Question:
If Jesus (God) exists, why do he allow so much suffering?
2017-02-19 07:27:08 UTC
I know life is not always fair. But why Do God allow so much suffering? Kids getting murdered and abused. So much hunger in the world. The church takes up millions of dollars a year but yet MOST don't help out the community. I've seen Pastors live in million dollar homes and some of their members don't have food or shelter. One of the reasons I have my doubts about religion.
40 answers:
2017-02-24 05:29:53 UTC
god got me through the abuse... i also learned not to blame god for something humans did... one consolation is the life god talks about after this life... but i guess a lot of people don't pay any attention to that stuff...
2017-02-20 13:23:44 UTC
Satan and man make the suffering.
?
2017-02-20 03:48:57 UTC
Leviticus 26:14-26 Punishment for Disobedience



14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.



18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.



21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.



23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.



You Suffer because you Sin, Sin not Die not, Sin not hurt not, Go and Sin no more!
?
2017-02-20 00:57:00 UTC
Because Jesus is either not there or doesn't care. Either way, he ain't gonna help ya. I waited a lifetime for help - it never came. Don't make the same mistake.



~Cindy! :)
?
2017-02-19 12:38:06 UTC
Because Satan may use his earthly agents to cause Christians much trouble. Over the past century, many of our Christian brothers and sisters have been objects of violent persecution in many lands. In some places today, our brothers daily face economic distress. Some experience the pain of hunger or lack sufficient clothing. What is the Devil’s objective in causing these hard conditions? At least in part, his purpose is to discourage true worship of Jehovah. Satan wants to make us believe that God’s love has grown cold. However, is that the case?

Like Paul, who quoted Psalm 44:22, we have studied God’s written Word. We understand that it is for the sake of God’s name that these things happen to us, his “sheep.” The sanctification of God’s name and the vindication of his universal sovereignty are involved. It is because of such major issues that God has permitted trials, not because he no longer loves us. No matter what the distressing circumstance may be, we are assured that God’s love for his people, including each one of us, has not changed. Any seeming defeat we may suffer will turn out to be a victory if we keep our integrity. We are strengthened and sustained by the assurance of God’s unbreakable love. When saddening things happen to us, we could begin to feel abandoned, even imagining that God’s love for us has waned. Since we are all subject to such happenings, we do well to consider carefully the very consoling words of the apostle Paul recorded in Romans chapter 8. Those words were addressed to spirit-anointed Christians. Yet, in principle they also apply to those of the other sheep, who have been declared righteous as God’s friends, as was Abraham in pre-Christian times.
Ray
2017-02-19 10:44:57 UTC
Planet earth has a title deed, or in modern terms a lease. God gave the lease to Adam. Adam forfeited the lease over to Satan. (smooth move, dumb, dumb!). We presently live in Satan's kingdom and God has limited access through believers and their prayers. Those days are nearly over. The bad news is Satan is not vacating the property without a fight. "Except those days were cut short, no flesh would survive."
?
2017-02-19 08:02:26 UTC
where's the nearest Atheist orphanage and homeless shelters? I can only find christian ones
Ray
2017-02-19 07:50:24 UTC
That is something we all think about in every belief. There has to be a balance, that's why. Like Buddha said "There has to be evil, so that good can prove its purity above it.”
2017-02-19 07:40:40 UTC
So why are you blaming God exactly?
2017-02-19 07:31:52 UTC
free will
2017-05-03 08:10:23 UTC
god got me through the abuse......... i also learned not to blame god for something humans did......... one consolation is the life god talks about after this life......... but i guess a lot of people don't pay any attention to that stuff.........
2017-04-16 08:35:39 UTC
god got me through the abuse......... i also learned not to blame god for something humans did......... one consolation is the life god talks about after this life......... but i guess a lot of people don't pay any attention to that stuff.........
2017-03-29 15:52:26 UTC
the more pertinent question is, why do people allow so much suffering? god only has power when people show love.........
2017-02-27 04:05:53 UTC
all in cosmos is karma as ye sow so shall ye reap how simople can this be and yet we tend to forget such divine truths and suffer as a consequence thereof...
?
2017-02-21 11:52:53 UTC
He doesn't he watches and keeps track. Free will. We as humans are responsible for our own actions
2017-02-20 16:24:45 UTC
the more pertinent question is, why do people allow so much suffering? god only has power when people show love...
proud2bme
2017-02-20 03:36:33 UTC
Those pastors aren't living Gods way, and God allows suffering because we were warned to not eat of the fruit, we would surely die we chose the fruit, thus we die a little everyday, and the suffering in the world is the cause of our sin. Satan causes the suffering, isn't the wrold partially ruled by Satan, If it was all ruled by Satan, than we would be tortured daily......God will get enraged by our suffering one day, and he will come again, but he has to allow us to suffer, because if we didn't, than we would be less likely to trust in him, if everything went nice and smooth without pain, than we wouldn't desire God's love, and if God comes again, than more of his people would go to hell, he is using all of this to make us turn to him for salvation. ACCEPT GOD HE LOVES YOU SOOOOOO MUCH HE IS LETTING YOU SUFFER TO LET YOU SEE YOUR NEED FOR SALVATION< HE DOES IT, BECAUSE HE WANTS YUO TO ACCEPT HIM AS YOUR SAVIOR SO THAT YOU CAN LIVE IN ETERNAL PARADISE WITH HIM FOREVER.
Chantal G
2017-02-19 19:01:34 UTC
The more pertinent question is, why do PEOPLE allow so much suffering? God only has power when PEOPLE show love.
2017-02-19 13:42:52 UTC
So you can learn to live in peace and care for others around you too and not just yourself
2017-02-19 10:42:38 UTC
all in cosmos is karma as ye sow so shall ye reap how simople can this be and yet we tend to forget such divine truths and suffer as a consequence thereof.
Eli
2017-02-19 09:08:51 UTC
No God ( jesus) does not allow sufferings. It is the result of humans behaviour towards others.

