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When current events test your faith?

Question of Faith

Hi, not using my regular account so thats why this is my first post.

My faith has been waining for the last few years. I used to be fairly regular going to mass and everything but lately I have begun to question a lot of things and now, finally, I can say that I simply can not believe in anything anymore.

I have questioned the very existence of a God. If a God were to exist, how can so many disgusting and perverse things happen in our world? I know some people have told me that God has given us free will, but why does that have to apply to murderers, rapists etc...
Surely the people affected by these people are good, honest people who dont deserve tradgedies that happen to them.

And its not just sick minded people. Why would a God let natural events destroy peoples lives?

An angry young man goes to a school, shoots and kills 20 children and 6 adults.
In Wales, a man in his 40's abducts and murders a little girl.
In Galway, a man out walking with his two little girls gets hit by a car, killing both little girls.
Hurricane Sandy killed over 100 people in USA last year.
And just today, a 96 year old woman was beaten and robbed in her home in Donegal during the night.

That's just a few but you get what im talking about.
Surely, SURELY if there were to be a loving, compasionate God he would not let these types of events happen.
This question has forced me to give up on religon.

What do you do when faced with this question?
What do you say to yourself that God IS there, and working for the greater good?

This is not an off the cuff rant, I've wanted to post this for a long time and I'm just looking for some honest answers from people.

Thank you.

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totus tuus

I came across the following analogy many years ago:

The professor of a university challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student answered bravely, "Yes, he did".

The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil. The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.

Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? " "Of course" answered the professor.

The young student stood up and asked : "Professor does Cold exists?"

The professor answered, "What kind of question is that? ...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"

The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist. According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if we don't have body heat or we are not hot."

"And, does Dark exist?", he continued. The professor answered "Of course". This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong, Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of light."

Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the world, and those things are evil."

The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man."

After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.

Question of Faith

totus tuus wrote: »

I came across the following analogy many years ago:

While that is a nice analogy and thanks for posting it, it does not confirm for me the presence of a God that is working for the benefit of common, good people.
And what of natural events that destroy the lives of countless people each year? Is that a lack of God on the part of nature?
Surely if a God was there, he should be there to help and make the lives on earth a better place.

totus tuus

Some people expect God to wipe up our mess after us. God gave us free will, and with that free will comes responsibilities/consequences. The evil we see all around us are the results of our actions/inactions. However, God can bring about a greater good from evil, lessons can be learned. God does not force Himself upon us, we must seek Him out, change our ways to conform to His will which is always for the good of His children.

from the CCC.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p4.htm

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177
312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more",179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

philologos

Question of Faith wrote: »

And its not just sick minded people. Why would a God let natural events destroy peoples lives?
An angry young man goes to a school, shoots and kills 20 children and 6 adults.

In Wales, a man in his 40's abducts and murders a little girl.

In Galway, a man out walking with his two little girls gets hit by a car, killing both little girls.

Hurricane Sandy killed over 100 people in USA last year.

And just today, a 96 year old woman was beaten and robbed in her home in Donegal during the night.

That's just a few but you get what im talking about.
Surely, SURELY if there were to be a loving, compasionate God he would not let these types of events happen.
This question has forced me to give up on religon.

What do you do when faced with this question?
What do you say to yourself that God IS there, and working for the greater good?

Firstly I think evil exists because we have rebelled against God's authority, and we've fallen into sin as a whole. This unfortunately will adversely affect others. I think that blaming God for the fact that Adam Lanza sinned is a little bit off.

God is there, but He doesn't intervene to prevent every case of evil happening.

I also think that evil can on occasion happen for a reason. For example in the case of Joseph who was cruelly sold into slavery by his brothers, he says this in Genesis:

Genesis 50:15-21 ESV wrote:

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Secondly, if I can quote John Piper asking about why did God allow the good to happen in 2012:

How can God be a God of justice, yet allow so much good to happen to people who dishonor him by disbelieving in him, or giving lip service to his existence, or paying no more attention to him than the carpet in their den, or rejecting the kingship of his Son, or scorning his word, or preferring a hundred pleasures before him?

How can God be righteous and do so much good to us who are so unrighteous?

Where was God in 2012?

Where was God when nine million planes landed safely in the United States?
Where was God when the world revolved around the sun so accurately that it achieved the Winter solstice perfectly at 5:12 AM December 21 and headed back toward Spring?
Where was God when the President was not shot at a thousand public appearances?
Where was God when American farms produced ten million bushels of corn, and 2.8 million bushels of soybeans — enough food to sell $100 billions worth to other nations?
Where was God when no terrorist plot brought down a single American building or plane or industry?
Where was God when the sun maintained its heat and its gravitational pull precisely enough that we were not incinerated or frozen?
Where was God when three hundred million Americans drank water in homes and restaurants without getting sick?
Where was God when no new plague swept away a third of our race?
Where was God when Americans drove three trillion accident free miles?
Where was God when over three million healthy babies were born in America?

