A mistake many people come to live with. Why does God let the suffering happen? Basically too many people think that God is someone of excessive love. However, that is not how the bible describe God. The bible does indeed describe God as a fair, righteous and loving God, but it doesnt say anywhere in the bible that you or God should or love anyone unconditionally. That's just a myth of those who have not read the bible but would like to say that they believe in the God described in the Holy Bible. God hates those who do what is wrong in his eye. And he rewards tenfold or even thousandfold to those who do what he believes is the right thing! Namely listening to his commands and advice.

He let the "suffering" go on because he does not want to interfere with the world (yet). When Adam and Eve disobeyed his commands, they showed that they did not trust his words. They rebelled against him!
and yet again the uncountable times the jews disobeyed his commands and we can see how a big part of the inhabitants of earth today disobeys his written commands, we basically want to be left alone!

If we wanted help from God, we would not disobey his commands. If you want a teacher to help you with math, do you not listen to her/his advice and corrections? If you keep shutting your ear whenever the teacher tries to say something, does that not show that you are not willing to listen to the teacher? So what good will it be then when the teacher tries to help you, but you wont listen? Is it not better that the teacher leave you alone?

However, as we can see the unmentionable amount of suffering that is happening today, and how most people aren't quite happy with their life, it is a fact that the world does not work without the guidance of God! You cannot learn math without the guidance of a teacher!

Therefore God is letting the the humans control their own faith, also to prove a point! And the reason that the amount of time the humans have been controlling their own faith has been so long time is because God wants us to experience all kind of forms of life, that in none of them, can we be successful at teaching ourselves. he let time go so even when we have the most amazing technology and inventions, we still cant make the suffering stop. We dont know how!

Today, we have more food than we need to feed all the people of the world, but yet there are like hundred of millions of people starving everyday! millions of people are dying of starvation everyday! we already have the technology to produce enough amount of food. But we actually THROW away edible food because it doesnt look good enough for the supermarket. and because it costs much more to fly it to the poor countries, we just THROW it in the garbage. people who have 100billions of dollars just wants to make more billions of dollars. they are never going to use it, and they arent happy enough with the billions they already have, they want total world domination before they can be happy, but they never will have total world domination, they will never be happy either! Is it not weird that rich people do pots? They have the money to be happy, but they arent happy until they get high?

So tell me, is God letting the suffering happen, or are we letting the suffering happen?

uuuu...interesting story! thanks!

i have no deep comment like gacmyver (by the way, awesome comment =) but i think God is really a personal thing. whether God exists or not, it's for the individual to decide. no need to argue or pressure someone else into believing what you believe, right?

__________________

Thiên khả đạc, Địa khả lượng,
Duy hữu nhơn tâm bất khả phòng.
Họa hổ họa bì nan họa cốt,
Tri nhơn tri diện bất tri tâm.

__________________

Actually, what you believe might not always be right/correct. You might just be ignorant or haven't been shared all the info you need to decide yet. So basically you need to learn more about it before you can truly say what you believe in. If what I was saying is wrong then there wouldn't be so many religions. There would only be one religion and one non-religion (ie, you don't believe in any God). Alas, we have a handful of world-religions!

If you care, you must learn about each one and then decide! For most people, it is enough to learn about one of them before they get an epifany and decide what is true or not. But what if you like icecream better than chocolate?

gacmyver, you got a point there. It goes beyond belief because belief is simply not enough. IMO, besides knowing well the reasons why you have a religion, you probably need to go to church learn the teaching from priest at least once a weak specially the unvoidable important Sunday, not only expanding your knowledge but also have faith in what you belief to get some hope and guidance such as learning the meaning of the bible verses explained that you thought you know but don't you really know it.

About ignorance, this has some truth in what you said. I have seen people say they belong to a particular religion but when asking them to tell me the detail about their god, they were unable to tell me at least the fundamentals. May be it's a minority but some reasons and goals of their beliefs were not even there or were not expressed when asked. Ironaically, even not beeing religious I know more then people who say they are just because of reading. Sadly, seems like some basic roots are missing as true and sad as it is, some people who are religious won't even go to church anymore or fail to go to see Him. I just somehow know that some sad events happens and as unexplained and beyond your knowledge and control, you just don't have a choice to accept it as your time arrives and the destiny can't be changed.

But personnally I do believe without any kind of proof, there is someone in someway, as I may call God, protects me during my life til now. A lot of worse things may have happened to me but either I have escaped or alternate events just came along to alter the worse, so those unexplained phenomenons happens for a reason.

Pretty much sums it up for me.

__________________

Thiên khả đạc, Địa khả lượng,
Duy hữu nhơn tâm bất khả phòng.
Họa hổ họa bì nan họa cốt,
Tri nhơn tri diện bất tri tâm.

__________________

lol. so much for praying everyday. =P

__________________

Thiên khả đạc, Địa khả lượng,
Duy hữu nhơn tâm bất khả phòng.
Họa hổ họa bì nan họa cốt,
Tri nhơn tri diện bất tri tâm.

I like to be open to any and all possibilities. So I don't have just one belief. I have ideas. Does God exist? I don't know. And I won't know until after I die. So I just try to be true to myself and live my life to the fullest and do what I think is right. I have morals and values like everyone else. But they do not come from just one source, they come from everywhere. I may hold ideas from various religions, but it doesn't bother me. My boyfriend has a hard time with this because he is a devout Catholic.

I was raised Catholic, but when I was around 13 years old, I decided I was only Catholic because that's what my mom told me to be. I wanted to explore and see what was out there and choose what felt right for ME. That's what it should be I think. Religion is supposed to be a personal choice, not just tossed on you at birth and being told "This is what you are."

I got into Wicca in high school, but then "out grew" that, but still like some ideas that I learned from the religion (and Wicca is not worshipping Satan - most people do not understand what the religion is really about). I'm more Agnostic now. I'm not Athiest because Athiest say God doesn't exist but just like you can't prove he exists, you can't prove he doesn't exist either. So I just keep myself open to whatever is out there. I am not worried about what happens to me after death. I am focused on life. I like that aspect in Judiasm. They believe there is no Heaven or Hell, everyone goes to the same place after they die. They focus on life and being a good person just for the sake of being good. I like that idea. However, no matter what...life is here. Life is real. I can feel it and experience it, so I focus on life. I will just be true to myself and do my best to be happy and treat others with respect and love.