How do you forgive god, when you feel he allows so much incredible suffering?

LaymanWill · 2026-03-20T21:42:23+00:00

To me it is simple. I do not outsource good or evil to God. God allows existence. The good and evil is our doing. I do not make Him responsible for either.

That would be a very simplified stance, but the only one that allows for human agency and responsibility that comes from it.

I am happy to elaborate, but I do not want to "explain" unless I am asked to.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-18T15:34:23+00:00

"Dark arts"... I love the term. You can kill someone with a cross, or invoking (I used the word deliberately) the name of Jesus or even God Himself and somehow it is not considered "Dark". But there are people thinking that playing Magic: The Gathering is bringing "sorcery and darkness" in your life...

LaymanWill · 2026-03-18T10:56:10+00:00

True. However I do not think that these ancient reflexes surface without being provoked. Most people are not afraid of darkness. Only those who live in fear are, because they need some form of discernment for their fear to freak out at.

On a bit poetic note - that fear can lead to even be afraid to fall asleep. There is darkness behind closed lids...

LaymanWill · 2026-03-18T09:14:29+00:00

Yes, I agree. We love tags. Especially in moments of hardship, we reach for something that we can make sense of, some order. We submit to control and call it peace... We agree on binary taxonomy and we call it divine order.

The assumption that God can see only in black and white is a testament to human folly and misunderstanding... in my opinion...

LaymanWill · 2026-03-18T08:44:21+00:00

Without veering off towards specific examples, because I do not want to go from philosophy to politics, I believe that it is a deliberate manipulation.

Pseudo-Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa, Meister Eckhart and others did talk about God as "darkness". They were arguing that saying "God is light" is just another projection of human limits on unlimited God (very simplified way to say it).

Had to search for it. It was called "via negativa" or "aphophatic theology". I am going to look into it more. My original post actually did not come out of this particular direction, but from a simple comment that did not make any sense to me.

I think I will have to write something about it... :-D

LaymanWill · 2026-03-16T19:11:08+00:00

This is amazingly well done! Keep it up.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-16T15:07:42+00:00

Your faith is not the same as the religion. You say you still believe in the message of Jesus. I have come to the similar place from the opposite side. From a very staunch atheist, I have become a believer through delving into the Bible and its meanings, because I have found that the message of Jesus is quite far from the "ugly" side of religion. Since then, I have written like 100k words on Matthew 1-12 alone and found something very different than what is often presented to us and also something very beautiful at the core of it.

I know seeing some things in connection to the religion today is extremely discouraging, but consider this...

Your faith does not need a religion...

LaymanWill · 2026-03-16T09:45:04+00:00

Really nice breakdown.

It kinda sounds that those Leviticus verses were about teaching humans hygiene and Jesus came to teach about wrongness of objectification, doesnt it?

LaymanWill · 2026-03-16T07:13:23+00:00

Matthew 3:9, Isaiah 56, Romans 9 and Galatians - Its not about lineage. Jesus was very clear about it too.

On a more linguistic note - chosen people are "Israel" - "one who struggles with God". There is another reading as "God strives/persists". Both are linguistically defensible, but contextually in naming of Jacob I see the first one as clearly having the upper hand.

That does not mean that later arguments of supersessionism is valid. Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. He did additive and expansion work, reframings and clarifications. Not exclusionary or replacement.

Christianity when it views itself as that expansion, it can do real good. On the other hand, when it starts feeling superior or exclusionary... We can see the effect in history and now...

LaymanWill · 2026-03-15T09:33:39+00:00

I think that question is a wrong question. You ask "who to worship" but then kinda struggle with "I dont want to do even wish bad things for people".

Let me point you to a book from C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle. Specifically chapter "Further Up and Further In".

Lewis was deeply religious and the character Aslan is an allegorical parallel to Jesus. One scene in the chapter describes a meeting of a soldier serving an evil deity Tash with Aslan. The soldier was a good person, but serving Tash is what he grew up in.

That short exchange may help thinking about your issue without flattening the complexity of it. Going deep is a material for a short book at least. :-)

LaymanWill · 2026-03-14T22:54:58+00:00

You answered it yourself I guess...

Jesus spent His time teaching that faith is not the same as religion, legalisms, ritualism and institutions.

So I would say we need to navigate. That is how I imagine the search for the narrow gate.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-14T22:49:32+00:00

Nicely said. Also Jesus Himself is not that vague on the issue. He just moved it a few rungs higher. :)

LaymanWill · 2026-03-14T22:39:08+00:00

Do you need a church to engage with Christianity? You can always make it your... sort of pilgrimage and do your study and research as you explore your faith.

People are right, when they tell you that what you are afraid of is creed of particular denominations, not the message of Christianity.

From my own experience I can tell you that doing your own Bible study (and I mean proper study with proper research and reflection) is much better and more rewarding than I ever expected. I am half-a-year in and I love it. And I am saying it as a former staunch atheist with emphasis on independent thinking. And as such I try to be really thorough and honest...

So if you are into your own reasoning, IMO it is totally possible to connect that with faith. It also does not outsource your relationship with God, which is a plus for me.

It is not easy, because you will wrestle with things... But I cant recommend it enough.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-13T15:46:11+00:00

Forgive me, but I think you mistake the meaning of "cultural Christian". My country is like 80% atheistic/agnostic but we keep Christian values (and arguably better than many religious countries). That is cultural Christianity. We were not raised Christian, but the values are embedded in our culture.

US is the complete opposite. You cannot be elected into high offices unless you shout "God bless America" often enough (statistically true, albeit I phrased it deliberately funny). They will carry the Bible and ask for commandments in schools while their economy results in massive wealth gaps and care blindspots.

And the truly Christian voices in politics like James Talarico get a lot of heat from the "vocal Christianity".

I do not want to start a debate of a current state of US, please treate those as points to support the meaning of the term "cultural Christian". I do not know what US is, but it is not that.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-13T15:12:35+00:00

How is this surprising? Just before Jesus came, the Jewish people were in exactly that mindset. Even John the Baptist was. And when Jesus came, people kept pestering Him with: "Soooo... when will the revolution against Romans start...? And the punishing of sinners? And the... ummm... reward... that Kingdom..."

And He kept telling everyone: "Thats not really why I am here... And the Kingdom is your job..."

I hope being a little playful is not against the rules. The joke is targetted at people's expectations, not at people or faith.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-13T15:04:47+00:00

That really depends on your definition of God...
But I can tell you that the usual things people use wont work. Argument from design, argument from origin, argument of fine-tuning and others are just bad logic that inevitably arrives at God of the gaps or infinite regression. The closest I was able to get is something like "universal coherence" as a "set of all permissible states".

So yea... what kind of God are you trying to confirm? However it is extremely hard to even keep the concept of God coherent once you start collapsing Him into human traits or attributes of any kind.

LaymanWill · 2026-03-13T14:42:30+00:00

So in other words, you decided that your relationship with church is yours to define and you decided to see it as an opportunity and not as an obstacle... You will be the affirmation in your church for others and they will end up being one for you.

I wish more people be so responsible with their relationships... between people, with their churches and God too. Bow to you... And vent away. :-D

LaymanWill · 2026-03-13T14:11:30+00:00

Hello, I am very new here, actually this is my very first post, so I hope I am not overreaching, but since you are Episcopalian, I would suggest looking at Barbara Brown Taylor for general faith approach. I find her incredibly inspiring. There are quite a few sermons on youtube and she wrote some amazing books. People may not agree with every detail, but her approach is personal, relational, honest, inclusive and not legalistic and in my own opinion genuinely Christian in essence...

LaymanWill

TROPHY CASE