Misguided questions about stuff including...

-Drelin,

Have you read The Case for Faith yet? I have just started. Looks like it will answer your questions quite well. I suggest you pick it up. The very first chapter tackles your question about how can a good and loving God allow pain and suffering in this world.
 
I tell you what, if you could, I'd appreciate a simple and straightforward explanation for that myself.

Eon
 
Eon

because the concept of good and loving do not mean "pacifist and easy-going"

First off our Good and Loving God is better defined as this:    'Just' and 'Perfect Fatherly' God

He is a just God, but at the same time, our concept of justice is a pale imitation of His.
Perfect Fatherly.  The perfect father is always there for you, he is constantly there to instruct you and help you.  He never destroys you but he builds you with pain.  Pain is a powerful tool that can be used for both instruction and punishment.  God never said He wouldn't punish His children.  In fact God said He would.

but onto the main point of "Why would a good and loving God allow misery and pain in the world?"

I answered this earlier as "Why? Because that's why."  
In the book of Job, this question is posed, and Job answers "Will we take the good yet not the bad?"  All things happens.  It doesn't matter if what happens, happens for good or for bad.  What matters is how we react to them.  Whether we allow what happens to refresh and strengthen our faith, or we allow what happens to strangle and kill it.  
When was the last time you learned a life lesson from a happy cheerful day?  Life lessons are learned in misery and pain.  Life lessons are learned quite often through the death of those around us.  Now, as a father would I be a good father if I didn't allow my child to learn these life lessons?  How would my child act after my death, if my child never heard about death, has never felt the sting of a broken heart?  Is that a good father? No.  Doing that to my child would cripple my child.  Likewise God does not spare any of His creation from those lessons.  Because He is a just and perfect father.

Do the gods you serve want to stop you from learning these life lessons?  Do the gods you serve want to keep you hidden from view, like an overprotected child?

Why would the God of all creation do that?  Why would the perfect father do that?  




This question stems from the concept that pain should not be used as a teaching tool (i.e. spanking etc..etc.)  unfortunately no matter how you look at it, pain is a teaching tool, one that God uses, and one that parents should be using.
 
Then, either God's a twisted perverted sadist, or he's a perfect scientist.

Either case rules out fatherly love.

No *sane* parent would purposefully put his children through misery on a hope that they'll learn something and not die. No sane parent has it in him to permanently punish his child, either.

So, if God's a parent, he's one mean and uncaring bugger who should have the custody taken away from him.

I could almost accept the idea of God as a scientist though. The kind that starts off an experiment and then just goes hands-off after a while. And if it burns then it burns, ya know? Document it and move on, that's why it's an experiment.

But, no concept of God out there has anything close to the concept of love, really. It's always my way or highway, sometimes disguised, sometimes not. Free will's moot if you believe in someone above you. Everything's been decided for you, via a system of ultimate punshment.
 
Ok yes it is his way or the highway...but he knows we're not perfect and will not live up to his standards (we sin)

he gave us a way out through his son. His son took our punishment....that's love
 
God allows it because we introduced it.  Through Adamic sin, all suffering we know now is a choice we bring on ourselves, even if it appears we may not have any influence or choice in the matter (ie...because we were born in a third world country.)

Suffering has it benefits.  First, almost all our most memorable learning experiences have been through suffering.  Whether its cramming the night before an exam that teaches us the benefits of a study plan or how having to take the least of the jobs will continue to provide food on the table.  All our struggles ultimately end as learning experiences.

God would like that we learn to lean on him during this trials.  Much like how the footprints poem ends, it was during the trials that it was I (God) who carried you.  Alas, we are aslo egotistical in many of our ways and sometimes do not learn that lesson and go around saying look at what I did.  And these people look back at the footprints in the sand and continue to argue that God left them during these difficult times.

