13 replies to this topic

[Laurie Ann]

First let me say that I hope that I don't offend anyone by my posting this. I've been having things personally happen to me lately (not to mention all the things on the news) that has left me wanting to know some answers to questions that until now, I've put on the back-burner because I figure one day, they'll come to me. Well, I'm tired of waiting.

First off....if there is a God, then how come all the pain in the world??? How come all the little kids are coming up murdered?? Please don't tell me that God needs them in Heaven with Him because if children come from Heaven in the first place, then why put them here, only to take them back?? How come he doesn't just keep some in Heaven with him?? He gives us these beautiful babies to love, only to take them from us in the worst imaginable way. But then there are those children out there that suffer every night, go to bed with no supper, get beat & abused, abandoned.

How is it that we are the only planet around (as far as we know) that swears a higher power made this planet, but us here on this planet, and he rules all?? How come we're not "just a planet" and we're the ones in charge of our own happiness? We're the ones in charge of our own hell?? How come there's all these certain religions when the base fact in every one is to be kind to one another?

Why in the world do we put bad people on death row for sooo long??!! As long as there's substantial evidence proving the person did something horrific, then why not put them to death the following day? Then we'd not have so much over crowding in the prisons & jails. If there truly was a God, why wouldn't he use his all mighty power to turn these people around?? I know, I know....the old saying goes "the devil made me do it...". Well, that excuse has run dry.

Why would God let a mother cry so hard because her son/daughter disrespects them in such a horrible manner...after years of unconditional love & security?? If God has all the power to create a whole planet full of people in his likeness, then why can't he use the same power to stop people from hurting one another???

I deeply apologize if any of this disrespects ones religion, but I'm looking for solid answers to these questions. I just don't understand anything anymore. And I do mean anything. Maybe after years of taking care of a sick husband, my kids, the household...maybe it's all starting to get to me. I don't know. But I'm bgining to question everything I've believed in. Nothing seems to make sense...nothing. I just don't get why?? Shouldn't God take some responsibilty in any of this?

[GiaCat21]

Laurie Ann-
There's a book I want you to read,"When Bad Things Happen to Good People", it's by a rabbi who lost his son to progeria (rapid aging disease) at the age of 14. I'll look to see if I still have my copy but I think I sent it on it's merry old way... I was told toread (andgiven it) by "THE dysautonomia guru" (who's wife is now battling the same brain cancer that killed ole Ted). See if you can get someone to watch Todd or HECK if Todd has portable O2, rent a wheelchair for the day and go to the bookstore and pick up this book. If I still have my copy I will send it to you.

You seem very depressed to me (not that I don't blame you at all)... PM if you want, I'm here for you, always.
Love,
Lex

[Corey]

As I believe, we are here to learn something. I am a firm believer in reincarnation. Each incarnation, we are meant to learn something about being alive. Sometimes the lesson sucks.
Nice thing is, you can somewhat control what you learn. If you never get in trouble with the law, there's less of a chance of you ever going to prison.
That being said, we sometimes get thrown a curve. It's those curves that are meant to teach us something. That's a piece of the design that laid out for us. It's usually something harsh, I guess so we notice it more? "Ok, yup, this sucks. I must be meant to learn something from this."
All I can say Laurie Ann is to keep your chin up, get some good folks around you, and weather it the best you can.

[Corey]

The things your going thru Laurie Ann? I'd be willing to bet that there are others that feel the same way you do, friends, family?
Wouldn't it be natural for a group of folks all going thru the same thing to kinda clump up together and help each other out?
So there you learn two things. One is that your not alone, and the other that there are people who are more than willing to help you get thru stuff.
Dwell on those helpful people for the time being.

[Laurie Ann]

Lex, thank you hun. I'm going to check out the book on-line...thank you, sweety.

Corey, I appreciate all the help. I usually don't get like this, but lately things are just ridiculous and only you guys here at GV know this. I have to let on around here that actually, all is fine inside of me. I just have to question the exhistance (sp?) of God. I don't get it, him, or anything he stands for anymore. None of it seems to make sense any more. Maybe one day, I'll pay for questioning this...maybe I won't. I just would like to know "why"?
Thats nice that you believe in reincarnation....I do too.
As far as people being able to "look into the future" (no disrespect intended here either), then why can't *THEY* stop all the crap that goes on? I understand how people can look at things and talk about the past without knowing anything...but what about those who claim to foresee the future?

