If God does exists, He's abandoned his children

[endlessabyss]

Through my own hardships I still pray even though there is never an answer; I still still see evidence of Creator out there somewhere even though people are left on the earth to suffer, some with loneliness, some with incurable ailments, some I question if they even know they are alive (those with severe mental handicaps).

 

Why would God allow for wealth to be concentrated to a point where someone can own twelve mansions on one extreme, when on the other extreme there is a homeless family out there who is looking for someplace safe to rest their heads at night?

 

Where is God when children are being physically and mentally abused? Isn't the job of a good father to protect his children from harm? To make sure they grow up with a healthy self-esteem? That they feel loved? That they feel some sense of importance or worth?

 

Suicide. Where is God when people are so beat up that they resort to taking their own life because they can't take anymore? I wonder if people really understand how much will power it takes for one to take their own life. To know that there is a potential that your conscious will be extinguished forever, yet death is still a better option. Where is God when people are being pushed to the brink that they can't cope any longer with the pain.

 

Then you have the threat of religion divulging to you that hell will be your place of eternity if you try to escape such pain. That almost sounds like an abuser; not someone who supposedly loves you.

 

When we are searching for answers that can't be answered by humans, where is God to answer such questions when someone so desperately looking for some type of reason to keep going?

 

Where is God to guide us when all that is left to govern us is a small group of corrupt evil human beings who lust for power and wealth only? To steal our wealth so they can live a life free of struggle. So man-made laws can be legislated to put the boot down on our necks. Where is God to correct this?

 

Sometimes the idea of God, or at least a loving God, doesn't make any sense. And if the adjective can be ascribed to God in any type of way, He is guilty of abandoning his children.

Edited August 4, 2019 by endlessabyss

[basil67]

OK, here comes a reply from an athiest: I think you will find that people abandoned God and not the other way around. There are so many 'so called' Christians who couldn't be less Christian if they tried. Sure, they bang on about God but they are selfish and live in selfish ways which Jesus would never have done.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Sometimes the idea of God, or at least a loving God, doesn't make any sense.

 

It doesn't have to. God never promised a pain-free life to anyone.

[endlessabyss]

It doesn't have to. God never promised a pain-free life to anyone.

 

Why is the phenomenon of pain more common than pleasure? Why isn't there a healthy balance?

 

Why would pain be distributed to some so much they resort to suicide?

 

I'm not advocating for a pain free life, because there is much to be gained from pain, but not to the point where it becomes abusive.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

 

Is suicide your personal proof that God does not exist?

[alphamale]

one must have faith in something

[endlessabyss]

Is suicide your personal proof that God does not exist?

 

No, I believe God does exists.

 

I just wonder why God would allow for someone to feel so hopeless and worn down to the point they feel suicide is the only option they have.

 

I was watching a documentary on people who live with schizophrenia and psychosis. Some peoples lives get absolutely destroyed because of these illnesses.

 

These things are also things outside of an individuals control, whether by nurture, nature, or both.

 

If you were going to create something, and be considered loving, why would you create a situation where the brain can be disturbed to the point of it preventing someone from ever being able to live a healthy life?

 

The argument from suffering is a huge obstacle to get around.

[Simple Logic]

Is suicide your personal proof that God does not exist?

 

Actually suicide is proof that people really don’t believe in heaven. If they did more would check out to go there and would not strive to stay here.

[Rayce]

No, I believe God does exists.

 

I just wonder why God would allow for someone to feel so hopeless and worn down to the point they feel suicide is the only option they have.

 

It's called free will... God gave us free will.

[Rayce]

Actually suicide is proof that people really don’t believe in heaven. If they did more would check out to go there and would not strive to stay here.

 

Unless you went to school with a bunch of nuns who instilled in your brain that suicide was the fast route to hell...

[Ronni_W]

OK, here comes a reply from an athiest: [...] Christians who couldn't be less Christian if they tried. [...] they are selfish and live in selfish ways...

My brother is also a self-identified 'atheist'...but, is as spiritual and has the same level of Christ Consciousness as to be able to recognize what is and is not in accordance with the Will of God

and the Law of God.

 

Not being able to recognize or identify with a wrathful, angry, warring, violent, vengeful, hateful, jealous god does NOT make someone an atheist...

...it makes that person a believer in the One True All-Loving, All-Compassionate God.

 

The 'Christians' and religious zealots who have resentment, hatred and vengeance in their hearts...and want to 'make other people pay' and 'give them what they deserve'...and are packing guns,

bombs and suicide vests, to maim, torture and kill other people...people who are, after all, only availing themselves of God's own Law of Free Will...these ones are the true atheists...

