WHY?

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

Yeah, I know it's an age old question but I'm asking it again.

Why does evil go on and good die?

Is God out on strike? Is He sitting down on the job? Did He leave for another universe? Maybe He's thinking, "I did a good job on creation but you idiots have messed it up with all your wars and violence. I'm outta here."

Gosh bless it anyway.

From doctors who don't care to loved ones who die - I want to know WHY?

[Angie Daughter of Bill]

That's the million dollar question...........who knows.??? I have a VERY strong faith in God, but this past week, I have found myself asking him, "WHY??" I then begged God's forgiveness because I know that his plan is best. One day, when I get to Heaven, I will know his great plan. So will you. Until then, Cat, I guess we just have to live this life the best we can and ask for God's guidance. That's all I know to do right now. The way I am trying to look at things right now is that God wants the the best of the best folks in Heaven with him. That's why he takes all the good ones from us here on earth. I know that I have been of NO help to you..............just know that you are not alone. Much love!

In my thoughts and prayers~~~

Angie

[Cindy RN]

Boy is that a tough one-esp when we are talking about why one good decent person dies and there is some bum living off the state and his address is the local tavern or Meth house! All I can say is where there is good (God) there is evil (satan). God gives us all freewill. This life on earth is SO short compared to eternity.

Some of the toughest trials we go thru make us stronger and more reliant on His strength when we get to the other side. These people who have no belief---what do they do when tragedy strikes?? They usually sink deeper into whatever sin they have been living.

God uses circumstances to His good. My cancer has enabled me to much more bold in my Christian faith. I am no longer shy about telling people who Jesus is and the miracles I see that He has done. Maybe that seed I planted will be watered and nurtured by the next Christian. I was at a memorial service for a fellow church member and looked at the baptistry and thought what a great tribute to him if someone came to know the Lord due to this service and was baptised. My hubby said I was nuts..........

So WHY is a question we need to ask ourselves --as long as our answer is-it is all in His will and someday we will see the whole picture and how it all fits together.

Love Cindy

[Larry]

Leave it to you Cat to ask the hard one .I still ask myself that very question at time's.One see's or hear's of a really nice person that no one has said a bad word about and wham all kind's of terrible thing's happen in their life.Then as one person stated there's the worthless individual who is on drug's ,lies ,steal's, won't work and expect's the rest of us to support them.Or just the plain mean misserable SOB that care's only about them self's.

I've asked GOD why when it come's to my wife's ordeal as she is one of those people that everyone who know's her has only praise for her.SO I JUST PRAY AND TRUST GOD that he'll help me not to be bitter and maintain my faith and trust in his wisdom...

I try to remind myself of Christ's word's of ... WHERE YOUR TREASURES ARE THERE YOUR HEART WILL BE ALSO,OR FOOL WHAT IF YOU SHOULD GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD BUT LOSE YOUR OWN SOUL.......

Larry[/b]

[Snowflake]

Cat,

I guess the answer to your question of "Why?" would be "Why not?"...who would you put in the place of those that have gone on? Now, don't answer too quickly, realize that for every junkie, there is a mom worried about her child...every family of an alcoholic holds out hope that someday, Daddy/Mommy will just stop (and many do)... Many people have no religion in their life, no faith. Maybe for them, God waits for the realization to set in and doesn't take them... We know that those that are no longer going to post on this board had deep faiths and we believe (most of us) that they are in a "better place".

I am sure there is a plan, but I, for one, could not choose replacements. I could not say that someone is far more deserving of this disease than I am, that someone else should be in my place. When it comes down to it, I'm a pretty strong person and this disease and its mental battle have not beaten me - it COULD beat down someone who had a different make up.

Beats me, I'm not in charge...such is life!

Becky

[Pamela]

It is tough to even think about this question in the face of pain and loss. I wonder sometimes if maybe we don't understand because we see such a small piece of the whole picture.

My daughter is in training to work with abused children who are in the court system. She was told that many children will lie to protect abusive parents because they don't want to be taken away from their parents. Now, you and I know that those children would be happier, healthier, have more opportunities, etc., if they were taken from junkie parents who burn them with cigarettes and sell them for drug money. But the kids cling to what they know out of fear of the unknown.

Now this is tricky, and I don't want to ruffle feathers. I wonder if what we experience in this lifetime is perhaps the worst possible existence in eternity. Perhaps when it's over we will question why we fought so hard to stay. Maybe the ones who have gone ahead of us are being rewarded by a shortened life. Their passing may be joyous for them . . . even though it is horribly painful for us.

Just pondering.

Pam

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

Becky,

I have worked for law enforcement, emergency rooms and child abuse. I have been a human rights activist for years. I have seen the most horrendous unbelievable acts of inhumanity and cruelty that most people can't imagine. I will not share them.

Would I play God and decide these dregs of humanity who inflict evil on the innocent should die in their place.

In a New York minute.

Cat

[john]

Cat,

Since you have studied Zen for a while (not that I know anything about it), here is an except from a text:

Good and bad are just two sides of the same coin. Only the small i is dualistic. Only the small mind knows good and evil. God is beyond good and evil. The BIG I or Big mind is beyond good and evil.

The small i is the one that eventually dies, the big I is emptiness and yet completly whole - it is beyond distinction; it goes beyond categories, it is infinite AND miniscule.

In our mind we have created a small I, an ego. Without the ego, there is just here and now. When we sit, we should not try to gain anything. Just observe the breath and the ego vanishes.

The small mind tries to gain something, tries to fill it self, by just sitting the big mind is complete - Unconsciously, naturally, automatically.

