Why does God allow bad things to happen?

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Thats what I've been trying to tell people for years. Frankly, it makes me feel more at peace to embrace the fact that I am an animal. I don't believe I was "created" by anything other than my parents through breeding. I don't believe "God" created humans.

I tried worshipping "God" once. All it brought me was confusion and unease. It didn't mesh with my logic.

It does not seem feasible that "I" am the sum of instincts and drives, for the simple reason that "I" percieve these wants and drives. I subscibe to the somewhat Buddhist notion that "I" am really just the act or essence of this perception. The pure awareness that underlies conciousness and possibly the universe is divided up amongst all these drives and instincts, or competing substances.

On another note, I do not buy the argument that God gave us free will and that is why there is evil in the world. At least not literally. It is once again, poetic or archetypal. It seems that the underlying principle of the universe is "divided unity" Evil is what you get when this division occurs.
" a house divided against itself cannot stand"

The human condition however, seems to approach a "union of diversity" I believe that your will is free only to the extent that you "see clearly" or differentiate your true nature from all of the wants and fears that we call "self"

Meep! What I MEANT was, as less than perfect beings we can question the validity and actions of a perfect being, but because of our own lack of perfection we will fall short.

As for working with imperfect material, that is taking a biblical standing. Working with what is in the Bible and using a little creative imagination, we can come to the conclusion that God was working with a mess, and messes are rather hard to work with at the best of times!

Actually, God made a place for us humans that was so nice that he enjoyed physically coming down and visiting. It was by the fee will of all humans, from Adam all the way even to us, that we have made the world the disaster it is.

yeah how are adam, eve and their zillion incestual kids these days?

If God is all powerful why didnt he make humans nice and true then? Its his disaster then and he is to blame for the world's ills. Of course he doesnt exist so im not gonna waste my time blaming him.

I have such a hard time believing anyone still takes this kind of thing literally.

The evils in human society bear a stiking resemblance to things that take place in the animal kingdom. Competition, lust, death, canibalism. Does this mean that the animals were all nice to eachother before Adam sinned? Lion with the lamb and all that stuff?

As with any myth, I think that there is truth in this story and it was expressed in the way that seemed best at the time. The truth is that if everything had not sprung into existence then we would be in "eden" or paradise. We would not have to struggle with eachother. But if the big bang had never happened then Love would not have the rich meaning and diverse expression that it does in our human world. If you love something let it go... etc. etc.
Now there is another truth that is also being expressed at the same time, and that is that we have the potential for unity, if we would not squander it by giving in to temptation. This is of course the more important of the two.

In short, I believe as Aldous Huxley said, that the "fall" must have occured on the molecular level....Or perhaps on the quantum level depending on your instrument of observation.

Eve was tempted by the serpent, if she had not been tempted, then Adam would not have sinned. So when did "temptation" originate?

Does anyone know the story of the fallen angel ?

I think what trips me out is if God is all knowing as well as all powerful then it means he knew we'd end up exactly the way we are when he created us, knew Lucifer would rebel when he created him, and knew agreat deal of us would be going to hell - IF any of that exists.

There is something called "free will". What would be the point of us loving someone if they forced us to? There wouldn't be a point. Sure, God could have made the world perfect if He wanted to, and He could have made all the humans worship Him and love Him, but He wanted us to be able to choose what we would do. Would we really be loving someone if they held a gun to our head and said "do you love me"? I don't think so.

Sorry if this wasn't what you were asking, but it was what I interpreted you asking.

think of it this way. you build a washing machine, it washes clothes, you tell it it doesn't have to wash clothes because it's free to do whatever it wants...however, it wants to wash clothes because it's a damn washing machine. therefore it has no free will because it was made to wash clothes and that's all it knows or wants to do.

people were built. and whatever we do or say, we were built to do exactly these things. free will is nothing but an illusion. god is a dictator in disguise.

Nah, I'd say mother nature's the dictator. As free will though, you can at least choose to be or not to be a good person. Of course the cohersive pressures to be a piece get to be almost unrealistic but then again the world has always been that way, was probably even worse in the times of Jesus, and in general I really think it's all just a call to transcend animal nature (just like most religions generally are).

you can't choose if you're gonna be a good person or a bad one. bad people are bad because they were born that way. good people were born good. it's all biological, and yeah, it's mother nature who's the dictator because god is just a BS bedtime story for poor scared little adults who can't sleep at night.

I also suspect parents tell their kids such lies as "god" and "hell" to terrify their kids into blindly obeying adults and other authority.

yeah totally.

This is all so sad...


-SpaceCase

I believe that G-d is ever loving and compassionate. We must take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. Everything is cause and effect. If one beats another, the offender will receive a beating sometime later. That isn't between the offender and G-d, that is between the offender and his own self.

Our actions in this dimension, trigger reactions in G-d's dimension although G-d is beyond any dimension. G-d's energy is filtered through ten vessels and those vessels include judgment, mercy, beauty/harmony, etc. If one wants good things, one must be good. G-d is here to teach us lessons and return us to Him. He gave us free will because it is better when someone chooses to love you, rather than creating them or forcing them to love you and that is what we are here to do.

Bad things happen, but your reaction to those events is what really counts.

This is what I believe.
Tallgirl.