To you people who belive in God...

If there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world? Surely an all powerful God would put an end to suffering once and for all?

How can you belive in a God when there is so much suffering, people starving, being raped, people being supressed, victims of wars and war crimes, children being abused, womes being abused, people with tragic life stories in countless ways, people enduring all sorts of pain and suffering mentally and physically, all over the world.

To me there is a serious conflict between the religious belief in a God, and the utter imperfection of his creation.

To those of you who still belive in spite of those things, how do you explain all the sufering in the world, and the fact that God does not fix it?

I don't have a satisfactory explanation which is troubling, but (as it turns out) not sufficient to dislodge the belief.

I find myself conceding that if God exists, he seems to allow a lot of bad things to happen. Either there's some reason for that (ie there is a necessary amount of suffering which leads to an implausible conclusion), God does not have the properties I ascribe to him or God doesnt exist.

"free will"

// thread

You mention three possible explenations here, if you dont mind I would like to ask some follow up questions:


1.
What can such reasons be? That whoever is suffering is doing it for a reason, that something good will come out of it in gods plan, that we cant see immediately? Or maybe that the person is being punished by god for a sin performed in a previous life? Or maybe both? Jesus suffered for man, is there anything there which will give a clue towards the answer?

2.
What is the ramifications of this? That there is a devil who is causing the suffering, and there is a god who is combating him, and there is a war between good and evil, happiness/peace and suffering/pain?

3.
This is obv a logical possibility

I think the above is just trying to find answers to questions that cant be answered.

Its just trying to find excuses. Suffering for a reason seems very unlikely, and what kind of a God would have that as his methods?

Well sure, but it's worth bearing in mind that I don't find any of these persuasive - I just think these options are exhaustive so it's one of them.
In my opinion, the "best" defence of the existence of suffering is the existence of second order goods. This argument is essentially that there are some 'goods' which are better than others and that these need evil in order to exist. So although politeness is good, compassion is better. One can't feel compassion unless there is some suffering - same with charity (you can't give charity to people who have everything they need), self-sacrifice, etcetera all of which are deemed to be 'more good' than good qualities which don't rely on the existence of evil.

The problem I have with this is when one asks "Why so much suffering?" couldnt we have all those second-order goods with just one less person starving to death, one less murder, one less cot death, etcetera. It seems to only make sense if this is the best possible world - and since I seem able to dream up some better worlds, I find this implausible.
The ramifications are no more than God is either not able to do anything about suffering, he's unaware of the suffering or he's not interested in alleviating it.
I agree - plenty don't.

God allows suffering to promote the greater good.

He, in fact, is doing it for us, since He knows that by suffering we hate the world and we come to love God. And by loving God we will attain eternal life and happiness.

Also, if he didn't honor our decisions via free will, we would be robots, but he allows our actions to have consequences, both here on Earth and in Heaven and Hell.

The devil is in rulership (the white man according to the Bible)

One his rulership ends with the establishment of the kingdom of heaven then those at the bottom will rise up and those at the top will come down and suffering will end.

This is spoken about by others as well (native americans) and the whole 2012 prophecy/end of the world stuff.

It's not the end of the world it's just the end of the white man's world according to prophecy. His time of rulership and world suffering will be up as the cosmos is aligning a massive hit of karma against the current rulership of this world (the white man) and wipe most if not all of them out forever.

And no I'm not being racial i'm being honest. I just couldn't stand watching people talk about "the devil" in this thread as if he's some kind of demon with horns when the Bible says the devil is a man. Please show me in the Bible where the devil is a two horn demon.
Notice what I put in bold. The beast is a man because the white man is called a beast in the Bible (you could link this up to Obadiah where it talks about the white man being in the caucus mountains living as beasts) then being unleashed from there to raise hell in the world.

I also think these options are exhaustive. What I am seeking some sort of convincing answer to is option 1:
That’s basically what my OP is about, and I was hoping some devoted religious people could give me a/some convincing response(s) with regards to that. I mean, whoever is religious and believes in God, surely must have an opinion on this? If God has created the world (like religious people believe), and he is almighty, all loving and all forgiving (like religious people believe), why has God created a world with so much suffering?

What possible reason could be behind it? What possible goal could it serve? Why on earth would God use such means to reach a goal? The reason I seek an answer to this question is presisely because I think the three options are exhaustive, and option 2. doesnt correlate well with the religious belief in an allmighty, caring, loving etc. God. So that leaves us mainly with option 1. or 3. (either there is a reason, or God doesnt exist). Therefore I cant see how people can be religious, and not have a good answer to option 1.

I am sure there are theories about this, there must be.

However, I don’t find this argument to be convincing at all:
Maybe I am misunderstanding or not fully understanding this argument but my interpretation is that the need/reason for suffering is that otherwise there would be no need for good deeds. If this basic interpretation is roughly right, then an argument against that is: in a perfect world there would be no need for good deeds. It wouldn’t matter because everyone would be in harmony/peace.

Perhaps it doesn't match your intuition, but the argument rests on the premise that a world with compassion, sympathy, self-sacrifice, etcetera is better than one without. The claim is that your idyllic world has no compassion - one can't feel sympathy for people if there is no suffering. The cost of allowing suffering is seen to be outweighed by the benefit obtained.

You can refute this argument by rejecting the concept of a "greater" category of good or by asserting that the cost outweighs the benefit. To me it is unsuccessful because it seems to ultimately imply that this world is the best of all possible worlds, which is implausible at best. (I think there's an answer to this objection too, but not one find satisfactory).

Another common response to the problem of evil is to cite the existence of free will. I think this is, in fact, just a special case of the above argument. However, not only does it fail for the same reasons, it's also hard to account for natural evils via this approach.

You should really educate yourself on religion. Perhaps read the Bible.
I'm not aware of any religion that offers constant peace and well being.
Nirvana can't be achieved on this Earth.

God did not create the world with so much suffering. God created it perfect. God also created man to have free will. To decide for himself. And man choose to disobey God, and allowed imperfection to enter into this world. This sin continues to grow, and this world continues to die.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned
Romans 8:12 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers

The Bible reminds us that Christ suffered unto death, and that we, as Christians, share in that death, and thus share in the resurrection as well.
Romans 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
2 Corinthians 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.
Philippians 3:10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
1 Peter 4:13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.

The Bible tells us that through our suffering we are made more perfect
1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
1 Peter 4:16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.
1 Peter 4:19 Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.
1 Peter 5:10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

We also know that God does not want us to suffer
2 Peter 3:9 ...but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Just as God gave the Isrealites the land of milk and honey for their obedience, I think God would provide us a perfect world again, if we were to all become believers.

Sin doesn't lead to death in Romans 5:12. That is a mistranslation. Death/Mortality leads to sin.

The explanation here:
The Affect of Adam's Sin on Man's Nature by Dr. Stephen E. Jones
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.o...s/Chapter9.cfm

They learned not to promise things that they can't deliver.

Promising life after death was the only viable option.

All things were perfect until Adam chose corruption. He did so freely and with complete notice of what the consequences would be. Starting out perfect is no obstacle to choosing imperfection. That unpredetermined option has to be there for one's will to be free.

You can't deliver proof of this faith-based historical account.