Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Does pain and suffering and injustice…

There are a great many people out there who were people of faith and then they lost a child or they suffered a huge setback…they experienced some big challenging circumstances…and in the midst of it, they lost their faith. I’m certainly not gonna judge those people. I feel for em.’ If I were in their shoes, I might come to the same conclusion.

But at the same time…and I’m not minimizing anyone’s pain or suffering…there are people who have gone through similar things that they’ve gone through, or worse than they’ve gone through, who somehow managed to maintain their faith in God.

What makes the difference…?

I just Hope Death isn’t Preferable to what those 3 Counties that Surround Mordor have in Store for US ..


Pocket Full of Shells

Yeah it certainly makes me see more clearly how gracious God has been in offering His Son to a fallen race.

The pain, suffering, and injustice in our world are all due to human depravity. The fact that we even have a sense of Justice in an unjust world suggests the Creator made things differently than what they are now.

The fact that God allows any of us to continue to exist with or without the possibility of communion with Him is a testimony to His grace.

There are many who have gone through such trials and GROWN in their faith.

That blows my mind.

Divine mystery if you ask me.

I think it has a lot to do with a person's particular brand of faith. Do you see God as responsible for every good or bad thing in your life?

Hmm I don’t know as I’ve ever really thought it through ugh in those terms. I mean… yes & no?

On the one hand God is the author of the laws that govern the universe and He continuously is active in that created order. So yeah, He is “responsible” for everything in my life.

On the other hand my willingness/ability to operate within those laws He established has a direct impact on how good and/or bad my life is from one moment to the next.

I’m a bit uncomfortable with the word “responsible” as I don’t consider myself as a creature to be in a place to accuse the creator by “holding Him responsible” but I get the meaning of your question.

My mother in law, a saintly person who has loved the Lord her God as well as a human can was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s & dementia early last year. She has finished quickly, suffering greatly. Why has this happened? Who is “responsible”?

Well I mean God made the world and provinces it good then we messed it up. Even as she suffers… and I tear up typing this… she acknowledges the Lord as her God and looks to Christ for a day of reckoning when all things (including her mind) will be made new.

We bear witness to God’s faithfulness when we take up our cross and follow our Lord through inexplicable suffering as He did, and as He promised we would do.

I don’t know if that answers your question?

This might be one of those times when we just overthink things.

Dang. That is all too familiar. Not only personally but professionally. I’ve been a PT for 29 years mostly working with a geriatric population. I’ve seen what you and antler’s last posts speak to so many times.


I’d like to have answers to everything but there is the very real issue of paradox and we just can’t see past those chasms. I’ve been through things personally that I’d never want to go through again. Did I grow? Sometimes I think yea and sometimes I think not so much. Maybe the growth is not always visible to us?

It’s beautiful to hear that your mother in law, even now, lives in the hope of the Resurrection from the dead! Maybe the story of her suffering but with hope is meant to encourage us in our lives.

I think that you would enjoy the book Surprised by Joy.

Lewis goes through his loss of faith after his mothers death. His life in the first Great War and his journey back to Christ. It’s a very compelling read. I’d say that it is similar to Augustine’s Confessions. A lot of parallels between what each experienced.

I don’t think that there’s really an argument against the existence of God…the one presented to us by Jesus and other’s in the New Testament…based on pain and suffering and injustice in the world. To me, pain and suffering and injustice in the world does not prove that that God doesn't exist. All that pain and suffering and injustice in the world proves is that the God who doesn't allow pain and suffering and injustice in the world doesn't exist.

I mean, there's clearly pain and suffering and injustice in the world, right…? So clearly, there is no God who doesn't allow pain and suffering and injustice in the world. Theists oughta be able to agree on that. But here’s the thing about it ~ Christians have never believed in that God. That's not the God that Christians pray to; Christianity doesn’t even believe in that God.

If your thing is, “I don't believe in God because there's pain and suffering and injustice in the world”, I guess we kind of agree. I don't believe in a God who doesn't allow pain and suffering and injustice in the world either, because there's certainly pain and suffering and injustice in the world. The God of Christianity certainly allows those things.

On the contrary, Christians believe in a God who allowed the worst possible thing to happen to the best possible person ~ Jesus. And as disturbing as that may be to some, that's what Christians believe because that's what happened.

John 3:16

The literal definition of a Christian is someone who believes in THE ONLY God, who SENT his Son to be tortured and put to death, to pay the debt for all the sins of all mankind.

Nothing was "allowed" to happen, it was all a predetermined part of God's plan. Jesus himself knew his purpose and what would happen to him. Jesus paid the debt by dying on the cross. The Resurrection was proof of God's promise of everlasting life in God's kingdom.

Yes, that was God’s plan from the beginning, because God knew…God is OMNISCIENT and knows everything, even from the foundation of the world.

God had a plan of salvation in place because He knew man would fail without His help. It was foreordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Peter 1:19-21 and Ephesians 3:9-11. God told Adam He would provide a Savior who would crush the serpent’s head, Genesis 3:15.

Jesus made it CLEAR in scripture His purpose was to die on the cross for the sins of the world. It was God’s divine plan from the beginning for Jesus to die on the cross for our despicable sins.

The problems are that there is no evidence for any god, and the god stories are simply ridiculous at best - just look at the bible for example.

Non-falsifiability does not provide any support to a claim, no matter how hard you try to make believe that it does, or how childishly you try and defend it.

Look at this reverse jehovah witness brogan stroking off in the religious forums again.
Lolq

For the Ebonics speakers this is what the FEMBOT posted.


Yo! The beefs is dat dare ahs nah evahdence for ay god, like, wow, a' da god starahes is sahmply rahdahculous at best - jus' loaahahght at da bahble for exisple. What it is, like, Mama!Non-falsahfahabahlahty doeses not provahde ay support ta a claahm, mostly, nah Gonorsan Jer how hard ya try ta make belaheve dat aht doeses, fer shure, or how chahldahshly ya try a' defend aht.

In my life and during the darkest times of my life I never questioned God, I never doubted his love for us and because of His love I was able to endure the pain and sadness. I have never felt closer to Him than in those desperate moments and that gave me strength. There were times that I knew I’d bought the farm and my time here was now measured in minutes….I’d continue my ongoing and daily conversations with God, some call prayer, and ask for His forgiveness for my sins and the strength and clarity of mind to make the next right decision. There were times that I did make the next right decision but there were times when I just seemed to somehow get through it…not because of anything I had done.

I’ve never not walked with the Lord and I don’t ever recall a time when I felt he wasn’t right beside me so I’m probably not a good person to ask about this stuff since my beliefs are based on real and observable accounts that happened to me and that I WITNESSED. Nobody can convince me that He isn’t who He says He is and in fact everything I’ve seen in 52 years leads me to KNOW without a doubt that He IS who He claims to be!

I don’t need anyone else to agree with me or confirm that what I know is true to be true! You could spend 24 hours a day for the rest of your life telling me what to believe and you’d be wasting your time!

1. God's divine plan was to torture his best person to death.

2. For something he didn't do.

3. Which was that time an imaginary Jew ate an apple.

4. Four thousand years before he was born.

5. And now that his will is done, and his best person was tortured to death,

6. We get exactly the same pain, suffering, and injustice which we'd already had before he tortured his best person to death.

7. With the bonus of being burned in a lake of fire forever if we fail to follow every word of this bullshit.

The only despicable thing here is your God.

You need to do a little more reading. Some of your information is really flawed.