Why does it seem that God never intervenes in Human Suffering

[Serenity7855]

Boy, you ask a lot of questions

Because being a blank slate they are easier to indoctrinate, and the more difficult it is for them to divorce themselves from the religion should they wish to

I have to ask questions because you are being so vague. You have claimed that children's beliefs and indoctrination of tenets are creating mass delusion (imo). Nowhere can I see where you get such information and you are not being very forthcoming on here.

 

[EtuMalku]

I have to ask questions because you are being so vague. You have claimed that children's beliefs and indoctrination of tenets are creating mass delusion (imo). Nowhere can I see where you get such information and you are not being very forthcoming on here.

I never said that; allow me to correct your misunderstanding and anyone else's who happen to be following along.

Children / Infants don't have any 'Beliefs' just yet, they are free from this delusion. These 'Beliefs' are integrated into their little minds early by most Abrahamic institutions / parents, I would hope this is a lot less these days given the progress that Mankind has made but who knows, but in any case the false indoctrination of Guilt/Reward is embedded into their psyche. It is THIS to which I am referring to as contributing to Mass Delusion, not the children's beliefs or the children themselves.
This information is obvious when seen in the light of the terror, hatred, violence and death that has enshrouded the Abrahamic faiths for centuries.

 

[arthra]

Then, with all due respects, you do not know the true character of God and His capabilities. God is perfect, that is a given. That means that He is literally incapable of feeling or doing anything that is not in harmony with perfection. God, therefore, cannot allow suffering because of His perfections, it is a direct result of mans choices, greed and .

You're certainly free to believe as you do but I believe one reason God sends Messengers is so that we can have correct guidance and begin to alleviate the suffering of our existence. I do not claim to "know" the true character of God but we can gather some things from studying the lives and teachings of His Messengers.

 

[psychoslice]

By going on what happened throughout the old testament, I'm glad god doesn't intervene.

 

[JoStories]

If you think that I have over simplified it then it is because I do not want Satan, or any of his cohorts, to see that it bothers me. It is complex, however, my introduction was intended to be a simplification that would be understood by all and sundry. Of course it is not a trite concern, we will be judged by how well we do in overcoming it and the choices we make in doing it. It is the method by which we are tried and tested. Satan is no foul who knows all of the tricks and will use them in order to lead us carefully down to hell.

You state you don't want "satan" to see that the issue of children starving or being raped by pedophiles bothers you. Isn't that a bit like burying your head in the sand? Years ago, my aunt and uncle had a house fire. My aunt ran upstairs to get her children. She watched as one burned to death in front of her eyes, screaming for her, his arms reaching out for her. She grabbed her other son and daughter and then tripped over something, dropping her daughter. She was never able to find her daughter again, who was unconscious and unable to let her know where she was because of smoke inhalation. That daughter died as well. Are you really willing to tell me that God had a reason for the horrors my aunt lived through that day? She had been a very devout Christian before that day. After it, she left all faiths and died an atheist, seeing no reasons whatsoever for worshipping a deity who would inflict horrors of this nature on anyone and I did not blame her. If this is what you think God does with children and that that excuses God for these horrors, I would ask you to bring your head out of the sand and see the light of day.

 

[JoStories]

Yes, that is the response that I would expect from someone who does not believe that a God exists. That would be my response if i were an atheist, but nothing I say will ever change it until you come to know it yourself. And if at the end of the day we are all wrong and God is non-existent then what harm has it done for someone to find solace in the belief that their child has gone to heaven and is safe and well living with God. What is wrong in the comfort and coming to terms of such an awful event. It is time we stopped doing what we want to do, regardless of consequences, and start doing what we ought to do.

What Frank said is what I would have said and I do believe in God. In your world, God is about sin and over coming satan and so on. My faith has a different view. Children who die horrifically, such as the two cousins of mine died in the fire, did so because they chose that life lesson. I grant you its a difficult one but no more or less difficult than my childhood rape that I endured. In my faith, all that we experience, whether good or bad, has a lesson to teach us. We are responsible for the journey we walk. We don't defer our mistakes onto some magical being that Christianity paints as some nefarious being waiting outside the door to catch you unawares. No one had to 'die for our sins' as it is our responsibility to understand what we did and if necessary, make amends for those mistakes.

 

[JoStories]

How is that rude? You speak like and atheists, your views are like and atheists and you are as awkward and angry as an atheists so to assume you are an atheist is perfectly acceptable. All you need is to correct me and I will no longer think you are an atheist. I will then know that you are into satanism.

