Important question: how do you explain evil and bad happenings?

[mvd]

I have always grappled with this one. Various explanations include: the Devil, God being in the recovery from bad events and the way people help in times of need (and how the bad people are balanced out by the good people,) free will, God being neutral, God having no control, etc. What do you think? I tend to lean towards everything being a test, but faith alone is an important thing.

[realisticphish]

1. the way i see it

god isn't a bodyguard, he's our father. so he lets us make mistakes, as long as we keep the faith, like you said.


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[shawn703]

2. Free will

For the evil things that people do to each other. Why do I think God lets bad things happen to good people? I think part of it is to bring the good people closer to Him, since many times people will go through life not really thinking about Him until tragedy strikes. I do not believe God will let bad things happen to you in Heaven - and part of it is to get you to realize that no matter what happens in your lifetime on earth, you can get through them if you focus on your rewards in Heaven.

[mvd]

3. Both of you gave good answers!

You helped me expand on my original thoughts - thanks. :hi:

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Read commentaries on Job...

we're having just such a discussion on one of the Quaker listserves I subscribe to.

If anyone actually understands Job, and it's doubtful anyone actually does, then this question will be answered.

The story is pretty simple-- God makes a bet with Satan that Job won't deny him no matter how bad things get. Things get really, really bad, and, to top it off, Job's friends are all telling him it's his fault.

So, Job remains faithful, and gets everything back a hundredfold. Even a new wife and kids to replace the ones who were killed during the game.

And some new friends.

On the surface, this is simply a test of faith but there are nuances there that make it much more than that. And make it difficult to believe that this really happened, not an allegorical myth. An Old Testament parable.

The bet is with Satan, not with Job. Job is merely an instrument for God to show his power and dominance over Satan. Even when he appears to Job, he never talks about wisdom, glory, or whatever, but only about his power. And he doesn't let on to Job that this is all about a wager. He also does not cause the suffering himself, but allows Satan to do the dirty work, and Satan has a leash.

Job is us. Things happen that we are not aware of in the grander scheme of things. God is just, but does what we consider strange things, and in God's world, justice is never exactly the way we see it.

The Quaker view of things is that we don't generally attempt to define God and we don't think much at all about Satan. What we do have is the concept of The Light, which is "that of God in all of us." It's not exactly pantheism, but that will do for the sake of this discussion.

When disasters, or what coud be considered evil, occurs, we don't agonize over the transcendant causes, since no one is telling us why it happened and we probably could never understand them anyway.

Living in the Light is taking Donne's "no man is an island" perhaps a step or two further. It connects us all, through God, and we are one, for better or for worse. It is not worthwhile to question the reasons for things we cannot understand, but it is most definitely our place to do what we can on this planet. When things happen, we might muse upon why in our spare time, but pimarily we feel the pain of all suffering and do what we can to ease it.

Our place is to do as best we can here on Earth, and God can take care of himself quite well enough without our help or understanding.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

5. My own personal view is it's essentially a choice of free will

God created us with the choice of having our own free will -and if you believe the Bible's version, which I do, Adam and Eve accepted that choice. As with what happened to Adam and Eve, there are consequences to the choices we make and I think that largely reflects why there are bad people who do bad things

As for natural disasters, tsunamis, floods and the like, I'm not sure. I don't believe that it's vengenance or punishment but I honestly don't know

[GOPBasher]

6. The world of the flesh is full of suffering.

I don't think this means God is bad. I see this life as a test. However, if it's true that only Christians can go to heaven, then that god, in my opinion, is not very just. He created a world of suffering, put people in it, and then sends them to suffer for all of eternity, unless they're lucky enough to pick the corrent religion. That god seems mean to me, but that's not how I believe God is.