I have noticed, that God does deal with us in a very interesting way.  He always takes a situation and asks us a question about it.  For example, he asked Job if Job was there when he created the universe in answer to Jobs questions of why is there suffering.  And I think today, God would ask us the same question we ask him.  God would ask us, why do we allow suffering to happen?  He would point out that there is a great deal of people who have the financial ability, some people have time and skills, and we too are allowing the suffering to continue.

If we are the hands and feet of Jesus, why do we continue to allow suffering to exist?

Next, God does not like the suffering at all.  The wages of sin are suffering and death.  This the Holy Bible makes clear, right in Genesis.  So God, the loving and caring father he is, decided to take upon himself the consequences of our sin, of the suffering and death.  He loved us so much, he bore them to cross.

As the apostle Paul noted, he does not boast in the good blessings he has received, rather, he boasts in his sufferings, because it is through the suffering that God reveals himself.

To recap:

1.  Through our excerise of free will, we have choosen to bring into existance suffering.

2.  We (Christians) are an extension of Christ Jesus, and are able to bring the hope of Christ to those in suffering, to bring them out of anguish and into blessing with God.

3. Suffering is a catalyst to learning

4.  God uses suffering to reveal himself, even though it is we who brought it (suffering) upon ourselves.

5.  God hated the fact we were suffering so much, that he bore the consequences on the cross.  As Paul also wrote, death no longer has power over us.
 
Perhaps all your bad experiences have ended as a learning experience. Ask yourself what the 200 people who die in a major airplane crash learn. What do the victims of a serial killer learn? What does a twelve year old girl in Split learn when the Chetniks rape her, kill her and her parents and burn their home down over the bodies?

Or perhaps you think her misery is there for OUR edification.

It seems that you and I have learned different lessons from the world.

Eon
 
Mr_Eon, I don't do seances to communicate with the dearly departed. Although I am sure they learned something, either they were right in their beliefs or they were wrong.

Now, I have had my life threatened on a few occasions. No, not from here, real threats where the police had to come in and start investigating. I learned that when staring your life down like that, it is definatly not the right time to start double guessing your beliefs.

All your examples of suffering end with death. Which unfortunatly means either the victims died afraid, alone and without hope. Or they died in the knowledge of the promise of Jesus on the Cross.

But, death is not suffering to those in Christ. And neither is living in subhuman conditions, bodies riddled with open sores and disease with nothing but death creaping around the next corner. Because we are not without hope.

I recently had a wonderful discussion with an elderly gentleman on a plane trip from Winnipeg to Calgary, I was just returning from my Grandmothers funeral. He and his wife were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. The topic turned to death as we discussed the passing of my grandmother. He said "It seems to me that people today no longer fear dieing, rather they fear the manner of their death. Whether cancer, asphixiation or drowning." I thought about that for awhile before I was inspired to the conclusion, "No, people fear dieing without hope."

This is only conclusion that can be reaonably drawn for current round of political correctness.

Smoking, enviroment, food safty, water and a plethora of other controls are all because people want to control their manner of death. People are trying so hard to remove all causes of death, yet they will still die. And people still fear death.

And as the Apostle Paul wrote, we have the hope that is in the risen Lord, we need not fear death, it has no power over us.

I think I could pose the theology that as a Christian, secular suffering stopped for me. You can chop of an arm and I would merely be inconvenienced. You can take all my worldly possessions, I would merely become more dependant on God. You could take away my family and I would have more time to be with and in God. You could inflict me with a disease that will kill me tomorrow and all I would do is goto the mountain tops and proclaim my faith in the Lord. There is nothing in this world that can make me suffer!!! No, I say I do not suffer in Christ anymore.

I argue, that the only ones who truly suffer are those who do not know Christ.
 
I'll tell you what, if your God really WAS up there he'd do all those things to you just to see if you're really as full of faith as your writing suggests.

But as your faith has yet to be tested in any of those manners, it's not really worth a great deal for you to say that. Why are you a member of a comfortable industrialised nation? Progress is wasted on you - you don't need it. Why don't you get your butt out amongst the people who have no choice but to live in backwards poverty and fear? Perhaps your example would inspire them.

