I Have A Question For The Blessed (Israel, punishment, Christianity)

[sschulz]

Hi Mooseketeer Just finished reading your post on why you do not think God exsists. I can see why you feel the way you do. I know that the answer of why God causes these things and others like them to occur will probably not ease your pain or feelings but here it it.

God is creating man in his image. We can not know or understand true evil till we experience it or have it impact out lives. Without understanding evil we can not understand good.

Understand that God has a plan that is being carried out flawlessly, the way he planned it. Why it must be this way I have not idea, but I trust in God that this is the best way.

In Genesis it says "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." Genesis 6:6

Did God really repent. NO this is translated this way but it should be translated that God felt pity for man because he knew it must be this way and that man must suffer and it" grieved him at his heart."

God does love his creation and it grieves him to see us suffer but to create us in his image we must go through trial and tribulations that we may see as so cruel that we can't understand how a loving God would allow it. God causes it for our eventual salvation and conversion to the image of our Father.

I'm probably not explaining this as well as I wished I could, but I know that God is there and he is doing everything he must to save us and make us into his image.

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by nimchimpsky

Why does the existence of a God imply no personal responsibility? I don't understand why the two can't coexist--particularly with a God who grants free will.



Suffering is relative to the person. You can't really know how much they suffer--only they can. The same event that might barely affect you could completely terrorize them emotionally, and vice versa. People react more strongly to certain events than others. Here's an example: there's an ongoing debate in the deaf-blind community--which is worse? Going blind or doing deaf? The answer? Some people really believe going blind is worse, and some really believe going deaf is worse. That's because it's relative to the person--some people are more traumatized by hearing loss and some are more traumatized by vision loss. To assume that you would know which is worse for every person would be to be presumptuous. Only they can know for themselves which is worse. The same applies to any life event, any type of suffering. Of course there are different degrees of pain and suffering, but the only person who knows exactly how it affects them is the person experiencing it.

Here's another example. Both my friend and I were sexually abused as children for years on end by the adults in our life. It affected me for a long time. I had severe PTSD. I could barely function for a few years. He never developed PTSD. He is more sensitive in general but he never developed full-blown PTSD. (I'm not assuming this--this is based on the many long discussions we've had.) Why do some rape victims develop PTSD and others don't? Studies have shown that it's not always related to the severity of their rape. Some people who are "only" molested but not fully penetrated, or only raped once, develop PTSD while others who were penetrated, or raped on a regular basis, don't. Why is that? People are different. Two people can be affected to different degrees by the same experience. Suffering to a certain extent is relative. Sure, being gang-raped or murdered is worse than mommy not buying me that ice cream, so there is an objective element, but there's also a subjective element to suffering which makes it impossible for you or me to know how much that person with an "easy" life from outside perspective really suffers. Maybe their life looks easy to you and me on the outside but they have internal feelings that make them suffer. My childhood looked very easy on the outside but no one knew I was being raped. On the outside, it looked like I had the perfect childhood, but in reality, people just didn't know. Don't assume because you don't always know the whole story.



If God never "allowed" us to suffer, we would never learn. (Really, God doesn't "allow" it so much as the God-part of ourselves, our souls, choose it.) If a baby didn't get hurt from running into a wall, they would just keep on running into a wall. Likewise, we would be stuck in the same place spiritually, making the same mistakes over and over again. Suffering happens for a reason. It happens to help keep us on track or to get us back on track with God's plan. It happens so our souls can evolve instead of staying in the same place for eternity. We learn things like compassion, love, understanding, altruism, joy and peace, from the suffering we experience from insisting on selfishness, fear, hatred, and war.

Of course we all have personal responsibility but I do think people are kidding themselves if they believe there is a plan and a behind the scenes manipulator AND they have complete free will.

In essence what many religious people seem to claim is freedom of choice when it comes to making decisions and YET decisions being made for them behind their backs. Do you believe in free will or partial free will. Sounds like partial free will to me.


