Why is there suffering?

This question is asked by many people, but maybe there isn't a certain answer. Suffering happens all around the world, to everyone, whether they deserve it or not, and no matter what we can't no anything about it. Suffering was introduced into this world with free will, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. People suffer because of sins that have happened in the past or present all around the world, not necessarily sins caused by the person/people that is/are suffering. Understanding why suffering happens is hard for many people, but whatever happens we know god will be there with us, and that is what we have to hold onto throughout our tough times.
In my life, i haven't really badly suffered yet, but i know i might one day and i can't do anything about that and god will be with me through it. One of the things that make me hate and really disagree with suffering is when you watch someone close to you suffer, sometimes its even worse than suffering yourself. When you are suffering or someone else is, you think, why is this happening? we don't deserve this, but really there is no easy answer. For example, my cousin past away in a car crash, and was only 20, he deserved to live for so much longer, this made my family suffer terribly. When your upset about these types of things, you get angry at god and at the concept of suffering, why should it happen to innocent people? but although suffering is horrible and makes you think it ruins everything, sometimes it makes you stronger, and even if it feels like its the worse thing that could ever happen, you get over it eventually, and in the end you have a different perspective on suffering and you realize that god is with you always.
Suffering exists because of previous sins cause by the world, it exists because of our free will, without free will we wouldn't have suffering, and without suffering we wouldn't have free will. Free will allows us to do what we want, and if we want to sin we can, but there are consequences, and suffering is a main example. In my opinion i would rather this world with no suffering, it would be a happy place, or maybe it would be better if the person who did the sin got the consequence, because that seems fair.
When i think of God i think of someone who is powerful, invisible, even magical, its hard to understand why he would allow us to suffer like this. I thought he could change anything and make good things happen, and even if God had the choice to take away suffering from this world, he would take free will away with it.
There is this poem called footprints, it really makes me think about how much god really is there for us, he will always be there, and that makes me happy.

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,

other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed

that during the low periods of my life,

when I was suffering from

anguish, sorrow or defeat,

I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,

"You promised me Lord,

that if I followed you,

you would walk with me always.

But I have noticed that during

the most trying periods of my life

there have only been one

set of footprints in the sand.

Why, when I needed you most,

you have not been there for me?"

The Lord replied,

"The times when you have

seen only one set of footprints,

is when I carried you."

There is some suffering in the world that no matter what we can't do anything about it, but there is some that we can help, and helping people can help your understanding, maybe it could be in this world to make the world come together and help each other, for example, in Africa, there are places where the people living there are so poor that they die of starvation. But we can help them, because we wouldn't like to be in there position, there are many ways to help people from suffering. I know that God would want me to help the unfortunate people that suffer, and i would stand up and fight with them. One of the strongest people would have to be the people that suffer from cancer and fight it. Cancer is one of the worse things ever, there is no cure and it happens to little kids and adults, they suffer for no reason, but we can help them. To help cancer you can do many things, you can donate money, spend time with them and make them feel happy, start a fundraiser and more. I would go out of my way to help these kids and give them the life they deserve, i would start a fundraiser and raise money for the kids. I would also be a "make a wish" granter, and go around to all the kids and help them get the one wish they have always wanted. Helping the kids in Africa is sometimes hard, you would have to have a lot of free time and money, but i would do whatever it takes to make them feel like they deserve a good life. I would set up a fundraiser to provide food, water, education, child care and so much more for the children suffering in Africa.
There are many other ways to help suffering kids and adults, there are people suffering all around the world! so please, take your time to help. 

