[kenyajuu]

Now, we must know tat God is far above our imagination and comprehension. We cannot evaluate God with our standards of right and wrong. The Bible says that God is patient and is willing that all people should come to repentance. He was patient enough and mercyful to forgive mankind for going against him at Eden, Killing His son and not acknoledging his Lordship. the best place we can ever be is to be at peace with our Loving creator. the bible says that this world is not our home - we are just passing by. Let us not loose focus on the fact that we have eternity to sepend after here - either with (Heaven) or without God (Hell). There will be no more crying, no more pain, no more death in heaven. The bible says that God himself will wipe our aour tears. This is where God wants all of us to go - but again the choice is ours. I believe we will get answers to many our questions then. We do not need top understand everything or get our answers so as to connect with God.

[tybe]

MAY BE THIS STORY MIGHT SHED SOME LIGHT ON THE TOPIC AT HAND.
There was once a man who was going to churh one sunday morning and as he was shuffling along he came across a man leaning over the railing of a bridge. the man wondered what the person was doing leaning so dangerously like that but then he thought in his heart he'll be late for church if stopped to talk to the man. As he was about to pass him the lord strongly imposed on him to attend to the gentleman. yet once again he pushed the lord's advice aside telling himself that it would be better for him to go to church and let some one else handle the job. to cut the long story short the church heading gentleman found out that the bridge leaning person commited suicide by hauling himself over the bridge. point. someone must have known about the girl's situation and did nothing about it

[sosodef]

When did we all believe that going to church makes you look good in Gods eyes? The church has nothing to do with your spiritual being.We give money thinking."God will give me 50 times more"....well you can look at it that way or you can also learn that the money is tax free and the Vatican has some share in it .Do some research on the vatican,they are simply spooky.

If i remember well,Jesus didnt own nothing,he wanted nothing.All he wanted was for us to listen to him and accept the truth.When he told the rich man to give up all his wealth and follow him,the rich guy was very dissapointed,because he knew deep down there was no chance he would part with his wealth.Thats the same message these so called mega churches cant live with.They claim to preach the word of God yet the pastors in those churches reap millions of tax free dollars through clever schemes like offering tithe and sunday mass collection.Look at the case sample of Lakewood churchhttp://www.joelosteen.com/site/PageServer ,i dont care how smooth this dude talks,the reality behind the scenes is that he is on a major salary,a good home,an excellent business.He is basically living the dream and preaching to the poor and overburdened!!!http://www.apprising.org/archives/20...steen_smi.html

I,m sorry i realised this long ago and got really confused.I still believe that there is a God out there, and he isnt what most pple worship or call God.I asked one Catholic friend one day a simple question about the man on the cross in the church.'who is this man you seem to bow down to and worship?" He looked at me and said,"I dont know,he is jesus and the other statue over there is his mother Mary." .

[milanya]

I fail to fully understand the suffering thing, but I draw solace from the notion that in the end it will all go away!

[safina]

Did anybody say that there was no warning for the Tsunami?

The sea with its wave-hands is always warning the people not to kill harmless acquatic creatures.In the city that i live,they even have just "sea food restuarants".The almighty created a lot of vegetables food,which is good even according to science of health.

These innocent acquatic creatures have no advocate and cannot file a criminal case in courts.What you people see is the punishment only and not the SIN which was the cause.You folks should broaden you mind and should feel that all the living things are ONE and sympathize for every living being.The natural calamities will then dissapear,so says SAFINA.We as human beings are so selfish,we always think about ourselves,can you believe after the Tsunami,nobody ever talked of how many animals died or injured.

We claim to be most intelligent creatures on this planet,I am still looking for evidence to support this

[ATLian]

>ATLian you are one person who has Why'd in this site for
>along time. Now I must also why you.

Why me what?



>Why dont you try Jesus and the you will find that satisfaction
>you are looking for.

TeeJay,

if you spoke to a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Ancient Greek, Babylonian or an Ancient Egyptian, their solution to all that ails mankind is unconditional belief in their gods. If you were truly seeking an intelligent answer to the worlds problems, and you spoke to each of the above named people, how much respect would you give the answer "Why dont you try (Ganesh, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Gilgamesh or Osiris) and the you will find that satisfaction you are looking for." I hope you now realize how empty, devoid and meaningless your above statement is to somebody who is truly and really suffering, and to someone who doesn't believe in what you believe in.

Plus you forget I was born and raised a Christian. I went to a Christian school where we were subjected to more church sessions than should be legal. That still never solved the questions I raise. If anything I got more and more curious when I kept receiving the same apologist answers. Also most of the poor in Africa are devout Christians, yet their strong beliefs haven't raised them from the doldrums!

[KEMINOKANA]

>Thanks all for your responses. I will stress again, this is a
>rhetoric question. I'm not saying I blame God for bad things
>(@Kemi), but I'm just wondering why God doesn't do anything to
>help/stop some things from happening, especially when the
>"innocent" are involved. Things like raping a 3 year old,
>what's the poor baby supposed to do? What's she done to
>deserve that, and why doesn't God do anything to put a stop to
>it? After all isn't he all powerful? How does he decide who to
>help and who to leave alone? These questions really bug me. At
>the same time, I gotta wonder why christians are quick to
>praise God when good things happen and castigate the devil
>when bad things happen. Why not praise him and thank him for
>both the good and bad? Just a thought....