And yes people do suffer in different ways. We are all individuals. But I don't think everyone "suffers" terrible things as Tricky D implies.


I would also argue that to create something which is so deficient as to be evil knowing it will be evil and to allow those who suffer to undergo this as some kind of test is to me beyond sadistic.

I can assure you that I personally would have chosen not to have Leukaemia or to be disabled. I can guarantee you that I would be a lot happier if I was healthier. And a lot more productive to society to boot. I would prefer to have had "free will " to chose illness or reject it. Free will how exactly ? Did God actually ask me whether I wanted to be sick and "learn" all those valuable lessons ? I don't remember ever being involved in that discussion? Must have missed that memo when it came around. What personal influence do people have on their own actions when it comes to war, rape, slavery, murder, illness, natural disasters etc... The free will to be victims of other people's free will. It seems to me we have little free will at all apart from the one of inflicting pain on others. Most people have no say in our lives are lived . They are victims of circumstances and others. Be it a building falling on your head when you are stuck in an earthquake or being caught in war.

For example how are people who are severely mentally disabled or have dementia able to use free will ? Surely if we all have free will , we all have the full mental acuity to make personal decisions weighing all the elements in a rational and completely free manner. God would surely never allow anyone to be born with such mental deficiencies. Where is their free will ? Is their free will removed ? How can it be free if they cannot truly comprehend what they do ? Free will to me sounds like one of those words which sounds great on paper but a lot of God's creations are simply not allowed that immense privilege. How can God create dementia if it negates the ability of people to utilise their free will ? Or did he just make a mistake when he created genetic disorders, diseases, malaria carrying mosquitoes ( is that the mosquitoes uitlising their free will to kill millions) or tiny bacteria which devastates millions of people every year ? Is that our personal responsibility or his ?

I wasn't sent the memo on mosquitoes either , asking me to make decisions about I thought it appropriate for them to be given this lethal power. If pain is caused by our free will , then there is a lot I don't understand about the system.




So God in essence created me as I am , knowing I would be miserable and it is part of his plan for me to learn ? Learn what exactly ? I have not learnt anything I did not know before. I knew there was no God before and I still know that.

I had plenty of compassion and empathy before I got sick. I am not sure what I learnt apart from that some of us are to suffer extreme pain and others not. If I believed in A God I would basically feel punished for no reason whatsoever. And compared to other people I have had a pretty easy life. I would certainly not count myself as being dealt a particularily bad hand.

How can the concept of unhindered free will be compatible with a creator who has a "plan" he cannot be bothered to reveal ? it makes no sense whatsoever. Does God not even respect us enough to let us know what he has in mind ? How terrifyingly patronising and arrogant .

I was always told that bad people got their comeuppance when I was small. What a crock . In my experience I would say on balance pretty much mostly bad people get rewarded. The heathliest , happiest and wealthiest people are usually also the nastiest or at the very least the most selfish and thoughtless individuals. In my experience evil triumphs over good almost every time. The best people I know have had a terrible life on the whole. I am not sure how free will made any difference to their lives though, and improved it in any way ?



Free will is a great concept but unless it is full and encompassing , it is nothing but an illusion. God if there is one for the sake of argument obviously does not make his creation privy to his plans which means he has plans, plans we cannot know thus cannot make decisions truly based on knowledge, reason and pure hard facts.

You cannot ever truly make a decision you can call your own if someone else behind the scenes is pulling the strings. Decisions are made on limited knowledge and thus a huge element if choice ( free will) in a way is removed from the person. It is like driving blindfolded.

Also when you create something you are responsible to a great extent for it , especially if you create it faulty to begin with. I think Oppenheimer has to take a rather large part of responsibility for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as do the pilots who dropped the bombs, the politicians who ordered the bombing, the people who condoned it and if one believes ultimately in God the god who created Oppenheimer knowing what would come out of his brains....

