If there is a God, why do so many bad things happen? @ecotrain Question Of The Week
This week the @ecotrain chuggs deep into the forest as we delve into a loaded question that is sure to bring up a lot of feelings. The Question "Why do bad things happen", as opposed to, "If there is a God, why do bad things happen" is very different. If there is a God, implies the deeper question of, "If there is a God how could s/he let bad things happen?" Is that not what this question asks?! This is a topic that we discussed in school many years ago, when pondering how God could have let the Holocaust happen, and how and why in general there is so much suffering in the world. If there is a God then why the heck isn't everything beautiful and perfect all of the time? Why would God want us to suffer? These are the questions that I will delve into and more on my answer to this question of the week!
WHAT IF....
What if you were free?
To Choose for yourself,
Whatever You wanted?
What would you choose?
F R E E D O M ?
A fREE wILL unIVERse?
DUALITY!
Would you want to be a slave?
Would you choose to be good or be bad?
iS THere such a thing as too much freedom?
Are we the right ones to judge Gods parenting skills?
Ok so many questions I know? I mean does God even exist in the first place.. That is a very important part of this question, and somewhat implied by it.. SO i will get to that later ... The last question I just wrote, "are we the ones to judge Gods parenting skills" is a good question to ask I think. Many of us are parents, and we do for our children what we feel they need and is in there best interests. I'm sure as a child I questioned some of the punishments I received, and from my child’s perspective it seems like they are so wrong for doing the things they did. As parents though, when we look down at our children who are crying and screaming, and they are saying that we are SO mean that we don't let them have another chocolate ice-cream ... we know as parents that whilst we do give our children freedom, we also guide them toward their long term needs and health.. even if that means a bit of tough love sometimes. So, ultimately if you do believe in God and want to read the short answer then you really need read no further! If you do believe in God then all you need to focus on is your love for God and being surrendered to life. That is enough because the philosophical question of why God does allow so much suffering in the world is one that takes quite some thought and soul searching.
If you are cosmically minded, like I am, you may understand that not only is this Universe seemingly infinite, but that there are also infinite universes existing. We live in one universe of an infinite number of them, and this Universe has some very special features! One of the most unique features of this Universe is the notion of free will. Whilst we may take it for granted, we are all born with free will, and choose to exercise it or not according to our will power. Some people with very strong will power are able to dominate and shape our world, and others become victims in a dualistic world. I say dualistic because that is a second very special feature of our universe! We live in total duality, and we can find it from the very smallest of things to the very largest. Where there is Good there will be bad, where there is happiness there will be sadness, where there is light there will be dark. We live as male and females, and have a sun and a moon, and earth an a sky. Our entire consciounses is built upon the foundations of duality and that pervades this entire universe. What we do here, the opposite happens there. To really understand this we have to take a lesson in either metaphysics, or religion. If you study religion then you can learn this Universal Truth by understanding Karma. Karma is built right into the Universe, and is the way in which balance is kept in the world. It is not just about good and bad, but more fundamentally about creating and maintaining balance in the smallest things to the biggest things. In the bible it states "an eye for an eye", and I believe it is talking about Karma. This is a very easy way to understand why so many bad things happen in the world.
According to the law of Karma, it would be fair to say that approximately 50% of things that happen are bad! Not always of course, and it depends where you are looking. But do you start to see my point? We LIVE in a dualistic world and so we will always have bad things happen, and equally will also have good things happen. What really shapes our view of reality is our perspective, and our character. Learning to see the glass half full or half empty may shift ones view of the world entirely.. What IF, for example, this question was titled, Why is there so much Good in the world? Just by asking a different question we can shift our whole view of things. We are subtle beings, with very flexible minds, and we are not always well placed to really say what is right or wrong, good or bad. We are all like little children dancing around on the stage of life.. playing our part in a divine play.. and most of us don't even realise we are on the stage! The curtains will close, and we will remember so much more about the world, the universe, and our place in it.
Have you ever noticed how you can tell a story about a pretty terrible past event that may have happened years ago, and you are able to do so, at least sometimes, with a smile, maybe even a laugh? When we look back on things just a short few years ago, they seem almost laughable today. We may even laugh at ourselves for how angry or upset we got in the heat of the moment. It is with time and perspective that we can learn to see things in a different light. So, perhaps it is the same with why God would allow so many bad things to happen here on earth. What seems so terrible to us, is but a fleeting moment in the eternity of all that is.. and who knows what great lessons and teachings we are learning whilst playing our part in this divine play.
So, as for whether there is a God, that is the question only you can answer for yourselves. God only knows the answer to that! One thing is for sure, which is that something or someone created this incredible world, and that someone has a greater intelligence or power than I can even imagine or conceive of. Maybe we are just a part of a great cosmic experiment. Maybe that is what life is, just a very grand experiment on ourSElf. I believe that God created this entire universe to learn more about Love.