A priest in his homily last time told us that God in his nature is completely stranger to evil. When Caen killed abel his brother god did not even know that ( Genesis 4:10) . God is completely stranger to pains and suffering caused by evil Yet he sympathize to our pains.

Remember that at the very beginning, God made us to enjoy life like if we were in heaven on earth. Unfortunately adam and eve were rebellious to him when they chosed to follow what the devil told them.
Artemis
2017-02-19 08:16:34 UTC
“Q: The fundamental question that constantly haunts me is, why do I exist and what for? Why was I born? Have I come here to do something? Because I don´t know what I have come to do.

A: You have come to evolve.



Q: What do you mean by evolve? Evolve in what?

A: The transformation process of egoism into love is what I call evolution. To evolve means learning to love.



“Q: WHY ALL THE SUFFERING? Why do we live in a world so full of hatred, wars, hunger, extreme poverty, suffering. Does it have any sense?



A: Yes, there is a sense to it all, to evolve. All those disasters that you mention, all have the same origin, lack of love, let´s call it EGOISM. Just as the combined egoism of each person can turn the world into a real hell, as is happening now, when that egoism transforms into love, the combined love of each person will transform the world into a paradise. It´s in your will to transform yourself internally from egoism into love and if you achieve this inner change, then the outside, all that surrounds you, the entire world, will change as a logical consequence of this. The physical world in which you live is there to help you experience that transformation process. IT´S LIKE CLAY FOR THE CHILD WHO WANTS TO LEARN HOW TO MODEL.



Q: Evolution for what purpose, towards where? What is the sense in making all that effort if, in the end, it will all end in death.

A: The evolution of each being towards a greater capacity for loving, feeling and knowing, towards greater levels of happiness, is never ending, otherwise it wouldn´t make sense.



Q: What do you mean by this?

A: That the being never ceases to exist, in other words, it is immortal.



Q: How can you say that, when we see how thousands of human beings die every day?

A: What dies is only the vehicle that those beings use to manifest themselves on the physical plane, which is their physical body. Their essence and their conscience continue to exist.



Q: Do you mean that there is life after death?

A: Yes. What I actually mean is that death doesn´t exist and what decomposes is only the vehicle that the spirit uses to appear on the physical plane.



Q: What is the spirit?

A: The spirit is the being that exists, lives and feels. It is within the spirit where the individual will and conscience reside, which are never destroyed. You are a spirit. All of you, all humans, are spirits. You are just attached to a physical body for some periods of time, which we will call incarnations. You think that you are your physical body, but this is just the garment that you need to be able to act in the material world. The spirit can exist independently of the body. That is what happens after death. The spirit is completely separated from the body and continues to exist, to live on. The spirit is immortal. Spirits can evolve, change for the better or stagnate, but they can never be destroyed.



Q: But what proof do we have that there is life after the death of the body? As far as I know, nobody has ever returned to tell us about it.

A: That assertion is not totally correct. There are thousands of testimonies of people who were clinically dead and were resuscitated. Many of them remember having lived through some pretty strong, and for them, real experiences during the period in which they were physically dead.

Q: Couldn’t these experiences they describe be hallucinations as a result of the highly critical state they were in?

A: Well, then it must have been a collective hallucination in which they all agreed to hallucinate the same thing, because all these people are telling the same story.



Q: What is that supposed communal story that they are telling?

