God and Suffering (General)

by David Turell , Monday, November 17, 2008, 17:29 (5646 days ago) @ Mark

To many people the primary difficulty with belief in God is suffering. If God is good and the cause of all that is, why has he made a world with so much pain? 
> But it still leaves this question, which is often asked: Even if there is perfect peace at the end of the day, is it worth it? 
> We did not begin the project, but we have a choice about whether it continues. So,I ask this question of anyone who accepts that our freedom must limit God's ability to protect us from evil, yet still believes that God cannot be a loving creator: How can you also believe that it is loving to have children, when you cannot guarantee their protection from horrific suffering? - I don't think we can know for an absolute certainty that God is loving. I strongly believe that we were created by a superbly intellectual force, but I cannot bring myself to succumb to the human necessity to apply anthropomorphism to that intellect. To disagree with Mortimer J. Adler, I don't 'know' that God is a personage like no other person. - I am thankful that we have been given life from inorganic matter. I find living a marvelous gift, and I thank God for the wonderful gifts that I receive from living. That is the way I pray to God, to thank Him for those gifts. I have never prayed for help. I have never needed it. I have the strength to handle my own adversities. Of course I love my children, my wife, some friends. To withhold love because of the problem of evil, is not to use the living gift of love that we are allowed to feel in the way we have been created. - I know that our freedom of choice creates evil. I know that the process of evolution created evil living organisms,for example, the parasite, Plasmodium, that causes maleria, that has killed and is still killing millions of people, because the world of humans stupidly stopped proper use of DDT. We make horrendous mistakes as humans and God does not stop the results. Therefore, we cannot say God is loving, only hope religions are correct, and they really don't know any better than we individuals, who don't accept the Bible as inerrant, or even the true word of God.