Originally posted by: GundarkHunter
Personally, I get a little tired of the whole, "If God is all-powerful and loves all of us, why do bad things happen to good people?" argument. Bad things happen to good people because:
(1) God gave us the ability to make our own choices. This life is an opportunity to learn how to be better, kinder beings than we currently are, which requires the ability to make our own choices. If we can't make our own choices, we are nothing more than one of 7 billion pawns on a giant chess board called earth, moving at the behest of an all-powerful being who wants us all to turn out the same way. People are going to make good choices and bad choices. The key is knowing that our choices, no matter how insignificant, affect others.
(2) As before, God wants to challenge us to improve. We are brought into this life with certain challenges, and will meet more challenges along the way. Some of these challenges will be man-made; some will be there from the beginning. Again, how we respond to these challenges determines what we make of our lives.
I provide you with the following analogy: you want to learn how to ride a bike, and your parents would like to help you learn. Will you learn if every day, your parents continue to hold the back of your seat so you don't fall down? No. Is it better for you to learn through the experience of a few scraped knees? Yes. Is there going to be pain as a result? Yes. Will the pain make you a better person? Yes. Will you understand that teaching your children in that same way is best? More than likely.
Me, I take responsibility for my own actions. That is why I can continue to believe in God when tragedy surrounds me in this world.
Personally, I get a little tired of the whole, "If God is all-powerful and loves all of us, why do bad things happen to good people?" argument. Bad things happen to good people because:
(1) God gave us the ability to make our own choices. This life is an opportunity to learn how to be better, kinder beings than we currently are, which requires the ability to make our own choices. If we can't make our own choices, we are nothing more than one of 7 billion pawns on a giant chess board called earth, moving at the behest of an all-powerful being who wants us all to turn out the same way. People are going to make good choices and bad choices. The key is knowing that our choices, no matter how insignificant, affect others.
(2) As before, God wants to challenge us to improve. We are brought into this life with certain challenges, and will meet more challenges along the way. Some of these challenges will be man-made; some will be there from the beginning. Again, how we respond to these challenges determines what we make of our lives.
I provide you with the following analogy: you want to learn how to ride a bike, and your parents would like to help you learn. Will you learn if every day, your parents continue to hold the back of your seat so you don't fall down? No. Is it better for you to learn through the experience of a few scraped knees? Yes. Is there going to be pain as a result? Yes. Will the pain make you a better person? Yes. Will you understand that teaching your children in that same way is best? More than likely.
Me, I take responsibility for my own actions. That is why I can continue to believe in God when tragedy surrounds me in this world.
Great point, Gundark Hunter. Also remember Job and what happened to him. God does test us. Remember the saying "the only place where it never rains is the desert" Life will have problems. Sometimes the problems are a result of nothing we did, but someone else's actions that isn't our fault.