WHY WOULD GOD PLACE SADNESS
AND SUFFERING INTO THE WORLD?

There is so much sadness and suffering in the world, and anyone who believes in God and defines it as the Source of Pure Intelligence and Perfect Love would have to ask: Why?

Why in the world would God place sadness and suffering in the world? And what tools, if any, has God given us with which to deal with sadness and suffering when we encounter it (as surely we will during our life)?

The answer, as I have come to understand it, is that God has not deliberately placed sadness nor inserted suffering into our world, we have brought it into our experience of our own free will.

This is difficult to believe or embrace, I know, and so it requires a little exploration and explanation.

Sadness and suffering are responses, both emotional and physical, to particular situations, circumstances, and events that manifest or occur during our lives.

FOCUS: The Nature of God and Life/an exploration of critical importance in our time
PART IV of an ONGOING SERIES

Because they are responses and not events in themselves, they are entirely within our control. Because they are entirely within our control they are created by us, not foisted upon us.

There are some who have said that God has imposed sadness and suffering upon us as a punishment for our so-called evil deeds. Yet my understanding is that sadness and suffering are not punishments, they are consequences. And consequences of what? They are consequences of our thinking.

Thinking is the tool that God has given us with which to deal with life events and circumstances, situations and occurrences. Yet why do events and circumstances, situations and occurrences that ordinarily might be reasonably expected to produce sadness and suffering within human beings even have to arise?

Ah, that is an even larger question — and on humanity’s answer to that question hinges the future of the entire human species. We will explore that question in the upcoming entries in this series. But for now, let us go about this investigation step by step. Let us look at this business of our thinking, and the role it plays in bringing sadness and suffering into our experience. We’ll take that first step in Part V of our series here.

Comments

19 responses to “WHY WOULD GOD PLACE SADNESS
AND SUFFERING INTO THE WORLD?”

  1. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    The lack of understanding and acceptance by early humanity of certain natural events and difficulties is at the origin of the concept of an angry and judgmental God…who was believed to “punish” people with droughts, floods, epidemics, lightening strikes, volcanic eruptions, etc etc.

    That’s how humanity came to develop the strange idea of sacrifices…human or animal…to appease the angry God, to make up for perceived trespasses. That’s how the VERY STRANGE idea that God offered to “sacrifice his only son” to redeem humanity’s “sins” was developed by Christians.

    We live in polarity, in a world where what gives us life can also kill us. Physical birth and physical death are inseparable. Pain and pleasure come from different degrees of stimulation of the same “scale” of nerves responses. This is the nature of the life we know, and only a very primitive mentality reads “punishment” in pain and death, or a VERY GUILTY consciousness.

    Where does this overwhelming guilt come from? Isn’t this the question we should also be asking? This guilt is immense enough to shut down the intellectual capacity of much of humanity, and to cause it to hold on to totally absurd, extremely primitive beliefs that only make sense in the way they attempt to rationalize this guilt.

  2. Raelene Gavin Avatar
    Raelene Gavin

    We have separated ourselves from what we really are….which is spirit having a human experience and NOT a human having a spiritual experience. If we would allow ourselves to think like we do as spirit then there would only be one reaction to a situation in our lives, and that would be love. Because we think as humans, we react with emotion. This in turns brings up anger, resentment, fears, irrational thinking, self pity, envy, victimhood etc as well as joy and happiness. Our minds are programmed from birth, and perhaps even while we are in the womb since we pick up emotions from our mothers, but we are conditioned to believe in certain things and have a set mind pattern as little children from our parents, grandparents and those around us. Long before we can truly think for ourselves, our thought methodology has already been established by others. It can take many years or even a lifetime (or many) for us to realise that we are capable of altering the way we have been programmed to think about events and break away from that and truly start to deeply examine who we are and how we would like to react to events. In effect…..altering who we thought we were and hopefully connecting with who (what) we truly are. Then everything is perfect.

  3. Marko Avatar

    Well this is a fascinating topic! I have & continue to put a lot of thought about these questions of what I’d call needless suffering. I too have written about why we have all the terrible suffering. I just wrote a draft for a blog entitled “Free will & the LOA or Law of Attraction.”

    In CwG book one it says that we love it all, the good the bad, the terrible the sublime. Many would say that these extremes create wonderful contrasts. A simple example: we skip eating a meal & being hungry we enjoy even more eating later. Real sick? We appreciate health way more than ever etc.

    As I currently see it. It’s all about freedom. God, Life gives us the ultimate freedom to experience it all.

    Yet at some point as we grow & evolve we realize that we have a choice. It’s not the only way life has to show up with all it’s needless suffering & pain. It may seem that’s just the way Life is.

    Yet when we realize we have a choice, we see it doesn’t have to be that way. So as we evolve, we out grow suffering & negative drama. We actually & consciously choose to self impose limitations on our ultimate & abundant freedom that Life & free will offer.

