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The earth and humanity are cursed by the sin of Adam and Eve. Cancer is the mutation of DNA in cells causing a rapid multiplication of cells. Cancer among other things was caused by Adam and Eves "original sin". So a child who gets cancer is feeling the effects of the sin of Adam and Eve. The child itself may never have sinned.
god doesn't "allow" bad things to happen. First of all, there is no god. And, if there was a god she would be a woman (and probably a black woman).
Secondly, bad things sometimes happen for no apparent reason. The correct phrase for describing this is, "s**t happens."
There was an excellent book a few years ago "When Bad things Happen to Good People" by a rabbi Kushner, whose son had a very serious rare disease. He had an interesting chaos theory if I remember right.
Things don't always happen for a reason. They just happen, theres no god behind it. If there was a god behind it, that makes him an a$$h@le who deserves to be shot.
The earth and humanity are cursed by the sin of Adam and Eve. Cancer is the mutation of DNA in cells causing a rapid multiplication of cells. Cancer among other things was caused by Adam and Eves "original sin". So a child who gets cancer is feeling the effects of the sin of Adam and Eve. The child itself may never have sinned.
As far a experiencing physical pain, would you rather not feel pain say if you touched a hot stove and just have your hand burn away. So, pain is a good reaction in our bodies against something that is harmful. Should a mother and father needlessless force their child to experience pain? NO! That is abserd. But if they were going to get a vaccine shot. The temporary pain is well worth the long term benifits. I am not advocating any child abuse. So, is it God who is abusing peoples children? NO! It is the parrent of the children and they should be put on trial for their abuse.
Children shouldn't starve. But the countries that we see this happen have done this to themselves, often refussing foriegn aid. These children are starving because of evil people. When Christians and other humanitarian groups go into a country and feed people, everyone thinks it is great, but question why the people are starving and you will only get denial or anger.
Since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, this includes children aswell. So children may be innocent because they are less experienced than us but they are not innocent of the sinful nature that is on all human beings.
I think that's a pretty sick way of looking at things...Just another fear tactic to convert and control, and totally disgusting in my mind.
I haven't tried to make sense of this verse yet (haven't read any commentaries or anything). It's certainly an interesting one. But I don't know what it ultimately means. There are different kinds of evil (physical, moral, metaphysical). And "evil" is sometimes understood to be a "privation," or the "absence of good." It's the negation of something good.
And why can't the "free will defense" work if God is omniscient? I don't see the problem. God knows what we will freely choose to do. We're free, and he knows it:-)
He know what we will choose to do... yet he created us and continues to create us, rubber stamping it with his seal of approval. If there is something he disapproves of, including the sin of Adam and Eve, isn't he free to not continue to create us or to have not created us in the first place?
If God constantly interfered, then we would be dependent on him for everything we did. That, to me, seems like the very thing he would try to avoid. God does little enough to show that he's there, but not so much that we become dependent and demanding.
Foreknowledge of an event has absolutely no bearing on the choices leading up to the event! If you saw into the future, and saw that tonight Matrix would eat an apple, that would have no bearing on Matrix's choice... it is "foreknowledge", not "predestination". Vastly different.
Your example fails the omnipotent creator test: if you looked into the future (before creating Matrix) and saw that Matrix will eat an apple but didn't want him to eat an apple then don't create him! That God created this world with what the world is currently experiencing (and by your example he was aware of how it will turn out with the whole foreknowledge bit), then everything as it is now has God's seal of approval.
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But this is off topic.
Why does God allow bad things to happen? For the same reason He allows good things to happen... but in all things, He want us to know He is there to turn to.
Your example fails the omnipotent creator test: if you looked into the future (before creating Matrix) and saw that Matrix will eat an apple but didn't want him to eat an apple then don't create him! That God created this world with what the world is currently experiencing (and by your example he was aware of how it will turn out with the whole foreknowledge bit), then everything as it is now has God's seal of approval.
That is one of the most difficult things for me to swallow about the beginnings of good and evil from the religious perspective. I have a hard time believing that there is one sole entity that has the omniscience to know everything about everything but, despite all that, had {faith?} that his creation would not err and introduce evil into the world despite free will. Free will perhaps on our behalf, but wouldn't the omniscient creator still know what we were going to do as a result of our free will? It seriously does not make any sense whatsoever to me.
That is one of the most difficult things for me to swallow about the beginnings of good and evil from the religious perspective. I have a hard time believing that there is one sole entity that has the omniscience to know everything about everything but, despite all that, had {faith?} that his creation would not err and introduce evil into the world despite free will. Free will perhaps on our behalf, but wouldn't the omniscient creator still know what we were going to do as a result of our free will? It seriously does not make any sense whatsoever to me.
What my understanding boils down to is that "God" has been fixed into how humans view the world, how they wish to view the world, and "God" seems to not have certain choices allowed to him in order to make certain theological trains of thought work. In the end it's not about "why does God allow bad things to happen?" but instead is about "how can we excuse what we want God to be with what we can't ignore around us?"... and the web of stories becomes ever more tangled.
I heard a very interesting lecture by a rabbi regarding (some?) Jewish sages' understanding of how God even formed us and the universe in a world which his entity fully occupied: he restricted himself. Also, notice that the OT doesn't mince words about God being a vindictive, jealous, and often benevolent character. It seems to me that by turning away from Judaism Christians had found the freedom to edit and evolve their own concept of what they wish God to be, almost in a show of asserting difference from Judaism, and thus we have such discussions due to a deity image built on fanciful foundations.
Last edited by TwiloMike; 05-28-2008 at 08:48 PM..
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