The News and God

[Mooria]

I wonder if anyone can help, i am a chrisitan, and believe strongly in God, But last night i was watching the News and Couldn't help wondering where on earth God was during the Chinease Earthquake and Burmease Cyclone. Those Poor Children, Families. it actually made me cry. Can anyone provide me with some sort of Spiritual Guidence - Village Vicar are you about ?? TIAx

[jake-the-peg]

"Why does God allow suffering?" is one of the oldest questions in the Christian and indeed many faiths.

It's also the one that seems to be at the root of why most Christians who lose faith do so.

Many athiests feel born that way but for those who started with a religion and set it aside it was their inability to get a sesnible answer to this question that lay at the root of it.

CS Lewis called it atheism's most potent weapon.

The typical Christian answer is that our free will and sin is at the root cause yet when you see the massive death tolls in disasters like you mention and see corruption continuing to prosper elsewhere it seems pretty hollow.

Incidently I saw a picture yesterday I think will stay with me for ever. A Chinese survivor on a motorbike with this dead wife riding pillion tied to him - he was taking her body to the morgue.

I suspect most of the answers you get will boil down to telling you that you can't hope to understand the mind of God and you just have to have faith.

I hope they safisfy you

[monkeyeyes]

Apparently, God will show his prescence and his grace in the shape of the comfort and the support he offers to those devastated by these terrible, terrible tragedies...............I've always found that to be a bit of a circular argument.

[Booldawg]

Well if you're a Christian then you'll also beleive in the devil; maybe its his handy work? Theres a balance of power between good and evil in this world.

[keyplus90]

Of course certain things we can not understand. That is the difference between the creator and the creation. However natural disasters must have a reason which we may not understand.

I can give you Islamic perspective and it would be better if I give you few links to read yourself.

http://islam.about.com/od/currentissues/a/disa sters.htm

[WaldoMcFroog]

I personally agree there is no creator, but given that surely implies that events such as the earthquake and cyclone are undirected events, how can their victims possibly deserve their fates..?

If they are undirected events, those affected are necessarily blameless victims of indicriminate, natural catastrophe.

[Mooria]

Thanks for you help, i am sure that i will find away around the confusion, My faith in God has got me through so many bads things, that i don't think it will ever lapse because of what has happened, but I probably need to 'top' it up. I am sure that through prayer i will be able to find so reasoning behind those television images.

[Doc_Spock]

What a ridiculous notion that an entity exists which/what,or who is referred to as god.

We exist, end of.

All things bright and beatiful ???


where was god when I trod on a slug to-day.

[Doc_Spock]

Mani, please stop referring to "our" heavenly dad.


My dad is a rotting corpse in a cemetary somewhere.

[pimlico]

Of course you're all looking at this from a human perspective. No doubt zebras think, 'why did God allow my baby to be eaten by hyenas?' to which you would reply in a superior way, 'well it's all part of natural selection, the food chain, the balance of nature bla bla bla.' If you persist as seeing God as a perfect (or imperfect) father sitting up there somewhere making decisions about us humans, then you're bound to be disappointed. God is the earthquake, the cyclone, the universe, everything in it. You're part of it, not the spoilt child. And if you think things are chaotic and random, then why doesn't it all fall apart? Stop looking for the big daddy!!!!!!

[monkeyeyes]

Doc - He will send his grace to comfort and bolster Mr and Mrs slug who have suffered the death of their child............I guess that makes the slug just collateral damage in this scenario !

[Doc_Spock]

Thanks monkey, I feel much better now.

[cado]

it made me cry too. i saw a little boy was about to get his arms amputated by the doctors and he be begged to have at least one left so he could write. this hurt so much, i woke up thinking about this child and shed many tears for him. god if you do exist, where are you?

[monkeyeyes]

As should we all, apparently.

I have never been able to fully understand the arguments offered by those of faith for Gods indifference to suffering.......

[Doc_Spock]

As I see it, the problem with our species is that we think we are the bees knees.


We need to know everything and cannot accept things like every other living beings on the planet.

What we don't understand some of us say " well that's gods work "

All mumbo jumbo if you ask me.

I cannot explain how everything came to be but I know it wasn't a bloke on a cloud with a long white beard.

[Octavius]

If you are looking for spiritual guidance, then perhaps you need to focus on how you could help these people rebuild their lives.

In war or natural disaster there is no merit in allying blame or fault or reasoning, we just have to do our best in humanitarian assistance to help our fellow humans, whatever colour, creed, culture or strand of society they may be - to cope with the outcome of this cataclysm and get on with their lives.

Life goes on. As with the story of the footsteps in the sand, it is a duty on all of us to help them get through this tragedy.

[keyplus90]

I agree with Octavius, My belief is that this whole life is a test as I said before as well. God tests few with hardships and few with prosperity. Test of patience for one whereas test of the generosity for the other. Would he help the first or try to accumulate more which surely he knows is not going to take with him once he die.

If we think the test of patience is easier than the test of wealth, prosperity and health. Which many always fail. And that is the reason of unequal distribution of all the sources in this world. One is dieing of hunger and the other is obese because they eat too much. One is spending millions on things like alcohol, gambling, and other things in life which always bring grief at the end any way, where others do not have enough to survive. List is endless so I would leave it here and yes the only thing we can do is to help these and any people the best we can, because that is our test.

[ludwig]

Boy, that's some harsh test crushing someones kids under a ton of masonry keyplus. What would the criteria for passing that be? If you quietly grieve for the rest of your life you go to heaven, but if you become bitter and take it out on others you go to hell?

[keyplus90]

How would you really take it out on others and exactly upon whom?