Thirdly: This video was instrumental to me in thinking about this question. I believe strongly that most thinking about this subject has the wrong question in mind. It is bizarre given our collective rejection of God and His goodness that we expect Him to do what we want at our whim. No, He's Lord, not us. He will do His will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD1yv4J6ohE

tommy2bad

Theirs a story of a man in a concentration camp and to torture him the Nazis hanged his son. "Where is your God now?" they taunted. "Hanging on the gallows with my son" he replied.
I duno if it answers the question but it helped me see that god is not their to wipe our tears and put sticking plasters on our cuts but to suffer with us.

philologos

An interesting way to look at suffering is also to remember that Christianity is the only faith that portrays a suffering God, namely that Jesus stood on the cross to take the wrath due for our sin on the cross. Christianity presents a God who has engaged with a fallen world, and a God who intimately knows pain and suffering. No other religion does.

An interesting question to ask is, how could we have put Jesus there and what difference does it make?

The Jammy dodger

totus tuus wrote: »

I came across the following analogy many years ago:

I've heard this before, the student was Albert Einstein before he got kicked out of school or something when he was a kid or left school or something like that.

Tim Robbins

totus tuus wrote: »

Some people expect God to wipe up our mess after us. God gave us free will, and with that free will comes responsibilities/consequences. The evil we see all around us are the results of our actions/inactions.

Do you think that young children who get cancer is a result of our actions / inactions?

totus tuus

Perhaps the following link would give you some insight to why God allows suffering!

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/a-catholic-reflection-on-the-meaning-of-suffering/

The Jammy dodger

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Do you think that young children who get cancer is a result of our actions / inactions?

Cancer is not an evil. It is just an illness.

Doc Farrell

Question of Faith wrote: »

An angry young man goes to a school, shoots and kills 20 children and 6 adults.

In Wales, a man in his 40's abducts and murders a little girl.

In Galway, a man out walking with his two little girls gets hit by a car, killing both little girls.

Hurricane Sandy killed over 100 people in USA last year.

And just today, a 96 year old woman was beaten and robbed in her home in Donegal during the night.

That's just a few
Thank you.

Some very interesting replies, Theodicy is a major block to faith for many, including myself. For some faith builds easily but for the rest of us, we have to work at understanding, and that requires effort and humility, not my greatest virtues!

Excepting the examples where children died for a moment, I'd like to reply to the problem of evil. Sometimes the answer simply is 'because we are humans and not angels'. We have mortal bodies that get squashed easily.
For example, should tectonic plates not move, not cause tidal waves because humans will be killed?
Ok, if plates don't move then mountains are not created, cutting off islands and continents, never allowing evolution to occur, never resulting eventually in the arrogant monkey we call man. So we no longer exist.
Similarly haven't the bacteria and organisms that lie in wait in stagnant water to blind and kill us heard that we are God's chosen people? How dare they attack us! I'm trying to suggest humorously (probably failing) that nature isn't evil, it only seems so because of the grief it causes to us.
Humans are capable of great evil however. Why doesn't God intervene when vicious thugs are hurting the elderly? It's a tougher question but the answer may be that humans have to take responsibility for their own choices. Why didn't God intervene during the Holocaust? It has nothing to do with the religion of the murdered, in fact one in ten who died in Dachau were from a Christian religious order. Men chose of their own free will, to listen to hatred, to act on hatred and to justify that hatred. Man created the holocaust. Man created the guns that murdered so many children. Man chose to drink and drive or to murder elderly people for a few euro.
Christianity tells us that death is not the end. If you live with kindness then you have nothing to fear. Christianity tells us that we are not angels but humans capable of great evils but also of extraordinary feats of sacrifice and heroism.
But finally how do you tell a parent of a child who has been murdered or has died of a disease that God cares about that child as much as any other or that he loves that parent at all? It is extremely difficult.
The New Testament says that 'God is love'. That is the whole point of Christianity, of the incarnation, of the resurrection. God is not some kind of wrathful deity like Zeus, looking for new ways to strike us down. God is not some guy with a beard but a massive force of pure love that builds and blasts through every moment. We are built in his image in the same way that a drop of seawater is exactly the same as a great awe inspiring ocean.

My answer to you is the same one I give to myself. Faith is work. And the easiest way to start ( we all like the easy way) is to read. But be very careful what you read. Like any good journalist check your sources! For example don't read me! I'm a nobody on the Internet.
Read instead 'where the hell is God?' By Richard Leonard. Read proper writers who have experienced real pain and suffering, not some glib guy on boards.
Or don't. But if you don't you won't build your faith. If you rely on your own ego, as I do, you are in for a world of pain.

I can't find a quote I wrote down about building faith by a saint I was reading about this week. When I find it I'll add it on to this thread. In the meantime here's a different quote about the difference between shallow faith and real faith.

