Puck

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Amie.
I can only speak from experience when I say that any time in my life when I went through times of suffering it was then that I feel I had the greatest amount of growth. /QUOTE]

Amie, I enjoy your posts and I'm not trying to attack here, but...

Hard times and heart ache are not the same as being 5 years old and dying of AIDS, or being 14 and raped by the conquring tribe, or as a father watching your family all be tourchered one by one.

There is nothing be be gained by horrors like this. I agree that we can gain the most personal growth working through hard times, but that's not what I read Lady Shea talking about.

I can even conceed that a child born with a disability can contribute to the betterment of the people involved, but the horror Lady Shea is talking about implies there is no just god.

Jamie_L

I believe this saying is fairly common. I've heard it a lot. However, I think it's mostly one of those platitudes that people spout off to try to make themselves or other people feel better, not something that most Christians incorporate as a serious aspect of their belief system.

It sort of goes hand-in-hand with the whole notion of turning to God in times of hardship and having God give you the strength to deal with it.

Jamie

abe smith

A non-existent "god" = a human mental-construct = fiction , does not give anybody anything.

braces_for_impact

That kind of comment seems to me only able to stem from someone who has no idea of how hard life really can be. I have often heard this from christians, and it's always been about worth it's weight in dung to me. Obviously everywhere all over the world people encounter something that they could not handle, and are defeated. This is an unfortunate fact of life, but exactly what we would expect to find in a naturalistic universe.

I think, like many parts of christian doctrine, it is a phrase used to comfort one and partially, to explain why bad things happen to good people. Naturally it's simply a lie.

happyboy

that saying is a load of shit. i agree with braces_for_impact. speaking as someone who's had a never-ending supply of shit dumped on him, that saying is only used by people who have NO idea what life really is like.

a VERY pissed off happyboy

agapeo

LadyShea
I don't blame you. :eek
Unfortunately -- Yes. At least most of the ones I've spoken to or the theological papers I've read. Oh well.
Well, I'm a Christian but I don't think I can help you understand this logic because it doesn't make logical sense to me either. Sorry.

Perchance

Even if God knows they can handle it, how are the people supposed to know they can handle it? Is someone who's, say, going through a war and being orphaned, tortured, and raped really supposed to think of faith and spiritually growing?

Probably the answer from some Christians is 'yes.'

Ugh...

-Perchance.

MzNeko

You just summed up a big chunk of my own worldview in two sentences!

Can I steal that? Pretty please? It's such a great signature line!
:notworthy

seebs

Well, consider this:

Imagine, if you will, that something horrible is going to happen to you.

You have control over only one thing:

1. You can become bitter and resentful.
2. You can think of it as an opportunity to grow.

Which of these paths do you think will make you a happier person?

This doesn't depend on Christianity; I've met humanists who advocate it, too. Basically, whether or not something *is* a planned-for opportunity to grow handed down by God is totally irrelevant. Your attitude about the thing matters a lot more than the thing itself.

The world is full of people who seek out opportunities to be miserable, and who live pretty good lives by most peoples' standards, and sit around resenting the trivial imperfections.

Does this mean it's "okay" for people to starve and die horrible deaths? I don't think so. However, I think people underestimate hugely the amount of control they have over their experience of life.

As a trivial example, consider the old saying "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence". A large portion of the utility of this is in the emotional response.

If you do your best to consider reasons for which people might have done something which harmed you, but not meant harm, you can generally get along better with them, live a lower-stress life, and be healthier.

I don't think this helps the starving kids in Africa much, but I think it's the root of the thought process in question; you get used to thinking "well, everything that's happened to *me* has been a growing experience".

At the other extreme, if you see everything as a personal attack, it just makes you fragile. I have a couple of friends who interpret everything as a personal burden. They are miserable.

brighid

My mother had often told me that very same thing and did so during some of the darkest times in my life. I can’t remember if it was every comforting, but I do remember thinking … shit, what EVER did I do so horrible to deserve THIS (car bombing, attempted rape, kidnapping of my son … etc.)??? It seemed like some horrible copout and I wondered when would I stop paying and why the hell wasn’t he (son’s father) the one suffering so violently when he was the one doing all these horrible things? It felt incredible cruel, twisted and unfair thinking that God did this, or allowed this to happen to me … I would often wonder why be strong if that means God will heap suffering on you?

I do agree with seebs about how one views the world, it’s pitfalls, obstacles, tragedies and sorrows. I think one’s attitude is often the difference between ending up some bitter, tormented hag on the fringe of being forcibly committed to an insane asylum or overcoming ones personal obstacles, learning from those experiences and hopefully making something good come from all the carnage. In the case of a child born in a sub-African country, devastated by war, famine, and disease … I just don’t know how to reconcile that and it seems heartless, cruel and smug to excuse away the suffering by saying that God give such torment and torture to those strong enough to handle the pain.

I am strong because I chose to be and amidst all the hell I knew I always had choices and those choices would dictate the course of my life and whether or not I could ever achieve happiness of any sort. I consciously chose to do things that would better my situation and it worked and better then I even dared imagine. I have friends who have not had to traverse even one of the personal obstacles I have had to … and they are miserable, alone and rather pitiful. But … I suppose that is besides the point of this particular topic.

Brighid