I have a few awesome friends that claim they can see the future & I respect them with all of my heart. I guess I sound like a hypocrite. I'm 39 years old and I guess I'm tired of wondering about the answers to all these questions...too afraid of hurting peoples feelings I guess. But I just want answers, thats it.

There's this man that lives behind us, that sais he's a devote Christian. He and his family are wonderful folks too, they really are. I go out of my way to watch my mouth around them, so I do respect them in every sense of the word. One night, he came over to our house to check on Todd to see how he was feeling. He pretty much called Todds religion (Mormon) dangerous, that ticked me off. Then I mentioned to him that as long as you do good, help your neighbor, etc...that it's all good & God loves that. He proceeded to run verses to me from the Bible on how this wasn't good enough to get into the Kingdom of Heaven...then proceeded to anounce in front of my children that Todd wasn't going to be around much longer....I had it and with all the respect I could muster, asked him to please not mention this again in front of my kids. He said they had to know the truth and I reminded him that the kids have watched Todd from day 1 of his illness, and they do have an idea, but I refuse to have it thrown in their face. More important to me is that thye laugh & have a great time with their Daddy now. Maybe the neighbors comments snow-balled all this frustration inside of me....I don't know.

Thank you Corey & Lex for all your help. I greatly appreciate it.

[TravisBelton]

Dear Laurie Ann,I don't post much on GV but your postings have touched my heart and my thoughts go out to you and your family.You question the existence of God.  You are not alone.  People from the beginning of time have questioned the existence of God and why do bad things happen to good people.I have a theory, a belief that these things happen not because of God's lack of involvement, but because of human free will.  We have choices that we make every day.  For example we can choose to love or hate, affirm life or kill, etc....  In my view it all revolves around the choices we make.  Free will is the gift that God gave to humanity at the time of creation.  In the ancient Biblical story, Adam and Eve had the choice to listen to God or to listen to the serpent.  As you may know from the story they chose to listen to the serpent and their choice had its consequences.  Every choice a person makes has its consequences that go with it.  God does not manipulate humanity.  God does not need us, we need God and we need to interact with God according to our own free will.  I'm sure that God would like us to interact with him/her but we are not forced by God to do so.  I will stop for now.I hope this does not sound too preachy.  That is certainly not my intention.  I want you to know that I certainly was not offended by your post, I hope you are not offended by mine.<<As far as people being able to "look into the future" (no disrespect intended here either), then why can't *THEY* stop all the crap that goes on?>>Again, I would say that this stems back to a person's free will.  Certain people may have this gift but this does not mean that they can change circumstances.  These people can advise of what the out come of a particular situation is going to be, but it is up to those who receive this reading from the gifted psychic to change their own future.  It is not the psychic's responsibility to change the future.  It is our responsibility.  In the Jewish tradition, we have a concept known as "Tikkun Olam" meaning "repairing the world".  It is each persons responsibility to repair this broken world and restore it to its former beauty.  We have to strive for a world of peace and love and it certainly is not an easy task.<<There's this man that lives behind us, that sais he's a devote Christian.  He and his family are wonderful folks too, they really are...One night, he came over to our house to check on Todd to see how he was feeling.  He pretty much called Todds religion (Mormon) dangerous, that ticked me off.  Then I mentioned to him that as long as you do good, help your neighbor, etc...that it's all good & God loves that.  He proceeded to run verses to me from the Bible on how this wasn't good enough to get into the Kingdom of Heaven...then proceeded to anounce in front of my children that Todd wasn't going to be around much longer>>Even though this person had good intentions by checking on your husband, I think it was very wrong to do so the way he did by using religion.  There is a saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Jesus used this saying which he was taught by the rabbis who taught him this very important lesson.

You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.

Travis

[Laurie Ann]

~Thank you Travis ...this helped alot.

[Morbid]

Don't look to "god" with the christian or catholic views. It'll only hurt you in the end. People expect this god to be great and merciful and yet at the same time wants you to kill adulterers and stone homosexuals. It you're going to believe in a god, look into the greek pantheon. They have human emotion and make mistakes, and they aren't as motherly as some say the christian god would be.

I personally don't believe in any god. It's taken me 23 years to find it and admit to it, but I really don't. After all the bull I've been through, I figure there would be some sign of it, or it would contact me or help me in some way. It's failed on all accounts. Every time I would start to believe again, something in the world gets worse, thus affecting my life even more and yet again making it worse.