'Indeed too often the weakest thing about our faith is the illusion that our faith is strong when the 'strength' we feel is only the intensity of the emotion or of sentiment, which has nothing to do with real faith.' - Thomas Merton.

I don't know if that quote is of any use to you but it's a wake up call to me. I used to think that faith was a sentimental imaginary crutch for old people, mixed with fear of pain and death. Perhaps it is for some but for the real Christian heroes that I've met, people who have sacrificed their entire lives for love, faith is a force, an energy of pure hope and love. Working to try to build a faith like the one that shines from them is my goal. And it is bloody hard work because of the strength of my ego, arrogance and overly aggressive disdain for a certain type of Irish sanctimonious triumphalist Catholic type who never, until recently, had their lazy faith tested at all.
Faith is at the moment for me an intellectual exercise in rebuilding trust. But eventually it has to become more than about intellect or emotion. It has to become action, sacrifice, silent contemplation and hope. I'm far from there yet.
Time for a pizza, if you are looking for good books I've mentioned a few in the top thread on this page over the last year, as have others. But use your reason and check all sources! Don't waste time on fringe writers, read the Saints!
Many saints talk about meeting God, knowing God, experiencing the presence of God. There seems to be only two ways to do this. One is to experience a miracle like Saul/Paul, which is unlikely. The other is to push aside the ego and to live a different life. And that is very very difficult. But I have definitely met a few in the last two years who have done it. I mean that last sentence 100%. But for most of us it's not easy, especially if you've spent the last 20 years binge drinking and whining about the state of the world!

Good luck!
I hope you don't mind that I mentioned my own journey, I just don't want you to think that I have all the answers when I'm only learning to ask the right questions!
By the way, working a little for a charity is a serious shortcut in this project called Faith....

Siuin

tommy2bad wrote: »

Theirs a story of a man in a concentration camp and to torture him the Nazis hanged his son. "Where is your God now?" they taunted. "Hanging on the gallows with my son" he replied.
I duno if it answers the question but it helped me see that god is not their to wipe our tears and put sticking plasters on our cuts but to suffer with us.

That's from Eli Wiesel's book Night (pg.61-62)
- Behind me, I heard the same man asking: Where is God now?
- And I heard a voice within me answer him: ... Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows

The events of the Holocaust will always present a question to Jews as to how a God which is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient could allow such terrible things to happen. I believe that it raises a much broader range of issues, regarding how we should account for evil in a world under God's rule as well as the extent of divine providence. The core question is: why does God allow evil things to happen? The Holocaust is a matter of quantity while the quality of the question remains the same.

We might ask- how did Biblical figures who fell victim to grave misfortune reconcile their hardship with belief in God? Despite his devout faith and status as father of all believers, Avraham too questioned the apparent cruelty of God’s will. Upon being ordered to sacrifice his only son, he lamented “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” (Bereshít 18:25) God’s request proved to be a test of faith, yet to assume that the Holocaust was also a test of Jewish endurance would be akin to depicting God as a sadist or a cruel conspirator against his own people. Despite what some extreme Orthodox authorities may insist, I do not for a second believe that the Holocaust was God’s punishment of any kind of spiritual deficiency. The Lubavitcher Rebbe asserted this point perfectly in his statement that “Satan himself could not possibly find a sufficient number of sins that would warrant such genocide!” (Sefer HaSichot 5751 Vol. 1 p.233)

Yet if the Holocaust is neither a punishment nor a test from God, we must then ask the same question posed by Job; “Why do the righteous suffer?” Despite being a noble and pious man, Job suffered great anguish in order for Satan to test his allegiance to God. Upon addressing Job’s experiences in The Guide For the Perplexed, Rambam asserts that the story of Job is an examination of the nature of divine providence and that each of Job’s friends represent various schools of thought. In his opinion, the correct approach was that of Elihu who bid Job to examine his religion. The key message, Rambam asserts, is that it is not enough to be passively pious without truly investigating the essence of one’s beliefs. Is it then possible to claim that the purpose of the Holocaust was to rattle some cages and force Jews to participate in a radical reappraisal of Judaism? The Holocaust has certainly caused many to completely re-evaluate the role of God in the world and purpose of religion for humanity.