I have been posting here with Frank for some time now, well over a year or two and I have never really know him to be angry in his posts on this forum. And your last statement is patently false. Even if it were true, which I have never known Frank to state he believes, what business is that of yours and how that does change that he has the right to disagree with you. I will never understand this mindset of Christians that they are the only ones who can be and are correct in this world and the rest of humanity is either a bunch of atheists or being led around by the nose by this fictitious character Satan, a pathetic scapegoat your faith uses to heap every wrongdoing you do onto.

 

[Serenity7855]

You're certainly free to believe as you do but I believe one reason God sends Messengers is so that we can have correct guidance and begin to alleviate the suffering of our existence.

It is our responsibility to be our brothers keeper so to alleviate pain and suffering is the responsibility of every single one of us, including the super rich. Luke 12:48 For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

I do not claim to "know" the true character of God but we can gather some things from studying the lives and teachings of His Messengers.

The character of God can only be gleaned through His Holy Bible and by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in sincere prayer and supplication . Who are His Messengers? Are the obvious?

 

[Serenity7855]

You state you don't want "satan" to see that the issue of children starving or being raped by pedophiles bothers you. Isn't that a bit like burying your head in the sand?

No, I did not say that. You are putting words in my mouth. I have not mentioned "children starving or being raped by pedophiles" In this particular argument. You have mixed two arguments together to produce a lie intended to defame. This is what I said.

"If you think that I have over simplified it then it is because I do not want Satan, or any of his cohorts, to see that it bothers me."

Can you see anything here referring to children starving or being raped by pedophiles. Not a thing, so why have you accused me of saying something that I have clearly not said.

Years ago, my aunt and uncle had a house fire. My aunt ran upstairs to get her children. She watched as one burned to death in front of her eyes, screaming for her, his arms reaching out for her. She grabbed her other son and daughter and then tripped over something, dropping her daughter. She was never able to find her daughter again, who was unconscious and unable to let her know where she was because of smoke inhalation. That daughter died as well. Are you really willing to tell me that God had a reason for the horrors my aunt lived through that day?

Yes, and if you knew Him, and were aware of His great love for us, you would say "Oh yes, of course, How loving and caring God is". At this time you do not know that so your immediate response is to blame someone, God. We are here to be tried and tested in the flesh, if you do not accept that then these stories will always cause you to initiate blame instead of exercising faith.

She had been a very devout Christian before that day. After it, she left all faiths and died an atheist, seeing no reasons whatsoever for worshipping a deity who would inflict horrors of this nature on anyone and I did not blame her.

Obviously, by agreeing with her you were a part of her problem and demise into atheism. Instead of explaining and showing her that God had nothing to do with it and that it was a part of the trials of our mortal probation, you escalated her misery by agreeing with her. You were a Christian, did you not know that God does not, cannot, inflict horrors of this magnitude on anyone. What were you being indoctrinated with?

If this is what you think God does with children and that that excuses God for these horrors, I would ask you to bring your head out of the sand and see the light of day.

I have never given the impression that God is wicked so why do you indict me thus.

My head is out of the sand, however, your lack of faith, and knowledge of who God is, has insured that your head is well and truly stuck in the sand. You blame God for something he had absolutely nothing to do with. Why would you do that? Did you just say,"well this looks like the work of God. It must be His fault" It was not him that was the starter of the fire, it was probably and error made by a human being, who can dwell here, as it is a God who cannot dwell here because of His perfection. "A little Learning is a dangerous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,"

 

[Serenity7855]

What Frank said is what I would have said and I do believe in God.

Because you would have both said it only makes you both wrong. If you believe in God why do you blame Him for things that He had nothing to do with? Why did you encourage your Aunt into atheism.

In your world, God is about sin and over coming satan and so on. My faith has a different view. Children who die horrifically, such as the two cousins of mine died in the fire, did so because they chose that life lesson. I grant you its a difficult one but no more or less difficult than my childhood rape that I endured. In my faith, all that we experience, whether good or bad, has a lesson to teach us. We are responsible for the journey we walk. We don't defer our mistakes onto some magical being that Christianity paints as some nefarious being waiting outside the door to catch you unawares. No one had to 'die for our sins' as it is our responsibility to understand what we did and if necessary, make amends for those mistakes.

Unlike your offensive remarks on Christianity, I am not going to critique your faith because everyone is entitles to believe whatever they want, and I so happen to agree with much of it, however, you say that "We are responsible for the journey we walk" yet you blame God for any stumbling blocks that we might come across.

 

[Serenity7855]

I have been posting here with Frank for some time now, well over a year or two and I have never really know him to be angry in his posts on this forum.

Who is Frank? I do not see anyone who is posting here called Frank so how am I to defend myself against him.

And your last statement is patently false.

