why do bad things happen to 'good people'

[Astreja]

Diseases and genetic disorders don't care about how good we are. Neither do earthquakes or tornadoes. Add to that the fact that we and other people sometimes do stupid, dangerous things driven more by carelessness than malice, and the fact that sometimes someone's just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that's a perfectly adequate explanation.

[Minimalist]

People who insist they are good people are not necessarily that.

[Dānu]

Why do bad apologists happen to good forums?

[airportkid]

It's a pointless question, like asking why aren't all forum contributors intellectually honest, or even just coherent.

For the believer, the practical question is best expressed this way:  How do you make a god keep bad things from happening to yourself?  That is after all the crux of the matter; no one gives a rat's ass what happens to other people until what happens to other people looks like it might be something that could happen to you.

For the believer, then, adherence to particular biblical precepts makes god do some shielding, although what's never definite is the degree of adherence required or what kinds of bad things get shielded to what degree.  It's vague to the point that any difference between being divinely protected and not protected at all is indistinguishable, although the psychological ramifications for the believer are always going to be severe and often emotionally crippling when the protection appears to have failed, since the believer will have his/her grief compounded by feelings of guilt and inadequacy, and a sense of being betrayed, whereas the atheist will only have the grief itself to deal with.

A believer pummeled by badness will often feel resentment toward god for failing to provide shielding, and then feel guilty for allowing such irreverence to sully his/her necessary adoration for god.  It's an inescapable masochism that atheists never have to suffer.

Belief in divine protection = increased emotional trauma when bad happens.  So the next question is simply, who needs that?

[Chas]

I managed about 2 minutes before I gave up. 'God beats you because he loves you.' is a pretty horrible theodicy and tells me just about everything that I need to know about the believer.

Christianity is the Stockholm Syndrome, Masochism and the Battered Spouse Syndrome rolled into one.

[NorthernBen]

Bad things do happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people.
I'll give you a quick example...
I got nothing for Christmas and Drich got felt tip pens.... Life is so unfair.

[GenesisNemesis]

Diseases and genetic disorders don't care about how good we are.  Neither do earthquakes or tornadoes.  Add to that the fact that we and other people sometimes do stupid, dangerous things driven more by carelessness than malice, and the fact that sometimes someone's just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that's a perfectly adequate explanation.

I was born with a genetic disorder that gave me a heart defect among other severe issues. Fortunately I survived (and no longer have to deal with those issues, except maybe an increased risk of mental problems) but it would be delusional to say I was saved by some divine being while others perished. Nope, it's just random chance. It was also random chance that caused the chromosome deletion in the first place. Where's the "intelligent design" there? God couldn't prevent genetic disorders from happening? Far easier to explain with evolution rather than god.

[Minimalist]

"When my son survived a car crash I did not thank god.  I thanked Honda."

-- Author unknown

-

[Bucky Ball]

Bad things do happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people.
I'll give you a quick example...
I got nothing for Christmas and Drich got felt tip pens.... Life is so unfair.

It's worse than that. He got post-its too. Damn.

[Deesse23]

Its because noone prevents them from happening, duh.
Because, if there was somebody able to, he would, duh...

[Mathilda]

The thread title would be better if it was just 'why do bad things happen'.

That way the answer becomes far more informative as we can then explain cause and effect to Drich.

By specifying 'to good people' the answer becomes ... why not?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Bad thing: Attempted murder.
Good people: Me, age 7.
Gods involved: Zero.

[SYZ]

youtube.com/watch?v=6DZnBbo7R7I&t=131s

This subject came up like 10 times and thought this would help

Corrected link:  




I appreciate the time and effort you've put into producing this video, but your premise that
there are "good" things per se, and "bad" things, also per se, is erroneous.  As is your
assumption that a supernatural entity that you call "god" exists in the real world, and somehow
affects it physically—which is of course nonsensical.  Claiming that a god does this or does that
is effectively a non sequitur : an inference that does not follow from its premise.

Look at it this way, for example:  

•  At least 60 people have been killed as flash floods hit the Indonesian capital Jakarta on 2 January.
•  More than 23 people have been killed in bushfires currently raging across south-eastern Australia due primarily to drought.

So... if the more than 300mm (12 inches) of rain that fell on Indonesia had—instead—fallen on Australia,
would that rain have magically changed from being a "bad" thing to a "good" thing?

—Of course not.  Rain has no inherent sense of right or wrong LOL.

[Minimalist]

Rain has no inherent sense of right or wrong LOL.

Neither does Dripshit.

[Chimp3]

How do things happen? Fixed that for you Drich.

[grympy]

Diseases and genetic disorders don't care about how good we are.  Neither do earthquakes or tornadoes.  Add to that the fact that we and other people sometimes do stupid, dangerous things driven more by carelessness than malice, and the fact that sometimes someone's just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that's a perfectly adequate explanation.

 Indeed.  

Have never understood the insistence of so many to refer to a disease as "cruel" .  Horrible,  lingering and other epithets of course, just not ones which suggest sentience or intent.

[grympy]

Why do bad apologists happen to good forums?

 Because we allow/humour them .

