Does everything happen for a reason?

gp2.0

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:44 am

sequoia wrote:

Everyone is (deliberately) missing the point.

I'm not talking about adults who are alive and who are able to have post-traumatic growth. That's great. No one is denying that it's possible to experience meaning and growth even in suffering.

Refer to my earlier post. Everyone steadfastly refuses to address it.

YOUR child. Kidnapped. Raped. Tortured. Dead.

Out of the options:
1. Things happen randomly

or

2. An omniscient, omnipotent Being could have prevented this and didn't. Allowed it to happen, in fact. Oh, and -- it's somehow "good",

which would you choose?

Sequoia, I answered your question before.

The answer is that humans have free will. A terrible person can choose to do evil and God won't stop him because of He did, free will would cease to exist. Free will means we have the option to choose good OR evil. If we could only choose good and every time we chose evil, God would intervene, free will wouldn't exist.

sequoia

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:51 am

gp2.0 wrote:

I am familiar with the concept.

sequoia

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:54 am

PinkFridge wrote:

(And Sequoia, I'd love to discuss your [magnificently beautiful] 12:06 words to FF in light of this thread.)

Ok. Sure.

How about, people who believe differently than you can ALSO encourage their friends.

With me so far? Yes

gp2.0

Thu, May 04 2017, 10:01 am

sequoia wrote:

I am familiar with the concept.

Then what's the question? If people take some kind of comfort in believing that terrible things happen for a greater good, then that works for them. If I take comfort in believing that terrible things happen because terrible people make terrible choices, that works for me. Both beliefs are supported by our religion.

sequoia

Thu, May 04 2017, 11:42 am

gp2.0 wrote:

I also believe that terrible people make terrible choices. Full stop.

yksraya

Thu, May 04 2017, 12:22 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

God only won't stop him, if the evil was meant to happen (in that case it would've happened to the victim anyway) but if the evil person chooses to do something, but the victim has a yeshua, god HAS stopped him from doing his evil, even if he tried to do harm or did some harm, but his plans have not played out.

What helped me alot and still helps me is the knowledge that before we come down to this world, our neshama chooses all our nisayons, so that we can have our tikkun. Hashem gives us what we (our neshama) have begged for. But along with it, he gives us tools to deal with our nisayons. (Although it's our free will if we want to use the tools given, aka sink or swim).

I believe all is for the best, although we can't fathom evil, we see only a very little part of the picture, but one day we will see the whole picture and have clearity and understand why it all had to happen.

PinkFridge

Thu, May 04 2017, 1:33 pm

sequoia wrote:

Ok. Sure.

How about, people who believe differently than you can ALSO encourage their friends.

With me so far? Yes

Of course. It's why I said that the article had some valuable points.
Your encouraging optimism, or optimistic encouragement, came through loud and clear.

chicco

Thu, May 04 2017, 2:07 pm

I take a different approach. I believe Hashem has a plan. Ultimate goals. I believe that He inspires people to play roles in achieving these goals, but because we have free will, we can choose whether or not to participate. If we choose not to, Hashem goes on to inspire someone else. I also believe that depending on how things come about (who responds to the inspiration and how) it affects the course that the world takes to get to that ultimate goal. When Hashem was miztzamsaym Himself to create us, He made it that our actions require Him to respond in specific ways. So yes, we certainly have choices, and those choices most definitely affect what happens to the world. And when we do something that requires Hashem to respond with things that are terrible and horrific, Hashem inspires the responsible human beings to behave the way that they do. But they have a choice to ignore or deny that inspiration. That's why overcoming the yetzer hara is so important. Our job is to only respond be a shaliach for good and not bad.