Some feel that the most appropriate answer to the Holocaust is not to dwell on one tragic event but to build a Jewish life and home. In The Holocaust and Collective Memory, Peter Novick speaks of “trotzjudentum”, or “Jewishness out of spite”. He asserts that the only way one may deprive Hitler of a posthumous victory is safeguard the continuation of Jewish faith and practice. Yet is the desire to defy Hitler a justifiable reason to believe in God? The Holocaust had the adverse effect of shattering many sincere Jews’ belief in God because He failed to fulfil the promises outlined in His covenant with the Children of Israel. “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go […]” (Shemot 28:15). Given that He failed to keep the six million who perished in Europe, is it now in the hands of the Jewish people as to whether or not they wish to re-enter a covenant with God once again? In Shir Le’Ma’alot we are assured that Hashem yishmarecha mikol ra'ah (the Lord shall keep thee from all evil) and are urged to place our confidence in God and commit ourselves wholeheartedly into his care. He is ever vigilant and “does not sleep nor slumber” (Psalm 121:4) - all of which make God’s failure to intercede on behalf of his Am Segulah, “a treasured people out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Dvarim 14:1-2) all the more frustrating. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel recounted the words of a man consumed with despair in a hospital in Auschwitz who declared “I’ve got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.” (Night, 77)

Personally, I have found Rambam’s analysis in The Eight Chapters to be closest to my views on the Holocaust. He maintains that “God does not preordain the performance of either a Commandment or a Transgression.” If every act of man was providential (i.e. done under compulsion) there would be no commandments or prohibitions in the law because man would have had no choice either way. And so, Hitler had free will which even God could not negate. God can provide His guidance and wisdom through the Torah and His commandments, but there are limits to how He can force mankind to do good or evil. If there was no possibility for evil in the world, how can we ever strive for good?

While I think it's important for any people of faith to consider God's role (or lack thereof) in the Holocaust or indeed in acts of evil, I also believe that it's vital to not allow the Holocaust to define Judaism or allow acts of evil dictate one's faith. In Jewish burial, both cremation and embalming are forbidden; cremation because it disposes of the body too soon and embalming because it preserves it too long. While mourning and remembering the dead are Jewish obligations, it is imperative that mourning should neither be excessive nor prolonged. Likewise, while man can philosophise as to why the Holocaust or evil events occur and why God did nothing to stop it from happening, we must always strive to go forward.

When Lot’s wife looked back upon fleeing the destruction of the sinful city of Sodom, she turned into a pillar of salt. We too run the risk of stagnation should we become so preoccupied with the terrors of the past that we fail to embrace hope for the future. Kohelet suggests that “in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain” (1:18) – perhaps it is a blessing that God should shield us from the harsh reality that mankind can be so cold hearted. We will never really know God’s reasons for not sparing the Jewish people, but we are also assured that what is lacking is not God’s compassion, but our own ability to understand how God manifests himself in the world. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Kohelet 3:11) It reminds me of a poem often read on Yom HaShoah by a Jewish prisoner on the wall of a cellar in a Nazi Concentration Camp;
“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
I believe in love, even when there’s no one there.
I believe in God, even when he is silent.”

*Just as an aside- all the quotations from biblical sources are to be found in the Christian 'Old Testament' - books have different names, but are simply translations e.g. kohelet = Ecclesiastes, Dvarim = Deuteronomy etc

Tim Robbins

The Jammy dodger wrote: »

Cancer is not an evil. It is just an illness.

Could it be an evil illness?

Question of Faith

Doc Farrell wrote: »

Some very interesting replies, Theodicy is a major block to faith for many, including myself. For some faith builds easily but for the rest of us, we have to work at understanding, and that requires effort and humility, not my greatest virtues!

Excepting the examples where children died for a moment, I'd like to reply to the problem of evil. Sometimes the answer simply is 'because we are humans and not angels'. We have mortal bodies that get squashed easily.
For example, should tectonic plates not move, not cause tidal waves because humans will be killed?
Ok, if plates don't move then mountains are not created, cutting off islands and continents, never allowing evolution to occur, never resulting eventually in the arrogant monkey we call man. So we no longer exist.
Similarly haven't the bacteria and organisms that lie in wait in stagnant water to blind and kill us heard that we are God's chosen people? How dare they attack us! I'm trying to suggest humorously (probably failing) that nature isn't evil, it only seems so because of the grief it causes to us.
Humans are capable of great evil however. Why doesn't God intervene when vicious thugs are hurting the elderly? It's a tougher question but the answer may be that humans have to take responsibility for their own choices. Why didn't God intervene during the Holocaust? It has nothing to do with the religion of the murdered, in fact one in ten who died in Dachau were from a Christian religious order. Men chose of their own free will, to listen to hatred, to act on hatred and to justify that hatred. Man created the holocaust. Man created the guns that murdered so many children. Man chose to drink and drive or to murder elderly people for a few euro.
Christianity tells us that death is not the end. If you live with kindness then you have nothing to fear. Christianity tells us that we are not angels but humans capable of great evils but also of extraordinary feats of sacrifice and heroism.
But finally how do you tell a parent of a child who has been murdered or has died of a disease that God cares about that child as much as any other or that he loves that parent at all? It is extremely difficult.
The New Testament says that 'God is love'. That is the whole point of Christianity, of the incarnation, of the resurrection. God is not some kind of wrathful deity like Zeus, looking for new ways to strike us down. God is not some guy with a beard but a massive force of pure love that builds and blasts through every moment. We are built in his image in the same way that a drop of seawater is exactly the same as a great awe inspiring ocean.