Virtue and Vice

Virtue and vice represent two different parts people that are based on the 7 deadly sin and the 7 virtues, not everyone can be all good and all evil. The concepts of the 7 virtues, convince us to do good things avoid doing bad things, but as for the 7 deadly sins, they convince us to do the complete opposite. In life, each of these things help us to make the right or wrong decision, depending on what you most connect with in the 7 deadly sins or virtues, each of the elements of the 7 virtues motivate us to do the right thing, the 7 deadly sins convince us to do things that are wrong/bad.
The elements of the 7 virtues include things that help you do good things throughout your life, these theological and cardinal virtues are;
Faith
Hope
Love
Prudence
Justice
Fortitude &
Temperance.
Each of these have a positive meaning and create us to have a positive effect on our lives, everyone has different thoughts and feelings towards these virtues, the main virtues that tend to connect with them the most are the ones that they are motivated by to do certain things. throughout our life we discover what we think are our motivations and we live by them as they help us do things that we decide is good. In everyday life these aspects convince us to do the right thing, without them we wouldn't have motivation to do anything good, leaving us with negative thoughts and feelings that create us to avoid the good and display evilness. Out of all these virtues, the ones that effect my life the most are faith love and hope, they motivate me to do good things but also bad things sometimes, some things I regret. Faith and love allows you to forgive people ,to trust them and have complete confidence in them, this can be a good thing in my life, because they let me become close to people and to form strong friendships, which allows me to have complete faith in these people as i love them and believe in them. I believe in god and have faith in him, I know that he loves me and looks after me, i know that whatever happens i will always have him by my side, faith is good because it has allowed me to believe in god.  Love is a great thing, as it also leads to having faith in someone, i love my family, and i have complete trust in them, because i know they have faith in me, and that love me too. Having hope helps me to take risks and  believe that the outcome will be positive, when i am doing something that is difficult i always have hope that i am doing it for a good cause, or that whatever will happen will be good, it helps me strive to do things out of my comfort zone, to complete things that i think is hard. Prudence however is my weakness, i am not good at handling serious situations, concentrating on what i am doing and how the outcome will be is hard for me. I need to think about what i am doing more, and why and how it will effect the future and if the outcome will be good or bad. I need to work on prudence because i'm not focused on what i am doing and i don't think before i act.

The seven deadly sins motivate us to do things that aren't necessarily good and lead us into evilness. The 7 deadly sins are;
Pride
Envy
Gluttony
Lust 
Anger 
Greed &
Slothfulness
These elements cause me to do bad things and motivate the negative side of me, everyone isn't all good, they all have deadly sins that influence them to do bad things, whether they want to or not, there will be something that makes the evil side of them come out.Each of these have a really bad influence on me, they make me want to ignore the good and do things that only benefit my self, not others, or my future. The ones that most effect me are envy and slothfulness, although we don't like to be bad at all , we all have it in us no matter what. For slothfulness, it means the avoidance of physical or spiritual work including not acting when one should. Not all the time but sometimes I do things that only benefit myself, and i don't help other people, but i should more and i should help people when they are in trouble, even if it means disadvantaging myself. I sometimes tend to not think about how bad the situation is for someone else and i do nothing about it as if i don't care, i need to stop letting slothfulness convince me to do bad things and have more hope and faith. Envy makes you want more and more, and that's how I sometimes act towards things, when have everything i need i just keep wanting more, even tho i don't need it. Whenever i start to be happy with what i have, i realize all the things i'm missing and want them as well, envy can sometimes actually lead to being sad as well.  I also sometimes get things to make myself feel better even if i don't need them and other people deserve it more. 
 

Conscience and Moral Judgement

I have been studying conscience and moral judgement and explored the ideas of conscience and moral decision-making. Both together form a way of you knowing what is right and what is wrong. without you even knowing your mind has set up what is good and what is bad, but your conscience is not necessarily right. I think that conscience isn't just a feeling, its a decision according to our moral judgement. We need to make decisions not just do what we feel like, because we need to decide for ourselves what we consider right and wrong. I think that you don't have to go through your whole life accepting what other people define as good and bad and make your own choices in what you think is right and wrong, because it is up to you. Your conscience is never absolute as it is socially and culturally defined. what is right and wrong depends on that specific cultures values and moral beliefs. conscience is the persons commitment to living by your values and morals, doing something not worrying about what the punishment might be. If you believe you know what is right and what is wrong you will do it because you have to, because you believe its right, not what anyone else thinks is right or wrong. 

I am going to respond to this situation using the moral decision making process;

 A friend of yours, who is also a popular and well-known student, boasts to you that he/she has managed to steal a copy of the semester science exam. He/she is prepared to sell it to anyone for $10.00. This test has a 50% weighting on the overall result. What do you do? Would you buy a copy for yourself? Would you report the incident?

the issue is that you don't really want to get your friend in trouble and reporting the incident will make you lose friends. The friend that stole the copy of the exam is doing the wrong thing because whoever buys the test will be cheating. boasting about it is also wrong because stealing isn't a moral code of mine, it is wrong. The person who buys the copy will have it easy as all they have to do is copy it, which isn't fair to all the other students who studied and tried extra hard towards the exam. your conscience is doing what you believe is good and bad and not having the easy way out. The friend that stole the copy is getting the easy way out. it is important to stop him/her from selling the copy.