Eon
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Mr_Eon @ Jan. 28 2003,7:34)]I'll tell you what, if your God really WAS up there he'd do all those things to you just to see if you're really as full of faith as your writing suggests.

But as your faith has yet to be tested in any of those manners, it's not really worth a great deal for you to say that. Why are you a member of a comfortable industrialised nation? Progress is wasted on you - you don't need it. Why don't you get your butt out amongst the people who have no choice but to live in backwards poverty and fear? Perhaps your example would inspire them.

Eon
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Living in an industrialized nation has done nothing but help those who don't:

I contribute much of my earnings to helping the homeless in my city. I am starting to contibute my time where I have it. The more I give away my resources, the more resources come flowing in.

I sponsor 2 children overseas.

I sponsor community development programs in third world countries.

I sponsor programs designed to help girls and women become educated and members of the work force in third world countries.

I particpate in programs that see health care and education brought to communities where no health or education existed before.

I am saving up money to go and visit and live among people who are suffering in the hope that I may bring the message of Love, peace and hope to these people.

I have watched people whom I love dearly around me suffer as you would have me define it. My father had prostate cancer. My father in law died from brain cancer. My son had serious asthma. My mother has tomour in her leg. I have suffered financially. I had two job my wife had one, we had a new born, we couldn't make ends meet. We lived on bulk popcorn for years. Lived in appartments that were infested and the carpets stunk to high heavan because the pipes would burst everytime it got cold. My family and I lived, by your standard of suffering, one day away from the street for many years.

I stand here, right now before you. Confident with all I said in the previous post. I will do all that I said I will do. Not because I have faith that I would if I faced those types of times. Rather, because I did it when I faced those types of troubling times.

Do not think you may know me. Do not think for a moment that I look into a life I do not know or understand. Before I met christ and accepted him as my savior, I was beyond deeply troubled. Not once but twice I have had the razor blade at my wrist. Both times, it so happened that somebody managed to stumble upon me, lest I would not be here. I am fully aware of the difference between suffering without Christ and suffering for Christ.

And because I know the difference, I am more than willing to take all the blessings given to me and heap it upon those who suffer without Christ!!!
 
Fair enough - naievity clearly isn't the reason behind your statements. I apologise for suggesting it was.

Still dude, no offence meant - but I'd rather not have a father or a wife who would see losing me as a way of spending more time getting closer to God. Know what I mean?

Eon
 
God is a God who wishes a relationship as well.  I love my wife and son and the rest of my family dearly.  But always, I put the Lord first, then my wife, then the rest of my family, friends then work then school.


You'll find that all Christians have the same order (with a variance at the end, maybe some will put school before work because they are in Universty, where as my schooling is evenings), even if they didn't intend for it.  It seems to fall into this order.


To think I would want to lose anybody (ie my wife) for the soul purpose of spending more time to grow in my relationship with the Lord is an incorrect assessment of the case.  First, it belittles the value of my wife to me.  I try to value my wife (actually anybody) as much God values me.  In the case that should it happen, that my wife be called home, then I am fully prepared to fill that massive void in my life with God and his relationship.

Losing a spouse is considered the most stressful event in anybodies life.  I don't have to look far to see how my Grandfather is just beside himself with the loss of his wife, to know this as fact.  I do not wish to downgrade the sorrow I would feel at the loss (I have feelings, they are very real and they affect me in a very real way), it truly would be a great loss.  It is my faith that she will be with the Lord that will keep fill me with hope that I will see her again soon.

To a third party, it could be argued that I would suffer.  And to them, it could even be argued that I was indeed suffering.  And from that relative position, I would be suffering.

