posted
Four months ago, a good friend lost a child at birth. Last week, my wife's sister was diagnosed with cancer. These two things combined add up to a lot of questioning for my wife about why things happen.
For me, bad things, or for the sake of this discussion, "trials" fall into 3 categories:
1. Stuff that happens to you as a result of your own poor decisions. This could mean directly, such as liver disease from too much drinking, or indirectly, as in you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you did "choose" to go out that night with "those" friends. I would also lump "sin" into this category.
2. Stuff happens. I think of this as the Forrest Gump philosophy. Things just happen and we have no say in them. These are the types of things that happen to all of us and are a result of us living outside of bubbles.
3. Trials given to us by God to help us develop or learn things. Many in religious circles seem to think these happen a lot. Non-believers don't.
Personally, I think most trials fall into the second category. I do believe that God has the power to do anything, however, I don't think he involves himself nearly as much as some people think. This, also leads me to not believe much in the third category. I don't see God being the type of being that want's to "teach us a lesson". I do think, though that we should try to live and learn what we can from all experiences we have.
That being said, why do bad things happen? Is there some flaw in my reasoning that I'm missing? Got any better ideas?
posted
Why can't they fall into all three? Also, some bad things are the results of others' actions. But I think, in the end, God can help us to get through and learn from all of them.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I think 2 and 3 are the same category. I don't think God singles us out and says, Here, have a trial. I think we live in a world that has trials inherent in it. And he isn't concerned with whether we have a fun time on Earth - this isn't an amusement park. What he cares about is our ability to reveal, morally (ethically) who we are - the degree to which we are self-serving, as opposed to the degree to which we are willing to expend and sacrifice for the good of others.
So within that framework, the trials we suffer just be being human, with the frailties of our bodies and the vicissitudes of our societies, are all EQUALLY valuable in helping us discover and reveal our deepest character. Some people who lead "charmed" lives are nevertheless revealed to be the scum of the earth; some with enormous burdens to bear (when you look at them, you might think, Boy, God is sure piling it on) are examples of deep love and goodness.
God cares very much about us; but he does not have to plan out ways to cause us pain. Pain will come - self-inflicted if it doesn't come any other way. What HE cares about is: What will he/she do with it? His heart breaks for us; he worries about us. He is rooting for us to handle things well, to learn from our pain, to turn outward with our lives. THAT is his plan for us, and it's working.
I think he only fiddles with things when it is necessary to serve his own plans. Remember that to him, dying just means you're coming home from the war; you may come home wounded, but he knows that once you're home, he can comfort and heal you of all such pain.
Having lost children myself, though, I can tell you that that's a very hard one indeed. But then think how many of God's children are lost because of the choices they make, and realize that perhaps losing a child in this life is one of the few ways we can come closer to God by understanding something of his own feelings toward us. The unbearable loss of hope, which nevertheless is borne.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
I also don't believe that God gives us trials. I do believe, however, that He does allow Satan to tempt us or otherwise do things to cause us pain or suffering. And yes, the two are completely different in my eyes.
God loves us, and He wants what's best for us. He doesn't want us to suffer, but I think He also recognizes that sometimes, we need to suffer or otherwise go through some trials in order to grow, and that's why He allows them to happen.
And I also agree with 1 and 2.
Edit to add: Also, Satan works through other people, so yes, we're inflicted with pain and suffering because of the actions of others. Or what Lupus said right below this post.
posted
I don't think that God singles us out for 'tests.' However, God does give us free will to make decisions that can cause us pain (or cause others pain).
I think in general most bad things happen due to the decisions of us...or others. Many diseases are caused by our behaviors (smoking, excess drinking, lack of exercise). Things like cancer can be caused by environmental factors (ie: pollution) which we might not have caused ourselves...but other people or society on a whole did. The same goes for crime, the victim doesn't have a say in it...but the criminal is using his/her free will to harm another person.
God doesn't have to step in to give us hardships to test us or even to make us stronger. Our fellow humans are more than happy to do that for us (when we don't do it ourselves).
posted
I really have a lot of trouble believing in God... mostly for those reasons. Most of the time I think bad things happening are the weather of things, such as a hurricane smashing a person's house or a disease like cancer, it's just how things are. But, often I think a lot of things can be prevented.
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posted
Being an atheist, I think "God gave us this as a trial" is a weak cop-out, an attempt at comfort that fails utterly. (One advantage of an atheist worldview is that it makes evil very easy to explain.) In particular, attitudes like "this is not an amusement park" are, I think, supremely unhelpful.
Some evil is caused by humans; some by the essentially random nature of the universe. In either case, though, it is the responsibility of thinking beings - humans, at this stage of history - to stand together against the night, and to give aid and comfort where possible. Life is not inherently any better than we make it; but to give up, on the assumption that it's "supposed to be" that way, is itself evil - the evil of uncaring.
That said, there is currently not so much to be done about miscarriages and cancer, except what poor comfort there is in words. Remember, then : This, too, shall pass.
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posted
"That being said, why do bad things happen? Is there some flaw in my reasoning that I'm missing? Got any better ideas?"
