God Not Willing To Protect Humans From Life’s Pain; Governments and Corporations Apply For Job
May 14, 2009
by Carl Fiser
(Smithtown, N.Y.) All of us have experienced serious setbacks in life - challenges that seem undeserved - and many of us have experienced tragedy. Whether it be a bad marriage or the unexpected death of a loved one, an accident, a grave illness, watching a member of our household succumb to the effects of addiction - whatever the cause - I am talking about emotional pain so intense, a person can feel it in his bones. Why do such things happen? Why would God permit the death of a child or a birth defect or a fatal car crash? On a wider scale, why is there corruption, starvation, disease or war in the world? How many times have we heard God blamed? How many times do we hear a question such as, what kind of a God would allow such a thing? How many people resign to believe that there cannot be a god in this world if such things happen?
I certainly can understand these feelings and questions. The answer is not an easy one, but it may be less complex than I used to think. Here it is.
Human beings are divine creatures, made in the image of God. We have the ability to teach, to learn, to create and to enjoy the freedom to act contrary to scientific expectation. While here on earth, we live in the “wild”, where anything goes. A young man gets drafted into the National Football League and enjoys the best day of his life, and that same day, maybe that same moment, another young man, while standing on a street corner waiting to cross, is paralyzed by a car that careens out of control. How do we feel about and understand each event? Well, here on the wild earth, we perceive the NFL draft as a happy occasion, a joyful success, only because we know tragedy and failure in life. In a world not wild and not free, in a world completely controlled by God in which He grants happiness to all, we would not know happiness because happiness and achievement would be the status quo, the expected, the all-too-often occurrence. Heck, were we not free of mind, we might exercise the same emotion a cow would display if she witnessed a car-pedestrian accident - none.
To be free is to know sadness and grief as a personal acquaintance. To be free, and therefore human, is also to know great joy because we can measure it against tragedy, and we can treasure a happy event because we know it is not everlasting.
Be sure, however, that this author knows that tragedy can be devastating and permanent in one’s life. People often fall into depression, become suicidal, become chemically dependent or sick, or hurt others around them, because of a tragic event. Ironically, though, the same exact pitfalls are present when one achieves too much success. Ultimately, we must remember that we are completely free beings, with choice. Freedom is our God-given gift and right, and as we travel through the reality of life, no other person should be able to take that freedom away from us.
In that respect, we must be very careful - careful that we not roll over and permit other human beings to put limits on our freedom in the name of protection. Offers of limitations on our freedom visit us in very subtle ways. All too often, we are bombarded by the news story of a tragic shooting, and the politicians jump in front of cameras the next day promising new gun control laws - in the name of protection. Because of acts of terrorism, our shoeless bodies are now scanned as soon as we empty our bottles of water at airport gates - in the name of protection. There are a litany of drugs being pushed in front of our eyes, so that we can have more energy or more stamina or less depression or more sleep or less anxiety - in the name of protection.
Shots for the chicken pox? Shots for the flu? Protection. Governments and corporations, by offering to intercede, are trying to do good for us, right? Wrong. They are scaring us into the dreaded “thought box,” wherein we think less freely and, consequently, choose, and often demand, limits on our very own freedom. It is a maneuver as old as civilization itself.
In conclusion, when we meet with great tragedy, and each of us will, I suspect that we will act out and deal with it in our own personal ways. However, please, please remember not to blame the tragedy on God or on government and the fact that they were not dominant enough over the course of events in our lives. We have the right to the pursuit of happiness just the same as we have the right to suffer. That’s life in a nutshell, and freedom makes life unpredictable on wild earth. Without a doubt, governments and corporations appear more responsive to our fears than God does, but as Benjamin Franklin is purported to have said, and I paraphrase, He who would give up liberty for security, deserves neither.
Posted by News LI Editor · Filed Under Religion
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