Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: An atheist's question Message-ID: Date: 6 Nov 90 08:25:49 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK. Lines: 26 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article dg@pallio.uucp (David Goodenough) writes: >duncant@mbunix.mitre.org (Thomson) asks: >> I read a story in the news yesterday about the killing of a politician >> and his family in Lebanon. [nasty story deleted] > It strikes me that those who ask the question "why does God allow suffering" have not the faintest idea of what Christianity is all about. They are, perhaps, victims of that "God as a marketing trick", God presented as a cuddly Teddy Bear, rather than God as a Father who is to be feared as well as loved about which I complained in a previous posting. The most central belief of Christianity is that God was made man and suffered appallingly as a man. Christianity says that God is with us in our suffering - when we suffer, God suffers. Pain and suffering are part of God's plan for the universe, most centrally because without pain there is no joy. We go through pain and suffering as children because it is the only way to emerge as adults (we all know examples of people who have had extraordinarily sheltered childhoods, and have as a result never really grown up) - but if we are fortunate we have strong parents to pull us through. In the same way, God our Father pulls us through the suffering we endure here on earth. Matthew Huntbach