Pain and Suffering~

"jesusissexy said...ok....so you are telling people that natural disasters that kill millions of people are a result of our choice and free will?put it this way...you say;god is all powerful and all loving i say; since there is disaster and turmoil in the world, god is either not "all powerful" or he is not "all loving" tell the millions of people, including children that die every year because of natural disasters, that it is "their" fault, and they have a choice to die. it must be very easy for you to preach your wacked ideals from the comfort of ur own home... have you ever tried taking a more public forum...you twat.



To Jesusisexy,
I’m really sorry about the late reply. I have been intending to write back to you since you replied with your post. I had written a response, and then decided to rewrite it, mostly because I feel that you don’t really want an argument to prove which of us is more ‘smarter’ but rather a real answer that relates to the world around us, and a reason why there is so much pain, pain which we believe is completely undeserved.




Suffering in the world is something that even I struggle with understanding. Being a Christian doesn’t stop bad things from happening to me either, I have seen those around me that I love and care about slowly succumb to cancer, people with no arms or legs having to beg for food, friends who have been raped or molested in their childhood. Suffering and pain, isn’t limited to third world people, but rather it is a universal stigma that affects us all.




If indeed this life is the only thing that you, me and everyone else has and there is nothing more after we die, than all the suffering, tears and cries of those children and others go unanswered. Life is truly tragic and all we strive for is in vain. Everything we hope for, our longings, struggles, dreams, and desires come to nothing, absolutely nothing. “Life is a bitch then you die”. However I don’t believe that is so, I believe that we have a soul that will last for eternity and there is an “all powerful” and “all loving god” who also has perfect justice.




Now in regard to all the natural disasters and pain and suffering in the world, I still believe that most of it is a result of evil people and not nature and that even the pain caused by natural disasters could definitly be minimized or eliminated if humans were as God created us to be. For example, famines, no one in the world would starve if people truly “loved his neighbor as himself”. The world has enough food to feed everyone but there are those that hord more than they need at the expense of others. For example, America makes up 7% of the worlds population but consumes half of the worlds resources.




There are a lot of “natural evils” in the world that could be prevented if their was no political wars, (for example; Cold War which resulted in wars such as Vietnam/ Korea which had side effects on the populations from Chemical weapons such as “Agent orange” which causes mutations) a balanced distribution of resources (a lot of south east asians eviromental problems are a result of exploitation from multinational corporations) or if people just didn’t have so much apathy towards the enviroment for example global warming which has resulted in huge climate changes causing extreme droughts and floods in different parts of the world. The world knows of this problem, yet there are countries that refuse to make changes such as America and Australia, who prefer profit and economic growth over safty. Not always are disasters “natural evils” but rather the result of evil hearts.




There are other disasters that are not caused by humans, and I would like to give you two reasons. Firstly we live in a fallen world. That might sound really stupid, but if what the bible says is true, then we live in a world that is tainted by sin (as a result of adam and eve eating the apple). If the world isn’t perfect anymore as it was ment to be, then natural disasters could be a reppercusion of sin. Which leads me to my next point.




Saving your physical body from pain or disease would really acomplish nothing in the end. Gods goal is not for your physical body to be saved, but rather your soul. Jesus healed people as a demonstration of his power to make it clear to those who were watching that God could do anything. But the healings were not only to heal, but to save souls. It was about the soul not the body, all those people Jesus healed eventually died of one thing or another, and 2000 years later all that matters was that their souls were saved.




Which matters more to you 2000 years from now? Whether or not your cancer is cured or whether or not your soul made it into eternal life.




I don’t know if I gave you the answer you wanted, but I know this for sure, that there are evil people in this world, and there is pain and suffering. We all eventually die, whether in the lap of luxury or in the gutter or on the battle field. All people die, even you and me. But what happens next is of greater importance than anything else in this life. This world is coming to an end, sooner or later the stars will stop shinning and the sun will run out of energy. But your soul will still exist. I know God is all powerful and all loving and has perfect justice. I don’t understand why somethings happen, but I trust that God will make it right. I trust that God will judge all our actions, those done in public and those done in secret and that through Jesus’s sacrifice I will have eternal life with God.
Please take care of yourself this Easter, and hope you can reply when you have time.