My answer to you is the same one I give to myself. Faith is work. And the easiest way to start ( we all like the easy way) is to read. But be very careful what you read. Like any good journalist check your sources! For example don't read me! I'm a nobody on the Internet.
Read instead 'where the hell is God?' By Richard Leonard. Read proper writers who have experienced real pain and suffering, not some glib guy on boards.
Or don't. But if you don't you won't build your faith. If you rely on your own ego, as I do, you are in for a world of pain.

I can't find a quote I wrote down about building faith by a saint I was reading about this week. When I find it I'll add it on to this thread. In the meantime here's a different quote about the difference between shallow faith and real faith.

'Indeed too often the weakest thing about our faith is the illusion that our faith is strong when the 'strength' we feel is only the intensity of the emotion or of sentiment, which has nothing to do with real faith.' - Thomas Merton.

I don't know if that quote is of any use to you but it's a wake up call to me. I used to think that faith was a sentimental imaginary crutch for old people, mixed with fear of pain and death. Perhaps it is for some but for the real Christian heroes that I've met, people who have sacrificed their entire lives for love, faith is a force, an energy of pure hope and love. Working to try to build a faith like the one that shines from them is my goal. And it is bloody hard work because of the strength of my ego, arrogance and overly aggressive disdain for a certain type of Irish sanctimonious triumphalist Catholic type who never, until recently, had their lazy faith tested at all.
Faith is at the moment for me an intellectual exercise in rebuilding trust. But eventually it has to become more than about intellect or emotion. It has to become action, sacrifice, silent contemplation and hope. I'm far from there yet.
Time for a pizza, if you are looking for good books I've mentioned a few in the top thread on this page over the last year, as have others. But use your reason and check all sources! Don't waste time on fringe writers, read the Saints!
Many saints talk about meeting God, knowing God, experiencing the presence of God. There seems to be only two ways to do this. One is to experience a miracle like Saul/Paul, which is unlikely. The other is to push aside the ego and to live a different life. And that is very very difficult. But I have definitely met a few in the last two years who have done it. I mean that last sentence 100%. But for most of us it's not easy, especially if you've spent the last 20 years binge drinking and whining about the state of the world! Good luck!
I hope you don't mind that I mentioned my own journey, I just don't want you to think that I have all the answers when I'm only learning to ask the right questions!
By the way, working a little for a charity is a serious shortcut in this project called Faith....

Thank you for that post.

And thanks to everyone that placed a post.
A recurring theme that i see here is that God has no control over our actions and has no control over what happens to us in our everyday lives.
But I must ask why not, shouldent he be there to make the lives of humans better.
If God cant control events in life, why do we pray to him??

Extinction

The Jammy dodger wrote: »

I've heard this before, the student was Albert Einstein before he got kicked out of school or something when he was a kid or left school or something like that.

Not true, Einstein's name was used in an attempt to give an invented story credibility. Just another urban Legend.
http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

tommy2bad

Siuin, thanks for that I couldn't for the life of me remember whare I came across it.
We forget that this is an old question and Jewish thought has been a great help to me in coming to terms with my Christian faith. Unsurprising when you think about it.

Question of Faith;
If God cant control events in life, why do we pray to him??

For support, inspiration, help finding our own strength. I think I would be uncomfortable with a God who took are of everything or worse took care of only His own.

JimiTime

Question of Faith wrote: »

Thank you for that post.

And thanks to everyone that placed a post.
A recurring theme that i see here is that God has no control over our actions and has no control over what happens to us in our everyday lives.
But I must ask why not, shouldent he be there to make the lives of humans better.
If God cant control events in life, why do we pray to him??

Firstly, we must look at this present world as the temporary dominion it is. The suffering is still suffering, but in the context of eternity under Gods promise, our years here are the tiniest drop in an ocean. We must always remember that God has appointed a day in which suffering, death etc will be WIPED OUT! Those who have died will be resurrected, be they babies, or be they 100 year olds when death ensnared them. Death as a whole is not in Gods vision for us, whether you are dying at 1 month old or 100 years old. Death is our enemy full stop, and Christ paid the price FOR US, to save us from it. Whether we are taken in tragedy or old age, death comes to us all. As Christ said, don't build up treasures here on earth, as they will all pass away, but rather store up treasures in Heaven with God, for that is eternal.

Secondly, like what Philologos said earlier, we are entitled to nothing from God, but for those willing to accept his mercy, he has offered us the most gracious gift of salvation through his Son. Saved from sin, saved from death, and granted communion with Him free from our most heinous enemy.

