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 Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 1:18 pm
ok so heres the question i heard a lot. If God is so powerful and loves us so much, why are there so many suffering in the world ? i didnt know how to answer it until i read something in a book. it was like God know i was asking for something and he guided me to this book. so now im telling it to the rest to you. and please comment if you have a different answer.
read next post....yes the whole thing.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 1:19 pm
A couple months back, on a peaceful afternoon inside Vatican City, Chartrand had bumped into the camerlengo coming across the grounds. The camerlengo had apparently recognized Chartrand as a new guard and invited him to accompany him n a stroll. They had talked about nothing in particular, and the camerlengo made Chartrand feel immediately at home.
“Father,” Chartrand said, “may I ask you a strange question?”
The camerlengo smiled. “Only if I may give you a strange answer.”
Chartrand laughed. “I have asked every priest I know, and I still don’t understand.”
“What troubles you?” The camerlengo led the way in short, quick strides, his frock kicking out in front of him as he walked. His black, crepe-sole shoes seemed befitting, modern but humble, and showing signs of wear.
Chartrand took a deep breath. “I don’t understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing.”
The camerlengo smiled. “you’ve been reading Scripture.”
“I try.”
“You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.”
“Exactly.”
“Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.”
“I understand the concept. It’s just…there seems to be a contradiction.”
“Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness…”
“Exactly!” Chartrand knew the camerlengo would understand. “Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t He?”
The camerlengo frowned. “Would He?”
Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn’t ask? “Well….if God loves us, and He can protect us, e would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.”
“Do you have children, Lieutenant?”
Chartrand flushed. “No, signore.”
“Imagine you had an eight-year-old son…would you love him?”
“Of course.”
“Would you do everything in your power to prevent pain in his life?”
“Of course.”
“Would you let him skateboard?”
Chartrand did a double take. The camerlengo always seemed oddly “in touch” for a clergyman. “Yeah, I guess,” Chartrand said. “Sure, I’d let him skateboard, but I’d tell him to be careful.”
“So as this child’s father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?’
“I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddly him if that’s what you mean.”
“But what if he fell and skinned his knee?”
“He would learn to be more careful.”
The camerlengo smiled. “So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?”
“Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn.”
The camerlengo nodded. “Exactly.”
Passage from Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:18 pm
Well, you have to look at the problem from two different angles, for the two different types of 'pain'. The first, being the man-caused 'pain', which the quote from the book does address. It is an issue of free will vs. security. Obviously G-d, in His infinite wisdom, has decided that freedom is moe important that safety. However, what the passage fails to explain is the more natural side of 'pain'. For example, a hurricane, or tornado. Or even something so simple as a mistake that hurts someone. Surely there was no ill-will behind any of the examples I gave, so why would G-d allows them?
I propose that, in truth, we are looking at it wrong. We see these things as pain and suffering, when in fact, they aren't. They are merely aspects of life that, while unpleasant, are just one more thing in a myriad that is between us and G-d. When we surpass this 'pain', we can attain a closer level to G-d, with a deeper relationship coming out of it. I say much of this pain is simply us having the wrong perspective upon life.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:39 pm
O_O
I was actually planning on quoting this same passage about a month ago as evidence that spiritual guidance can come from the most unlikely places.
Good job posting it!
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:04 am
Here is another story that addresses some of the other kinds of pain we experience that does not seem to teach us lessons:
A man asked to God's will, and God said, "Push this rock that I have placed in your front yard." It was an enormous boulder, and the man couldn't see how he could push it anywhere, but faithfully, he pushed. All day long he pushed. It never budged, but the man was determined to do God's will, so the next day he spent all day pushing that rock as hard as he could. He strained and pushed all day and it never budged. Still determined, he spent the next month pushing that rock nearly every day (of course, he took Sundays to rest and commune with his fellow believers). After he had been pushing the rock for a month and it STILL had not budged at all, he finally prayed to God, "Why did you ask me to do what you knew I could not do? Why haven't you just put the rock where you wanted it?" God responded, "I didn't want the rock to be moved, I only wanted you to push it. Look at how you have grown strong in your striving. You are strong now, strong enough to do anything you need to do." Sometimes the lessons we are taught through our pain (or even that others are taught through our pain) are lessons of wisdom and strength rather than simple understanding of "that's a bad choice, be more careful."
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:44 am
Kuroi Kokoro no Mendori O_O I was actually planning on quoting this same passage about a month ago as evidence that spiritual guidance can come from the most unlikely places. Good job posting it! i just found it the other day and it seems oddly approiate !! wink
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:27 am
The problem with that analogy is as follows: If a child falls and skins his knee, he experiences pain, yes, but the only things lost are a handful of cells; the child will survive. If we expand this analogy such that the child is a stand-in for humanity as a whole, then when the 'child' gets a scrape—fights a war, suffers a natural disaster—it's not a collection of replaceable cells that are being lost, but individual human lives. Pain and suffering go hand in hand with death in the real world. The child dusts himself off and slaps on a band-aid, but outside of pretty analogies, there are bodies to be buried; and anything that the rest of us learn from their deaths is cold comfort to the deceased. If you want to argue that humanity is a great collective into which our individual wills and existences are ultimately subsumed, in which there is only 'humanity' and no I, then yes, the chamberlain's response is an adequate one. If, however, you rate individuals' lives as being rather more important than the skin on your knee, then we haven't really solved the paradox, have we? Now, of course, that was probably a more involved an indignant response than a Dan Brown quote warranted, but since we seem to be taking the hack's words seriously, I might as well respond seriously. Cometh The Inquisitor I propose that, in truth, we are looking at it wrong. We see these things as pain and suffering, when in fact, they aren't. They are merely aspects of life that, while unpleasant, are just one more thing in a myriad that is between us and G-d. When we surpass this 'pain', we can attain a closer level to G-d, with a deeper relationship coming out of it. I say much of this pain is simply us having the wrong perspective upon life. You know, I wonder: why do we say 'pain' when the idea behind it is clearly 'death'? Is that because 'pain' is more abstract, and we can speak of it as if it were an ephemeral sensation—as when we cut our finger—that afflicts humanity for a moment and then passes away? Because if we said 'death', we'd have to acknowledge that it isn't just a temporary thing, that people will be destroyed by it, and that even after it passes, its handiwork will remain. Have you ever read The Plague? If not, you should. You think like Father Paneloux, although you might be unwilling to accept the logical extreme to which he follows his and your understanding of 'pain' and God's will. For myself, I identify with Dr. Rieux and M. Tarrou: this suffering is evil, and I want no part of it, other than to assuage it—to hell with God's perspective.