    We decide that we curb or totally eliminate like the HEB’s,our freedom to suffer to the freedom of not suffering or much much less so. Since we can choose how much suffering & pain we want to experience.

    Further we eventually evolve & out of it. We outgrow the bad, the suffering as we define it like worn out toys.

    Yet theoretically we are limiting our freedom to experience only good & it’s various contrast like good, great, fabulous, transcending, blissful. Thus, we still have reference points of contrast, but that contrast are all contrasts of good.

    As far as reference to the bad we simply need only the memory of it.

    That could be from our past history or someone elses. CwG says HEB planets use earth as a reference point.

    Yet all that is really needed is the memory, not the experience.

    Magically,
    -Marko

    1. mewabe Avatar
      mewabe

      Marko, I am not sure I understand this talk of “choosing to limit the experience of pain”.

      Let’s take the simplest example that you love another with all your heart and soul, and that person dies.

      There is little doubt that you would feel profound pain and sadness. Now you might talk yourself out of this pain by saying to yourself “this person is in heaven and very happy, and wants me to be happy and not to cry, and to go on with my life”.

      So you may think that you have control over your heart, over your emotions, through your thoughts. But is that being true and authentic?

      Authenticity is about feeling and expressing actual feelings…not talking ourselves out of them. After loosing someone, you might eventually heal, or not. You might be able to go on, or you might forever miss this person, and find no reason to hang on to this life without this person. And this is not “drama”, it is the nature of love. Some people are meant to be together, others are just temporary companions.

      This is just an example…my point is, those who fear pain and attempt to avoid it do not allow themselves to fully feel and to fully be alive, to fully love. They compartmentalize and define love so that it in no ways threatens their tightly monitored inner world, thought processes and emotions, so that they never ever loose control. That’s not being fully alive, and that’s a very sad way to live.

      Anyone who loves fully, completely, will feel a corresponding amount of pain and distress upon loss, unless s/he does not allow him/herself to feel by rationalizing this loss.

      Perhaps this is not what you meant, in which case mine is an aside comment.

      1. Marko Avatar

        Hi Mewabe. You are correct, It is not what I meant.

        HEB’s do not have to have pain or suffering in their experience or to enhance their existence.

        We might think we do, and indeed, so we do. As we see, so shall it be.

        They (as I understand HEB’s), out grow and go beyond pain & suffering. We think they are necessary, but they don’t. At least at the level of life & creation that they are playing at. Which is very very advanced.

        1. mewabe Avatar
          mewabe

          This is a possibility…I haven’t met any “heb’s” myself, so I cannot tell.

          There might also be beings who are so advanced at the physical level that they no longer need to drink fluids or to eat food, or even to breathe, or to have eyes because they are clairvoyant, or to have a mouth because they use telepathy, or to have legs because they can teleport, or to have arms because they move things with their mind. They might be people who are little balls of flesh with nothing but a big brain inside, perhaps with a happy face tattooed on them.

          There might be people who no longer need to have sex or to birth anything, who can simply “manifest” a child from thought, or come and go as they please as adult, without experiencing childhood, and without experiencing death or birth.

          There might even be people who have streamlined their being to that of a ball of light, or a light beam, or a little fur ball.

          Anything is most probably possible.

          But I am living here, now, and very happy to be human. My spirituality is not about attempting to no longer be human, or pretending not to be, but about understanding and fully embracing the human “condition”, which includes pleasure and pain, joy and sadness, hunger and satisfaction, love and loss, life and death.

          I can see how different our paths are…

          1. Marko Avatar

            “Where there is life, there is polarity, by definition…”

            Where does it say polarity has to have pain & suffering? I’m saying it’s a choice & as we advance, we out grow it. Just a different way of looking at life. By choice we can keep as much or as little as we desire.

            All these possibilites exist in the Universe, we get to pick which game to play. Neither right or wrong, better or worse, just our own choosing at what we desire this time around.

          2. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            Polarity:
            Sadness/joy
            Pleasure/pain
            chaos/order
            peace/conflict
            union/separation
            night/day
            life/death
            beginning/ending
            above/below
            etc etc
            What I am saying is that if you feel fully, you will feel joy as well as sadness, pleasure as well as pain. You can avoid physical pain by being as careful as possible, but the only way to avoid emotional pain is to close your heart and become numb, or choose rationalizations or denial.

            You are right, one has the choice…to shut down his/her feelings. To me, that’s not advancing…that’s retreating.

            However, suffering, which is different from pain, is usually avoidable.

          3. Marko Avatar

            “You are right, one has the choice…to shut down his/her feelings, to self-protect in order not to be vulnerable. To me, that’s not
            advancing…that’s fear-based retreating.”