Also, there is testimony that God has and does intervene in peoples lives, but we are not the ones who get to say, 'You shoulda done this that or the other'. A poster who has since closed his account detailed events to me from China, where Christians are severely persecuted, of incidents where a Christian girl was being coerced into renouncing her faith, and her torturer simply dropped dead as he tried to force a cattle prod into her mouth. Yet her father was maimed in front of her with a sledgehammer. We, quite reasonably would think, 'Why would God not swoop in and rescue them all, and beat the bad guys'. The thing is, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO. Though when he does, it will be EVERYWHERE, a PERMANENT SOLUTION and FOREVER. The plan is already in motion. Though this is where the theological discussion occurs: The why does He do this or that, or not do that and the other. My answer, is I don't know why God has played things out the way he has. Many have theories. I certainly trust Him though, even as I face into these wonderings.

Question of Faith

JimiTime wrote: »

Firstly, we must look at this present world as the temporary dominion it is. The suffering is still suffering, but in the context of eternity under Gods promise, our years here are the tiniest drop in an ocean. We must always remember that God has appointed a day in which suffering, death etc will be WIPED OUT! Those who have died will be resurrected, be they babies, or be they 100 year olds when death ensnared them. Death as a whole is not in Gods vision for us, whether you are dying at 1 month old or 100 years old. Death is our enemy full stop, and Christ paid the price FOR US, to save us from it. Whether we are taken in tragedy or old age, death comes to us all. As Christ said, don't build up treasures here on earth, as they will all pass away, but rather store up treasures in Heaven with God, for that is eternal.

Secondly, like what Philologos said earlier, we are entitled to nothing from God, but for those willing to accept his mercy, he has offered us the most gracious gift of salvation through his Son. Saved from sin, saved from death, and granted communion with Him free from our most heinous enemy.

Also, there is testimony that God has and does intervene in peoples lives, but we are not the ones who get to say, 'You shoulda done this that or the other'. A poster who has since closed his account detailed events to me from China, where Christians are severely persecuted, of incidents where a Christian girl was being coerced into renouncing her faith, and her torturer simply dropped dead as he tried to force a cattle prod into her mouth. Yet her father was maimed in front of her with a sledgehammer. We, quite reasonably would think, 'Why would God not swoop in and rescue them all, and beat the bad guys'. The thing is, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO. Though when he does, it will be EVERYWHERE, a PERMANENT SOLUTION and FOREVER. The plan is already in motion. Though this is where the theological discussion occurs: The why does He do this or that, or not do that and the other. My answer, is I don't know why God has played things out the way he has. Many have theories. I certainly trust Him though, even as I face into these wonderings.

But trust in him in in what exactly? If you trust in him for something, then surely you believe he can change things for you for the better?

JimiTime

Question of Faith wrote: »

But trust in him in in what exactly? If you trust in him for something, then surely you believe he can change things for you for the better?

1) I trust he knows his creation better than His creation know themselves

2) I trust his promises to us, and in the context of what we gain in his promises, well we gain everlasting life, and the knowledge that he will wipe out every tear from our eye, death will be no more, the dead will be raised up and wickedness will be destroyed. Thats changing things for the better quite spectacularly

Question of Faith

JimiTime wrote: »

1) I trust he knows his creation better than His creation know themselves

2) I trust his promises to us, and in the context of what we gain in his promises, well we gain everlasting life, and the knowledge that he will wipe out every tear from our eye, death will be no more, the dead will be raised up and wickedness will be destroyed. Thats changing things for the better quite spectacularly

I admire your faith but that does not sit well with me at all. His promises you say, that he will give peace and everlasting life after death, why not now when we are living, breathing human beings?
If a person is life long Christian, why do so many have to endure heart breaking events in life?

I have to say, I have more and more belief in my opening post, I simply can not believe in a God that would cause so much evil in the world to exist.

Gumbi

I lost my faith about 3 years ago. I realised that I only believed in God (not that I had a precise definition of him, and I would argue these days that such a belief would be foolish) in the sense of "The universe MUST have come from somewhere", which of course is an argument from ignorance.

I prayed a lot. I went to mass every week (uncommon for my age group). Even went to confession several times a year (very uncommon for my age group). To be honest I was just going through the motions. I never once had a supernatural experience (not even one that I could feasibly look back at and think otherwise of it - I simply had none). I never once felt God, or indeed any supernatural power affect my life in any way.

My process of deconversion lasted about 6 months. I kept on viewing debates etc online. From the get go, I found most religious arguments to be just plain wrong. And most atheistic arguments spot on. Eventually I realised that there simply wasn't a good argument for a loving creator, one who influences the universe/world and cares about my prayers, and that the core of my belief was the fallacy of the argument from ignorance.

Moreover I find many religious beliefs insulting, appalling, and a whole host of other nasty things. I find much religiously motivated behaviour to be disgusting. I actually want to believe in a loving creator. But unfortunately, belief isn't a choice, and I am forced to accept what I have experienced in life.

Well, this is quite a disjointed post, I just wanted to post a few of my thoughts on the matter at hand as they came into my mind.