You cannot create something and then deny all responsibility over your creation. That to me reeks of delusion and washing your hands of personal responsibility. God also had free will I gather , when he created us ? He made a decision knowing that billions would suffer the worst pain imaginable and that many unlike you could never cope with it. His free will seems to have made rather a mess of the whole thing. If we are responsible for our actions then ultimately so is he for his ( which led to ours).

I do find the apologists for God really baffling.




I have said it before and I shall repeat myself :


Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Epicurus ' quote seems about as apt as they come.

[nimchimpsky]

I believe in total free will on the soul level, and partial free will on the mind/body level. Our soul makes choices that to us in our lifetime don't seem like free will, but on that deeper level it was our choice, and therefore totally our free will.

While we do have free will, it's also important to remember EVERYONE has free will. Our actions affect other people and their actions affect ours. We have free will over ourselves but not over others (that would be impeding on their free will).

On the mind/body level, I would have chosen not to be deaf-blind and have fibromyalgia, or to have PTSD, or be abused. It sucked going through all that crap. I don't doubt for a second that having Leukemia and being disabled sucks. Of course it does. I hated being deaf. I tried killing myself when I first started losing my hearing. But I failed because I wasn't meant to die then. In the end this happened because it brought me to a higher level of consciousness. I feel a joy and a sense of purpose that I've never felt before. And that joy and peace came out of the suffering. If I hadn't been deaf-blind, I wouldn't appreciate the vision and hearing I have now. Even though my hearing and vision are far from perfect, I reflect on my surroundings much deeper than most sighted-hearing people who've never been deaf-blind before do. Being deaf-blind made room for a sense of gratitude I didn't have before.

I don't know the exact spiritual reasons behind your disabilities and can't pretend to know why. But I can tell you that in general, often our souls do choose disabilities because it gives us a new awareness. There are other reasons we become disabled too. Sometimes it's a result of emotions we've built up, that can turn into real physical symptoms. There are many reasons. Only you can look deep into yourself and figure out the exact reasons behind your disabilities.

Maybe the lessons you learn from your disabilities are different from the ones I learned from mine. Each person's journey is unique. There are general trends we can point to but only you can fully understand your personal journey.

We are God. God, you, and me, are all part of the same thing. That's the illusion people continue to fall into. They see God as a separate entity causing them harm or blessing them, when in reality, we have God inside us. Each one of us comes up with a general blueprint of our suffering in this lifetime on the soul level before we even come into our physical bodies on Earth. There is no one against us--it is us. When we realize that, and let our inner God shine through, suffering ceases to exist.

God is willing to prevent evil and able. But God isn't on the outside looking at us. We are God. We have to prevent evil and we are able. We as a human species have to realize that before we can end our own suffering. We have to come to that higher level of consciousness so that we can be reunited with the God part of ourselves (our souls, or our essence). When that reuniting happens, there will only be peace, love, and joy--which is the true essence of God.

[sschulz]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Epicurus ' quote seems about as apt as they come.

Hi Mooseketeer

Long post so I do not have time right now to address everything but your quote I can address.

Yes God is able to prevent evil after all he created it.

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:7

God created evil for a good purpose to humble man.

He is not malevolent for the reason for the evil is to do good. If someone stabbed you with a knife that would be evil right, but what if it was a doctor operating to save your life. Your still stabbed but for a good purpose.

Got to go now but as for free will we don't have it ,never had it , just
think we do. All is of God.

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by nimchimpsky

I believe in total free will on the soul level, and partial free will on the mind/body level. Our soul makes choices that to us in our lifetime don't seem like free will, but on that deeper level it was our choice, and therefore totally our free will.

While we do have free will, it's also important to remember EVERYONE has free will. Our actions affect other people and their actions affect ours. We have free will over ourselves but not over others (that would be impeding on their free will).