Look at it from my point of view.  I certainly would be filled with sorrow, I will not deny my feelings.  But, sorrow does not mean suffering.  Nor does grieving equate to suffering.  Actually, I find it hard to equate any feeling to define suffering.  I would be surrounded by close friends and family, whom would be lift me in prayer to God, for him to comfort me.  Seeing as God would not wish me to suffer, what can he do for me?  First, he can take away the sting and fear of death.  He did on the cross.  Second, he can fill me with hope that death is not the end, again, he did this by the resurrection of his Son.  He can take me into his arms and protect me, and he does by taking me under his wing and sending his Holy Spirit to be with me.  He can tell me he loves me.  He did:  John 3:16.  How much more comfort does one need?  He has promised Love, Peace and Hope (are these not what we ultimatly need for comfort during trying times) for those who call upon his name, and he keeps his word.

A:  To somebody outside my circumstances, it appears that I am suffering.

B:  To me, or somebody close to me, it appears that I am not.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Still dude, no offence meant - but I'd rather not have a father or a wife who would see losing me as a way of spending more time getting closer to God. Know what I mean?
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It's not that we want our father/son/wife/etc... to die so that we can spend more time with God, it's just that's the reaction we would take with that happening.  I said in my post, it doesn't matter what happens, what matters is how you react to it.  If my wife died, then my reaction would be "I have more time to spend with the Lord."  Would I be sad? Yes.  Would I be devastated? Yes.  Would I lose my faith and hope in Christ? No.

As for those that die suddenly in fear and misery or at someones hands...we are all appointed to die.  That is a given within the human condition since the fall.  Those that die, do learn whether their beliefs were correct or not, but at the same time they are no longer on the playing field.  Their time is up. Dying in a fireball from a plane bomb is no different than dying asleep in a bed, except to those left behind.  What matters now, is how their loved ones react to the misery.  Whether they nurture or strangle their faith.


But you never did answer my question.  Do the gods you server want to protect you from all harm, shelter you as if you lived inside a plastic bubble away from anything that might hurt your body soul or feelings?



damar
So no sane parent would use pain and misery as learning tools?  Where you ever spanked as a child?  Where you ever denied something?  Have your parents ever stood aside as you dated someone that they believed and rightly believed would break your heart?

Pain is a learning tool.  To teach a dog not to pee the floor, you spank it when it does.  if you are an evolutionist, then you should believe in pain and misery as learning tools, because if evolution is true then we have thousands of years evoling this highly defined tools to keep us away from things that hurt or make us sick.  And creationist, know that pain is a way to teach because it is how God teaches us, and it's in His word to use it.

onto permenatly punishing.  The only time anyone is permanetly punished is when they've gone beyond the "Father" stage of God and activated the "Just" stage of God.   God is perfectly just, the wages of sin is death, eternal death (eternally abscent from the source of life)  When we die without a saving knowledge of Christ, then we are not the sons or daughters of God, and we are fated to be punished for our works.
 
To answer your question about the Gods - no they don't seek to wrap us in cotton wool, but they do seek to spare us all the needless pain that they can.

The difference between your pantheon and mine is that Odin never claimed to be omnipotent, never claimed to have created all evil on PURPOSE as part of some indecipherable plan. So the evils I face, I face as best I can - but I do so knowing which side of the fight my Gods are on.

Eon
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Mr_Eon @ Jan. 28 2003,2:49)]To answer your question about the Gods - no they don't seek to wrap us in cotton wool, but they do seek to spare us all the needless pain that they can.
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How do they do this?
 
Well, what's a man against a giant? I imagine even the brave will fall in scores - but Thor has been fighting giants for centuries. Evil is older than man, and it's stronger - all we can do is slow it up some, fight a holding action. In the end even if we go down, we can go down hard and we can not go down alone.

People who do that are called heroes, and they inspire generations to emulate their bravery and goodness - but who inspires the heroes? That would be the God's - because our Gods and Man have a mutually beneficial relationship - we need each other.

It's a pattern you can see every day in mortal life, here on Midgard. Evil always exacts a price - and it's always the best of us that pays it. Why would the afterlife be any different - all the evil (human and otherwise) that swamps this planet has a price and us Asatruaar don't have Jesus to pay it for us - we have to get out and push on the last hill, to make sure the new world will be born free of the iniquities of this one.