When you are Love, and love itself, and only love, you can not know what you are. When you are only pure divine love, it is timeless and it is silent. This dualistic world was created because the way to learn what Love is, is to experience what Love is not. To understand what kindness is, we have to witness meanness and selfishness. To appreciate what Love is, we have to have tasted hate. The more we expand one, we expand the other as duality is always polarised. The more happiness you experience, the more and deeper the sadness you will know as well. This is life, and this is why we are here. It is not always so terrible that bad things happen. What is terrible is when suffering happens. We can avoid the majority of suffering in our lives through surrender or detachment, which is simply accepting the inevitability of there being good and bad, and experiencing them without needing or rejecting either.
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I enjoyed reading this to some extent. There are many points I'd be inclined to agree with, and a few I'd argue a different view. Your last sentence strikes me as one I would disagree: "We can avoid the majority of suffering in our lives through surrender or detachment, which is simply accepting the inevitability of there being good and bad, and experiencing them without needing or rejecting either."
Surrender to suffering can never be a Good thing, nor do I think suffering can be avoided. Like you said, there is good and bad. Assuming suffering is bad, it is implied to be a part of life, a part of 'karma'. And so I would argue that suffering cannot be avoided and can only be elevated with a head-on approach, and I daresay it's the engagement with suffering that breeds acceptance.
thanks for commenting lorvain!i understand what you say.. of course we should not invite or put up with suffering when it happens.. but with our thoughts we make many things much worse than they need to be.. through surrender we dont need to know why any more.. we can accept
It's entirely likely I've somehow misinterpreted your meaning when you suggest surrendering. And I would agree immensely with our thoughts making things worse than they often need be. I may need clarification, in truth.
Would you suggest that accepting suffering happens leads to peace with it?
Cheers in advance, mate!
ok, well.. surrender is one of those really hard to get things.. i dont think many people really understand it.. i think the way I would put it is that you can not really suffer if you are truly surrendered..
so i would say yes, accepting suffering happens is a part of it.. but we still do suffer even when we accept. .. although you can suffer less when you accept.. But.. i think It is only with True surrender though that suffering doesn't really even exist... but that truth is known only by people with incredible love and connection with God.. and who have truly transcended dualism..
these are, of course, my own opinions!
An interesting point you've made, I thank you for it.
I would ask what exactly you mean by surrender in that case. Acceptance of suffering is, of course, one thing, but I would argue that surrender to it seems a different thing entirely.
What is "True surrender?"
ok, now you ask i will point you to a very special post i wrote not so long ago.. I think i managed to explain it well there!
https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/the-path-to-enlightenment-part-7-of-9-detachment-equanimity-and-surrender
First and foremost, what you've provided is a beautiful piece of text. I am so far inclined to agree, to some extent, with a lot of what is touched upon. Especially, "When we attach too much importance to the results of our actions, we limit ourselves and also effect the nature and quality of our actions." Key part being too much. But that in and of itself is a powerful statement, and one I would argue true.
I do, however, have a bone to pick, so to say. A lot of what is translated to meaning stems from the presumption of God. That becomes a can of loose worms when considering the original question at hand: "If there is a God, why do so many bad things happen?"
In which case, I would ask what exactly is God?
Cheers for the consistent replies, @eco-alex. This discussion has given me plenty of food for thought and, in some sense, allowed the freedom to think.
Thank lorvain!
Your right this question assumes god exists to answer it! Im so. Sneeky ;) thank you for reading and great comments!
Good and bad are labels created by humans. Nothing in nature is good or bad it just is. God/ the gods are nature not mankind. They have their order to the universe not good and evil.
I think that's too simplistic. The ideas of Good & Bad are extremely profound. For example, there is moral good, such as not killing another person. Food can taste good, but that doesn't mean it taste moral by any means. Another way to look at the principles of Good & Bad might be Order & Chaos, which I would say nature is a prime example of those two principles clashing.
But moral good is also humanist. Would you say A wolf is bad for killing a deer? A toad for killing a fly? An alligator eating it’s young? We may consider these bad, but would a god? The more we learn about nature the less I believe chaos exists. You are certainly correct good and bad does exist because we exist. And I would most definatly say a person killing someone is a terrible thing. Very interesting topic! 😊
Not at all. I would consider them a natural part of the life of animals, and that to us it isn't a matter of Good or Bad. It is a matter of survival and sustainability. They must kill in order to survive, and to some extent so do we. Living things need to consume, basically.
Let me ask you this, do you think, if given the ability to, a deer would consider it Bad if a wolf killed another deer?
I ask because I would say that to a human, considering our ability to think on such a critical level and in an abstract sense, the principles of what constitutes as Good & Bad are much more than natural phenomena. And I would suggest that through observing Chaos in ourselves we have created these concepts. We know it's morally Bad to kill another person, likely because if people didn't have that moral then there would be mass killings all the time. We would essentially be animals.
