Why does a good God promote suffering?

[cacian]

And back to the original post who said God promoted anything?
He is famous enough to want to promote anything.
Promotion is nouveau word by the nouveau rich and comes with ads and technology and means advertising to sell a product that would not stand a chance otherwise.
God creating people and planets is promotion enough.
What more is there to say?

[Tor-Hershman]

How does number 11 fits in with the rest?

My wee parody fits

for it shows that The Bible/Jesus/God couldn't even, nor evenly nor odd nor oddly, manage to pass a high school biology course.

Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor

[russellb]

And back to the original post who said God promoted anything?
He is famous enough to want to promote anything.
Promotion is nouveau word by the nouveau rich and comes with ads and technology and means advertising to sell a product that would not stand a chance otherwise.
God creating people and planets is promotion enough.
What more is there to say?

"The universe wants us to win." It's a great line i think, it's from the novel, 'Girlfriend in a coma' by Douglas Coupland. Is God cheering us on hoping his encouragement, his 'promotion' of our cause, will help us win promotion to the major league? (do you have promotion to the major league? i didn't want to sound english and say 'premier league') Suffering might be part of the basis for us coming top of the class, if i can mix my metaphors. That's the theology of an optimist. A God who punishes us for our sins to promote his desire for vengence may just be the theology of bad digestion. Is it even possible to have a 'rational' debate or is it all just a'prejudice of the heart' as Nietzsche might say?

[BienvenuJDC]

My wee parody fits

for it shows that The Bible/Jesus/God couldn't even, nor evenly nor odd nor oddly, manage to pass a high school biology course.

Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor

This just shows how easily someone who thinks they are smart can totally miss the most obvious.

[ZTay]

Cheers to Tor-Hershman who makes a high school Biology class the measure of all things.

[cacian]

Cheers to Tor-Hershman who makes a high school Biology class the measure of all things.

Haha indeed if only we could measure things we'll be counting them with the tip of our fingers and hoping they would grow sideways and everyways.

[YesNo]

Hi YesNo I have just noticed your new signature.
I have just been wondering whether we have been cunfunded to believe in a God that does anything naturally we must be certain he does or we would no be here deliberating about him.

Thanks for noticing the signature, cacian. Since I was defending Harry Potter in another thread, I figured I better put a quote from Rowling in my signature, at least temporarily.

I love the way Rowling made Snape explain that being Confunded implies that such a person is certain of whatever they have to say. Usually we think being confused involves enough humility to have some doubts, but such people aren't as confused as their emotions make them think. Those most deeply confused do not even know they are confused and so have no doubts at all.

I don't have any specific religion to promote. I pick and choose from various religious practices whatever makes sense to me and ignore the rest. Regarding this thread the most basic issue is not whether God is good but whether the universe we live in is good. We don't have to believe the universe exists. We are confronted with it, as well as the suffering we experience by living in it, on a daily basis.

A theist who believes in a good God, depending on the theology, will usually accept a good universe made by that God. For theists, this thread provides only a minor problem even when they have gone through personal tragedy which hurts them as much as anyone. It is atheists who are mainly challenged and that is why atheists present these challenges to theists. They are calls for help under the cover of hostility.

Some theists, including myself, believe that suffering is a way to provide us with a corrective feedback mechanism to our misunderstandings of what is most real. At a simple level, this correction works like this. We put our hands in the fire. We suffer. We stop putting our hands in the fire. At a deeper level, suffering reminds us of our deaths and the ultimate insignificance of going after fame or wealth or power. It tells us to find something better. The religious, spiritual or intuitive people of our various cultures have over thousands of years come up with suggestions, rituals and institutions that might help us to better spend our brief lives.

So suffering is a way to break a Confundus Charm we have cast on each other and find out what is most real, which I believe, since I do believe the universe is good, is staring us in the face.

[Anton Hermes]

Some theists, including myself, believe that suffering is a way to provide us with a corrective feedback mechanism to our misunderstandings of what is most real. At a simple level, this correction works like this. We put our hands in the fire. We suffer. We stop putting our hands in the fire. At a deeper level, suffering reminds us of our deaths and the ultimate insignificance of going after fame or wealth or power. It tells us to find something better. The religious, spiritual or intuitive people of our various cultures have over thousands of years come up with suggestions, rituals and institutions that might help us to better spend our brief lives.