And we wouldn't have it any other way. To quote Robert Heinlein
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]"Something given has no value."
Col. Dubois MI (Ret) - Starship Troopers
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Eon
 
You read Starship Troopers? Good for you. Robert A. Heinlein is pretty good, though I prefer the movie to the book and the cartoon to the movie.
AND WHERE THE HECK IS MY POST!!! I made about a seven-foot long post to Eon's thing about cotton and his gods!
 
Dude, I just checked back three pages in this particular thread, and couldn't find any questions of yours about my Gods. Sorry!

Could you repost for me? I know it's a chore, but it's the quickest way to get your questions to me, so I can answer them.

Thanks!

Eon
 
Eon

You answered the question I posed about your Gods


While it is true that most when most things are given they have no value, at the same time, there are things that we can never acheive ourselves that do.

Does life have value?  It was given to you
Does the love of your wife have value? that was given to you.

This quote is slightly out of context.  Heinlein's point was that SOMEONE has to pay for whatever has been given to you.  His (Col. Dubois) example's where always of something that you could earn (grades, a medal from a race)  Then he tied this into something that a collective earned (the freedom that their society enjoyed).  While the student's themselves had not paid the price of freedom, someone already had and that someone paid dearly.  This still similar to the gift of life.  This is a gift from 2 people to 1(or more) other(s).  The reciever can not pay for it, but it is extremely valueable still.  Christ is the epitome of this form of payment.  He paid the price of our sins because God did not want to be seperated from His creation


Now how does the existence of evil tie into an "indecipherable plan" on God's part?  Also with what definition of evil are you working with?
Evil can be defined as "disobedience towards God's laws" or "a knowledgeable decision to do harm."  
Evil is not "bad things happening due to natural causes"


Mechanical failures, weather, earthquakes, etc are not evil.  They are part of the natural world, and its system of balance.  While we can work around/predict/fight against these things they are not evil, and when people die via these things, it's sad, but it's not evil.

Evil is not something that a Christain fights against externally.  Evil is something that a Christian strives against internally.

Avatar Read the book again, it's a true classic dealing with such things as corporal and capital punishment, psychology, and the social mind of humanity.  The movie is just a pale imitation of that, striving with a vague message of "social censorship is stupid"
 
All right Eon. Here it is!
The gods seek to spare you from pain.....indeed. God seeks to spare us from sin and temptation, and his wrath, but you know: pain is a part of life. Without pain, where is joy? You need something to experience another.
Pain does one of two things: bring you closer to someone or separate you further from them.
I'll tell you something right now: God did not create evil. The fallen Lucfier, our bright Morning Star, was the first to fall, and quickly homed in on the free will of man, much alike in some ways to the free will of the sons of God (the angels and the demons), and assisted us in choosing to sin against God by not doing what he told them to do: NOT TO EAT A FREAKING FRUIT! To know what evil was, is, in a sense, ironic. They so wished to know the difference between good and evil that they committed evil against God by disobeying him and then they realized their foolishness. Again, without the law, there is no sin.
I, with most assured faith, know which side my God fights on Eon. Interesting, isn't it? Odin may not have intended to create evil, or may not have at all, and neither did my God. In fact, he will destroy it all in the end by separating all who love him from those who rejected him. And those who rejected him shall be tossed into a burning lake of sulfur, and there shall be an enormous chasm separating the saved from the unsaved. What a way to end it all.
While, though, God had no intention of creating evil, it is part of His plan, indecipherable as you stated it, but HIs Will is unknown, and not ours. Not even Jesus Christ, God Himself, knew the Will of God. INteresting, isn't it?
As to the evils I personally face: I fall. All men fall. We are born into sin, and die to it upon accepting Christ, and in true physical death, we lose our bond to the flesh and sin and go to be with Christ, or to go and be with the devil in Hell forever. Not my idea of spending eternity.
 
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