Of I were you, I'd skip believing in god. the more you believe, the worse you'll feel when you really look into it and find that the bearded man in the sky is just another fairy tale.

Yes, it's a downer, but I hope you can run with it and make yourself feel better.

[Cryscat]

Hi LaurieAnn

The question of suffering is a complex one and has been a huge problem for thousands of years. Different religions come up with different attempts to explain why, but no one has come up with the answer. So we all keep going and dealing with it, best as we can.

I can say you were a heck of a lot politer to the neighbor than I would have been. I would have told him to get the h--- out of my house and not to come back until he learned how to behave. I can't stand those "holier than thou" people because the inevitable is that they will turn out to be a hypocrite in one way or another. One reason why I walked away from orthodox religion. Got tired of the hypocrites and the fear mongers. It's not easy finding your own path, but some times you have to let go of what you've been taught and forge that new path for yourself. And be ready for the "you are going to hell" routine.

As for seeing into the future, my own belief is that we can see potential futures but actions in the here and now can alter those potentials for good or bad. And what can really be done? say you see a disaster in the future, who are you going to tell and who would believe you? Its a tough one.

Well, this has been my opinions. Hope they are useful.

Edited by Cryscat, 23 November 2009 - 11:01 PM.

[Laurie Ann]

~Morbid, I understand where you're coming from thats for sure. I know so many folks that do not believe in god....and they couldn't be any nicer than the ones that can read scriptures backwards & forwards out of the bible. My father used to watch Herbert W. Armstrong & Jerry Falwell every Sunday morning, preach the word of god to me & my little brother. But Monday thru Saturday, he did his drugs, called me horrific names just because I resemble my mom...he was a horrible man. But then I used to know, as a kid, folks that hated anything to do with the word of God, and would still hold family night with their children, read them stories, hugged their kids all the time & reminded them how loved they were. Go figure.

~Cryscat, I think those who can see in the future definately has a special power & is actually limited in their use. Hell, even the government knew before hand about that unforgetfull day back in September a few years back & their sourse came right from the horses mouth, yet they (the governement) didn't listen. You couldn't be more right when it comes to anyone listening....they wouldn't. But for movies out there like 2012, thats getting peoples attention (whether you believe the Myan calender), or the old radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" had folks scrambling for their lives. I definately didn't mean any disrespect towards the psychic (sp?) community as I truly think they have a gift & try to use it to the best of their ability, while teetering on the fine line of having people think they're nuts. It takes alot of guts to do & show what they know, so my hats off to them in the highest manner.

[CaveRat2]

Using logic here, (I won't get preachy either!) consider the concept of free will. God could have made a bunch of automatons; that is creatures that did everything exactly the way He wanted, sleep when ordered, eat when so ordered, bow down and pray at preprogrammed intervals, and did everything right on schedule and at the appointed time. Even who you married, where you lived and how many kids you had. You would have no choices, no opportunity for enjoying life under such a controlled concept.

Instead we get free will; do what we want when we want. Now to be sure, there are consequences to actions when you do that; there is no program running. By allowing free will variables are entered into the equation, some good, some bad.. But most of us would much prefer the second option, free will over the first, a programmed life,

So God gave us instructions, rules, commandments to follow. If we did, we could still have the perfect existence, because in His wisdom God knew the ramifications of the choices we could make. Thus the commandments. But we all know how man caued that to turn out, and how well we follow those guidelines!

So we have the consequences of OUR actions. Consider how many of the bad things in this world are caused not by God but by man. Take world hunger. God doesn't want it, He gives us an earth capable of providing enough food for everyone and a commandment to share with our brothers. So why blame God when some idiot in some little country takes over, starts some war, resulting in famine because the people can't raise their crops? God certainly didn't bring this dictator to power, man caused it by disobedience to what God would want. So how can we blame God?

Disease is another one. We my blame God, but consider God gave a lot of people a lot of intelligence to combat these problems. A cure for cancer might be developed if man simply applied himself to it. Instead these people are being used to develop new ways to kill. Is that the use of talent God intended?

Child abuse? Another issue. Read scripture and see what kind of penalties early man inflicted on those who disobeyed laws. They managed to keep people in line if nothing else. Now with our judges bending over backewards to "rehabilitate" those who simply intend more harm we have what we do today. Misfits in society and all the abuse and problems that go with it. Think God wants to see that? But still we have free will, we could put some teeth back into the law. We could fix it by who we put in power, yet we keep doing more of the same.