JimiTime

Question of Faith wrote: »

I admire your faith but that does not sit well with me at all. His promises you say, that he will give peace and everlasting life after death, why not now when we are living, breathing human beings?
If a person is life long Christian, why do so many have to endure heart breaking events in life?

I have to say, I have more and more belief in my opening post, I simply can not believe in a God that would cause so much evil in the world to exist.

Hey, I wouldn't admire MY faith. I'm more a talker than a walker at this point in my Christian life, though I'm slowly working on it.

The only blameless man to ever walk the earth was beaten, spat at and humiliated by his own people, and sent up to be impaled unto death so that WE sinful people may have the gift of everlasting life. Also, we WILL be living, breathing human beings after the resurrection. For God will make a new heaven and a NEW EARTH. What you seem to be asking is, 'why doesn't he just come now and sort it all out'. The answer I have, is that he IS coming. He came to serve the first time, as a sacrificial lamb. He is coming again, except next time he will be a conquering Lion. A King with authority over all, and with the rod of judgement. Your issue seems to be one of timing, for the intervention you allude to IS coming.

A lot of the reasoning behind people using the problem of suffering against God or the concept of God, is that he see's all the suffering but does nothing about it. The thing is, HE HAS, and WILL. He offered himself as a ransom for OUR sins and unrighteousness, and endured the cross for US. He has done the complete opposite of nothing. The issue really lies in the methods, and our lack of understanding as to why it is the way it is. In my rather limited understanding, this is where my trust in him comes into force. I know what he has already done, so I don't need to second guess him in terms of what His plan is. Sure, I wonder why, and there was a time when this why would have been a consuming why, like your own. However, in knowing what he has done, I trust he's a bit more far sighted than I am

Gumbi

Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.

From Wikipedia. Note this, OP. Something I hadn't considered when I believed. Not much of a sacrifice, considering, according to believers, he's living happily ever after in paradise.

One of the many reasons I don't buy the Catholic faith.

philologos

God doesn't promise that His word will sit well with us but that we will be confirmed to Him. God is Lord. I realised when I became a Christian that I would have to repent and follow Jesus first in my life and turn away from what I did before, things which were an affront to God and His word.

If the gospel is true, it doesn't matter what sits well with us. Gravity mightn't sit well, but I'm conformed to it.

philologos

Gumbi wrote: »

Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.

From Wikipedia. Note this, OP. Something I hadn't considered when I believed. Not much of a sacrifice, considering, according to believers, he's living happily ever after in paradise.

One of the many reasons I don't buy the Catholic faith.

Let me know when you'll be crucified for sinners of the worst kind if it's that easy?

Doc Farrell

Question of Faith wrote: »

Thank you for that post.

And thanks to everyone that placed a post.
A recurring theme that i see here is that God has no control over our actions and has no control over what happens to us in our everyday lives.
But I must ask why not, shouldent he be there to make the lives of humans better.
If God cant control events in life, why do we pray to him??

I'm going to be direct with you, you won't find the answers you are looking for on boards. You are looking for a direct experience of the divine, the supernatural, of God. That takes effort. It takes work. You have to find the teachers and guides who are right for you, who speak directly to you and then you have to push yourself out of your ordinary routines and get stuck into helping others.
You had better get comfortable with the concept of the miraculous or the supernatural because we are not dealing with small stuff. If you dismiss that stuff then don't bother starting out. I'll say it again for about the 15th time in two posts, faith, the direct experience of God, is work. Surround yourself with good people and the easiest way to do that today is to volunteer with a charity.
The easiest route to take is not to start investigating at all but to go from being a cultural catholic to being an indignant agnostic or atheist. It's a safe comfortable route, I took it myself for years.
Find yourself a good spiritual director, someone you can talk to 100% honestly. Avoid all the false nonsense online, especially lazy garbage on YouTube. It's up to you.
A lot of Irish cultural Catholics find Ignatian spirituality useful because its not aggressively dogmatic. Also google busted halo.
Nobody can do the work for another. Dismiss it or go for it. The biggest problem I had and have is telling my pampered ego to shut its cake hole for a few hours. Once you can quiten your mind things get a lot easier.
It can be difficult to realize how influenced we are by our friends and family so if you are going to start investigating spirituality keep it to yourself for a few months. Also, most importantly, take the road easy, if you find the road too tough, try a less rocky one. You don't have to retire to a cave like Kevin or Ignatius!
Be careful what you read. Ireland is one of the best places to jump back into religious studies right now because triumphalism has been replaced by humility. There's a lecture on jan 21st in st Francis Xavier church in Gardiner st. You can sit at the back. I don't think they bite...

(None of the above as the official Imprimatur of Boards)

Gumbi

The problem with Doc Farrell's suggestion is that you're opening yourself up to a lot of confirmation bias, and the like. If you really want to find something, looking for it so subjectively, and you may very well convince yourself that it's there.

philologos

Gumbi wrote: »

The problem with Doc Farrell's suggestion is that you're opening yourself up to a lot of confirmation bias, and the like. If you really want to find something, looking for it so subjectively, and you may very well convince yourself that it's there.