On the mind/body level, I would have chosen not to be deaf-blind and have fibromyalgia, or to have PTSD, or be abused. It sucked going through all that crap. I don't doubt for a second that having Leukemia and being disabled sucks. Of course it does. I hated being deaf. I tried killing myself when I first started losing my hearing. But I failed because I wasn't meant to die then. In the end this happened because it brought me to a higher level of consciousness. I feel a joy and a sense of purpose that I've never felt before. And that joy and peace came out of the suffering. If I hadn't been deaf-blind, I wouldn't appreciate the vision and hearing I have now. Even though my hearing and vision are far from perfect, I reflect on my surroundings much deeper than most sighted-hearing people who've never been deaf-blind before do. Being deaf-blind made room for a sense of gratitude I didn't have before.

I don't know the exact spiritual reasons behind your disabilities and can't pretend to know why. But I can tell you that in general, often our souls do choose disabilities because it gives us a new awareness. There are other reasons we become disabled too. Sometimes it's a result of emotions we've built up, that can turn into real physical symptoms. There are many reasons. Only you can look deep into yourself and figure out the exact reasons behind your disabilities.

Maybe the lessons you learn from your disabilities are different from the ones I learned from mine. Each person's journey is unique. There are general trends we can point to but only you can fully understand your personal journey.

We are God. God, you, and me, are all part of the same thing. That's the illusion people continue to fall into. They see God as a separate entity causing them harm or blessing them, when in reality, we have God inside us. Each one of us comes up with a general blueprint of our suffering in this lifetime on the soul level before we even come into our physical bodies on Earth. There is no one against us--it is us. When we realize that, and let our inner God shine through, suffering ceases to exist.

God is willing to prevent evil and able. But God isn't on the outside looking at us. We are God. We have to prevent evil and we are able. We as a human species have to realize that before we can end our own suffering. We have to come to that higher level of consciousness so that we can be reunited with the God part of ourselves (our souls, or our essence). When that reuniting happens, there will only be peace, love, and joy--which is the true essence of God.

I think you are an incredibly positive person and I admire your sense of self and fulfillment through spirituality. I really mean that.

What I have been through in comparison to you pales into insignificance and to be honest I was mentioning my illness ( touch wood I am now "curred" of it) only as an example. I don't feel it has made me appreciate anything more than I did before, I honestly don't. I am only disabled in a minor way ( serious walking difficulties) so I am grateful that it could have been a lot worse.

However I was thankful and appreciative of my good health when I had it which is why I always tried to "give back"as much as I could. Being ill did not change anything in that respect at all. I always appreciated what I had. It was the way I was brought up to be.


You say EVERYONE has free will but surely as mentioned one can only have free will if one is "compos mentis" , which excludes people who are severely mentally handicapped for example, have dementia and one could argue anyone who is disturbed ( often through no fault of their own like severe depression, psychosis, people who like yourself have gone through terrible things and not coped as well as you and lost their minds through it etc...).

Maybe I am too "cerebral" and not in touch with my "spiritual" side enough to understand, maybe my mind is simply not wired in a way which allows me to comprehend all those mysterious ways but I still maintain that a creator which loves you would not allow suffering on the scale it does. Even if free will explained the evils perpetrated by humans on others it still would not explain natural disasters, diseases, genetic disorders, poisonous animals and plants , asteroids falling on to the earth, whatever you can think of which harms humans but which they are not directly responsible for.

And I will NEVER understand how a so called loving creator would allow certain things to happen. It makes no sense at all. If you create something you are responsible for it, especially at that level of omniscience and omnipotency.

I have never believed in God. It never made sense, there is no evidence,no proof, the facts simply do not back up the existence of a deity/deities. I did not believe in God when I was three years old and I have searched long and hard and the more I learn and the less likely it becomes IMO. I see nothing which indicates a higher being.

I appreciate it helps people deal with some terrible things and I am glad it does bring succour to many milllions of people. But to me it will always be a fairy tale made up by us humans exactly because we needed to make ourselves feel better and to lighten the darkest recesses of human nature. Human suffering can plumb to such depths that God was the only thing we could come with to explain to ourselves the why and the how of things which were simply to hard to contemplate or understand. I see it as self protection for many , a security blanket of huge proportions .

