is god a kid with a magnifying glass and we the ants? I have seen things that suggest there is something more to this life than what we normally perceive and to me that suggest a god, but then I try to work that in with what I have seen in the way of suffering in the world and it does not compute. It is like there might be a god but that it does not care about us in the least, except in the way of it's own entertainment. This suggest to me that perhaps this is a simulation as many scientists are suggesting now and our idea of god is simply the intelligence that created the simulation. It appears it is no more caring about it's simulation than we are about ours when we play a game of The Sims and create our simulation. Can anyone actually address this with some sense of reason and logic without the usual old standby "just because" kind of answers?

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Gsquared61

My biggest obstacle to accepting the existence of a god is Pain and Suffering. I have watched very kind and loving people go through hell when they died and while they were alive. And I can not reconcile the existence of a god with this kind of suffering. Yeah I know "god works in mysterious ways" but I don't buy that, I think it is a weak substitution for a real and rational explanation. If what god does, does not make sense to us, then it is not sensible. I watched several people I loved dearly go through hell and I do not think I can ever forgive a god that does that to kind and caring people. Is god a sadist, is god a kid with a magnifying glass and we the ants? I have seen things that suggest there is something more to this life than what we normally perceive and to me that suggest a god, but then I try to work that in with what I have seen in the way of suffering in the world and it does not compute. It is like there might be a god but that it does not care about us in the least, except in the way of it's own entertainment. This suggest to me that perhaps this is a simulation as many scientists are suggesting now and our idea of god is simply the intelligence that created the simulation. It appears it is no more caring about it's simulation than we are about ours when we play a game of The Sims and create our simulation. Can anyone actually address this with some sense of reason and logic without the usual old standby "just because" kind of answers?

it's logical to say that our senses are capable of sensing mild sensations and also very extreme ones, and extreme sensory stimulus is unpleasant. "He" lol could have "created us" without sensory perception, then we'd be a Sim, who doesn't experience at all.

The classic answer to this has been that God gave us freewill. Then you can get into the realms of karma/causality etc.

Who can see the bigger picture? Who clearly sees the dynamics of why things occur as they do? That's a big ask and where beliefs tend to step in. I understand your concern and frustration with all the suffering. I just believe it all happens for a reason. It helps if you have some belief in this. In the case of the starving, dying children - this is principally usually a result of politics/economics but alerts humanity to address this issue. That we don't succeed in solving the problem (but have helped save countless lives) may be that there are not enough well meaning people governing/influencing the situation.

[knightofalbion]

Maybe the soul in question, in a previous life, inflicted pain and suffering?
And by experiencing pain and suffering in this life are settling a karmic debt and cleansing their soul?

Maybe the soul in question has brought ill health upon themselves by neglecting the natural food laws? Too much red meat can give you cancer, too much animal fat can give you heart disease, too much sugar can give you diabetes and tooth decay, too many cigarettes can give you lung cancer etc....Is any of this God's fault?

Maybe it is necessary for the soul in question to experience a 'difficult path' in order to learn certain values so as to advance? Nothing teaches you compassion, empathy and humanity for example than having 'drunk from a bitter cup' yourself.

Maybe the soul in question is an advanced soul who has voluntarily undertaken a short and painful incarnation, bravely carried out, to inspire Service in others. (Through Service the soul is advanced. The greatest thing one can do for another soul - to help them ascend the spheres of light.)

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by amy green

Who can see the bigger picture? Who clearly sees the dynamics of why things occur as they do?

Very nicely put, dear Amy. 'We' tend to view the world through earthly eyes and not spiritual eyes. There IS a bigger picture...

Yeah the problem with all these answers are exactly what I said, they require belief, they require faith, and they require gullibility. Perhaps god is not what you think it is and this whole thing is a scam, perhaps you have put your faith in something that has not the slightest concern for you. That is much more probable than any of the answers I have seen so far. That actually makes sense across the board. It explains good and evil, it explains pleasure and pain, it explains happiness and suffering. It is indifference and as such you get the full spectrum of experience. This dualistic taking sides thing is just so ridiculous I can't believe anyone would buy into it. Yes sure there is a right side in every dualistic pair of opposites where god sits and a counter god on the other side of the coin!! Give me a break!! If there is anything in opposition to god then that is not god, for it would not be the pinnacle, but a co pinnacle of existence. There can be no side god is on, for god must be above duality to be god! So that rules out picking sides or right and wrong behavior. Learning to do the right thing is ridiculous when god can not be on any one side of a coin. That by itself takes out most of these suggested possibilities.

As for free will this is yet another belief which I see absolutely no support for. All the evidence out there suggests there is no such thing as free will. That this world functions through Newtonian Physics, or the laws of the conservation of energy, or cause and effect. Rather than state it all again here read my post on free will and you might change your mind about it. Personally I have never witnessed an act of free will, I can see the imposed reason behind everything people do and if there is an imposed reason there is no freedom in it. People do what they have been conditioned to do, there is nothing free about it. Talk to a psychologist or a physics professor and see what they say about free will. I do not understand why people refer back to this concept as the answer when there is nothing, and I mean nothing, to support the idea. I am not even sure where it came from except for it being an obvious and necessary facet of ego to fool us into believing we are a separate being with control over our own domain.