Keypusa,

First, God says no one is innocent. We inherited the sins. Further, if BAD things e.g rape of one week old babies didnt happen, then we'd be in a heaven! We have the good and bad so that we can be able to see the importance of living in a sinless world i.e heaven. When we all get to heaven and some bastard rapes a three yr old, we then shall have the credibility to question God. I am sure if this world was trouble-free, people would not even aspire for heaven or even believe in a better life. That I believe is why God lets bad things happen...but remember, we didnt have to be here. What we have now is a concequence so we really cant question why we are suffering from the concequences.

Personally, I blame God for the bad and thank him for the good that happen to me.

[key-pusa]

Interesting replies. For some strange reason, this song by Avolon comes to mind: (the part that applies to me is the first verse. I'm yet to live out the rest of the song) :(

I grew up in sunday school
I memorized the Golden rule
And how Jesus came to set the sinner free
I know the story inside out
I can tell you all about
The path that led Him up to Calvary
But ask me why He loves me
And I don't know what to say
But i'll never be the same
Because he changed my life when He became...

Everything to me
He's more than a story
more than words on a page of history
He's the air that I breath
The water I thirst for
And the ground beneath my feet
He's everything, everything to me

We're living in uncertain times
And more and more I find that i'm aware
Of just how fragile life can be
I want to tell the world I found
A love that turned my life around
They need to know that they can taste and see
Now everyday I'm praying
Just to give my heart away
I want live for Jesus
So that someone else might see that he is...

Everything to me
He's more than a story
more than words on a page of history
He's the air that I breath
The water I thirst for
And the ground beneath my feet
He's everything
And looking back over my life at the end
I'll go to meet you saying you've been...

You're everything to me
You're more than a story
More than words on a page of history
You're everything to me
You're more than a story
More than words on a page of history
You're the air that I breath
The water I thirst for
And the ground beneath my feet
You're everything to me
Lord, you're everything to me

[petermaumau]

Isaiah 45 7
I am the lord,Good and Evil I do them

And later, can the thing made question the one who made it

God is God.. And God does what GOd does... WHo are we to question

I think the notion of fair does not exist with God but He is a just GOd..
I.e Do you think the father who raped the child shall be blameless in God\s Eyes.. THere is a judgement, and unfortunately many people think that by their relatively good works they shall escape Gods terrible judgement.. Without Christ you are condemned already.. It is who you believe ,not what you do or do not...

[flexxxx]

hi
now this is a contencious one.

i have to say i toilled with your question when i was younger. im one of the few people or if you may christians who has read almost 100% of the bible. i actually used to be a cristian union treasurer so dont assume that im ignorant in read spiritual matters as i proceed to try and answer your question.

As for now, and i have to say that if your story was true it touched me a lot, i do not belive god exists. im open to convincing but my mind set is based on something i came to realize throug life experiences. living your life assuming that good deeds happen to good people is a very naive mode of thinking. this is the philosophy on which most religions ( except budhism ) are based on.

life to me is a set of randomn occurences. anything can happen to anyone anywhere and religion cannot solve anything but assure one that everything will be okey one day.

man has always had a liking for religion or the need to belive in a supreme being. this was started when human beings started becoming inquisitive.

you can imagine seeing a blaring sun everyday rising and setting un aided. without reaserch that was declared an act of god. coz we all know the sun dosent 'rise' or 'set' as we say today ( obviously a remnant of the popular speak from the time they did not know about orbits and revolutions ). the Point im trying to get to is that the human mind is inquisitive so far so that it makes one so restless when one does not know something that he or she will toil over it and even get depressed over it. read - Isac newton . its a fact that if you ever put up a sign saying DO NOT PEEP then people would deffinatley peep more than normal.
anyway my point is that this inquisitive nature makes us question a lot of things in our surroundings making philosophies to explain them untill we come up with a solid tried and tested solution the bad news is that our brains are still developing and as a race, we are becoming more inteligent by the day. this means that we still do not understand a lot of things. some people prefer to read books, do research and try and get answers. but others, for various reasons such as limitations to education, lack of material or access to it, culture or just preference have developed what i would call ( not insultingly ) lazy minds. it is hard to try and suss out how many stars there are in the universe and how they were formed. it is easy to assume that a Diety created them all and thats that. maybe to 'beautify the sky'

anyway when i started doing science at advanced levels i realized that research is the key to anything we know as humans.

anyway my point is you can choose to belive that anything happens for areason and that rape victims should accept their fate and allow " god " to come to their rescue, or you can campaign for rights for children and educate people on the negative effects of paedophilia to a young mind.

all in all i belive science will prevail not religion
science and research will make the world abetter place
not religion.

just think
they executed galileo for suggesting the earth was round, who , christians. now if i spoke to any shristian they would laugh at the thought that it is flat.

one day i belive religion will dissapear and humans will study it a an intergretion tool in human history. coz to me that is all it is. something that helped england take over the world,

anyway all the little girl can do is seek justice and therapy. bad things will always happen. its how you get through them that really matters. dont blame the devil in somone blame the person themselves.