(October 30, 2013 at 7:07 pm)leodeo Wrote: i have mental illness and suffer from sever depression and im 24 and became christian at 16 and always was told god helps, heals, etc....
but over the years things have just gotten worse and worse, and i'm at the point where i feel like, even if "god is with me, loves me and is watching over me" ....does he actually do anything to help?
i see so many verses and "motivational pictures" thrown at me talking bout how he feels my suffering, sees my tears etc...but how does any of this affect me and my problems?
i talked to a pastor and he said that "god doesnt directly intervene in our lives because we have free will....but he loves us more than we can ever imagine and only wants the best for us"......wtf?
There is no pure and simple and simple answer to the problem of pain, not because there is no answer, but because pain is complex.
I've seen a couple times on these boards the phrase "shit happens" which breaks the problem of suffering down to a meaningless occurrence, which it is not.
Maybe consider a couple things:
God does not wish for suffering to happen - The fact is, if you admit to there being a supreme being who is the source of good and you admit to there being free will then suffering is unavoidable. People are free to reject His and choose wrong, like you are free to turn off the lights and stumble around in the dark. This is why those who DO reject Him have only "shit happens" to respond to the problem of pain. Because they have no right to complain. If you reject comfort, there is only pain left.
But what about those who do have a right to complain? The good people who still suffer? But if you accept a supreme being as the source of all good it should be understood that Man was not meant for this world. God made us to be with Him. The problem of pain again come to the problem of free will. Man is a proud animal, believing that he knows best, can figure it all out on his own, even so far as to believe that he, himself, is god-like. This prevents man, even the most pious amongst us, to completely accept God in his goodness. But only God knows what it is that we truly need, only God can create the perfect spot for us, and it is only after we have chosen to accept Him that we can enter that space. If you create an intelligent being that can choose for itself what it is to do (man) and you tell that being "This and only this is what you can do" what is to stop the being from rejecting you. But, if you create an intelligent being and allow it to live with its free-will, coming and going, stumbling over and over, and then show it "This and only this is what is good for you" would it be more likely to accept?
Finally, something to think about - God, if you believe the Christ story, was not above pain and suffering. As a man He walked freely into it, both mental and physical, struggled with it, and came out the other side.
". . . let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist." -G. K. Chesterton