...because they have not understood the One True God...at all, in the slightest...that is, they don't understand God's Law of Cause and Effect (Law of Karma)...

...which lack of understanding leads them to believe that they are 'innocent' and even 'persecuted' and have not played any part at all in their own experiences of life on Earth.

 

I just wonder why God would allow for [...]

It isn't God that 'allows' for this or that, whether positive or negative.

It is that there are not enough accurate/true teachings of how we ourselves are responsible for creating our own (negative as well as positive) experiences and manifest reality.

 

endlessabyss, what you are putting on God actually belongs to human Beings and their free-will decisions and choices of their 'lesser-lower ego'...this then becomes subject to

the injunction that 'like attracts like'...which means a 'build up' of the same negative, dark or evil desires (guilt, blame, jealousy, resentment, hatred, revenge, etc.)......which negativity/

negative conditions then becomes manifest on Earth......because it's a democracy in which the desires/feelings in the minds and hearts of the majority of the people on Earth hold sway.

In opposition to that, there are simply not enough people.

 

In other words, the collective consciousness, right now, is skewed in the favour of darkness and the Fallen Beings with their lesser-lower and fallen consciousness.

So, right now in our times, negativity and darkness are winning out...and that's what you're seeing as God's doing...but it is really and truly only humankind's doing.

[Allupinnit]

Have you ever looked into apologetics? Your questions are valid. It doesn't mean you lack faith.

 

https://www.rzim.org/listen/ask-away/jesus-social-justice-and-suffering

 

The RZIM ministry has been a literal Godsend to me when it comes to grappling with these huge faith questions.

 

There is a podcast I tune into weekly called Ask Away. They're a husband/wife team who both graduated with doctorates from Oxford - and a real pleasure to listen to.

[pepperbird]

If God exists ( the christian version anyway) he is the biggest hypocrite the universe has ever seen.

 

 

Were told to forgive, to not hold on to anger and bitterness, yet what does "god" do? He continues to punish humanity for what one woman did thousands of years ago. Yes Eve ate the pomegranate, but she was naive, akin to a child. God continues to punish women through painful childbirth and the rest of humanity through disease, war, famine, disaster, crime and the acts of others.

 

I lost any faith I may have had in god when I watched my mother die. She was a woman who had spent her life caring for others. She was a nurse ad community volunteer and even went as far as to go into to work on her days off to spend time with residents who had no family to visit them if she thought they could use some extra cheering up and attention.

 

Through no fault of her own, she developed cancer. She died in agony and basically starved to death because, thanks to religion, our country at the time had no assisted dying laws ( "god wouldn't want those").

 

How could a loving god who cared about his children allow this? If I saw any of my kids hurting or in need, I would cut my arm off to save them. Most parents would, yet this omnipotent being allows humanity, who we are told he views with love as his children, is fine with it.

 

This is why I'm agnostic. I don't get it.

[MetallicHue]

I have a feeling that human capacity to understand a celestial is something we may only be able to reach until death. A lot of things that happen in this world I don’t understand. I try not to rationalize it knowing that I really know nothing. I do believe though that there is a lot more to this world than what I can simply see.

[Rayce]

I have a feeling that human capacity to understand a celestial is something we may only be able to reach until death. A lot of things that happen in this world I don’t understand. I try not to rationalize it knowing that I really know nothing. I do believe though that there is a lot more to this world than what I can simply see.

 

It's all too much for my pee brain... but I still believe... even if I can't put it into words. I called it faith.

[Ronni_W]

I have a feeling that human capacity to understand a celestial is something we may only be able to reach until death.

I used to think/believe the same thing...not necessarily that I needed to physically die...but that I needed to escape the consciousness of Earth in order to be able to

understand God and the Celestial/Spiritual Realm. (That is, that I needed to be on another planet or something. .)

 

But, as I say below, we can find teachings that can lead to our own spiritual knowledge and understanding...we just need to be diligent and stubborn about it.

 

If God exists ( the christian version anyway) he is the biggest hypocrite the universe has ever seen.

It might be worthwhile to consider that it is 'the Christian version of God' that is the problem, and not actually God.

 

Keeping in mind that Christianity relies on Judaism for its version of a hateful, vengeful, jealous, angry, cruel god. Because,

the entire 'Christian Old Testament' is just a translation of the original Jewish/Hebrew Tanakh...and it is precisely that same set of scriptures that Jesus came to 'renew and revive' (fix and update).