A: The separation from the physical body and the vision of the actual body from outside. The sensation of travelling through a dark tunnel, at the end of which an intense light is perceived. Meeting relatives or friends who have died previously. A dialogue with a being of light. The retrospective vision of life itself, even experiencing the return to the body, with a subsequent change of vital values and a new perception of the phenomenon of death. They are people who are not afraid of dying, because they have already experienced the fact that life goes on and that what is coming next is much better than what they leave behind.”



The Spiritual Laws – Vicent Guillem
?
2017-02-19 08:02:30 UTC
I asked myself that question until i realized that no one adapts to such suffering through natural selection, so evolution is false.
2017-02-19 07:42:43 UTC
I asked this same question years ago and today people are still asking it.
2017-02-19 07:41:08 UTC
It's going to get worse, a LOT WORSE, so gear up.

Why? To catch them, of course.



This is not the end, but the introduction.

And more and more people really think there is no god

and THUS....no consequences IF they are smart, hide the crimes,

take the goods, steal the money.



The bible explains all this and more.

How exactly does GOD stop it without somehow letting

the perpetrator off the hook? This is all about catching

these destroyers.

And God spares a LOT of people, and I know it because

I was rescued about 4 times from a hell like you described.

I also went through some but was rescued before it

totally ruined me.

I COULD blame God, right? But I understand the suffering

and I Praise God for all His mercy to me.
Christian Sinner
2017-02-19 07:40:22 UTC
God got me through the abuse. I also learned not to blame God for something humans did. One consolation is the life God talks about after this life. But I guess a lot of people don't pay any attention to that stuff.
Michael
2017-02-19 07:35:27 UTC
Cancer cure is

1)guanaba/soursop

2)boiling water mixed with baking soda

3)iodine baths

4)celandine juice

etc.



Gov't hides this info.



Jesus allows this to happen because cancer patients repent and avoid hell

(or receive less punishment). Forgive me.
2017-02-19 07:33:36 UTC
Religion basically just gives a respectable veneer to the phrase "I've got mine, fück you".
?
2017-02-19 07:33:09 UTC
Do you know that for years the American government has paid farmers to NOT produce food on their land? Do you know how many farmers send food and people send donations to countries with starving people only to have their donations stolen by groups of people who want to stay in power by subjugating their people to starvation? God made plenty of food available, governments and people get in the way of getting that food to the people who need it.



God is against rape and murder and considers them to be capital crimes deserving the death penalty if a perpetrator is properly convicted according to His instructions in Deuteronomy 19 KJV. But, people have decided their idea of law is better than His and do not follow His instructions, but instead, they release convicted murderers who go out and murder again. In addition to that, the executions of properly convicted murderers is to be public so others will see and fear for their own lives and maybe not commit those crimes.



God is very specific that this applies to pre-meditated murderers. He does not consider accidental killing to be a sin or heat of the moment killing to be a sin to Him. Deuteronomy 19 KJV And He explains what He blesses in defense of self/family/nation having freedom for people to seek/study/teach His Word, or not as each individual decides for themselves, in Deuteronomy 20 KJV. He does not consider killing in defensive war to protect freedom to teach and study His Word to be a sin to Him.



Many of the schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, food outreaches have been started by churches in America.



You are blaming God for people who do not follow His instructions and allow satan to work his will through them. How is God to blame?
Dios Te Bendiga
2017-02-19 07:31:47 UTC
Read the bible.
2017-04-24 00:17:36 UTC
'cause satan may use his earthly agents to cause christians much trouble... over the past century, numerous of our christian brothers and sisters have been objects of violent persecution in numerous lands... in some places today, our brothers daily face economic distress... some experience the pain of hunger or lack sufficient clothing... what is the devil’s objective in causing these hard conditions? at least in part, his purpose is to discourage true worship of jehovah... satan wants to make us believe that god’s love has grown cold... however, is that the case?

like paul, who quoted psalm 44:22, we have studied god’s written word... we understand that it is for the sake of god’s name that these things happen to us, his “sheep...” the sanctification of god’s name and the vindication of his universal sovereignty are involved... it is 'cause of such major issues that god has permitted trials, not 'cause he no longer loves us... no matter what the distressing circumstance may be, we are assured that god’s love for his people, including each one of us, has not changed... any seeming defeat we may suffer shall turn out to be a victory if we keep our integrity... we are strengthened and sustained by the assurance of god’s unbreakable love... when saddening things happen to us, we could begin to feel abandoned, even imagining that god’s love for us has waned... since we are all subject to such happenings, we do well to consider carefully the very consoling words of the apostle paul recorded in romans chapter 8... those words were addressed to spirit-anointed christians... yet, in principle they also apply to those of the other sheep, who have been declared righteous as god’s friends, as was abraham in pre-christian times...
Jimbo
2017-02-19 16:03:02 UTC
I bet if you Google this question or do a word search here, you can find this question being asked on a weekly basis and I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't ask it.
Misty
2017-02-19 13:37:29 UTC
First you have to ask yourself why you "assume" that the existence of God would necessarily mean a lack or reduction in suffering. What do you base this on?