As for it being a previous life thing wouldn't it make sense that we would be able to remember that previous life then? Like how can we learn from something if we don't see how our actions now correlate with our actions in the past? Learning comes from comparison, no comparison = no learning. Again it makes no sense!

As for it being about eating the wrong foods much of that is an economic thing and beyond our control. Good healthy food costs more and so yes someone being born into a poor family and not having access to better food is gods fault.

As for the difficult path thing, they were already compassionate empathetic people, why would they have to learn to be what they already were? My whole point was that I see allot of non compassionate, non empathetic, self absorbed nasty people who could have used something like that have great lives with little pain and suffering inflicted on them. Why is that if what you said has any credibility? Why do the good get the brunt of the pain when they are already good? If what you said was the case wouldn't it serve the nasty people better to have these painful experiences? And since they seem to get off scott free most of the time, this idea holds little water.

As for the inspire service in others thing, what service? The service where one pits good against evil, the one where some people get on the side of the mountains and go to war with the valleys because they are foolish enough to believe god is on one side or the other of that battle? The idea of service is one where the belief that things are going wrong to begin with has to be there, and I don't get this concept. If god is all powerful how can there be anything that goes wrong in the play it created, or that needs our help to fix? Yeah right free will, but I already covered that. There is no evidence for free will, so then what? God makes mistakes that he needs our help to fix? And what service? Why would a god that is all powerful need our help? Does it not seem more likely that the entire concept of god needing our help is another facet of ego? In that we are just so darn important that god can't do without us? And what about people being in the situation they need to be in life to learn from it? Why do the same people who propose free will also talk about service? If everyone is where they need to be to learn from it through free will, then why would we do anything as "service" to change that? You have countered the possibility of free will with the idea of service. Both can't be there at the same time. If people create what they need to experience then any service that is seen as helping them is actually removing them from what they created and need to experience, and is no longer a service. For example if you have a starving person and you use the idea of free will to explain the situation they find themselves in, then they are starving because of their own actions to learn what it is like to starve, if you feed them you remove that experience from them and actually hurt them instead of help them. I do not hurt or help people because I do not see a big enough picture to be arrogant enough to know if what I am doing is helping them and not hurting them. I have seen much of what people do to other people to try and hurt them turn out to be exactly the thing they needed to learn from, and others try to help and do the exact thing that enables them to continue to be in pain. Giving money to drunk asking for money to eat just so they can go drink more is a good example of this. Or perhaps the way to help them is give them a case of booze so they can get to rock bottom faster and spend less time in pain. Who knows, I certainly don't and I am not arrogant enough to think I know if what I do is helping or hurting so I do neither. That way it remains in balance. There is no denying it, if there is free will then helping is arrogant and egotistical, and if it doesn't exist then it doesn't matter anyway as you are not in control of what you are doing.

The problem for me is none of these possibilities make sense, they are nice ideas but lack any real support that can pass the critical thinking test. I appreciate the try but they all fall short for me. They ask for a faith, or a trust, or a gullibility that I do not have.

Like I know there is no real sound answer here that anyone can give and I wrote this more as a release of frustration with the whole thing. I know any comment is going to be a unsubstantiated guess at best, because these questions have never had a good satisfactory answer thought out history, and that is why people throw around loosely based possibilities, but that was kinda my point. There are so many people claiming to be spiritual masters and such on these sites and the fact that no one can actually give a rational answer to even this simple question just shows how those tittles people have assigned themselves are bogus.

If there is some law or system of behaviors we are supposed to follow then it needs to be put out there by god in a way that people can find some credibility in. Putting stuff in a 2000 year old book that has little to do with today's world and has been questioned by most scholars as even having been written or compiled in the time the figure was alive never mind by anyone who actually knew him takes away and credibility it has. Is god that weak or stupid that it can not give another set of the rules in this time period? One we can actually have some evidence that it even came from god? All these things you propose as possibilities need to be on the new list if it is to be taken seriously, if not it is just guesses and if god condemns us for picking the wrong set of guesses then that god is an idiot and a tyrant. You guys give god way more credit than I do, and way more faith in what it does as benevolent and good. There is no and I repeat no evidence to suggest that god is a good god (if it even exists at all). I see as much if not more pain and suffering on this planet than I do good and love. As a matter of fact they have done experiments to show good is a learned or conditioned behavior, not a natural one. It was even on the 60 minutes TV show recently. It clearly showed babies are entirely narcissistic and mean. They would not hesitate to push the other baby out of the nest if it could. If god is so good then why is being bad so natural to us? And please don't say so we can learn to be good, that is a worn out theory. Because it goes against the very natural instinct of any creature to survive. Kindness and love and all that is a first world luxury, when it comes down to survival all of those idealistic ideas go out the window. New Orleans was a perfect example of that, if the luxury of the first world condition is removed, we are 48 hours away from going back to primal instinct to survive. The good and bad concepts are out the window.

