What kind of God allows this?

Question

Recently, someone who was in my grade (aged 15) passed away from lung cancer. I knew him since about third grade, and he has always been extremely short and had facial deformities. Recently, he has had to carry a respiratory pack around everywhere he went, and this made very loud noises. He has had almost no friends because of this, and even though I tried my hardest to be friendly with him, his condition often prohibited it. I was very hard-pressed when I heard about his passing, and I really find it hard to justify that "God has his reasons for anything". What kind of God gives a child incredible disadvantages and takes away their life at a mere 15 years? Please don't just say "God has his reasons" because thats what all my local religious officials say and I just don't believe that.

Answer 1

He had a right to life, know the love of his parents and his illness was a challenge in his life but possibly he appreciated things you could not have ever seen. God offered him death, to end his suffering, he is at peace.

His life was no less difficult or different from yours or mine, he lived his life and accepted the conditions of his life.  

It is you who suffers now, questioning God, that he should only provide perfect, popular and good without teachings and understanding life.

Your friend died and touched your life, it is a time for learning and accepting.  We are all fragile to life and death, it is a time of miracles and sadness when others touch our lives.

May God Bless You

Answer 2

This should tell you the naked truth: there is no god.

Answer 3

All of these bad things that happen to people are caused by man's sinfulness. Without sin, mankind has perfect bodies with no defects or abnormalities, but when sin was introduced to the world through Adam we lost that blessing and became imperfect beings.

It is Man's fault for all these things, not God's.

Answer 4

Just another example of why there is no god.  If there is a god, I don't want to know him because he would be so incredibly cruel.

Answer 5

Guess what!  Your life will pass as a morning fog.  You will wake up one day and find you are now 40.  Then 60.  You will die as all people do.  This earth and this life is not the beginning or the end.

Answer 6

I don't know, i've been through some crazy **** and asked the same question.  

Answer 7

And that is one of the many reasons i dont believe. A colleague of mine passed away earlier this year. She had a rare blood disorder that just suddenly occurred, and she was dead within a year. She left behind a husband and an 18 month old son. She was 28. I know exactly what you are talking about, if god is good and god is this and god is that, why does he allow such things to happen? And some christians would say that he wanted these people in heaven, or that he wanted to test the ones that are left behind, and if thats the case, then he is a sick sadistic cruel selfish god!

Answer 8

the kind of God you don't believe in...or wouldn't understand...God is not a genie that man commands...

Answer 9

Ive just asked a very similar question. I admit that I'm confused myself, and although I dont doubt that God exists, I just find it hard to look up to someone who is just watching as all this terror erupts in the world.

God can easily stop it all,and if he loves us as much as is stated, then why dont he?

Because of these doubts, Ive found myself being called a 'disbeliever' by many people, but I think it's only right for us to have these doubts sometime. It's only natural.

x

Answer 10

my theory is that is just takes some people less time to get it right.

like "only the good die young"

Answer 11

God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. He's obviously too busy to worry about some sick kid.

Answer 12

Your last sentence says it all- you just don't believe.

Answer 13

I can't say what kind of God would give anyone cancer or any other of a myriad of diseases.

God did not give anyone disease nor death but God is the Creator and the one who sustains our life.

God created Adam and took a rib form him and created Eve.

They were not designed to die but were made perfect.

While Adam and Eve are made perfect they were not Gods and were not infallible.

They were given a free will to follow God or to disobey.

There were two trees in the garden. These two trees have more than a literal meaning. We are told that The tree of knowledge of good and evil is forbidden.

The day Adam eats of it he will surely die.

The tree of life is also in the midst of the garden if they eat of it they will live forever.

These two trees are obviously more than trees.

What is the knowledge of good and evil?

Where could a man gain knowledge of good and evil?

We get our knowledge of good and evil from God.

The law that God sent down to Moses is the knowledge of good and evil.

Why would God's righteous law kill man?

Because man could not live up to God's righteousness.

It is also the reason there was a tree in the midst of the garden called the tree of life.

This is God's mercy. Salvation through Jesus Christ.

This story Moses tells is of the two natures of God his righteousness and his mercy.

It is the story of man and his fall from God's glory and God's plan of salvation.

God is a righteous God and when man sinned he seperated himself from his Creator and the God that sustains life.

This seperation is death.

Because of sin man became mortal and inherited death and the entire earth was cursed.

Now we have disease corruption and death.

God's plan for his creation is not tempoary but is eternal.

This is the reason the Son became flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus overcame temptation, sin and death as a man under the law.

Those who accept his atonement can now through his righteousness be joined to God for eternal life where there is no sin and therefore no disease and death.

Answer 14

Do you know if the parents used drugs or drank alcohol to cause his condition? Alot of men will be disappointed come judgement day. Men always blame God for anything bad that happens. You should be thanking God for good things that happen to you. Is it God's fault that we are sinners too? Lets just blame everything on God why dont we? Im going to blame him for all the problems in my life hows that? I'll just blame God to make myself feel better hows that? You know its a God but you just dont understand him and you dont want to because your heart is hardened.  

Answer 15

Well if you follow the Christan way of thinking, you will find no comforting answers. The Vedas, Hindu texts, teach us that we are not the body, but rather souls. We are brought through an endless cycles of death and rebirth until all of our karma has been settled. God did not cause his death, his body did. He is not dead, only his material body. Just as God would not give us only one chance with life before brining us to paradise or eternal torture, He would also never put his creation through death intentionally.

