Thank you all for the great answers and opinions.

This is the question(s) I used to throw antagonistically into the air when I was a young man and full of anger. "If there was a God, He would.....", "Do this", or "Do that", "He wouldn't allow this" or "He wouldn't allow that ".
In all this it supposes I know what God should do. I imagine at the same time, most believers have found an answer to these questions that make sense to them. I have mine. The real truth I must admit is that ; I don't know what the truth is about it. I know a couple things about "the issue", if one could call it that; from observation. There are plenty of troubled people in this world. People full of fear and anger. Society breaking up into warring fragments. Governments self-righteously imposing their will upon others. People killing each other in the name of God. Many religions claiming to have "the true doctrine "; and most emphatically claiming others are "wrong" or "misguided". The only result being less peace and brotherhood than before. The crazy part is; I am talking about people with good intentions. What I had been told early in my journey to God was that ignorance was the only sin. That just makes more sense as life unfolds for me. No matter what questions are asked there is plenty one can do to help. If life were "fair", I would be dead.

I believe that we, as spiritual beings, made a decision to come to this earth. I think we all knew that human experience would potentially include all the wonderful things that happen in life, as well as the horrific things that can happen to inhabitants of a physical planet.
That includes tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, horrible diseases, car accidents, etc. We are a part of this physical world. The animals are not spared, when traumas occur on Planet earth.
I do not believe disasters are punishments. We did chose to come to earth after all, with a knowledge that life would not be easy. I believe that experiencing all sorts of difficulties teach each of us compassion, humility, and eventually to rise above the problems of a human existence.

A tough topic only if you think of God as having human tendencies. Humans try to judge, control and manage conditions. If you were to imagine God as the space which allows all things to be, it is easier to see that God simply is. People and conditions come and go within this space. So all things occur within the realm of God. Picture a room in your house. Would any "thing" exist without the space that holds them? We tend to only notice the physical, and disregard the only thing that is unchanging...that which by its very presence, creates all of existence. Even within our own bodies, there is exponentially more space than form.

Thanks Stormie for the invite.....great ongoing endless question until there are no more questions.......With one of the top 10 questions of all faiths being, along with 'Why am I here?" certainly is, "Why is there suffering?" There are no easy answers and we dare not give one....or there are only questions....or each individual can only respond with their own lives as they live it out in the trenches of ongoing suffering....Think of it, since birth, forced through the vaginal canal and entering this existence, throughout all of living there are ongoing 'disasters'....

I resonate strongly in part with Shayna's insight that it is often national and personal disasters that 'wake us up' to consciousness---that our 'worst day' can end up to be our 'best day' as far as growth....

...Sometimes well meaning Christans like to quote Romans 8:28, that all things work together for the good to those who love God....." I also like to add '..for our eternal good" as it's not always apparent in our day to day living..........Again, my favorite phrase being "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience" and suffering and disasters are certainly very 'human' experiences......

I also love this question because it forces us to wrestle with whatever we call a 'god' or 'higher power' or simply NOTHING......I've heard most of it over the years in so many spiriutal/religious/thological discussions---Everything from Karma as people and nations are simply receiving back from the seeds they have sown, to a Benevolent Force drawing us closer somehow through it all....

...There is always the ongoing divisive question among many who believe in God: "Does God CAUSE suffering or ALLOW suffering???" My answer to both is 'YES'.......Or, 'Well, if God did not 'cause' the suffering because you don't believe your God is that kind of God, then your God certainly could have prevented it from happening...but chose not to." Why is that? Who knows, again, a multitude of answers, though I do believe that all things do work together for my eternal good......

....peace, love, strength and being there for each other in the midst of personal and national disasters.....I like the fact that some days I AM BEING CARRIED.....with the one set of footprints....And other days, I AM THE ONE WHO CARRIES THE OTHER....as those set of footprints are mine.....

Experience isn't what happens; it's what you do with what happens.

This is the million dollar question. I do have some sort of conceptual answer, but not everybody will be happy to accept my idea on this subject.
G-d (or the Life Force of the Universe as I like to call It) is in control of everything. This idea most of us agree on. We can also somewhat agree that G-d is in us all. So, just to make a very, very long answer a little shorter I am going to combine these generally accepted principals of G-d and suggest that G-d is actively participating - through us - in delivering human kind into the spiritual evolution necessary to move past this material age that we have been living in. Natural disasters seem like they are punishment - and yes some people who have experienced them and are still alive feel like they have been punished, but since I am not in the mind of that individual, I can not point out the positive that there must have been due to the natural disaster. For example, I went through my own personal disaster. Although it was not weather related, I still had the feeling of being punished and not understanding why so much bad had to happen to me. After a few YEARS of contemplation, I realized what I thought was the worst thing that ever happened to me was actually the best thing - and the only thing that created consciousness in me.
I am sure that most people go through some sort of "depression" or personal disaster trying to understand why there is so much "bad" in life. Each and every one of those personal downfalls should be considered "natural disasters". If we can be able to call all personal disasters - national disasters, then we can understand that each person needs a specific kind of "natural disaster" to help wake them up in order to see the potential good that life has to offer. It is widely known that sometimes from your lowest moments you are able to find faith in life as well as the ability to make changes in yourself that before the disaster, you may not have thought were in you to make. Since most of us believe that a piece of G-d is in all of us - we could probably argue that this piece probably caused (unconsciously - at this point in our evolution) the disaster to happen and is also the same piece of us that will help us understand why it happened to us.

Last Update on December 28, 2011 by Shayna Abrams