I genuinely cannot understand how anyone in the 21st century can believe in God. I do respect people's beliefs ( except those who preach at me and often patronise like some posters on this forum - you are of course NOT included in that list) but I cannot force myself to go along with everyone else and pretend to others and even to myself that I do believe in something which seems so incredibly bizarre. In a way I wish I could believe, I think it takes a lot of strain off people, a "virtual"shoulder to cry on , and a ready made social "club" to belong to.

Sadly there is not a nano particle in my heart or brain which can even vaguley relate to a belief in God. All I can see in Faith is a fascinating myriad of beliefs and that's from an Anthropological point of view. Socio-Culturally , beliefs are really interesting and I love hearing what people believe in all over the world. Just as I love to read Fairy tales and Mythology stories.


I am glad it makes sense to you, I suspect a lot of people in your circumstances might have lost the plot otherwise. I cannot even remotely imagine what it feels like to be abused but I know myself enough to know that the thing I would learn from it is pure hatred and a desire for revenge so big that all the furies of hell would have trouble holding me back. I cannot stand injustice, it is something which actually , genuinely makes me feel physically ill.

I suffer from Chronic depression , and bullies and the unfairness of life ( and I do not mean how those things affect me personally as they do not, I am fairly lucky in most respects) is something which contributes to this sense of utter despair and gloom. I want to fix things, I am a mender by nature and being impotent in the face of injustice makes me reel with moral indignation and rage. I cannot help it. I really cannot. It brings out the worst not the best in me.

Witnessing the suffering of others and being unable to do anything about it makes me feel sick. Physically and mentally so.

I was born for solutions. Not problems. I do my best pretty much every day and I make so little difference it seems almost pointless.

To think there could be a God ( and I am 99.99% sure there isn't) and he allows those things to go on when he/she could prevent it is sure to send me even more into paroxysms of absolute bewilderement ,incomprehension and anger. It does not even bear thinking about.

I have seen way too much suffering to see how a creator could allow its unique creations to be so ill treated and abused. The 0.1% which I might allow myself to think I could be wrong about a supernatural being could simply not cope with such a malevolent creature. I might just have to believe in a God AND reject him/her at the same time.

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap" I think the quote goes and that is one of the biggest load of balderdash ever written. Honestly, how anyone can even take this sort of thing seriously is beyond me.

I think you are really brave and a shining example of how well adjusted some people who have gone through hell can be. But I cannot understand how you could come to believe in a God. I suppose I am always surprised when intelligent people I respect find it in themselves to see a "bigger picture".

As far I am concerned , you are born, you live and then you die. Hopefully in between birth and death having made a difference to others, and having been a good , kind and moral human being. Anything else like heaven or an after life to me is just wishful thinking.

I could not care less about an after life , I would prefer life on earth to be better now. Life is not a rehearsal so make it count I suppose would be my motto.

[TKramar]

Perhaps it's not his job to prevent evil, perhaps he's just there to observe and document our responses to stimuli--like any scientist.

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by Moosketeer

I believe ALL Human beings are responsible for their actions (free agency) but once you introduce the concept of a so called "loving " benevolent father figure of a deity that concept should completely go out of the window.

No, the essence of love is that it can't make you do anything against your (free) will.
Like the Bible says: 'love only asks' so love can never demand anything.

I am suggesting that there is no God and that free will seems rather stupid a concept when God is supposed to be loving, omnipotent and omniscient , why create pain and suffering, why create evil, why create earthquakes, landslides, famine, etc... ( natural disasters occured before man had a chance to even influence its environment by the way, I don't think prehistoric man had much influence in terms of its natural environment, not enough to create volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, ladnslides, floods etc... so why would God allow innocent people whose free will could not change the course if this to have an effect on them ?

Because life cannot exist without death, or in other words without death life loses all its meaning.
Pain and suffering exist because an organism's survival depends on the ability to feel pain.