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 1:42 pm
Tangled Up In Blue The problem with that analogy is as follows: If we expand this analogy such that the child is a stand-in for humanity as a whole, then when the 'child' gets a scrape—fights a war, suffers a natural disaster—it's not a collection of replaceable cells that are being lost, but individual human lives. Pain and suffering go hand in hand with death in the real world. The child dusts himself off and slaps on a band-aid, but outside of pretty analogies, there are bodies to be buried; and anything that the rest of us learn from their deaths is cold comfort to the deceased. this is probably not what you mean, but i'm gonna say it anyways... why take cold comfort in their death, when you can rejoice in the times when they were alive. they wouldnt want you to remember them as a dead person, all blue and everything, but as a living memory, a love. live for them and they will continue living through you.
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:22 pm
sunshinehearttrob why take cold comfort in their death, when you can rejoice in the times when they were alive. they wouldnt want you to remember them as a dead person, all blue and everything, but as a living memory, a love. live for them and they will continue living through you. It's cold comfort to them. And also cold comfort to us given that, when speaking of humanity in general, approximately 4/5 of the deceased wind up in hell, according to some Christian theologies.
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:27 am
We are made for faith, and faith helps us stay healthy in mind, body and spirit. We don't need to know all the reasons God let some tragedy occur, and from our perspecitve it wouldn't make sense to us half the time anyway. All we need to know is that God is in control, He knows when something happens to hurt us and is there to see us through, and that somehow He will incorporate what happened into His eternal plan for our good.
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:53 am
Faith Fairy We are made for faith, and faith helps us stay healthy in mind, body and spirit. We don't need to know all the reasons God let some tragedy occur, and from our perspecitve it wouldn't make sense to us half the time anyway. All we need to know is that God is in control, He knows when something happens to hurt us and is there to see us through, and that somehow He will incorporate what happened into His eternal plan for our good. ninja That's a rather interesting explanation. How long have you been in this guild? ninja
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:30 pm
Tangled Up In Blue sunshinehearttrob why take cold comfort in their death, when you can rejoice in the times when they were alive. they wouldnt want you to remember them as a dead person, all blue and everything, but as a living memory, a love. live for them and they will continue living through you. It's cold comfort to them. And also cold comfort to us given that, when speaking of humanity in general, approximately 4/5 of the deceased wind up in hell, according to some Christian theologies. sad, but very true. but what if more than 1/5 of the decreased are devoted christians ??
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:34 pm
Faith Fairy We are made for faith, and faith helps us stay healthy in mind, body and spirit. We don't need to know all the reasons God let some tragedy occur, and from our perspecitve it wouldn't make sense to us half the time anyway. All we need to know is that God is in control, He knows when something happens to hurt us and is there to see us through, and that somehow He will incorporate what happened into His eternal plan for our good. bingo !!
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Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:07 am
sunshinehearttrob sad, but very true. but what if more than 1/5 of the decreased are devoted christians ?? Well that would be just lovely, but it's never going to happen, meaning that I and other are going to suffer and die and then suffer some more, all in the name of the unknowable good that God is doing with our deaths and torment. I suppose that if everyone got into heaven, then we could forgive God the infliction of temporal pain and suffering; but if some wind up in hell, or if there is simply nothing after death, then His actions are rather less benevolent, regardless of whether they seem so to him.
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Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:19 pm
Tangled Up In Blue You know, I wonder: why do we say 'pain' when the idea behind it is clearly 'death'? Is that because 'pain' is more abstract, and we can speak of it as if it were an ephemeral sensation—as when we cut our finger—that afflicts humanity for a moment and then passes away? Because if we said 'death', we'd have to acknowledge that it isn't just a temporary thing, that people will be destroyed by it, and that even after it passes, its handiwork will remain. I was using 'pain' because I was talking about the suffering of life that eventually concludes in death, though I can easily see what you're saying here. Quote: Have you ever read The Plague? If not, you should. You think like Father Paneloux, although you might be unwilling to accept the logical extreme to which he follows his and your understanding of 'pain' and God's will. For myself, I identify with Dr. Rieux and M. Tarrou: this suffering is evil, and I want no part of it, other than to assuage it—to hell with God's perspective. Judging from the wikipedia summary of the book I most decidedly would not like this Paneloux. He's a fear-monger taking advantage of a crisis. As well, the conclusion that natural pain (the plague) was caused by G-d is, while possible, highly unlikely. If one is put into a situation like that of Paneloux, where they are a spiritual authority in a time of crisis, it is their job to rally the people to togetherness and compassion for others, for there are few higher callings than serving others.
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