stealing and selling the copy of the science exam might be considered as a moral for the friend, but it isn't in this culture and stealing is considered wrong. 

my decision will affect me and my friends friendship, and friendship is a huge moral of mine, being loyal to your friends and caring for them. It will affect the person who was going to buy the copy, it shows them that they need to try harder and strive for there goals and morals. getting out the easy way is not an option, your conscience should tell you whether is is wrong or right and the person cheating has morals that cheating is right as there conscience told them to cheat on the test.

there are many choices i could make to prevent my friend from selling the copy, my first option would be to buy the copy from my friend pretending i am going to use it, then putting it in the bin so no one gets to buy it. this will mean that my friend would not know i am doing this and will think i want to cheat, but actually i am going with my morals and trying hard for the test, if i do this no one will be able to cheat and my friend wont feel betrayed. my second option is to talk to my friend and ask him/her if they think what they are doing is right and that if they sell the copy i would report it to the teacher. So it would be up to him/her to decide whether to not sell the copy and live by her/his morals. If he/she did sell the copy, he/she would get in trouble by the school and would fail the test which means not selling the copy is the only option that would support there morals, if that's what they think is right. This option would mean that my friend would most likely be annoyed and angry at me, but in the end they would thank me, because i helped her/him to try harder and consider her/his morals. 

there will most likely not be any consequences for these options unless for the second option my friend decides to sell the copy and i report it to the teacher, making my friend in big trouble and my morals of friendship being deceived. Reporting this situation will be the last option, and it basically up to my friend to decide what is really important to them and what isn't.

My family and friends would tell me to report it not really caring about our friendship, as they know that there morals are to do well at school as this is the common values and goals by most people. They would say that stealing is wrong and that my friend should have bad consequences regarding this horrible situation in which morals have been broken. this environment and culture has morals to do well at school and get a good job that will earn you plenty of money. The community urges us to live by what they consider the common good, but ultimately it is up to you to decide what your own goals and values are although the community advise you to live by what they consider the right way. 

Jesus would tell me to do what i think is right ans what i consider good and bad, he would tell me to decide on what my morals are and live by that. He would tell me to accept everyone else morals but also live by my own values. he would tell me that my conscience is right, it tells me how to live my own life and what i am doing is good or bad, living my other peoples morals isn't living the right way unless you believe that is the right way because it is completely up to you. 

the virtues of faith, hope and love, wise judgement, courage, justice and wholeness relate to this situation in many ways. love is to listen and care for those you love, your friends and family, and to listen to what they have to say to you and how they want to help you. Also you should be considering the friend in the situation and how it will affect them and there values. Love also leads to faith in which my friends and family have in me and respect my choices, just as i respect theirs. Having wise judgement is living by common sense and what other people expect from you and believe you should be able to do be doing it the right way (the community or countries way). having common sense for your morals include what the people around you believe is the right way to live by, from your family, friends and community. In this situation even thought you have love and faith in your friend you should be following the wise judgement and have enough courage to face your friend and tell him/her that you think what they are doing is awfully wrong, and if they consider your thought it might help them to realize what there morals include. having courage is having the ability to confront your friend that stole the copy and tell them that you will report it if they don't stop. Being responsible in this situation means following the common values of the community and in this situation helping your friend and preventing him/her to deceive the common values of the community. wholeness is being together as one, it relates to this situation as it shows that the common sense of everyone's morals should be considered and to follow the communities moral code you have to live by that and believe what you are doing is right, together we should all be following the common values set by the community in order to have wholeness in the community. 

the churches teach me to follow my conscience although there are different consciences, there's a good conscience, an evil conscience a clear conscience a weak conscience, a seared conscience and a corrupt conscience. We are expected by god to follow our good conscience but if we follow our evil conscience and do something wrong god expects us to feel guilt, to god guilt is a very real thing and is taken very seriously by Christians. when we fail morally we are expected to deal with it through guilt, as god will forgive us.

Therefor the decision i would make is to confront my friend and tell him/her that what he/she is doing is wrong and that they should think it over before they sell it and if they do sell it i will report it, as what they are doing is wrong and needs to be reported for my friend to feel guilt and know that she/he has done something wrong. Reporting the decision is living my the common values of most people and having courage to stand up to my friend and say what i believe is right. it is because i have faith in my self and i know that what i am doing is the right thing. 