So suffering is a way to break a Confundus Charm we have cast on each other and find out what is most real, which I believe, since I do believe the universe is good, is staring us in the face.

This seems like an interesting way to look at the suffering we cause ourselves, but what about the suffering visited upon the innocent by birth defects, trypanosomes, or drone attacks? If the universe is good, what's the meaning of this suffering?

[YesNo]

This seems like an interesting way to look at the suffering we cause ourselves, but what about the suffering visited upon the innocent by birth defects, trypanosomes, or drone attacks? If the universe is good, what's the meaning of this suffering?

That is the basic question. Is the universe good or not even when one cannot find a justification for suffering. If the universe is good, why do the innocent suffer?

Here's the Wikipedia article on theodicy which is more in line with the original question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy Theodicy tries to justify whatever God the culture believes in, but further in the article is a discussion of cosmodicy. This focuses the problem on the source, the universe itself. The article even discusses "anthropodicy", but I think the idea of cosmodicy covers that.

However, I suspect the meaning of innocent suffering would be the same as the meaning of the suffering of the guilty. Suffering forces those who suffer as well as those watch their suffering to reject the shallow Gods of greed, power or fame and look elsewhere for something worthwhile to do with one's life no matter how short or how innocent that life might be.

Although I have my own ideas, I don't have any solution to publicly offer of what that worthwhile something might be. It wouldn't matter anyway to disclose that information. All that I can say is it makes more sense, since one is living in this universe, to say yes to it rather than no. Saying no leads to a dead end. Saying yes offers hope.

[Ser Nevarc]

. . .

However, I suspect the meaning of innocent suffering would be the same as the meaning of the suffering of the guilty. Suffering forces those who suffer as well as those watch their suffering to reject the shallow Gods of greed, power or fame and look elsewhere for something worthwhile to do with one's life no matter how short or how innocent that life might be.

Although I have my own ideas, I don't have any solution to publicly offer of what that worthwhile something might be. It wouldn't matter anyway to disclose that information. All that I can say is it makes more sense, since one is living in this universe, to say yes to it rather than no. Saying no leads to a dead end. Saying yes offers hope.

So you presume to know, then, how "on track" other beings besides yourself living in this universe are? You presume to know that it is a "dead end" to deny the goodness of a universe, one which has given no real evidence of any innate goodness whatsoever?

How does it make more sense to "say yes" to what you describe? How does it make more sense to believe in an untruth, or at the least, a nonsensical hypothesis?

I hope people are getting sick of the arrogance of those who claim to know the order of the universe, and that there is a reason and a goal associated with the suffering of the innocent.

[Umbreon]

It makes sense for the God of classical theism to permit (not promote per se) suffering. If such a God wants us to believe that we need him, it makes sense to make us anything but self-sufficient and susceptible to pain and suffering. If we were invincible and life painless, we wouldn't feel as if we needed anything or anyone.

[hellsapoppin]

This seems like an interesting way to look at the suffering we cause ourselves, but what about the suffering visited upon the innocent by birth defects, trypanosomes, or drone attacks? If the universe is good, what's the meaning of this suffering?

That's a question I have posed to some of the delusional apologists on this forum before but none seem to have any real answers. All they ever say is, the great god is ever so good that anyone who has suffered will soon realize how good the SOB really is. Dunno how that will benefit the aborted fetus but, somehow, people still cling on to their delusions.

[Jassy Melson]

To promote means to help, advance, aid. assist, or support. As far as suffering goes, I don't see God doing any of those things. I suppose that the originator of this thread meant that God aided in suffering existing. But I simply cannot see God helping to support suffering.

[YesNo]

So you presume to know, then, how "on track" other beings besides yourself living in this universe are? You presume to know that it is a "dead end" to deny the goodness of a universe, one which has given no real evidence of any innate goodness whatsoever?

How does it make more sense to "say yes" to what you describe? How does it make more sense to believe in an untruth, or at the least, a nonsensical hypothesis?

I hope people are getting sick of the arrogance of those who claim to know the order of the universe, and that there is a reason and a goal associated with the suffering of the innocent.

If it is not a dead end to deny the goodness of the universe, what is the alternative?

[hellsapoppin]

Isaiah 45:7

This "benevolent" god boasts of creating all evil.