How could God let this happen?

The BBQ Pit
1

In spite of the genuinely shitty things those sentiments often reflect, this whole attitude pisses me off.

I must be getting old and crotchety, and I’m not even thirty five yet. It seems to me there is more and more whining at circumstance.

What a self-indulgent sense of entitlement we’ve acquired.

As if things are supposed to just work out ok for us, and we have a right to gripe if they don’t.

Pay attention to history. The opposite is the truth really. When things go well, that’s the accident. It ain’t the norm.

So this whole attitude just pisses me off.

The Sufi’s had a parable that summed up my feelings:
** The Parable**

The holy man lived up on the mountain. Every day he prayed, and looked about at the wondrous view from his mountaintop and praised God’s wondrous creation.

One day he camee down for supplies to a town.

In town he saw beggars, human misery, people sticking babies with pins to make them cry pathetically in the hopes of engaging a passerby to throw a coin their way.

He saw the just struck down by circumstance and evil men, and he saw evil men flourish and profit unchecked upon the misery of others.

The holy man’s faith was shocked to the core and he was near despair as he prayed. He saw that there could be no just God , and that his faith was a sham that such things could exist.

Nevertheless, he prayed once more.

“Oh God, how could you let this happen? What kind of God would allow this? Why haven’t you done something about it?”

Much to his chagrin, God answered him.

“I have done something about it. I made you.”
My advice? Get off the mountaintop.

2

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…

I’ve got diabetes now. Thanks.

3

You know, Scylla, the more of your posts I read, the more I’m convinced that you know exactly where your towel is. Keep up the good work.

4

Scylla: Amen.

Like the Eagles said, “Get over it!”

5

My family has always been in the habit of “helping” people (read bailing irresponsible, lazy or otherwise “troubled” people out of their messes)and it’s a big pain in the ass.
Many’s the time I’ve dragged my ass out of a warm bed at an ungodly hour to literally bail someone out, take someone to the hospital, etc. etc. etc.
Not to mention the free home/car repairs, the cash left in people’s wallets, the bills anonymously paid, etc. etc. etc.
The point is, everyone sees people with problems, but not everybody wants to get their hands dirty. All the government intervention in the world won’t do with $1 what I can do with $1 and my bare hands. If you see someone in need and you’re not doing something about it, you are the problem, end of question. Is it easy? fuck no. Is it rewarding? Rarely. Is it your duty as a human? You bet your life. And it doesn’t even necesarily have anything to do with a supreme being. Great post, Scylla.

b.

6

The first step to getting away from that question is for everybody to realize that god does not exist and we’ll all just have to do it for ourselves.

But dammit, if god does exist and it wants my worship, then I expect it to work for it.

7

Obfusciatrist:

It’s just a parable, not meant as glurge, and as I think I understand it, God’s existence or not is a moot point as far as the substance of the parable goes.

8

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Scylla *
**

I’m torn here. Does this make God lazy, or simply inefficient?

9

All flesh is grass.

A world without pain, suffering, tragedy and loss, is not a world I want to live in. Comfort just brings laziness. Adversity and injustice is what brings out the noble things in man. Though I don’t really believe in God, I think that If I am wrong, he sees this in his infinite wisdom too.
Give a child what he wants, hide him from pain and suffering, feed him only yummy candy and tasty junk-food, and he will grow fat, spoiled, and worthless. Let him live in a harsh but many times just world, barley scraping by, discovering pain, and disapointment, and his wisdom will grow. So will his strength.

10

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Revtim *
**

God isn’t the relevant part of the parable.

11

I would say it is a relevant part of the parable.

Rather than acting to help those who need help, it created a person and forced upon them the role of doing it. If this creation rejects the burden, then the person who needs help gets none.

Sounds callous to me.

12

My interpretation of the parable is that people shouldn’t bemoan suffering without doing something about it. Ergo, God is not particularly relevant. It’s a parable–the spirit, not the letter, is what’s important.

13

But often people are questioning God concerning needless and incurable pain and suffering.

14

Perhaps I misunderstand your parable, but I can’t see how it applies at all to someone blaming God for His creation. The whole idea of a God is as supreme being, omnipotent and omniscient. If indeed (though I do not at all believe it) there is a God, why not hold him responsible for what He has done?

The outrage on my part, at least, is not directed at some sky-bound bogeyman. I hate, truly despise with every fiber of my being, those who can believe in, and call benevolent, any God who would allow such things in the world. These people, not their God, frighten me.