            Out growing, going beyond is not shutting down feelings or being fear based, but enlarging expanding them into a more glorious experience.

            Pain & suffering can also be glorious, but I think as we advance, we outgrow all the pain. As I said it’s a choice we make.

            We can have contrasts & polarities of good, great, fabulous, blissful, transcendent without the negative fall out.

            To me regrding the yin & yang we currently live in the dark aspect with more dark & a little light. As we advance, grow spiritually we move toward the part with mostly light & just a little darkness. You may not agree with this, but it’s simply a perspective I’m expressing.

            I’m simply expressing a perspective you don’t agree with & that’s fine. Carry on. Thanks for sharing.

          4. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            Thanks for participating in this exchange of ideas Marko. Yes we disagree and it’s okay. I also disagree that there is more darkness than light…I think it’s about even, that’s the way polarity works, it can only exist in a state of balance, or eventually balance itself out, as does all life, all of nature, because the very essence of natural life is balance.

            I know I am a minority of one in the contemporary spiritual movements regarding these ideas. I do not follow current new age “teachings” but go by my own experience and understanding, which seem to correspond to ancient Taoist wisdom.

          5. Marko Avatar

            “I know I am a minority of one in the contemporary spiritual movements regarding these ideas.”

            And no doubt proud of it………. 🙂

            Yes it’s fun to explore these ideas & our thoughts on them Mewabe, part of the fun is in the mystery & exploration.

          6. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            Definitively proud of it, of course 🙂
            I have never been a follower, of anything. I either agree or disagree with anyone based solely on my experience and perspective, not on whether 200 billion people follow a particular teaching.

  4. Iyad Al Bittar Avatar
    Iyad Al Bittar

    As Jesus said in his example regarding the 100 sheep, 99 of
    them were present and one of them was lost.

    He said the good pastor won’t have peace of mind and won’t
    have rest until he finds the last lost one.

    This is how I am relating the sufferings of human-beings
    with the existence of the devil.

    The devil is the lost sheep and we are the 99 present with
    our good pastor and as long as he cannot have peace, we too won’t have peace,
    because we are commented to fulfil the will of our pastor, we believe in him
    and we are happy to share his pain and his sadness.

    Until our lost brothers and sisters are found, we will be searching
    and looking for them with our creature, but you have to ask our self’s this question,
    what about the lost son or daughter was you? Pay close attentions to your conciseness’s,
    because it will lead you there back between us and until then, we will be
    sharing suffering with our God, our consciences and our realty’s.

    You and I could make the different just by delaying with physical
    and spiritualty realty through the simplicity of our conciseness, just here we
    can find the answers we are looking for and we could found the last lost one. It
    is up to us to heal our sufferings.

  5. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    The idea that nothing is an event but everything is a perception and a response has also been expressed with the saying that everything is an experience in consciousness.

    But why trying to control any of it? Many spiritual seeker seek control, which they believe will lead them to “mastery”, which they believe is the ultimate spiritual achievement.

    They fail to understand that all impulses to control originate in FEAR, and through this failure miss an important opportunity to understand, acknowledge and heal such fear.

    A totally loving, FEARLESS approach to life requires NO CONTROL, on the contrary it invites surrender, the very origin of all forms of BLISS.

  6. Awareness Avatar
    Awareness

    “True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment.

    This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.

    Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose.

    Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.” – Eckhart Tolle 🙂

    Bless ALL 🙂

      1. mewabe Avatar
        mewabe

        Indeed I think that it is very important to make a distinction between pain, sadness, suffering, drama and negativity. Suffering, drama and negativity are all unnecessary and very easily avoidable unless a person is hopelessly neurotic. Pain and sadness are part of life, and the best way to heal them quickly if to neither fear them nor resist them, but to feel, express and release them.

  7. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    I think that it is very important to make a distinction between pain, sadness, suffering, drama and negativity. Suffering, drama and negativity are all unnecessary and very easily avoidable unless a person is hopelessly neurotic.

    Pain and sadness are part of life, and the best way to heal them quickly if to neither fear them nor resist them, but to feel, express and release them when they come up as natural, appropriate emotional responses to actual events.

    It is precisely when these natural feelings are not expressed, not released but kept bottled inside that they become a problem AND TURN INTO CHRONIC SUFFERING. No feeling that is expressed and released is EVER a problem, anymore than life itself is a problem unless one fears living it.

    Thinking ourselves out of an appropriate feeling is not the natural, healing response. It is a neurotic response that leads to overall negativity, as negative as it would be to force a river to flow uphill.

  8. Frank Ribbensky Avatar
    Frank Ribbensky

    God didn’t place sadness and suffering in this world, humanity did. We were born with free will and it’s up to us to live an honest life making sure that no one suffers. This will include exposing the evil and acting on what we find in this corrupt world.

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