In short: without pain, suffering and death man would not need to be intelligent or become sentient.

I know a lot of non suffering people. Some of them rewarded for being selfish, thoughtless greedy and nasty. God seems to reward those with the bounty of this earth. Nice of him/her

Why are you looking at other people?
I mean, I know for sure that I can become rich too by not giving a damn about others, yet I'm not rich.
Nor am I poor, but I've chosen not to be selfish, thoughtless greedy and nasty in order to become rich.
Could this be because I realise that without love being rich isn't worth anything?

No I am saying it would have been a lot more logical of God for hospitals to be needed at all,

No the only logical conclusion would be the realisation that only the living suffer.
Or that eternal happiness is no happiness at all; you can't feel happiness if you not also have experienced pain.

Free will seem an odd concept when God comes into it.

Does it?
To me God=love and I believe that free will is essential when it comes to love.
Just because I love someone does it mean that that person should love me back.
Would it not be incredibly selfish of me to demand that a person should love me simply because I love her?

So does religion

Be that as it may but without modern science religion is unable to nuke a whole continent with a simple push of a button.
So modern science is far worse than religion because it is far more efficient in killing than religion will ever be.
It is also a sad fact that it is far easier to kill with modern science than it is with religion. And because of modern science (read: guns) children have become as dangerous as adults.

Free will seems to allow the worst of the worst to flourish, also an odd concept... Punish the good, reward the evil... Nice system he/she created there. I can see the logic. NOT. All these things prove him/her to be rather selective of him/her

Can I conclude that you don't believe in God because He allows suffering to exist?
If you eliminate all suffering in existence you would also have eliminated love ( and thus free will).
Or don't you believe that love 'hurts'?

[nimchimpsky]

Originally Posted by Mooseketeer

I think you are an incredibly positive person and I admire your sense of self and fulfillment through spirituality. I really mean that.

What I have been through in comparison to you pales into insignificance and to be honest I was mentioning my illness ( touch wood I am now "curred" of it) only as an example. I don't feel it has made me appreciate anything more than I did before, I honestly don't. I am only disabled in a minor way ( serious walking difficulties) so I am grateful that it could have been a lot worse.

[edited out for brevity's sake]

You say EVERYONE has free will but surely as mentioned one can only have free will if one is "compos mentis" , which excludes people who are severely mentally handicapped for example, have dementia and one could argue anyone who is disturbed ( often through no fault of their own like severe depression, psychosis, people who like yourself have gone through terrible things and not coped as well as you and lost their minds through it etc...).

[...]

I genuinely cannot understand how anyone in the 21st century can believe in God. I do respect people's beliefs ( except those who preach at me and often patronise like some posters on this forum - you are of course NOT included in that list) but I cannot force myself to go along with everyone else and pretend to others and even to myself that I do believe in something which seems so incredibly bizarre. In a way I wish I could believe, I think it takes a lot of strain off people, a "virtual"shoulder to cry on , and a ready made social "club" to belong to.

[...]

I could not care less about an after life , I would prefer life on earth to be better now. Life is not a rehearsal so make it count I suppose would be my motto.

Moosketeer, I can really relate to so many of the things you said and so many of the logical steps you made because I was in the same place for a long time. You pretty much outlined what my beliefs used to be. Even though I no longer agree with it, I truly understand where you're coming from.

In the end I have to admit that there is an element to God that is just not logical in the way we understand "logical" to mean. It's logical by some other set of rules but not the rules here on Earth.