You once again insult me by calling me a liar. You have not consider any alternative, like, I had made a mistake in that statement or that you had misinterpreted it, you instantly assumed that I am a liar because of my views on homosexuality. Heterophobic. You cannot accuse anyone in a debate for lying without evidence to substantiate your claim.

Even if it were true, which I have never known Frank to state he believes

What makes you the arbitrator of all truth. Why would I take the word of someone, who blames God, to be true.

, what business is that of yours and how that does change that he has the right to disagree with you.

This is a debating forum and not a social club, as you may think it is. If you do not want your business discussed then don't post it on a public forum. He does have the right to disagree with me. I have never said, or insinuated, that he doesn't. You are vilifying me.

I will never understand this mindset of Christians that they are the only ones who can be and are correct in this world and the rest of humanity is either a bunch of atheists or being led around by the nose by this fictitious character Satan, a pathetic scapegoat your faith uses to heap every wrongdoing you do onto.

I can see now why you blamed God. You know very little about Christianity, which is demonstrated by your statement that Satan is a fictitious character. You are clearly out of your depth here, yet you try and depict this intellectual person that your words just do not back up. You always insult me and try to make me look like I am stupid when it is the very opposite that is true. Although you do admit it when you said "I will never understand" at the beginning of this post.

I always find myself defending myself against your false accusations, lack of understanding and poor social skills when ever you post to me. I can never debate anything that you say because it always says, You are right and I am wrong, plus I am stupid and a lessor human being as well. You never actually post anything that is debatable, it is always diatribe that I have to correct. Why then do you post to me. I would sooner you didn't, thus giving me more time to answer constructive criticism from people that I can learn from. Yes, I could ignore you, however, that would be impolite.

 

[Serenity7855]

I never said that; allow me to correct your misunderstanding and anyone else's who happen to be following along.

Children / Infants don't have any 'Beliefs' just yet, they are free from this delusion.

You have immediately shown us that you are bias and bigoted by calling 2.2 billion Christians delusional because you don't see and feel what they do.

These 'Beliefs' are integrated into their little minds early by most Abrahamic institutions / parents,

On the contrary, it is the minority atheists who have managed to stop that by removing it from our society in their attempt to remove religion from the earth.

I would hope this is a lot less these days given the progress that Mankind has made but who knows,

What progress do you speak of? The advancement of science? Take an objective look at what science has cost us.

But in any case the false indoctrination of Guilt/Reward is embedded into their psyche.

How would you know that. You are clearly an atheist. Indoctrinations of righteous principles is a good thing. Maybe then our kids would help old ladies carry their shopping home instead of mugging them and beating them.

It is THIS to which I am referring to as contributing to Mass Delusion, not the children's beliefs or the children themselves.

I know to what you refer, however, without any evidence it is anecdotal.

This information is obvious when seen in the light of the terror, hatred, violence and death that has enshrouded the Abrahamic faiths for centuries.

Since when do we here of Abrahamic Terrorists? Come on, you are obviously harbouring some kind of grudge against Christianity so you try to demonise it.

 

[Serenity7855]

Why do you think all atheists feel that way? I don't find that to be the case.

Aside from the fact that I did not say "All" atheists, I don't think all atheists feel that way. Just the hostile and aggressive ones who are on here and voice their opinions anonymously with as much venom as they can muster. I have some excellent friends who are atheists.

 

[Serenity7855]

There are plenty of discussions going on around here at any given moment between atheists and religious followers that are quite civil in nature. Some are even productive.

They are far and few between, but I never said that there were none. You are answering a question that has not been asked. What I said was "Now ether that person is lacking in the intelligence department for not realising that contention will almost certainly be the result of a debate between a theist and an atheist, or they are here because they enjoy to contend and ridicule Christians, I think that the latter is probably true"

Of course, contention will occur as well. But I don't see anything wrong with that. Plenty of discussions surrounding just about any topic you can think of can and will result in contention.

Not in my world. Contention is demonic in nature. For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.

 

[Serenity7855]

I've never actually shared with you what I think about god(s) so I don't know where you're pulling all this from.

I am pulling it from your own words and the attitude in which they are written.

 

[Serenity7855]

I find your arguments to be lacking in relevant content a lot of the time, as I have pointed out to you before. When someone disagrees or contradicts your arguments, you often fall into victim mode which looks like nothing more than a cop out to me. We're all being victimized then, since our arguments are constantly being challenged on this forum. We can choose to address the content of the discussion, or we can choose to take arguments against ours as personal attacks. The former is productive (for the most part) while the latter is not. That's why I said maybe debating isn't for you.