Also, cheers for the response. I agree, it is a very interesting topic and your engagement is appreciated. It's got me thinking, haha.
No problem 😊 For me I would say with the deer question that would be personification of a deer. Ie Human characteristics. We know neadrathals has morals and were much smarted then portrayed by the mainstream. They had elaborate Barrial rituals and clearly thought of life after death. We could assume then that good and bad are not limited to humans alone... now you got me thinking! But that’s what we are here for! Wish you the best! Following
Ah, but that's were the crux of the issue lies. In your first post you said that Good & Bad were labels created by humans, but now you suggest morals are more than purely human.
So, I suppose the question now becomes something like, "Do the principles of Good & Bad affect morals?" Plus one-hundred others. Man, this rabbit hole keeps getting deeper, haha.
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Excellent question and insight! I hope to answer this one when i have an hour or so to sit....
Its because of the tricky questions around whether gods exist that after many years of intermittently thinking on the subject, I conciously decided to give up and became by default an apatheist. I have decided the question, and the answer are irrelevant. If gods exist and control our universes, we cant see it, smell it, touch it, hear it or taste it, therefore they have literally no bearing on our lives; gods arent like parents because they dont communicate with us, they dont say 'Thou shalt not kill, and here is why', they say nothing; our morals are partially innate and partially learned from other humans.
So gods, and whether they exist are a distraction from what we should be really putting our energy into, caring for one another, and being responsible stewards of our small corner of the multiverse.
Freedom is another illusion, none of us are really free. Your unconcious mind makes most of your descisions for you, before you even know about it. Dont believe me, try changing a small routine, like brushing your teeth before you shower. How successful you are in changing what apparently is a minor and totally free part of your life, depends how much effort you put in; but there is the rub, if you dont make effort to remember, then you will fall back to your old pattern quickly. So if it takes effort to change such things, are we really free to change them? How many other things in your life are just unconcious responses to external stimuli, or habitual patterns that you follow without the slightest thought or consideration....?
I would have to almost completely disagree with you, mate. You ask the attempt to brush your teeth before a shower and then connect that with a lack of freedom because of subconscious motives. That simply isn't true. Freedom implies that you can decide to brush your teeth before a shower or you can decide not to brush your teeth before a shower.
I would argue that freedom is a state of being, not an illusion.
I don't mean doing it one time on one aspect of your life, I mean to say that we have a habitual way of living that is so automated that it's something we don't even think to question. Even if we do question it, making a permanent change is much harder than we anticipate. You may brush your teeth first on day 1 and day 2, but there is a pretty good chance that by day 3 you will be in the shower then remember you were supposed to clean your teeth first, because your habits are extremely hard to break.
Deciding to make a change is not freedom, freedom is realisation of change. A slave can decide s/he wants to be free of their masters control, but unless s/he can make it so, s/he is not.
Every bad thing that happens is as a result of our actions and we must learn to bear the consequences of our actions so let's try to take some responsibility shall we. God is not supposed to just go around cleaning our mess as we make them. If you are a good parent, you will not just spoil any child of yours by covering up his wrongs as if nothing happened but rather you teach him to take full responsibility of his actions. God is the best of parents and he wants the best for us. I think i have talked about this issue here
https://steemit.com/steemchurch/@hermannsol/god-why-all-this-pain-and-suffering-in-our-lives-49502baa96e91
This is excatly what I struggle with here with the concept of every bad thing is a consequence of our actions - of our own personal action, or human kinds actions? How can we say that illness, or life changing accidents are a result of our actions?
Our questions and all that we don't understand can only be answered by one. Why did this happen, why did i have to go through this?? All these questions can only be answered by God because at the end of the day he is the one that has designed everything and life is just one big grand plan of his. So how do you draw closer to him, to understand him and to get these answers when people will rather believer that he does not exist?
All i am saying is, only God can help you out with your struggles in finding the answers you need.
That is why he is God and knows all the answers.
A little tip i can give you on the issue is the bible in Jn10:10 talks of someone whose sole mission is to steal, kill and destroy and that he will do if you let him.
This is such a huge question, that really can be answered in so many ways, I have yet to write mine so I do not wish to give anything away by commenting to much, but I do commend you on your answer xxx
Link: https://steemit.com/steemit/@zero-infinity/tarot-tuesday-july-10-2018-edition
There is no good and there is no bad, everything is energy and energy just is. We can tap into an energy source and take what works best for us. There is so much love out there and so much beauty, our focus determines if we are able to take it and enjoy it or not. Thank you for sharing your view on this with us 💚
@eco-alex, I tagged you in the Tribe Steemup discord general chat. I can not believe the synchronization of our posts on this topic.
I hope this message finds you, great post.