Even mentally ill people and cognitively impaired people have free will. Mental illness is a more exaggerated or contracted form of the impulses and feelings we all experience. PTSD is basically normal fear-based behavior on steroids. Mental impairments don't necessarily imply a lack of free will--it's just that the logical steps one makes may be slower or more limited in some way. For example, my cousin with Down's Syndrome still maintains the ability to choose whether or not she eats a piece of chocolate cake or not. Mentally ill people have to bite the bullet and be willing to face their mental issues to the best of their ability if they ever want to get better or reach their fullest potential. I don't mean to imply that it's easy, and I am definitely not one of those people that claims that mental illness can be "cured" with a "swift kick in the @ss" or any of that baloney. I recognize that there is a very real, physical element to mental illness. For example, if taking medication to change physiological and chemical imbalances in the brain is what it takes, then that's what it takes. But it is doable. Mental illness can be managed even when it can't be cured, and that's an example of free will. I had to do it and have watched numerous people with other types of mental illness go through the same process. It's hard but it's doable, and usually it causes both the MI sufferer and anyone they have a relationship with to suffer considerably less.

I don't really see mental illness or cognitive impairment as an obstacle to free will. We perhaps cannot help the way we feel but we can help the way we act. Restraint may be ten times harder for the mentally ill person, for example, but it's still possible. It's in acting or not acting that our free will lies.

I also used to wonder how intelligent people could possibly be spiritual or religious. I think the answer to that one is that when we say "intelligent," we most often mean in the sense of intellectually evolved and mature or capable of rapid critical thinking with large leaps. However being spiritual is about all the parts of life that intellectualism doesn't necessarily cover. It's a whole different mindset, so how spiritual someone is doesn't necessarily correlate to their mental intelligence. That's the only way I can think to explain it.

Some of my beliefs stem from personal experience and some from experiments I've run with other people, including skeptics. I also freely admit that I was influenced by some of the things I read.

I do also realize that there is a possibility I'm just dead wrong. I just see this as the best explanation for reality, and it's where I'm willing to put my eggs. Also a lot of what works in life requires taking the leap, and everything I believe in taking the leap for is for the good of all. I feel like I can't really go wrong believing in the power of intention if I stick to using it positively. Even if it turns out this is all part of my overactive imagination or self-delusion, it's served me pretty well, after all it's the fairy-tale that gave me back my health and life.

My only intention for other people is to help them heal in any way I can and help progress the planet's condition in general. I'm willing to be wrong and to believe in something that may not even be there because the benefits are so many, and I have no desire to kill or harm others, and should I ever come to a point where I want to harm others for not believing what I do, I will seriously start to question myself again. Like you, I have a low tolerance for seeing others suffering, so I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I found out that I was somehow adding to their suffering.

I do believe in the "after-life" though not in the Judeo-Christian sense of it. And like you, I used to believe that we just died and that's it. But based on some experiences I've had with traveling outside my body, and seeing even when my eyes were closed or physically blind, I can't really deny the existence of something more to reality than the understanding of the physical world we have now. That evidence is just too compelling for me to deny the existence of a soul, or an aspect of us that survives death. I don't necessarily believe the explanation is "supernatural" either--I just believe that the explanation is a natural one that science is working on but hasn't yet achieved. That said, I do recognize it as existing.

[nimchimpsky]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Then they have their government to blame.
I mean isn't it the government's job to take care of the citizens who can't take care for themselves?

True but they at least get government support and those in 3rd world countries lack government aid.

The government is imperfect. I know people with real disabilities who really suffer who got turned down for disability benefits time and time again. I know homeless people who can't apply for benefits because they require a mailing address. I know people who can't get food stamps because they make enough money to not be considered an "emergency case" and yet they still don't make enough to feel themselves or their families well. (For example, when I applied for food stamps, they waited until I literally had NO savings left before giving anything to me. Someone who's perpetually making $200/month may never be eligible for food stamps, but that might not be enough to get by because they have other non-food-related needs.) These people are living in first-world countries but are still suffering.

Financial poverty is also only one of many ways people suffer. People may also suffer health-wise. Even if they receive benefits, that doesn't cancel out the symptoms people experience from their illness. I know people who can't sit, stand, or lay down because all three are too excruciatingly painful. I know people whose chronic pain is so severe they haven't moved from the same position in years. One woman I know has been in the same position for 12 years, and happens to live in a Norway, which has great benefits for its citizens. If there's a place to be sick or disabled, it's Norway. They have disability benefits, they're married, they have a home, but they're still suffering.