 

There are ways (ancient esoteric spiritual texts) that can help us to understand how the present suffering on Earth has come about...but, in order to find them,

one needs to be willing to look into what are called 'apocryphal' and 'blasphemous' texts, scriptures and gospels.

[major_merrick]

I've gone through a lot of pain and suffering. It is easy to ask "Why?" and to blame God for everything that happens. I don't understand why the world is full of pain, and I probably never will. I'm new to faith, and I lack the answers that people in pain are seeking. But I see my husband's faith and relationship with God, and what I see tells me that God isn't neglectful or vengeful. I do, however, see an emotional God. A God who fashioned us in His image, and that explains part of our life experience.

 

 

My husband's relationship with God is unlike anything I've seen before. Close and conversational. I don't get it, but seeing it makes me want it. He believes in a God who hurts when we hurt, and who has an end goal for all of humanity. However, that end goal is complicated by such issues as sin and free will, as well as God's own nature. While God is all-powerful, there are such things as logical impossibilities. God cannot deny His own righteous nature, for example. Logical impossibilities mean that there are some things that God cannot or will not change immediately, and so suffering must play out. Accepting the hurt and accepting the mystery then becomes part of the human experience.

 

 

I don't like suffering. Nobody does. I don't like it when my friends die. I don't like the difficulty of childbirth. I don't like emotional pain. I hated my father, and despised my mother. I have deep scars across my back from being beaten and whipped by my father. But I've reached a point in life where I don't blame God for these things. I blame the screwed up world we live in. I blame Satan and his negative influence. I blame human flesh that is corrupted by sin and constantly seeks to do the wrong thing. St. Paul wrote, "The good that I want to do, I don't do. The evil that I don't want to do, that's what I end up doing." Something is messed up in the inmost nature of this world. And until things have played out to the bitter end and Jesus comes back, we have to deal with it.

 

 

My husband tells me that while we deal with it, God deals with it too. The hurt we feel, He feels. We're in it together. He says that in quiet moments when he feels pain, he can feel God also feeling the pain. That's why Christ came to the Earth - to walk in our shoes and feel every aspect of our pain. God would be a hypocrite if He didn't feel it and didn't experience it. But he does. When you experience the same events as someone else, hypocrisy is impossible, because you can tell your fellow sufferer "Hey, I've been there too. Just hang on a bit longer while I work on the problem."

 

It makes very little sense. It isn't supposed to make sense. God's logic is beyond our logic. But the emotion - we share that in full. I can't explain it any other way, because I'm still working on it myself.

[Ronni_W]

I simultaneously agree and disagree with what major_merrick says. (A 'logical impossibility'? .)

 

I do, however, see an emotional God. A God who fashioned us in His image,

How I see it is that what it means that 'God created us in His own image', is that He imbued us with His Divine Nature and co-creative abilities;

but, to put the emotions that human Beings experience, onto God, is to anthropomorphize God.

 

My husband [...] believes in a God who [...] who has an end goal for all of humanity. However, that end goal is complicated by such issues as sin and free will, as well as God's own nature.

God's 'end goal' (Vision and Plan for Earth) is not so much 'complicated by' as it is thwarted by human Beings' willingness to misuse their free will to engage in 'sin' (spiritual errors and mistakes).

If, instead, we all expressed our own God Nature, which He gave us when He created us, then we would all have Heaven on Earth and there would be no loss, suffering and death.

 

[...] there are some things that God cannot or will not change immediately,

All the change that we want to see has to come through our own free-will decisions and choices (to stop all instances of engaging in 'sin'; even the minutest aspect of 'sin'.) After all,

the Law of Free Will is something that God gifted us, so, for Him to over-ride it (to fix all of the problems that we have, through our 'sinning', created for ourselves) would be hypocritical of Him.

There isn't anything mysterious about it.

 

[...] I don't blame God for these things. [...] I blame Satan and his negative influence.

The influence of negative, dark and evil forces did start with the event that the Bible refers to in 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer?' ...

...but Lucifer (and Satan) are not to blame for people's individual bad choices and spiritual disobedience and rebellion.

That is, what is messed up is not 'the inmost nature of this world'; what is messed up is the inmost nature of all people who are still 'sinning'.

 

Part of God's Nature is, of course, Mercy, Forgiveness and Compassion...meaning that He does recognize our pain and suffering, but does not vicariously experience it through us.

 

The Mysteries of Christ are explained in the spiritual manuscript published as 'Pistis Sophia', by G. R. S. Mead.

