Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

[fourthdan]

I don't know if I agree with this post completely - I mean I believe in God, and I agree with the part where he's letting this happen so we learn from our mistakes and that we have free will. However I am fuzzy on the destiny part - Doesn't everything that happen, happen for a reason?
What about Karma?

[Erin Pavlina]

Free will trumps destiny once we incarnate.

And this man who committed the murder will reap karma. He is not free from universal justice.

I wrote a nifty blog entry about destiny vs. free will here:

Destiny vs. Free Will

[jonarmis]

I agree with you Erin. God does not allow evil to triumph over goodness. But he created man in His likeness, with freewill to do or not to do certain things. We choose the life we live and along the way we can never question God's wisdom.

Take for example Job from the Old Testament, God allowed him to suffer because it was for a purpose.

[Guardian Angel]

I think this is the problem of most people who believe in God. Some of them do not understand that it is humans that allow such things to happen. We can always have a choice on how things can happen. The moment we wake up until the time we sleep, all of our actions the whole day is being decided by us.
Just like rape and murder, it occurs because all of us allow it to happen. I am not saying that these victims are dumb. But we try to analyze things, the people around these criminals has their own share of obligation too, like the police, the parents, the neighbors and so on. Although it may be case to case basis, the victims somehow had the chance to kill these ruthless criminals before they got killed but for whatever reason, they do not have the guts.

Pls. do not get me wrong. I pity the victims and their relatives and friends, but for me a crime should be prevented by all of us. That is, if all of us are working hard about it including the parents of potential criminals, then maybe just maybe our only problem will be pride and money.

Lastly, I believe in God although I may be looking the other way.
Thank you.

[Sam988]

Who said that god is good in the first place?


If god existed, i would see him as being a kid playing in his garden with ants (us).

[Greki]

It is very curious that the very first post I read on your blog would be this one. It is curious because just this day we had a similar conversation in class...

Not exactly the subject of murder, no, nor of God's supposed blame for our sins. We did discuss a bit on the influence of Religion in war, but "it" being used as simply a set of ideals that certain people wish to follow.

I'd have to agree that God allows us to learn from our own mistakes (even people that are not Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, etc., still follow, most of the times, superior beings that let them that freedom...). Anyway that's not exactly wath I wanted to point exactly.

I won't go deeper in the influence of Religion in wars... more specifically the influence of the church. I'm studying within a highly political-oriented class, so such debates could go nasty.

No, what I rather found peculiar was the following statement:

I expect that one day people will stop seeing violence as a solution to a problem.

Most people would agree on this statement. I, as a martial artist, would want nothing more than such a thing occurring... but I also believe that when the world is finally at peace, is when it is dead.

It sounds cruel, but I know that is the truth.

All living beings seek to survive. Even us, humans. Some of us who have a more favorable life than many of those others suffering from horrible fates still do have that need to survive. Still do need that need to survive. Why? Because otherwise we would fall in depression and see no point in living. And I know what I'm talking about, because I've felt it.

If we don't have something that we love... if we don't have something to protect (may not only be people, but anything; just like ideals), then we don't have any meaning. I believe that Steve's blog (and perhaps your blog, but I haven't checked it all through yet) has mentioned the issue of purpose. If we want to live fully we need a purpose. But anyway, that's not the point.

The point is that if we have such a purpose, then we need to defend it will everything we've got. And if we need to defend it, then we need to be ferocious for it. Even if we're pacifists! Pacifists still fight for what they believe in!

Just in that sense alone I believe that violence is a necessity. An evil necessity, but one none-the-less. And that is perhaps why God let's so much evil creep into the world, because otherwise if one doesn't fight for all those things valuable to us, then they won't have any meaning at all.

They'd be as good as dead.

I don't know if I explained myself clearly, and I bet a lot of people will disagree with me on this... but this is truly what I believe in, because I've lived it myself. But even so it would be nice if these things didn't happen...

Nice article, anyway! My first one was such a short one and it made me think a bunch of stuff. Gotta check the rest of your blog! I bet I'll find a lot of great things!

[megs]

Nice article, Erin. I do agree with your view on free will. However, I don't quite understand violence from the standpoint of the woman who was murdered, or anyone who is victim to violence. Where does the law of attraction come into play here? Did the woman attract her husband to murder her? On a vibrational level, how is she not responsible for this tragedy?

[Erin Pavlina]

Unless I knew more about her situation I really couldn't describe what she may have been a vibrational match for.

[BlueCrane]

For those of you who read German, I have written an article on this very topic on my KOMPASS Blog on 14 Dec 2007 : 'Warum passieren Guten Menschen Schlimme Dinge?'