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This is appropriate here...but only a few will understand it...more for mountainrose...
"When you continue to ask the question, you continue to practice the vibration of the question, which is different than the vibration of the answer.
But when you quiet your mind, so that you are no longer keeping the question active,
then the answer can come to you. Because you are not holding yourself in the tension of the unanswered question."
This is appropriate here...but only a few will understand it...more for mountainrose...
"When you continue to ask the question, you continue to practice the vibration of the question, which is different than the vibration of the answer.
But when you quiet your mind, so that you are no longer keeping the question active,
then the answer can come to you. Because you are not holding yourself in the tension of the unanswered question."
And let's not forget active participation/elbow grease.
It’s the LEVEL of evil and suffering on this planet that keeps me struggling with the image of a loving God.
Yes, it’s easy to see the weaknesses in mankind that have caused wars, suffering,and genocide, but I just can’t buy the story that it’s man’s fault for this level of suffering because the bucks stops with God, as the original creator of EVERYTHING.
Watch how a cat enjoys the suffering of a mouse it’s caught as it pulls off a limb and then lets the mouse go so it can have the fun of catching and torturing it again as it tries to hobble away terrified. That level of evil was not caused by man’s sinning or disobedience to God. GOD CREATED EVERYTHING, EVEN THAT— where’s the love in that?
Look at the twisted deformed suffering of little newborn babies that are born with such painful maladies and have not even had a chance to even sin yet.
I do believe there is an intelligent creator behind all this amazing universe, but I stumble with trusting in the LOVING image.
Yes, there is love and poignant goodness along with the evil. But it’s the LEVEL of evil that gets me. I don’t see it as just for our teaching — hey, slap me in the face and I’ve got the teaching how bad violence is — I don’t need to see a young girl gang raped by ten men and left to die in a gutter......it’s the LEVEL.
I'm a former Christian, and the "problem of evil" never made sense to me based on the concept of God that Christianity teaches. But I wonder, what if (big if), the "loving God" is us? In other words, what if each of us is just a temporary physical extension of the consciousness that is the Source/Foundation of our reality?. And what if it was a choice we made to experience this reality as these extensions for some reason (perhaps to expand and grow and evolve)? If "I/we" made a choice to experience life as "pleroo", for me, it removes some of the angst.
Starvation is usually caused by over-population. Human populations used to be controlled by high infant mortality, low fertility in hard times, etc. Now nothing controls it except birth control, which not everyone can get and not everyone wants.
When there are too many deer in the woods, because of not enough predators, some of them starve.
Nature takes care of keeping things in balance, but we humans interfere with our short-term solutions, leading to long-term dilemmas.
Since this is in the Religious boards, and being that we are supposed to pray to God for our needs...if there are 100s of 1000s of starving or thirsty people out there that cannot find food or water for some reason...why is God not MAKING food/water just show up for them?
One bible story is how they fed over 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish...God just 'made it so'..he made the extra food 'materialize' (for lack of a better word), so it would definitely be within Gods power to JUST MAKE a dried up well, suddenly start spouting water again (and never dry up again), or just make food come in the same way, fill their pantries full, etc..?
Evil is to intentionally inflict harm i.e robbing one of innocence, murder, purposefully leading one astray, etc.
On second thought, evil is a human construct as it does not apply to the animal kingdom(s).
You have the real answer: "Evil" (and "levels of evil") and what is "Good or Bad", "Right or Wrong", are all just human constructs.
I see The Universe/ALL (God) as being exactly how it should be. If there is a "reason" for it all...it is beyond human comprehension to know what that is.
How can God (ALL/The Universe) ever be Bad, or Good, or Wrong, or Evil? It just "is".
Religious writings explain this metaphorically: "I Am".
This is where people get messed up...taking the metaphorical and allegorical writings in ancient theological texts and trying to assess them from a literal standpoint.
This is appropriate here...but only a few will understand it...more for mountainrose...
"When you continue to ask the question, you continue to practice the vibration of the question, which is different than the vibration of the answer.