We are not meant to just keep trying to do our spiritual work 'in the dark', so to speak...that just engenders spiritual blindness and ignorance;

God's Will and God's Laws are meant to make sense to us..so that we can follow it.

 

Sending Light, Love and Blessings to all.

[major_merrick]

I simultaneously agree and disagree with what major_merrick says. (A 'logical impossibility'? .)

 

How I see it is that what it means that 'God created us in His own image', is that He imbued us with His Divine Nature and co-creative abilities;

but, to put the emotions that human Beings experience, onto God, is to anthropomorphize God.

I think that emotions are one of the keys to understanding God. God describes Himself in emotional terms. Love, hate, jealousy, joy, etc... are all found in Scripture. I think it reconciles some of the supposed inconsistencies people find in the Bible. God is always the same, but yet He has emotions. He can be persuaded, such as when Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah and keeps revising the number of faithful people necessary to save the cities.

 

Jesus - simultaneously fully God and fully human, showed the full range of human emotions. The shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept" when Lazarus died. God has the same emotions that we do...He can't create something that He is not! Our emotions have been skewed by sin, and our reactions to our emotions can get us in trouble. God's emotions, like the rest of Him, are perfect. To view God in light of our emotions isn't to anthropomorphize God, instead it shows us a faded glimpse of how God originally created us.

[Justanaverageguy]

Tough Question. I can say with 100% certainty that a loving, pure, holy god is absolutely real - as I've had brief personal experiences with this being in times of hardship. So that much I can say without hesitation is real.

 

But as to the deeper philosophical questions about the state of the world - and how if a loving holy god exists - why he allows the world to exist in the state it does. This is harder to explain and I'm not sure anyone who isn't a living saint can really give a full answer to that which is anything more then guess work and hypothesis. If you take the "traditional" views from different religions there are contrasting explanations.

 

Hindu and Buddhist views involve reincarnation and the negative consequences we encounter in life being purely based off accumulated karma and basically a difficult learning process. Simplistically: Do good - you get a good life. Do bad you get a bad life.

 

The christian view found in the bible is quite different. While it still has that rule of Karma - the explanation for why the world is so chaotic and has so much suffering has additional layers. It is said to be mostly due to a spiritual war between good and evil. That formerly man had direct union with god. His living spirit residing within us abundantly which brought long joy filled life of ease. But then fallen spiritual beings who acted sinfully rebelled against god made their spirits "unclean" and were then and were cast out of gods energy - Out of anger, spite and revenge decided to attack and a defile man. Unable to fight against god directly - they essentially decided to attack weaker more vulnerable physical beings which God cared for to get back at him. Basically: If I can't destroy you - then I will destroy something you love.

 

Hardly the rosiest of pictures :| In this understanding we are essentially collateral damage in a greater spiritual war with malevolent spirits actively trying to lead people into sinful behaviours and start wars and disputes amongst man to corrupt man, create negative karma and cause suffering. Gods answer was to withdraw his spirit from the earth and from man - causing life to become shorter and harder .... but also protecting man and ensuring any sins we commit in this life did not tarnish our eternal spirit and lock us into the same fate as the fallen angels. Eternity living with unclean spirit - in pain and anguish.

 

Then he created a rescue plan - sending a single man into the world who lived and died without sin and had a perfect human spirit which could then be given to all people when they die. Thus even though we are forced to live a hard physical life with little access to spirit and often undergoing great suffering - upon death we can still be raised up with a pure spirit and so still enter into spiritual heaven which would have otherwise been impossible.

 

The christian view really isn't a rosie one. Its like yes physical life will be difficult but if you do your best to resist evil and do good - a blessed eternal life still awaits. For me ..... despite how horrific that actually sounds - it kind of also makes sense when you look at how screwed up the world is .....

Edited August 16, 2019 by Justanaverageguy

[Justanaverageguy]

It might be worthwhile to consider that it is 'the Christian version of God' that is the problem, and not actually God.

 

Keeping in mind that Christianity relies on Judaism for its version of a hateful, vengeful, jealous, angry, cruel god. Because,

the entire 'Christian Old Testament' is just a translation of the original Jewish/Hebrew Tanakh...and it is precisely that same set of scriptures that Jesus came to 'renew and revive' (fix and update).

 

Interested in your view on this Ronni:

 

Do you think it was the core Judaic premise of God and his laws that were wrong ..... or merely that the Judaic people 2000+ years ago were of a very low level of spiritual behavior and so basically just continually fell victim to the law of karma ?