What we often do is start out with what we would do if we were God, and then apply this criteria to God and find him lacking.



If God exists then he is a being unlike anything we can comprehend. His knowledge of all things is vastly more inclusive than we can process. Suffering exists and God allows it. This means there is purpose. Our goal must be to understand that and to see that the purpose of suffering is fulfilled.



Through suffering we can bring about good. Compassion, selflessness, love, and so on. Suffering can be offered up for the salvation of others and help us become holy.
?
2017-02-19 09:52:10 UTC
If you think God allows pain and suffering, then equally you will justify their continuity based on this way of thinking. Because if you think God allows it, then surely there must be a reason.

Pain and suffering have nothing to do with God.
?
2017-02-19 09:39:48 UTC
The bible is what is called "Faction” A fictional story set in a factual time and place. Thus the time, place and real historical characters are all correct but the fictional characters and stories are not!



There is not one single mention of Jesus in the entire Roman record - that is right - not one! At the same time as he was supposed to have been around there were a number of Jews claiming to be the messiah - all of whom are well recorded!



There is not a single contemporary record from any source and even the bible mentions of him like all other references were not written until many years after his supposed death!



He was supposed to have been a huge problem to the Romans and produced wonderful miracles but still not one contemporary record?



Even the bible mentions of him like all other references were not written until many years after his supposed death!



Pilate is recorded in the Roman record as a somewhat lack luster man but no mention of a Jesus, a trial or crucifixion that would surely have been used to make him look brighter!



At best he was an amalgam of those others but almost certainly never existed!



Not one word of it is contemporary with the period and was not written until several hundred years after the period the story is set in!! How did the apostles write their books more than a hundred years after they would have been dead?



Christianity is an invention of the Italians and that is why it came from the Holy ROMAN Catholic church!



Please realize that those claims for the Old historians are worthless since they were not even born until long after everyone in the stories would have been so long dead!



Josephus AD 37 – AD 100

Tacitus AD 56 – AD 120

Suetonius - 69 – 130 AD

Pliny the Younger, 61 AD – 112 AD

Justin Martyr (Saint Justin) AD103–165 AD

Lucian - AD 120 -180 AD but he was hostile to Christianity and openly mocked it.

Pamphilius AD 240-309 AD

Eusebius AD 263 – 339 AD

Photius AD 877 – 886 AD



Thallus - But there are no actual record of him except a fragment of writing which mentions the sack of Troy [109 BC] Showing that he was clearly not alive in biblical times.



Some even try to use Seneca. 4 BCE – 65 CE but as a Stoic Philosopher he opposed religion yet made not a single mention of a Jesus or Christianity!



Even funnier is trying to claim Celsus AD ? – 177 AD Who said that Jesus was a Jew who’se mother was a poor Jewish girl whose husband, who was a carpenter, drove her away because of her adultery with a Roman soldier named Panthera. She gave birth to an illegitimate child named Jesus. In Egypt, Jesus became learned in sorcery and upon his return presented himself as a god.



An ancient set of lead tablets found in Jordan in 2008 showing the earliest portrait of Jesus Christ have proved to be 2,000 years old and say that Jesus and the disciples tried to recreate a religion from the time of King David!
Bryce
2017-02-19 09:07:41 UTC
The world is the same as if there is no god.
grnlow
2017-02-19 08:49:21 UTC
17 answers so far. Not one looks into the Bible for it's written answer. Its is to answer the challenges raised by Satan and Eve.



Job 1&2 details God calling for an assembly of every spirit creature in heaven. Satan entered and was allowed to issue his challenges before everyone about God's RIGHT TO RULE his creations. With Eve, that humans could rule themselves, without God. At Job 2:4, that not a single human had a drop of Integrity, by using "A MAN" instead of just Job, they were talking about earlier.



Time had to be allotted to settle the issues. By putting it before all spirit creatures, he prevented more from trying the same thing Satan did. For 6,000 years, Satan has tried and failed at everything. All that's left is getting all humans killed before any can live into God's Kingdom.



Once Satan is locked away, both the planet and it's people can return to perfect as in Adam's day. All faithful ones resurrected to life. All things Satan has done more than repaired by God.
?
2017-02-19 08:01:04 UTC
God gave people free will, and the devil loves causing chaos and misery. So that's why the world's so messed up.
TH
2017-02-19 08:00:43 UTC
We are given free will. God wants to see if we choose to obey him or not.
2017-02-19 07:53:14 UTC
Sorry, who? Jesus or God?


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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