I understand you are trying to come up with reasons why what you see around you, does not make god into something you would not want to worship or love. Lets face it if you did not read something else into it that is not obviously there to put god back up on the pedestal, he would not be a god you would worship or love anymore. You need to turn to things that do not make sense to hold him up there, or you must concede it is not what you think it is and loose the comfort you get from your beliefs. I get why you want to believe it is the loving and kind figurehead that you want to have as your pinnacle of existence but perhaps it is easier to just accept it might not be what you want it to be than make the stretches in logic necessary to keep it up there. Because that is where I have a problem with in all this, nothing really makes sense when you dissect it with even the slightest bit of critical thinking. I can instantly come up with a multitude of reason why these concepts are lacking credibility, and just one is necessary to create enough doubt to not accept it fully anymore.

You want to believe what you do, and I get that, but for those of us who need more than our own narcissistic self serving perspective there is little to go on. If you want those of us who have doubts to believe what you believe then give us some proof along with the point you make, or accept that there is none and that you don't know anything either for sure and you are just guessing at best. I have no problem with guesses presented as guesses, I have a problem with guesses presented as fact. Why is it so hard for people to say "I don't know?" That was rhetorical because I know why that is, it is much harder to face a life without answers that to blindly believe something that gives comfort. I have found that for the most part people want comfort not answers. If they wanted real answers they would wait for them in the form of proof instead of jumping on the belief bandwagon.

To all of you who posted anything here or anywhere else on this site as a statement instead of an idea, or are about too, I say prove it. You make a point so prove it, if you can't stop stating it as fact!!! I like that the one person said maybe before every point, at least there is some humility there. It doesn't go along with the master tag thing but oh well it is a start.

Don't get me wrong this is nothing personal and I appropriate the dialogue but again it is so frustrating for those of us who face the pain of not knowing everyday, while there are those of you who stay soft and warm in your cocoon of believing. Why is the search for truth harder than the ease of belief if god wants us to find the truth?

[WhiteWarrior]

Ah. Gsquared, I had the same question as you and it cause me a lot of anguish too. If there is a God, how can he permit what is going on?

I found the answer when I realized that the christian god is powerful, but still only one of a large number of deities and powerful spirit beings. Which means that he is not responsible for every life in existence, because he just isn't that powerful. And once I understood the universe is as chaotic as a congress with a thousand members and a hundred political parties, our current situation makes perfect sense. Because no matter how powerful politicians are, they are still going to spend 99% of their times and resources being at each others throats.

[knightofalbion]

Cause and Effect, a fundamental law of spirituality - and science. Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction.

It's an entirely self-regulating law. No god punishes you, nor rewards you.
We make our own destiny, we shape our own future, through the consequences of our actions.

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by Gsquared61

To all of you who posted anything here or anywhere else on this site as a statement instead of an idea, or are about too, I say prove it. You make a point so prove it, if you can't stop stating it as fact!!! I like that the one person said maybe before every point, at least there is some humility there. It doesn't go along with the master tag thing but oh well it is a start.

It might be somewhat hard to give a definitive answer to a ficticious generalisation don't you think?

A specific individual could very likely diagnose the root source of their misfortune of they had the wisdom to do so. If not, when they were on the Other Side they would see the bigger picture and understand.

Do you really think that the soul can rise, can be perfected, without trials and tribulations, battles, pain and suffering? It can't. By facing and overcoming such things, you learn and you grow.

Originally Posted by Gsquared61

As for free will this is yet another belief which I see absolutely no support for. All the evidence out there suggests there is no such thing as free will. That this world functions through Newtonian Physics, or the laws of the conservation of energy, or cause and effect. Rather than state it all again here read my post on free will and you might change your mind about it. Personally I have never witnessed an act of free will, I can see the imposed reason behind everything people do and if there is an imposed reason there is no freedom in it. People do what they have been conditioned to do, there is nothing free about it. Talk to a psychologist or a physics professor and see what they say about free will. I do not understand why people refer back to this concept as the answer when there is nothing, and I mean nothing, to support the idea. I am not even sure where it came from except for it being an obvious and necessary facet of ego to fool us into believing we are a separate being with control over our own domain.

I wonder how you are defining freewill? We may not be able to influence external events but we can influence how these events AFFECT us! This is the meaning of freewill where it applies to positive thinking. So, an example, you missed a bus. You can either revert to an automatic reaction e.g. curse/get annoyed or realise you have CHOICE - that you can choose to act otherwise - and tone things down...not give yourself such a hard time. Changing gear i.e. distraction is a way of changing your mindset/attitude to such an instance.

Surely you must have chosen to react differently to how you normally do sometimes - in a better manner? If so, then you have witnessed an act of freewill. As mentioned in my earlier post, it changed my life around. What is your take on that? Am I deluded?
I think not - I am a realist and am loving the benefits of positive thinking.