If you want to talk about the OP I am very willing to do that, however, I am not here to defend myself against your put-downs and insults. Put-downs and insults that you have instigated in this thread. The picture you paint of me is painted by a student artist and not an accomplished one. You are using your paint brush to portray the devious and dishonest person that you want others on here to see, and you will succeed with some, however, my God knows the intent of my heart and knows what you are doing. You will be held accountable for it. Besides, you have little to critique me with when your own path is so diversely crooked.

 

[Serenity7855]

What exactly is this 'Plan of Salvation' and why do we even need it in the first place ?

By reading about it will answer your question as to why we need it. I have left a link below for you.

The Plan of Salvation

 

[Knight of Albion]

We have free will, to do good or evil, but free will under law (i.e. Karma / Cause and Effect)

Why do people suffer? Could be that it is an issue of Karma. Karma is an entirely self-regulating law. It is cause and effect, we reap what we sow ... Perfect justice.
And new karma is being created all the time remember.

Could be that there is some specific lesson they need to learn.
Trials and tribulations are an essential part of spiritual evolution.

When we are on the Other Side and can see the bigger picture, we will understand the what and the why.

What will be, will be and there is not a lot we can do about it. What we are in total charge of however is how we react.

I've had my share of sorrow and suffering, and I certainly didn't appreciate it at the time and I certainly wouldn't like to go through it all again! but, with the benefit of hindsight, I am profoundly grateful for the experiences, for from them I learnt compassion, empathy and understanding.

 

[Koldo]

By reading about it will answer your question as to why we need it. I have left a link below for you.

The Plan of Salvation

Thanks for the link.

Is God omnipotent ?

 

[Aquitaine]

If your God exists then why does He allow children to starve and pedophiles to exist. It is one of the most frequently asked questions of atheists and one that they think dismisses the existence of God. On another thread and another topic I recieved this post that caused me to think that maybe it is not something that Christians know or believe. Maybe it was lost with the creeds?



I believe that the answer is so obvious that we do not consider it. You first have to consider why you are here, what is this life all about and what happens to us when it is all over? Why are we here?
Coming here allows you to:

• Receive a physical body.
• Exercise agency and learn to choose between good and evil.
• Learn and gain experience that will help you become more like your Heavenly Father.
• Form family relationships that may become eternal.
• To be tried and tested in the flesh to see if we will have sufficient faith if God to keep His commandments.

Your life didn’t begin at birth and it won’t end at death. Before you came to earth, your spirit lived with Heavenly Father who created you. You knew Him, and He knew and loved you. It was a happy time during which you were taught God’s plan of happiness and the path to true joy.

One thing that makes this life so hard sometimes is that we’re out of God’s physical presence. Not only that, but we can’t remember our pre-earth life which means we have to operate by faith rather than sight. God didn’t say it would be easy, but He promised His spirit would be there when we needed Him. Even though it feels like it sometimes, we’re not alone in our journey.

So what is faith? To have faith is to “hope for things which are not seen, which are true” Hebrews 11:1). Each day you act upon things you hope for, even before you see the end result. This is similar to faith. Faith in God is more than a theoretical belief in Him. To have faith in God is to trust Him, to have confidence in Him, and to be willing to act on your belief in Him. It is a principle of action and power. That is the test that we are here to take. The test of our faith. To make choices that reflect upon that faith in Christ. If we had a perfect knowledge of Him then we could not be tried and tested by our faith because a perfect knowledge and faith could not exist together, there is either one or the other. There is a Mormon scripture that discribes this very well

Alma 32: 17-21

17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.

18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.

19 And now, how much more cursed is he thatknoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?

20 Now of this thing ye must judge. Behold, I say unto you, that it is on the one hand even as it is on the other; and it shall be unto every man according to his work.

21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

And that is the reaso why God cannot intervene and prevent the children from starving or take away the temptations of the pedophile. As soon as He does then the whole meaning of our existence will no longer be tenable and we would all be subjected to Satan. It is not that God turns His back on those who are suffering, I am sure that He weeps for them and longs to do something to alliviate their suffering, however, He cannot do that without destroying the entire Plan of Salvation by taking away the essential ingredient of faith.

Now, that is my belief. As I believe that God is a personage of infinite knowledge, I believe, so the entire Plan of Salvation is perfect with every single eventuality being covered. What do you think?

I think the real answer is because s/he doesn't exist.
But let's suppose your idea is correct that the extreme suffering, misery, starvation, disease, wars and genocide somehow is the only thing that gives our lives "meaning". Why doesn't God then make our lives even worse if it will apparently make our lives even more meaningful?
Why not have another - more intelligent - species as the dominant predator on Earth who hunt and eat us on a daily basis: wouldn't that make our First World lives a little more "meaningful"?