How is God related to suffering?

[Jetliner]

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[IrmaJean]

I will give it a go. Seems as though Dr. Schwartz wants it moved. Hope this was okay to do and hope this was the correct place to put it...

[Jetliner]

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[Symora]

My take on the subject is that it's not that you actually suffer more, because suffering is part of life as mentionned before, but that you can no longer act in a blind way, one where you act in any way which you want.

When you don't know God, or what the Prophets have told us God is because we have no other way of knowing Him, then you make up the rules as you go along. But the Prophets tell us us that God is compassion, love, kindness, and a series of other virtues. And then they tell us that God, in His infinite wisdom, advises us to live in a certain way in order to know Him, and to make life better for ourselves here on earth - how to get along, how to treat each other. A prescription for living. Principles that guide His creation is the way I see it. Concepts like love is the guiding power behind the universe, the power of attraction that keeps everything together. A big one to tap into!

So you can live life quite fine without God in your life, the way you see it and want to do it. But once you put God in your life and try to live according to His precepts, things are not so easy. Many of His directions are quite against instincts like backbiting, hatred, lust, meanness, dishonnesty. These are things that all of us feel, and without God, or other types of morally which have basically evolved out of religious ideas anyway, then we just act whichever way we want, from our animal and instinctive selves much of the time. Rules of survival mainly, which may be fine in principle but which do not make for very pleasant community living. We are apparently called to know a larger dimension of ourselves, our spiritual capacity, a capacity to understand that we also have the universe folded up within ourselves.

Anyway, that's what I consider the difficulty in getting closer to God. It is much more difficult to live a virtues, conscious life, one where you are always accountable for your actions and master of the development of your soul - life takes on another level of challenge. The path is harder and there are challenges at every turn, every day, all day long if you take it seriously. The rewards are not easily felt and sometimes one feels alone and distant from others because of it, especially in North America I think, where values have shifted dramatically towards the materialistic in recent time.

I have actually struggled deeply with this. Sometimes I wish I could become asleep again, unaware I am called to evolve beyond my animal self to a higher self, the one that lives beyond death apparently... Some have more capacity to ignore their own interests and do the will of Him towards whom we are all evolving, like Mother Teressa. I am personally a very self-absorbed human being who is tossed to and fro by my own internal longings and feelings. Maybe it's time I get back to the writings to find my way again...

Am I ranting here???? It helped me remember anyway... thanks for the thread....

[truebeliever]

I do not want to be disrespectful to Allan's wishes, so I looked to see this thread moved, and it had not. So, with all due respect, I am posting because I do actually feel one could say that spiritual belief is an avenue for cognitive reframing, though I am not sure from an academic's point of view this is part of the literature.

I wanted only to add that it is my belief that it is not actually God that causes suffering. My experience is that it is humans that cause suffering. Our perception is what creates suffering. If we choose to see each thing that we are experiencing as a blessing no matter how seemingly horrible, we do not suffer. We may even rise. Further, to me, most of our seemingly negative experiences that can be termed suffering are derived from the decision not to do better, or to be better. For example, take poverty which leads humans to experience a lot of suffering. Our choice not to share and care for all, leads us all to suffer. Even if it is we who are not the seeming poor, we still experience poverty--poverty of compassion not to see that others need our help, poverty of courage and action not to reach out to help, and the poverty of wisdom for not understanding that even when one of us suffers, we all suffer because we are all in this thing together. After all, isn't it true that those on the "top" can suddenly find themselves on the "bottom." Even when someone is seriously unwell even seemingly terminally unwell, the love of others can be the miraculous medicine that transforms suffering into grace or even into permanent healing.

I do think that this is a arguably cognitive reframing issue.

The question in the end is: not why does God make us suffer, but what don't we get how we make choices that make us all suffer or put another way, what do we not get about the purpose of life?

In the end it is not about one religion or another, it is about humanity understanding its own purpose--moving closer to God is a pathway to true purpose which, in turn, is a pathway to God.

truebeliever

[Jetliner]

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[Symora]

Let me know when you blog about it (I'm afraid I don't follow blogs much ). I'd like to read what you have to say. These types of discussions help nourish me, they help ground my faith and make it alive. I so miss my grandma for that!!!!