Finally, I know some are saying, God is Love, He would never condone that kind of strict punishment. For that answer I give one example, the crucifixion of Christ. Yes that was special case, but my example of how God feels about our laws being strict is the two thieves on either side of Christ. They did nothing more than steal, and were found guilty, and sentenced to what we would consider today an extreme penalty for mere thievery. How would we feel about a death sentence for simply stealing? Had God felt that was extreme like many of our courts today,He could easily have stopped it all. Even when one thief accepted salvation, didn't God think the guy desrevered a second chance? (Yes he was saved in the afterlife, but that is not the issue here.) God could have intervened, yet both thieves died on their respective crosses. He allowed the strict laws of man to stand. So much for leiniency....

so in summry, the problems are present, but rather than blame God we need to look at the real source of the strife. And ask ourselves, if we really made an effort to follow God's way, how much of this would simply be resolved by our own actions instead of demanding God fix everything?

[Corey]

Laurie Ann, I'm not saying that you are making the same mistake that I used to make, but let me pass along something to you.
I realized, over time, that it wasn't the FAITH that I had issues with, but the FAITHFUL. I realized that I can't decry an entire religion, just because of the actions of some of its practitioners.
You'd think someone who claims faith would know better than to do some things, but they are still people.
I've had interaction with people of a few different faiths, some great people who are an asset to their religion, others who really can give the whole thing a bad name if that's what you concentrate on. Sadly, it's alot easier so notice bad behavior than it is good behavior.
You ask why? Why this and why that? Aside from the things that we are meant to learn, we are basically left to our own devices.
People can and do terrible things to each other. What I choose to focus on are the good people and the good things. As long as there are a few good people, then we still have a chance.
We may all know alot of really crummy people, but I'd bet that we all know at least one really good person. It's that person that I choose to deal with.

[dancinmiriam]

Dear LaurieAnn, I haven't 'chatted' with you here at GV for awhile, but read your heartfelt thread and just wanted to hopefully add to the conversation. As you know, my husband is also dealing with his health issues (since a major stroke 17 years ago, he has been dealing with 5 different seizure disorders, brain damage, cancer, brain surgery, and all the resultant seemingly constant hospitalizations). We have 4 children from 23 down to 11 and so most of them have lived with his health for all their lives. Your neighbor saying that in front of your children was reprehensible, irresponsible and very un-Christ like - however 'Christian' he may consider himself. As one other poster noted, in the Jewish tradition, the task of each of us is 'tikkun olam' or repairing the world - bringing about division in such as way as your neighbor in no way helps in that repair. When it comes to how we treat eachother, the quote attributed to Jesus 'do unto others...' has been somewhat turned around from the original rabbinical command which is ' do NOT do unto others what you would NOT want done unto you' - it is a subtle semantic difference, but my suspicion is that your Christian neighbor was following what he felt was the commandment, as he was surely 'doing unto you', rather than taking the time to put himself in your place and NOT do unto you what he would NOT want done to him. I truly understand asking yourself the questions you are right now, I don't know how many times I've asked myself why this man, why me, why MY children - and in fact, hearing someone else ask those same questions, feel that same agony of soul, helps in some way to see at least with a different perspective and maybe there is some kind of small answer in that. Also in the Jewish tradition, we say a prayer at all services - a 'refuah shlemah' - or almost literally a 'healing peace' which generally asks for 'wholeness' rather than miraculous cures of illness - that whomever is suffering finds whatever wholeness is possible in the experience of their illness - rather that the wholeness is one of soul and if the body experiences healing as well that is just a part of the 'healing'. Well, there I went again getting long-winded - but hope you and Todd and the children all find wholeness and real 'refuah shlemah'!

[J.E. Seanachaí]

I have found myself asking many of the same questions that you have voiced on this forum, and I don't think we'll ever fully understand the reasons behind the horrific problems that occur here on Earth.

I think if we examine that last word in the previous sentence, we might catch a glimpse of the answer. I tell myself that I'm on EARTH. EARTH is not heaven. EARTH is not perfect. EARTH is not ruled by God. EARTH is the devil's playground. Things on EARTH happen for a reason.

Do you know the story of Job? When I have troubles and question the horrible things happening around me, I think of his story and know that I am not alone.

I'll put a link to Job on this post: Job, Chapter 1