Some of us from a sense of fairness, some for amusement/ as a chew toy and many  because of the schadenfreude to be had from kicking a person wearing a 'please don't kick me'  sign.  Or from trying, in vain, to knock a huge chip off their shoulder

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((0)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Old joke;

Masochist : "Hit me" 

Sadist :  "No"

[Drich]

Dunning-Krueger :
"In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

The ultimate irony of the dunning-Kruger syndrome is that if one feels he is in a position to identify and diagnose this syndrome in another person without any training or testing official material, then that person most likely suffers himself from this condition.

[Drich]

Dunning-Krueger :
"In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

 I guess you are alluding to Drich (?)    Not my first thought. That was Donald Trump.   

The thing with trump though, he is literally in the highest more powerful position the United States holds possibly the world.

like him or hate him trump's arrogance, is afforded to him from his legitimate power as POTUS. He struts around like the king of the world, because arguably he is.

[Drich]

The better question would be, why do perfect assholes prosper? So called businessmen, literally walking over corpses to achieve their goals.

The answer is simple. Because the world is human by design and not divine. Those, who don't care how others fare, tend to be more successful than so called good people.

actually I answer that in the video

[Drich]

"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

The simple answer: there is no God to make it otherwise.  The universe isn't fair and is often random instead.  People can only ameliorate that with our efforts to a certain extent.

So that question isn't a problem for atheists like it is for theists.

Another version of that question is "Why me?"

The only satisfactory answer I've ever found is "Why not me? (or you?)"

I have no idea  if or how much the universe is random . I accept that the universe just 'is' and not sentient as far as  I can tell.

It is the child, naive adolescent and theist who stamps their little foot and declares  "It's not FAIR!!!!" No, it ain't and I can think of no reason it should be fair.

The "why me" question is a product of the notion that if you are a good boy or girl god will reward you with a positive experience in life; therefore, if you have a negative experience, you did something wrong. God has singled you out for punishment. So your spouse or child died or worse, or your marriage ended, or whatever. Such things aren't supposed to happen to "good" people. I literally heard believers claiming that "real Christians don't have problems". With a straight face. Talking to clearly devout people undergoing terrible suffering and loss. It was one of the reasons I couldn't rationalize my faith anymore. It motivated people to such straight-up cruelty with zero self-awareness (or, at least, total denial) that they were doing it.

The video describes a completely different Christian world view. In Fact I point out that if God did not spare his son from the evil of this world neither should any christian expect an quarter. God does not 'punish' for sin. However sin will keep us from completely accessing and receiving support from God. That said the book of romans tells us the apostle paul himself was not free from sin, like the rest of us Paul lemented because he could not stop sinning all the time. If Paul could not live sin free then what hope do we have? The same hope he had in Christ. which brings me back to the video and what I said there.

[Drich]

youtube.com/watch?v=6DZnBbo7R7I&t=131s

This subject came up like 10 times and thought this would help

 Oh My Zeus D Rich!  Your video clip is pathetic.  Monotonously reading from a whiteboard with barely legible writing, or from notes written on yellow lined paper filmed sideways is about as amateurish as it gets.

Check it out folks.  

at least you watched the video! thanks for the input will work on them. Thought i could turn the screen 90* for theyellow notes but could only go 45*

[skyking]

Trump is king of the world? That's exactly the kind of reasoning that has us all ignoring you. I'm going to formalize it and put you on ignore.

[Drich]

Bad things happen to good people.
Good things happen to bad people.
Bad things happen to bad people.
Good things happen to good people.

Because ........ things happen!

No gods necessary.

The deeper point is the philosophical epicurean paradox or the "problem with sin."

The video was the result of 10 or more of you in the last video attempting to use "the problem with sin" argument. This video answers that old atheist go to.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I go through the more modern version line by line and refute it, by 1 defining what is being offered by God verse the expectation.

[Drich]

Another version of that question is "Why me?"

The only satisfactory answer I've ever found is "Why not me? (or you?)"

I have no idea  if or how much the universe is random . I accept that the universe just 'is' and not sentient as far as  I can tell.

It is the child, naive adolescent and theist who stamps their little foot and declares  "It's not FAIR!!!!" No, it ain't and I can think of no reason it should be fair.

The "why me" question is a product of the notion that if you are a good boy or girl god will reward you with a positive experience in life; therefore, if you have a negative experience, you did something wrong. God has singled you out for punishment. So your spouse or child died or worse, or your marriage ended, or whatever. Such things aren't supposed to happen to "good" people. I literally heard believers claiming that "real Christians don't have problems". With a straight face. Talking to clearly devout people undergoing terrible suffering and loss. It was one of the reasons I couldn't rationalize my faith anymore. It motivated people to such straight-up cruelty with zero self-awareness (or, at least, total denial) that they were doing it.

So I guess the 227,898 people who were swept away and killed in the 2004 southeast Asia tsunami were bad, bad people, according to some Christians.  I suppose this includes the dead, drowned children.  And for a bigger effect it happened on Dec. 26, the day after Christmas. This horrible tsunami was a visible comment that if there is a god he/she/it doesn't give two pieces of shit about people.   Add to this the over 800,000 people, mostly children, who die from Molaria every year.

yes you were one of the 10 who brought this subject up in my last thread when you could not speak on topic there. "the problem of sin" is often a trump card used by atheists to refute the idea that God is real, by subverting if he was then God he is evil.

What the video does is reframe the argument and outline what it is God offers in the way of love. which absolves your subverted expectation of God being in a position that mandates a pleasant action. I give you the biblical reason why bad things happen