But when you quiet your mind, so that you are no longer keeping the question active,
then the answer can come to you. Because you are not holding yourself in the tension of the unanswered question."
I love the deep truth in this. it is so well-stated.
Thank you for sharing it....
I have experienced that truth so many times in deep silent aware presence with various inquiries. And have come to trust in it for answers.
But what attracted me to your thread was this particular burning enquiry I have had of the LEVEL of suffering and evilness that’s here and had been with me for decades without any answer even in deep stillness, and kept a distrust going in me of a truly loving god, loving universe — until one time during a long seven day silent retreat I broke into sobbing tears with this immense humility and intense experience of “surrendering” to the mystery of it all.
Letting go of the “need to know”.....I still grapple with it occasionally and have to sit in silence with it and then that letting go happens again.
But I’m still quite curious how others have come to an understanding or are dealing with it.
I'm a former Christian, and the "problem of evil" never made sense to me based on the concept of God that Christianity teaches. But I wonder, what if (big if), the "loving God" is us? In other words, what if each of us is just a temporary physical extension of the consciousness that is the Source/Foundation of our reality?. And what if it was a choice we made to experience this reality as these extensions for some reason (perhaps to expand and grow and evolve)? If "I/we" made a choice to experience life as "pleroo", for me, it removes some of the angst.
Very interesting.
But how do you reconcile a Hitler or Pol Pot or a serial raper then?
Are you saying they chose to evolve or experience reality as something that brings suffering and destruction to others?
Very interesting.
But how do you reconcile a Hitler or Pol Pot or a serial raper then?
Are you saying they chose to evolve or experience reality as something that brings suffering and destruction to others?
I wouldn’t think we choose the specific life experiences we will have. But it makes sense to me that exploring and partaking of this physical reality has the potential/inherent risk for feeling very disconnected from who we are and therefore behaving in ways that are varying levels of dysfunctional. Growing pains?
Yes, it is all incredible, but it is animated. Animated creations make choices of various degrees.
But SOMETHING (I call it God) created the ability, created the possibility, created the energetic impulse to choose evil.
The buck stops there for me — why create such a horrific LEVEL of suffering and evilness to even be available on this planet?
Many of the religions and belief systems say it’s here for our teaching, our evolving — how we respond to the suffering. I just find the need to create this LEVEL of suffering as some type of spiritual teaching to be quite spiritually confusing and disheartening .....
The Buddha spent his whole teaching on how to escape the suffering, so did Christ, so did the Advaita teachers.
I don’t see why the level of evilness and suffering has to be so EXTREME in the first place on this planet just for a teaching if there’s a loving God behind it.
I wouldn’t think we choose the specific life experiences we will have. But it makes sense to me that exploring and partaking of this physical reality has the potential/inherent risk for feeling very disconnected from who we are and therefore behaving in ways that are varying levels of dysfunctional. Growing pains?
Most of us have seen the cruelty of immature minds and we shrug it off as part of growing up. This belies the fact that if allowed to remain immature the human animal becomes the most efficient, effective, selfish, and dangerous animal on the planet. There's the rub. God is NOT controlling us. We have to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainrose
But SOMETHING (I call it God) created the ability, created the possibility, created the energetic impulse to choose evil.
The buck stops there for me — why create such a horrific LEVEL of suffering and evilness to even be available on this planet?
Many of the religions and belief systems say it’s here for our teaching, our evolving — how we respond to the suffering. I just find the need to create this LEVEL of suffering as some type of spiritual teaching to be quite spiritually confusing and disheartening .....
The Buddha spent his whole teaching on how to escape the suffering, so did Christ, so did the Advaita teachers.
I don’t see why the level of evilness and suffering has to be so EXTREME in the first place on this planet just for a teaching if there’s a loving God behind it.
Neither the suffering nor the level of it has anything to do with God's Will. We have Dominion here. Suffering does NOT exist to teach us but we must mature enough to despise it and want to mitigate or eliminate it. Religions and ideologies have been the way society sought to motivate and encourage that maturity but the "salt has lost its strength" and the "old wineskins have lost their ability to contain the new wine." It must be "poured into new wineskins."
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