There are even people who are finically well-off, are physically healthy, have loving families, eat well, do their hobbies, enjoy and engage themselves in life. But through all that, they are gay or transgender and haven't told anyone. They don't feel like they can tell anyone, and so they are forced to live in the with the wrong sex or in the wrong body. Even with an outwardly luxurious life, something like that can cause a lot of internal suffering.

There are many ways people suffer. We can't even begin to presume we know each person's suffering. Suffering is hardly restricted to third-world countries, and it's hardly restricted to financial poverty.

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Originally Posted by Moosketeer No, the essence of love is that it can't make you do anything against your (free) will.
Like the Bible says: 'love only asks' so love can never demand anything.

Because life cannot exist without death, or in other words without death life loses all its meaning.
Pain and suffering exist because an organism's survival depends on the ability to feel pain.

In short: without pain, suffering and death man would not need to be intelligent or become sentient. Once again there is pain and there is pain, being gang raped and having your yet unborn baby ripped out of you will not make you any more intelligent or sentient a person, allowing evil acts hardly shows love

Why are you looking at other people?
I mean, I know for sure that I can become rich too by not giving a damn about others, yet I'm not rich.
Nor am I poor, but I've chosen not to be selfish, thoughtless greedy and nasty in order to become rich.
Could this be because I realise that without love being rich isn't worth anything?I wasn't talking just about financial wealth , but excellent health, social recognition, etc... those people seem to get whatever they want and enjoy the fruits of other people's labours. You bet I am looking at other people, not comparing them to me because I am one of the lucky ones but comparing them to people who trulysuffer the worst of pains through no fault of their own

No the only logical conclusion would be the realisation that only the living suffer.
Or that eternal happiness is no happiness at all; you can't feel happiness if you not also have experienced pain. I don't expect any of us to be happy all of the time, that would be hell IMO and yes we do need some struggle and challenges in life to understand both sides of the coin to a certain extent , once again , example of the same woman above, I don't think she got to find much happiness through her appalling ordeal. The opposite would be true in fact. Ever heard of Balance ? There has to be a balance and not all pain is equal

Does it?
To me God=love and I believe that free will is essential when it comes to love.
Just because I love someone does it mean that that person should love me back.
Would it not be incredibly selfish of me to demand that a person should love me simply because I love her? Well God doesn't love humanity and he/she seems to demand love back.... Worshipping, praying, "spreading" the truth, sounds like a real mature creator who needs a lot of adoration but isn't ready to give anything back

Be that as it may but without modern science religion is unable to nuke a whole continent with a simple push of a button.
So modern science is far worse than religion because it is far more efficient in killing than religion will ever be.
It is also a sad fact that it is far easier to kill with modern science than it is with religion. And because of modern science (read: guns) children have become as dangerous as adults. what you mean is modern science's effects are more immediate, I would argue that religion is far more insidious and just as damaging, it just looks generally more benign than an Atomic bomb granted but its tentacles in many ways far more reaching and one could argue far longer reaching , science is often dangerous but once again religion has its own dangers such as the corruption of the human mind, intellect and spirit IMO

Can I conclude that you don't believe in God because He allows suffering to exist?
If you eliminate all suffering in existence you would also have eliminated love ( and thus free will).
Or don't you believe that love 'hurts'?

I do not believe in a God because I have never in 43 years of my life seen any evidence he/she does, no proof whatsoever, because it makes no logical sense whatsoever, however if I was proven wrong and he did exist then he certainly would not merit our worshipping and adulation IMO, Philosophically the best I could think of regarding a creator, is that he/she created the Universe, got bored and then left us to our own devices and went to play an everlasting game of galactical Golf or maybe just snuffed it , maybe the effort was simply too much. That is the only version of "God" my tiny mind could comprehend because anything else is beyond repugnant quite frankly