Free Will and Determinism

If there is is no free will in this world then we wouldn't be able to learn from our mistakes and have our own choices whether they are right or wrong. With out free will our lives would be pre-determined by god and he would know every move we make and what the consequences will be. Free will allows us to believe in what ever we want and to do things that aren't determined for us, therefor we don't know what the outcome will be and will have to face what ever consequence we create for ourselves and others, as the consequences are not only made for you but others in the world too. The whole human race together have a free will which means they make decisions for themselves, but these decisions cause consequences for all people in the world whether they haven't done anything wrong or have. Determinism is opposite to this, every human has there lives set out for them which i think shouldn't happen in this world because having a free will means you determine your life for yourself.
There are four main types of determinism, Causal Determinism; everything in the universe including all human actions and choices has a cause, one sin can lead to a big thing, Cultural Determinism; the way people are determines there up bringing, they become that way because of what happen to them, they had no choice in it, Theological Determinism; God controls everything and people have no choice, our choices are pre-determined by him, Scientific Determinism; For every physical event there is a physical cause. I think we need free will on this earth as WE get to determine who we become, and we shouldn't be on this earth to do something, but to be someone.
Causal determinism means we are determined to do something, whether it means something huge or just small, but doing something that seems like it might not have much meaning can lead to one big catastrophe. for example Billy and Suzy throw rocks at a window. Suzy throws first so that her rock arrives first and shatters the glass. Without Suzy's throw, Billy's throw would have shattered the window. Suzy caused the shattering, since even if Suzy did not throw her rock, Billy would have shattered the glass anyway, and there would have been no causal chain connecting Suzy to the shattered window. This doesn't make much sense to me but the example helps understand what causal determinism is, i think if someone does something bad it could lead to something much worse but anyone could cause it, even if it is something small and 'meaningless'. causal determinism to me means you are determined to do things that would lead to something good or something that you don't even know you could cause to happen, and it happens no matter what, you have no choice in it, and even if you cause it someone else will and it will end up happening anyway. I think that whether you or someone does something little that causes something huge, it doesn't matter who does it because no one will end up knowing who actually caused it.
Cultural Determinism means someones life is determined by the society within they were raised, how they are brought up,by there parents or guardian. If there parents raise them telling them do to bad things, they wont know right from wrong and horrible things they do will be caused because of there up bringing and beliefs, and what they got told and taught as a child.
For example i have got brought up well, so i know what is right and wrong and what my parents and school expects of me, i act in the right manner because of my up bringing and how i was taught things. two men called, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, brought up into a wealthy, smart families, and brilliant smart students that were expected by everyone to be one of distinction and honor, committed a horrible crime, just for the thrill. Leopold claimed that even murder, was an acceptable act for a superman to commit if the deed gave him pleasure. Morality did not apply in such a case. These two men committed a terrible crime, they kidnapped and murdered Richard Loebs (one of the men) cousin Robert Franks who was only 14. The two boys were sentenced the death penalty BUT, Darrow ( there lawyer ) denied that human actions were freely chosen and rationally arranged. Individuals acted less on the basis of free will and more as a consequence of childhood experiences that found their expression in adult life. How, therefore, Darrow reasoned, could any individual be responsible for his or her actions if they were predetermined? He managed to secure them life imprisonment instead, arguing to the judge that he needs to consider three mitigating factors in determining their punishment: their age, their guilty plea and their mental condition. Darrow persuaded the judge that they were mentally ill— and managed to save them from the death penalty.
 I think that Cultural Determinism in some way makes sense to me as the way people are brought up kinda determines how there life will be because, the things that they got taught by there parents is how they decide to live there life, although this sad story about the two men killing an innocent child, had nothing to do with cultural determinism, they were brought up into a perfect lifestyle, it was them who chose to murder bobby, for no reason just for the thrill of it, cultural determinism is effected in some way for peoples life's, but what they choose do be and to do is up to them, they decide for themselves, and this example is a prime reason for why cultural determinism, isn't exactly why people do what they do with there lives.
Theological determinism however is a totally different theory that states that god controls everything and everyone and that we have no choice, our actions are pre-determined by him. this means that everything we do, every move we make, has already got an outcome of what will happen, no matter what, god pre-determines our whole life. As we might think what we chose is what we want but really the other way would be impossible.
I understand that god created this earth therefor he determines how our life will be set out, but i think that he doesn't know every move we make and every problem we face, because he put us on this earth with free will, which means we get to determine our own lives for ourselves, we get to face the consequence that we made for ourselves and God chose it to be that way, none of us knowing what is going to happen, not even him. He gave us free will for us to set up our lives the way we want to.
Therefor without free will there would be no risks and we wouldn't be able to live up to the way we set up our lives, the choices we make and consequences we face all determine our future, but really its us who determines our own lives.