 

What I mean to say is: Did God appear to be hateful and vengeful to the Jews .... merely because that's how the Jews themselves acted towards others ?

 

ie The spiritual Law: As you sow so shall you reap. As you do unto others - so it will be done unto you. As Jesus stated this was essentially all that was being pointed to by the Judaic law and prophets.

 

If your an aggressive vengeful person - God\Life will thus appear aggressive and vengeful towards you. If you are a kind, loving, compassionate person who helps others ..... then likewise this is how God and life will appear to behave towards you. I'm not so sure the Judaic conception of God was really "wrong" .... but I would agree that due to their behavior towards others they frequently experienced the wrong side of Gods law of Karma and so this "punishment" "justice" aspect became overly emphasized.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Justanaverageguy

[Big Aus]

It's like me saying "I expect a woman to cook, clean, have sex, and never complain"

Then proclaiming "woman don't exist" because they don't meet my requirement.

 

Unfortunately, in the modern, evangelical, western Christianity, we have become "accustomed" to a particular notion of our interaction with God. And whilst we claim to know better, the fact is that inside we're stuck with this idea that Jesus should be leading us towards a perfect life.

We'll say "oh I know life isn't supposed to be perfect" but in reality we think every problem should be easily solved with a bit of prayer.

 

Often the real tragedy, is that Jesus has given us the commandments and the means to carry it, but we just don't.

People die in the world every day from starvation, malnutrition, and disease.

But do you realise that the G8 alone could easily end world hunger if they wanted to. But no, we would rather sell them guns.

[Rayce]

I think that emotions are one of the keys to understanding God. God describes Himself in emotional terms. Love, hate, jealousy, joy, etc... are all found in Scripture. I think it reconciles some of the supposed inconsistencies people find in the Bible. God is always the same, but yet He has emotions. He can be persuaded, such as when Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah and keeps revising the number of faithful people necessary to save the cities.

 

Jesus - simultaneously fully God and fully human, showed the full range of human emotions. The shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept" when Lazarus died. God has the same emotions that we do...He can't create something that He is not! Our emotions have been skewed by sin, and our reactions to our emotions can get us in trouble. God's emotions, like the rest of Him, are perfect. To view God in light of our emotions isn't to anthropomorphize God, instead it shows us a faded glimpse of how God originally created us.

 

I woke up early this morning thinking about this post in relation to my own situation and the anger that I feel. Interesting… I don't think I have ever taken the time to see God as a being with actual emotions but it does ring true. Thank you.

[Fekenaws]

I'm not particularly religious but think about it logically for a moment. The Universe is incredibly vast. Even if we develop faster than light travel it would take thousands of years to travel even relatively small sections of it.

 

Now further consider that, odds are, there is another form of intelligent life somewhere in the universe. This is just a basic numbers game, as it would be extremely improbable we are the only life intelligent life in the universe.

 

Lastly, consider what God is if he/she/it does exist. He is an entity so beyond comprehension that our greatest minds can't detect it with the most advanced scientific tools and data we have available. God is an entity so powerful that it created the entire universe for unknown reasons, and filled it with wonders so vast that every day it grows stranger and stranger the more we learn. To a being like God, the presumed father of all living and non-living entities across the universe, we would be less than ants to it. God would have, in all likeliness, no particular interest in the human race over any other intelligent race. God would likely be on a plane of intelligence and morals so far beyond our own, so radically different, that it would be incomprehensible and alien to us.

 

So for God to have "abandoned" us may not necessarily be bad, but it also may not necessarily be true. God may simply be indifferent. The Founder's of the US subscribed to a similar belief called Deism. Essentially, God created the universe, but he isn't actively involved in our lives and never was.

[mark clemson]

Possible. Or perhaps he is involved but chooses to guide, rather than intervene. Perhaps he intervenes all the time and does so in a subtle enough way that we don't notice it. Perhaps he intervenes in some cases but not others, for reasons understood only by him?

 

There are all sorts of "could be's" when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

Because of the physical mechanics/particulars of our universe, it's impossible for people to exist without being destroyed (in fact all physical structures apparently get destroyed via entropy). If you're an organism, getting destroyed is generally "no fun" - painful and traumatic. Yet without the pain and trauma, we wouldn't be able to exist.

 

The mechanics of our planet and universe don't allow for the instant creation of "perfect" beings that physically last forever. There will always be pain and suffering because in order to be able to exist in human form, we have to be temporary (able to be destroyed) as well.

 

Accepting the fact of our transitory nature does not have to mean that we've somehow been "abandoned" IMO.