Tens of thousands of acts are committed every day that would make the strongest of us ill. Nothing has consumed so much of mankind’s energy and ingenuity as the infliction of pain and suffering upon mankind. I loathe the men and women who are capable of the viciousness and degradation that they visit on their fellows, just as I loathe the circumstances that created them, just as I would loathe any supreme being that created them, or even allowed them to visit their cruelty on the world.

15

Trucido, you make a very good point.

Here’s my take on this. I have no idea whether or not there is a god. Nobody does. No matter what anyone says, there is no possible way to know. That said, what’s the big deal? What good is a bunch of needless worry about living a good, Christian life? What good is placing the blame on some imaginary being for any and every minor inconvenience or major disaster? “Why would a caring God take my sister from me?” “It was his will.” Give me a break. I think that if more people were to give up on this “comforting” idea of a god, we’d all be a lot happier. Well, I guess that could go the opposite way and we could all be maniacs roaming the streets with sawed-off shotguns, looting liquer stores and such. If a person’s religion gives them something to live for and they truly are happy with following the rules of said religion, more power to them, I guess. But when all the religion does is make the person sad, guilty, and confused, how can that be a positive thing? Bad things happen all the time. Stop wondering why God would do such a thing and just accept the fact that it happens and will continue to happen.

Billy Rubin, I disagree. I do not think that it is man’s duty to help other men. It is definitely a good path to take, but why would such a thing be required of us? Who requires it? Maybe you personally feel that you have a calling for helping others, and that’s great. But the fact that you say that it’s “rarely” rewarding confuses me. Why do it if you do not enjoy doing it?

If you actually read through all that blabble, thanks. In a nutshell: We don’t know if there’s a god, so stop worrying so much about it.

16

Wow. This seems to be going far from the intent of the OP.
I don’t think the presence of God is relevant to the parable or the point trying to be made.

As I see it the point is life sucks a lot. Either you do something about it or learn to deal with it, but blaming God isn’t going to help you whether he exists or not. That’s how I see the existance of God being irrelevant to the OP or the parable.

And (correct me if I’m wrong Scylla) the point is to do something about it yourself, or help someone else do something, don’t rely on or blame God for bad things that happen.

17

My favorite parable has always been this one:

It’s been raining a lot, news reports are on the dams and sandbagging efforts upstream on the river failing, flash flood warnings, urgings to people to evacuate to higher ground. A very devout man hears all this and is calmly secure. “God will protect me,” he thinks. When the flood waters invade the first story of his house, he goes upstairs, and as they rise higher, climbs onto his roof.

A neighbor family passes in a boat, slows down, shouts, “Hey! The news says there’s even more coming! Get down here, neighbor, we’re getting out of here!”

“No, you go on, God shall protect me.”

Flood waters continue to rise, and a helicopter flies overhead, hovers low and those inside shout over the propwash, lowering a rope ladder. “Everyone’s got to evacuate, the dam’s about to go!”

“No, no,” he waves them away, “God shall protect me.”

The helicopter finally goes on its way to rescue others. Soon enough, the dam bursts, a huge wall of water howls down the valley and obliterates the town from the map. Devout man is now very dead man, and appears before the Guy Upstairs. “My Lord,” he cries, “How could you forsake me, your humble servant all my life?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” God testily demands. “I sent you a boat and a helicopter, and you’re still bitching?”
Now, personally I think the world would be a better place should the idea of a personal God finally die. I doubt it would make humans monsters at all; people are pretty much people no matter what church they schlep to, what faith they hold. Some people are monsters, some are saints, and the majority simply muddle along as best we can.

18

God is leaving me to take care of myself (Drastic’s story) is fine. Even though God doesn’t exist.

God put me here to relieve the suffering of others (Scylla’s story) is just a cop out by god. This is made more acceptable by reason of its nonexistence.

19

[Doctor Evazan]

“He doesn’t like you!”

[/Doctor Evazan]

20

Yeah, either that, or his hardness, cruelty, and resentment. You takes your chances when you teach the kid that someone’s giving him all this stuff, candy and shit sandwiches alike. If, on the other hand (and I think this is what Scylla was getting at), the kid’s taught that life’s tough, we’re all in it together, so fish or cut bait ya spoiled little bastich, I’m thinking you’ll produce a far more productive human.

The point of Scylla’s OP, it seemed, was only tangentially about any god, and more about the sense of entitlement that a lot of people feel:

Those were the sentences that resonated for me, anyway.