Om Namah Sivaya

Answer 16

Your friend is in a better place and believe that he is not suffering

Answer 17

I used to have similar turmoils.  The problem is not that the universe or God is uncaring or bad, the problem is that your (and my) understanding is not adequate to resolve it.  Keep seeking truth, and try to see through the mythical nature of holy books like the bible.  If you, or I had the capacity to perceive even 3% of the truth of the universe, we might look at examples like yours and not be bothered at all -- we might see how perfect it really was that this boy went through that.  What if he was the reincarnation of Hitler, and his soul was revived and grew tremendously through that experience.  You just don't know, and you probably never will in this life.  Accept that and learn from it.

Answer 18

What do you want us to say? "He don't give a $hit?"

God didn't create a perfect world, illnesses and diseases can effect anybody..

I'm sure the kid's enjoying being off his respirator right now anyways...

Answer 19

If this life is the only existence, and death is the termination of existence, then of course God, if He/It even exists, would be a cruel God.

But what if there is a life after death?

What if this life is only a test?

to determine how you would live in the next life!

Then there are some who exist to test others. They may or may not themselves be on test.

Those who are here to test others around them will be amply compensated.

This life is for a brief period, very brief, and the only purpose of it seems to be to go through the test.

This is the Islamic view

Answer 20

Everyone wants to go to heaven and no one wants to die. Honey, there are some things we just don't understand. I will keep giving God praise in the midst of tragedy. Sorry to hear about your friends.....bd

Answer 21

If you're going to believe that God exists then you also have to believe in Satan, because he is in the Bible as well. God tests His children, but Satan seeks to kill and destroy. In the book of Job, Satan asked God if he could torment Job, and God allowd it. Satan killed all of Job's livestock, his servants and his children, and he gave him a serious disease. Satan is out to kill and destroy, and God allows things to happen. Sometimes it is to judge, sometimes it is to test, and sometimes it is just because Satan seeks out to kill and God allows it. We can never know why or how, but we can be assured that God is God and we can't argue with what He chooses to do. He is holy and He is just, and we've got to be humble and accept what happens. If you could fully understand Him, what kind of a god would that be? He is beyond understanding.  

Answer 22

you're going to get a few that say, god allows this because of sin.

our sins caused this.

i disagree, god had the power to rescue these poor people who suffer like this and he refuses to. anyone with the power to help someone in such pain and doesnt is bad in my book.

Answer 23

Look, ultimately, you'll have to figure things out for yourself.  I can tell you that this type of thing is exactly why I started questioning my faith and utlimately stopped believing.  I had a friend who's little brother had lukemia.  I remember him wasting away to nothing and dying.  I remember his parents and his brother (my friend) crying and praying for him to get better.  About the same time, I went to a youth group meeting and somebody there was so happy that they prayed about this test at school, and "god" helped them get an A.  I was like, wait a minute, god took the time to answer your prayer about a stupid test, and my friend's little brother wasted away and died, and god didn't do a d**n thing?  What kind of god is this?  I started reading the bible to try to make sense of all of it.  I read it over and over, and started studying the history of christianity and other religions, and then it finally made sense.  its all BS.  It makes much more sense to me now.  $hit happens.  Its all random.  No logic to it, no purpose, no reason.  Just enjoy your life and try to make a better world for you and your children.    

Answer 24

there is no god.

he doesn't exist.

he's just a figment of your imagination.

Answer 25

We live in a fallen world with many hard things all around us.  All perfection will be restored but there is a time line and all things must be done in order.  It is always a difficult thing to understand the injustices of this world and many times they are brought on by people themselves such as pollution which causes cancer.  To understand God one must read His word and pray, not ask a man who is a sinner himself.  Even with the scriptures, God is somewhat of a mystery, bu there are promises of life and life eternal and seeing how this life is but a vapor in comparison to eternity we should be seeking eternal life not always trying to find out a way to live forever in these decaying mortal bodies.

Answer 26

Presbyterian pastor here...God didn't cause it to happen. It was not his will. He suffered along with your poor friend. Christians believe that we can best know and see God as he was present to us in Jesus of Nazareth, who shared our humanity completely, except for sin. Even Jesus himself shared the vagaries of our limited, frail human condition---even including death.

The disciples, upon seeing a man born blind, asked Jesus whether he was afflicted by blindness because he was paying for his own sin, or the sins of his father, i.e., the sins of those in his family.

Jesus rejected the assumption completely, that he was born blind as a punishment for ANYTHING.

Such terrible things do happen. There is no logical reason for it. But it is NOT the will of God. In his own suffering and death, Jesus identified completely with the human race, with all of our limitations, illnesses and sin. God sanctified all of it for him, raising him from the dead. I believe that what your friend went through will be sanctified for him and for us by God, in a way we cannot easily describe.

Humans are limited, imperfect. Some of us are born "more imperfect." That was true for your friend, physically, more than any other way. But he is certainly free now. We neglect such unfortunate people at our own spiritual peril. God commands us to serve them and see to their needs---and not just because of their PHYSICAL impairments.

It is a Mystery why your friend had to live such a difficult life. Likewise, it was a Mystery as to why God permitted evil men to execute Jesus as if he were a criminal. But God redeemed it all. Jesus is dead no longer. Neither is your friend.

---JFM.

Answer 27

That is so sad about that kid. But God has different plans for everyone else, just because his body died doesnt mean he is dead, He was invited to Heaven earlier than you would think, I know if I had cancer I would probably be angry with God, but I think that when people get sick it is because of Satan, and tricks people into thinking that it was God's fault, and God helps that person by either inviting them to Heaven, or helping them get better

Answer 28

this is one of the reasons that im an atheist