As opposed to looking to the Bible looking to find reasons not to believe as many atheists do on boards.

The honest approach would be to investigate Scripture without precluding the possibility that it could be true. That's all I expect of a genuine seeker. It's what brought me to Christ nearly 6 years ago.

Fanny Cradock

Good thread.

Question of Faith wrote: »

Thank you for that post.

And thanks to everyone that placed a post.
A recurring theme that i see here is that God has no control over our actions and has no control over what happens to us in our everyday lives.
But I must ask why not, shouldent he be there to make the lives of humans better.
If God cant control events in life, why do we pray to him??

I don't think the claim is that God has no control over our lives. Generally speaking there is a spectrum of thought that runs from those who think that God allows us freedom of will all the way to those who favour predestination. (Though Calvinists, I gather, will still insist that we make our own choices). In short, I would think that orthodox Christianity as a whole, and most Christians on an individual level, would claim that God does intervenes in our lives (sometimes bidden, sometimes not) and that also gives us freedom. The god that you describe seems to be either in some way powerless or the distant and disinterested God of deism.

Question of Faith wrote: »

I have questioned the very existence of a God. If a God were to exist, how can so many disgusting and perverse things happen in our world? I

The question of suffering/ evil, I think, can be reduced to the following - "If there is a good God why then is there evil?". And here evil can be thought of as man made evils (war and such) but also natural evils (like earthquakes). Any attempts to answer this question from a Christian perspective is know as theodicy, and there are many theodicies out there.

On one hand, evil is a very pressing problem for Christianity because it posits the existence of a good God in the face of suffering. How exactly is it that we we square that circle?

On the other hand, I would say that the existence of evil doesn't seem to be as much of a philosophical/ metaphysical issue in a godless universe because it is difficult (and I would say impossible) to ground absolutes in such a universe. In other words, cancer, murders and tsunamis are events that happen in a universe that doesn't have an overarching purpose or morality built in. **** happens.

If you are looking for an easy answer from a Christian then I'm afraid you wont find it. And if you hear someone offering such a simple answer it is probably best to walk on by. Hopefully you will people who speak from experience and recognise the enormity the problem, who have wrestled with the big questions and who, in contradistinction to yourself, still believe for some reason or other. (And I hope that the last part of that sentence doesn't come across as me talking a swipe at yourself.)

I have personally found John Lennox to be honest, sincere and enlightening when he has spoken on this topic. He gave a series of talks on suffering/ evil only days after the earthquake in New Zealand. I personally found this one to be particularly powerful. (Two cavets: 1) The sound quality is poor. 2) If memory serves there is an overly long introduction at the start where somebody introduces Lennox to the audience).

I have also found Oz Guinness to be another individual who has something really powerful to say on this issue. (The server hosting the video seems to be encountering some speed issues today.) Both give a fair assessment of the problem facing us as individuals and facing Christianity in light of its claims about an all powerful good God. I think it is important that neither speaker tries to minimise the deep and destructive impact that suffering and evil can cause, yet they also highlight the hope that Christianity, through Jesus, offers us all.

I guess my stock response for this type of question can be distilled to the following -

1) I totally admit that there is a problem - but not an insurmountable one.
2) Offer a few links that I have personally found useful
3) Caution that there is no complete answer to the problem of suffering/ evil. At least not this side of eternity.
4) Encourage you to keep examining the answers offered by others and also by yourself. For example, what do you think evil is? And how does this square with your worldview (whatever that may be).

Fanny Cradock

Gumbi wrote: »

Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.

From Wikipedia. Note this, OP. Something I hadn't considered when I believed. Not much of a sacrifice, considering, according to believers, he's living happily ever after in paradise.

One of the many reasons I don't buy the Catholic faith.

There are actually a surprising number of definitions for death. It's not as clear cut as quoting Wikipedia. And that is why if you scan down the beyond first sentence of the Wikipedia article you mentioned you will find a section discussing the various definitional problems.

This aside, if what you have presented is your understanding of the significance of the crucifixion then it seems that you have missed the bigger picture. Christianity doesn't simply say "Jesus made a really big sacrifice so you should now love him".

Rather, while acknowledging that there was indeed a sacrifice made by Jesus, it also says something along the lines of, "The world is broken and full of sin. Yet God has a plan to put the crooked paths straight, so to speak; to put creation right. This means that we are all in grave trouble because all of us are sinners and all of us miss the mark of what God demands. And it is only because of the cross we have the hope and assurance of salvation". In theology they use fancy words like soteriology to try and explain what all this means.

Now you might utterly reject the truth claims of Christianity - notions of sin or insistence that you need a saviour. That's fine. But your post suggests that you don't understand one of the most central tenets of the thing you reject.