Sure. God doesn't exist, and bad things happen because a) people -- not always the person suffering -- made a non-optimal choice and b) nature doesn't particularly care who it hurts.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I agree with the conflation of 2 and 3. Most bad things just happen, and that's just part of life. There are no guarantees, as much as we'd like one.
My most glaring incidient was when my mother died. Up until then, I figured I had lived a fairly charmed life and thought it would continue. My family loved me, I made good friends when I needed them(eventually), lots of things came easily, I got a full-ride to college when I didn't deserve it, I was doing well in college, and I was pretty. I was a princess, and everything would work out. When my mother died, one of the many adjustments I had to make was the realization that I wasn't a princess, that there was nothing special about me, and that things would not always work out...but God does still love me, even without the obvious signs of favor.
posted
In the last 2 years, my personal mantra has become "Well, it could be worse." This simple phrase, uttered a countless number of times has sustained me through:
My wife being laid off from her job and the subsequent money problems that stemmed from that situation.
The birth of my second daughter, and her immediate diagnosis of PPH. Followed by an extremely scary week in the NIC Unit. Followed by reflux and ulcers because of a no-feeding rule related to the PPH. Followed by a hyper-thyroid diagnosis to explain her current lack of teeth and 3 percentile rating for height and weight. (Keep in mind that we were fortunate that this was spread over a 12 month period )
Three months after our daughter was born my wife was diagnosed with pseudo-tumour-cerbry and uterine cancer.
Two weeks later my wife had a full-hysterectomy, and began hormone treatments at the ripe old age of 25.
A month later, she had her first brain surgery at Johns Hopkins in order to insert an internal shunt to relieve the pressure on her brain. The surgery eliminated her headaches, but only a third of her vision has returned. So, needless to say, no driving right now.
Six months later, more brain surgery to fix a problem with the shunt tube.
Once you add in all of the small day-to-day problems that we all encounter, it's been a full couple of years.
So I understand the desire to find a target to direct all of the anger and helplessness that comes from being constantly bombarded with bad news. However, having said that, I personally don't think it can be blamed on God, the Devil, or any other quirk of the universe. Part of this is my non(religious) upbringing, but another part of me excepts it as the cost of living. And the cost of living sure beats the alternative.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Also, some bad things are the results of others' actions
This is also key. What would happen if the bad consequences of people's actions were negated just to be nice? The fact that my family is being kicked out of our house because my Dad hasn't paid child support isn't exactly fun, but the full weight of the decisions he's made needs to be obvious to him. He can justify his actions to himself all he wants, but he can't justify their effects on us out of existence.
Posts: 285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I tend to fall into the "mostly 2" category. (Although we obviously see lots of #!) I think bad things happen to us because the world is flawed.Tectonic plates shift. Cells don't divide correctly. I think where God comes in is in His greiving with us, in the way He ( or She, or They, comforters come of all and no religion)leads others to reach out to the greiving.
peterh, if you have not read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People", by Rabbi Harold Kushner, you might want to pick it up. I really like his view on suffering.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Something interesting I picked up in the JW study is where James says "let no man say God is trying me" or something like that. They take it to mean that God doesn't afflict people, so no #3. I kind of feel maybe that isn't important so much as the idea that there is something not quite right in the attitude of saying "God is trying me." It would be like obeying in order to get blessings.
Maybe God causes something to happen, and the results can appear to bring trials to many. I don't think he punishes people but he has the wings of his mercy extended and if people wander away from him they are not shielded by his grace, maybe. Is just one thought.
Another thought is that if righteousness = happy life, and badness = unhappy life, no one would really know if they were choosing God out of self-interest or not. (if You're LDS there was a talk by President Faust at October conference about this.)
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quote:In the last 2 years, my personal mantra has become "Well, it could be worse." This simple phrase, uttered a countless number of times has sustained me through:
My dear friend called me a few weeks ago (early March) and told me that her father has stage 4 kidney cancer and that it's spread to his lungs. She really did not seem to want to talk about it beyond the basics, and has determined she needs to believe he will recover. So we began chatting about other things. She asked me about the weather, to which I replied, "It's so beautiful! It's been in the 40s this weekend, and this past week hasn't been bad at all, mostly high 20s and 30s..." and she interrupted me and said, "[Starlooker]? Thank you so much for reminding me that it could always be worse."
My personal belief? I do not believe bad things happen for a reason. However, I do believe that we are given opportunities to make meaning out of the bad things that have happened.
Posts: 99 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:I do not believe bad things happen for a reason. However, I do believe that we are given opportunities to make meaning out of the bad things that have happened.
I believe that.
I think one of the hardest things to take/swallow was the idea that many people put forward that it was all for the best. That life was good before, but this trial will make it all better in the end. I don't believe that. I'm all for growth and trials, but I really, really don't think the current situation is better than it would have been otherwise. It was so much disasterously worse it felt like they had lost their memory of what it was like before. I really can't see any upside at all to parents dying young. It is certainly behooven on us to make the best of the situation, but that does not automatically equal the situation is the best possible one.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
When bad things happen, sometimes the best we can do is just make it through. Hopefully, whether at that time or some later time, we can learn something (about ourselves, about others, etc.) from our experience. I think that it's the learning that can make us "better", not that the bad situation is the "best".
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