The problem of pain.

[LouAvul]

I saw a vid of children butchered by rival african tribes. One child was fleeing with her foot flopping on a broken bone.

In a book called "Have Atheists Proved There Is No God", the author discusses the problem of pain and the existence of God.

In light of innocents suffering, how would you explain this paradox? Free will? The fall of man?

[Secret Agent Man]

You either believe God has our back or you don’t. If you ever really look inside yourself and truly honestly look at yourself as a person, you will see the evil in you, and know you could really do some very nasty things under various scenarios. I know what I could be capable of if I didn’t have morals and a functioning conscience and fear of punishment. We are all like that, because we are all fallen persons. God would be just to wipe us all out for our sins and wickedness that must be constantly kept in check. But He is merciful and he is patient and gives us time to figure out just how badly we need Him and His solution to our sin problem, Jesus Christ. He will save as many people as He possibly can, He promises that, but He will not force anyone to accept Him against their will.

[Secret Agent Man]

He loves us because we were made in His image, as people. And I believe he has mercy for us because we were deceived on purpose by Satan.

[Secret Agent Man]

The only thing that people do that deserve eternal separation from God, is rejecting God and His way of salvation. They reject the very thing that can save them from an eternity apart from God.

[goat granny]

without pain the human could not live...it is telling us something is wrong.....in the case of sadist, its Lucifers influence

[Talisker]

Sorry friend, people can’t make something up even if they want it to be true. God has a plan and He has revealed it. Read Hebrews 9:23 Catechism of the Catholic Church - paragraph 1013 - Death is the end of man’s earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny. When “the single course of our earthly life” is completed,586 we shall not return to other earthly lives: “It is appointed for men to die once.”587 There is no “reincarnation” after death.

Then you need to correct the Bible - it's wrong. It disagreed with you about reincarnation, and so should be erased. Struck out. Annihilated like the gnostic reincarnational Cathars were - men, women and children, put to the sword for their despicable heresy. Like a Crusader lifting his bloody sword to heaven, with a baby's brains sliding down it while it's mother vomits blood and dies at his noble feet, I beseech you in the name of God, end this falsity! Purify the Bible! Stomp out the heretics and bring forth the Kingdom of God!

And the disciples asked him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"

But he answered them and said, "Elijah indeed is to come and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also shall the Son of Man suffer at their hand."

Then the disciples understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist."

(Matt. 17:10-13)

[autumnraine]

Wow, pain (and fear in my case, which IS pain when it is crippling) is exactly what made me turn to Him. I was raised by two Pentecostal parents, one turned agnostic in college. It was a constant flip flop. My mom’s teaching of faith and love, and my father’s teaching of logic and ‘reality.’

However having transplanted myself in a new state from a job transfer, knowing no one, things not quite working out as I had planned (life is what happens when you are making plans, eh?) people not being who I thought they were and both parents passed away... anyway, I had a big ole fat pity party and a mild breakdown. In that moment I pleaded to FEEL God. Not just rationally acknowledge His possibility. I can only describe it feeling like a bright white sheet covering my face and the most amazing feeling of peace I have ever felt in my life.

That doesn’t mean that things have been easy since, but I haven’t had a drink in a week, and things were going to head bad if something didn’t happen. I am still terrified, but I have faith in Him that I am walking in His steps and He will guide me and protect my family. It’s just me and my kids in a different state, new people to work with and even looking for an affordable car (ours didn’t make the 10 hour drive), but I am walking with my Father and that’s all that matters. Now to find a good church home. Being in liberal south Florida, I hope to find a nice conservative one.

Thank you all for your well wishes and prayers. We could certainly use them, and I am proud to call you brothers and sisters in Christ!

[Valentine Michael Smith]

And no one ever will solve the conundrum. It is a mathematical impossibility.

If God is omnipotent then he is responsible for all suffering and is therefore a monster.

If God is NOT omnipotent, then he is not God but is still responsible for the whole mess he created.

As an aside: There is no such thing as free will.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Why do you think it’s God who’s torturing these people."

You're kidding right? I never made any such insinuation or assertion. If you stab yourself in the leg with a knife, God may have given you the free choice to do so, but God did not stab you in the leg. Similarly, those that reject God and choose eternal alienation from Him do so of their own free will. They have chosen hell. God has gone out of His way, including sending his son to earth to die a horrific death so that we might be saved. He has given us explicit instructions as to how to follow and find Him, but He will not make that choice for us.

"Why don’t you put the blame for their condition on people, not god? Tin pot dictators who could alleviate conditions but don’t?"

You do realize we're talking about eternal damnation, right? Not conditions here on earth...

[editor-surveyor]

Lou, there’s no conundrum!

Not to true Bible believers, anyway.

The only human ever born that was not a devout sinner was Jesus Christ. His pain was our fault, and our pain is our fault.

Theologians are of course not really believers, and when they become believers, they must cease the the counter-productive manipulations of the theologian. The Bible is a plain language text, but to twist it man’s way necessitates making the simple complicated.
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[editor-surveyor]

>> “I got saved last week.” <<

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Congratulations, but really you got saved 2000 years ago, but just became aware of it last week. :o)

[editor-surveyor]

>> “ I will never choose to burn in hell. If I end up there, it will be because God, the judge, decided I should be there.” <<

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Not so!

God is not willing that any should perish; his word says so. The problem is that some of us are simply not willing to bow their knee to Jesus Christ, and would literally prefer eternity in hell to conforming to Christ. They make the choice.

[Iscool]

But I really wish someone would present a rational, reasonable argument that permits an infinitely loving and merciful God to force/allow the vast majority of humans who have ever lived to suffer agonizing pain forever.

Of course God is those things but he is much more...Perhaps you were taught a jaded, or just a partial view of God...

1Sa 11:7 And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. And the fear of the LORD fell on the people, and they came out with one consent.

God is not 'just' lovey-dovey and merciful...

Psa 34:11 Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.

Psa 34:16 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

This reminds me of Obama and those rulers of the World who have turned against Israel...

Psa 2:1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
Psa 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
Psa 2:3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
Psa 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Psa 2:5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

Psa 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

[LouAvul]

But what about people who found repentance yesterday, or today? They wouldn’t have made it.

That is a valid point.

[LouAvul]

Actually, the Book of Job is perhaps the most concise answer to the question. The overriding conclusion of the book is that God's response to Job (and Job's quasi friends) is that we are all subject to God's will, even though we don't understand it.

However, in my duties as a religious counselor, people who had suffered extreme loss refused to accept the possibility (that the lingering death of their adolescent child) was God's will.

I've suffered greatly in my life. At the time it hurt and I likely wouldn't have taken kindly to someone saying "It's God's will." But now, years later, I can see that it served to make me a better human, even though I'm still flawed.