Religion and Philosophy

Depending on peoples different religions and beliefs everyone has very different thoughts on the concept of good and evil. Christians believe that good is what people want to be and how they live up to there morals, They don't have specific rules to live by, but overall they all should care for each other and have a kind heart. Christians believe that god is the power of good, and that he created us to have free will and choose for ourselves either good or evil, and that everything god created has good in it. Christians believe that evil entered the earth as a result of Adam and Eve giving in to temptation and eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, although it also teaches that good is stronger than evil as God over powers the devil. God allows evil to exist so that humans can have a choice between good and evil and deal with the consequences, it helps gods relationship with humans for him to see who those who seek the good and not the evil. Evil people always seem strong but somehow lose in the end, like the movie Alex Cross.

Plato is known as one of the greatest philosophers and believed totally different thoughts to the christian's as he was not christian. Plato believed that humans were made up of only two substances ; a body and a soul, he believed that the body was evil and the soul was good as it is always with you. His beliefs were that everyone has good AND evil in them and they can't do anything about it, good and evil are with you all the time just like you body and soul. Plato thinks that we all think we understand and know the real world well but really we don't, and he wanted us to understand the real world better, he thinks we are seeing illusions not reality. Plato thought that most people were pretty stupid, and decided to write down ideas of his own, he believed in a form of philosophy called property dualism that means there are two completely separate processes that are co-located in our body. This you tube clip explains how Plato's theory workshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TYKNAdbhQ-w


Both of these ideas and beliefs seem pretty reasonable and have made me think a lot about what they really mean. Plato's theory makes most sense to me as i believe that evil can definitely over power good,  which Christians think that good is stronger than evil. In my opinion i think that we all have good and evil in us, but when good over powers the evil in you, you can easily turn evil, but once the evil takes over, you can never go back to the good again because once  evil takes over it will control your body and soul and will not be able to be reversed. 

Good and Evil

In my opinion, Good and Evil are two words that have many meanings depending on what youbelieve is good and what you think is evil. Good and Evil are important aspects of life, they determine how we live our life and what rules we follow in order for us to separate the good from evil and live the way we think is the right way. Good and Evil are thoughts in which you get to choose what one you think is right, there is no definition of good and evil as everyone has there own opinions of what it is and why it is the right thing.
  I think that goodness is when somebody goes out of there way to make someone else feel good or happy, not expecting/ receiving anything in return. Just being good in general such as, good manners, politeness, kindness, behaving kind/decent toward people, and even just doing something little to make someones day better, all express ways of goodness. Goodness should involve being happy for what you have and avoiding anything to do with evilness. My example is super hero's , like spider man, who help people and get nothing in return.
 Evil is the opposite to good, it is a state of mind which evil people think is the right thing. Being evil is generally not caring about other people and how they feel. Evil can be caused because of something terrible that has happened to someone, which makes them think the right thing to do is to harm/take it out on other people. God created us all to be stewards of the earth, to care for each other and the earth, those who are evil believe in the devil and do things the devils way. Everybody has good and evil within them, which gives them the decision to be either one, its completely up to them and what they think is the right way to live by. My example of evil is Hitler, he killed millions of jews, little kids and adults, just because he didn't 'like' them.
Truth is something you expect from everyone in order for them to earn your trust. Telling the truth is sometimes hard for a lot of people because as you make mistakes, lies help to cover them up. Truth exists in everyone, but it is only there decision to speak it to others. Lying is the opposite to truth and is done by many people as it is a very easy thing to do, it can start off as something little but carry on to an idea which makes you realize is better than the truth and then is expressed to others. Truth affects everyone and is a judgement that you allow to be true in order for others to believe it. Truth is reality and falsity is a thought you make up.
Beauty is natural as it is within everyone and everything, it surrounds us everywhere we go. Everyone has beauty, different kinds, beauty in the heart and in appearance, each making us individual. Beauty within you helps appreciate and love the natural environment/beauty surrounding you. Beauty is only seen in someones eyes if they believe it, appreciate it and focus on the positives. Beauty is everywhere.
Posted by Elisha Herbert at 03:31