Transience and death only exist in the small mind.

If the small i did not die we would have major problems.

The small mind and the big mind are two sides of a coin. They are not one. They are not two. They are one AND two.

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

Yes, thank you John.

But sometimes - it's just that I've seen too much. So many times I've told myself to stop with the human rights action but I can't. I have to do it. It's part of me. If not me, who? But in taking action I have had to be privy to too much pain. It's the torture that always gets me. It's bad enough to kill a human but to torture a child for weeks and months..............

Cat

[Larry]

Cat i will not go into detail or drag up old memories from my growing year's ,let's just let it be said the bad type of people i mentionerd in my previous post on this subject is what i grew up around and with.

I remember one person in particular that i could not wait to see or hear of them dying.But a strange thing happened after their death,i realized that i had grown so accustomed to their cruelty that i missed them and i understood that is was me more than them that i had hated"why? The answer as i grew older was i had allowed this person to be cruel at least to me and other family member's where as i let fear prevent me from fighting back but the true healing came when i forgave him!!!!

So far i feel Pam's posting has answered your WHY the best......

Larry

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

I agree Larry. You heal when you forgive the people who have done wrong to you.

I meditate daily. Sometimes I use a CD to guide me. I have one from Depak Chopra - The Soul of Healing Meditations. At one point he guides you through healing yourself by forgiving the grief others have caused you. He reminds you that everyone is doing their best from their state of consciousness. It's not a difficult concept to understand until you put it into terms of people who torture others.

But then, I think, their state of consciousness is all they have. So they are not so much evil as they are acting out of the only state of consciousness available to them.

Am I making any sense to anyone? I don't know how to explain it.

Mother Teresa was acting out of her state of consciousness. Was she good or was she just being her self.

Hitler was acting out of his state of consciousness. Was he evil or was he just being his self.

Cat (always questioning)

[mhutch1366]

Without evil, would we know good?

or better yet, would we appreciate it?

So much of life is a crap shoot --- a hand dealt from a deck of cards.

Yes, that's unfair, but that's the way it seems from here.

Good or evil is a choice people make -- most people.

Some people have no right to breathe air, and should've been drowned at birth. The true sociopaths, who will do almost anything and feel nothing. God threw them into the deck as jokers, I guess.

So much of life is also how we react, what we do -- that is choice. That choice is a test, perhaps, a tempering of the spirit, the way a blade is tempered.

Life is a test, of some sort, that I am sure of. Only I sure as heck do not know the rules.

So I do the best I can, and although I can't change the world, I can effect change in my corner.

Geez, Cat, the things you come up with.

Are you outta there yet???

XOXOX

MaryAnn

[Pamela]

Cat,

I have been coming back to this thread all day, thinking about it and analyzing how I see it. It's been a very good experience, so thanks.

There are so many things that are beyond our ability to comprehend that we are developing ideas and conclusions based on woefully inadequate understanding. That's what makes it so frustrating, and that's why there are so many different ideas and beliefs.

I guess ultimately I believe it comes down to your expectations of life, God, other people. Even though on some level I think I know what I would do if I were God, I have learned that it just doesn't happen that way. I spent years very angry with God for not behaving the way I thought He should. Then I realized how ridiculous it was for me to expect God to conform to my image of him. He is what He is (and in whatever form that may be) regardless of what I think.

So I no longer expect God to always reward good and punish evil. (I do not even expect God to define good and evil the way I do.) I do not expect that good behavior or goodness of heart will earn a person immunity from calamity. I do not believe God is truly omnipotent. Free will by definition precludes true omnipotence because God allows us to make decisions over which He has no control. In fact, evil's very existence defies a God of purity and love. I no longer try to understand God.

I accept that people do evil things and God does not stop them. I accept that too often the innocent suffer and the guilty prosper. I accept that "virtue is its own reward" because sometimes there is no other reward. This is reality and I cannot change it or understand it. So I accept it.

On the other hand, I know deep down inside myself that virtue and goodness are worthy objectives, whether or not there are obvious rewards in this lifetime. Even if there were no after-life (and I believe there is), virtue and goodness would still be worth pursuing with passion.

I am grateful, however, that God does not immediately obliterate people who do evil acts because I would have been vaporized long ago. I know there is a difference between hurting someone with your words and torturing a child, but there are so many degrees of evil between the two that it might be more difficult than we think to decide at what point a person crosses the line from being a normal, flawed person to becoming an "evil" person.

So for the time being, I operate on the blind faith that God exists in some form and that all of this makes sense in the big picture. I try not to harbor a false belief that I know how the world should operate and what God should do. I focus instead on consistently re-evaluating my own values, attitudes and behaviors to determine if I am doing "good" with my life or causing harm to those around me. And I try not to expect it to earn me anything except peace and the satisfaction of spiritual growth.

Cat, I love your heart and your passion. You have made a positive difference in my life, and I've never even met you. Thanks.

Pam

[hollyridge]

"THE" question! How we all yearn for the answer. Isn't that what causes us to act "good" instead of eveil? We want to get to our final reward or destination or state of being or heaven and "know" everything. It is a tortuous question and a sublime answer that no one has in certainty but everyone holds in hope of "knowing" the answer.

I have exhausted myself for months since my husband's death. I needed to know all of the answers so I could find peace. I have stressed and cried and wandered off the path many times in the past six months and I found some peace in my prayer time only. I discovered that I was mediating rather than meditating. I have decided to give myself some peace rather than continuing this futile search. What is my peace? To know that on the same day I get those answers I will also be reunited with my one love who is waiting for me.

I continue to pray so the created peace lingers just a while longer.