[munificent]

> For one, that all bad things are actually good is not a tenet of Christianity and is not in the Bible.

Surely you in your life you have met many Christians who said "God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", "trust in the Lord", etc.?

In the Christian communities I grew up around, it was a pervasive idea that misfortune was explained away by our limited understanding. These cliches were always trotted out when something horrible had happened which needed to be explained away.

It's arguably a necessary tenet for Christianity to hold together as a coherent belief system. If you believe in an omnipotent, benevolent God, you need some way to explain why bad things still happen[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

[KolenCh]

There are two kinds of Christians, the Bible studying kind, and the one who hearsay. Philosophical arguments like this are handled extensively in the field of (Christian) theology. There are many things many Christians claim nowadays are not biblical. Imagine “physicists” start claiming things that no falsifiable, tested theories in physics attested to. Now do you call them physicists? If there are enough majority of them is doing it, do you say “physicists“ (as a generic term) now believes in so and so? This the kind of situation that’s happening in Christianity. Because, the core believe is anyone can be a Christian (subjected to minimal check such as the basis of their salvation, some also include baptism), unlike in physics you need to be trained and qualified. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. But I’m pointing out the situation, so that one can understand, for outsiders one would say “Christian believe this or do that”, and for the “insiders” who really study the Bible and trained in theology and know differences between denominations for example, would be completely puzzled and say it is not.

I guess the former focuses on Christian as a social construct and includes whoever claim to be Christian or even influenced by Christian thinking. The latter focuses on Christian as what it is ought to be and knows that all are sinners, including Christians, and I’d fall short of the standards the Bible uphold. Among these Christians, they know that the majority of Christians has gone astray.

[vishnugupta]

> misfortune was explained away by our limited understanding

I don’t think this is unique to Christianity. A similar key concept in Hinduism is “karma”.

[munificent]

Yes, from the article:

"In Buddhism this is karma, while for the stoics it is Providence, the same concept of Providence that Christianity later borrowed, which argues that everything in the world which seems bad is actually good in a way we cannot fully understand because of our limited perspective."

[scandox]

I think the Cromwellian dictum "Trust in God but keep your powder dry" is the intelligent Christian's attitude to this...

[ilrwbwrkhv]

I think most American christianity is actually fake christianity or derived christianity. To understand real christianity, once must read tolstoy.

[worthless-trash]

Most Tolstoyan Christians are actually fake Christians, to understand real Christianity you must read k&r learning c.

[gunian]

most k&r learning c are actually fake christians to understand real christianity you have to read the constitution and the rust book

[achierius]

> Surely you in your life you have met many Christians who said "God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", "trust in the Lord", etc.?

Yes, but this is something people say in times of grief, for the comfort of the grieving -- it's not a consistent moral philosophy that they hold to in other parts of their life, nor is it meant to be. There are better answers than this, but they are oftentimes much harder to process, and much more likely to accidentally pain the one who is grieving.

> It's arguably a necessary tenet for Christianity to hold together as a coherent belief system.

No, it's not. You're correct in that "you need some way to explain why bad things still happen", but we've come a long, long way from "stuff just happens". For example, the Catholic view is that suffering is A) not committed by, but permitted by, God; B) necessary for salvation and free will to coexist. In this view, evil is in essence a deviation from the will of God -- but free will must, in this conception, at the very least include the free will to choose to follow or choose to oppose God's own will. To quote St. Aquinas, paraphrasing St. Augustine: "Since God is the supremely highest good, he would not allow evil to exist in his creation unless he were so all powerful that he could even make good out of evil". More broadly, suffering is seen as having not only a redemptive but an edifying nature that can ultimately bring us closer to God.

I understand that this might sound repulsive on first glance, but frankly I do not think there is an answer to "why is there evil?" which would not be at initial examination -- certainly, it's no worse than the idea that we are simply here to suffer by random caprice, and that that suffering is itself meaningless, nothing but a failure on your own (meaningless) value function. Yes, one might hope that things 'could have been a different way' -- but what would a world without any grief, any suffering even be like? This is the point of the whole pleasure-machine/experience-machine thought experiment: many people would very much rather live in this world, with all its suffering, than one totally blank, devoid of depth and complexity. One might even go as far as to assert that no 'good' God could permit such terrible depths of suffering -- congenital illness, rape, torture, child slavery, so on and so forth. But so many times, in exploring theories of computational complexity or abstract mathematics or informatics, we see that what might have seemed to be simple assumptions can have enormous, essential effects: deciding whether all programs written for a FSM with one stack is simple, but for one with two stacks the problem becomes impossible. Perhaps it is impossible to have a world "with matter, with living things made from matter, with free will for those living beings, but without the ability of one living thing to enslave another". We cannot know -- but if there is a truly transcendent, omniscient God, then He certainly would.

For a more modern (more philosophically-flavored) take, I'd suggest reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: he explores the binding of Isaac with the idea being to address this very question. In particular, he strongly disagrees with Kant's idea that God would simply choose to follow the categorical imperative, and emphasizes instead the transcendence of God and divine morality. But as an existentialist I think his writing is much closer to how we as members of the modern world can feel than philosophers/theologians who came before him.

[tasuki]

>> Surely you in your life you have met many Christians who said "God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", "trust in the Lord", etc.?

> Yes, but this is something people say in times of grief, for the comfort of the grieving

It is the stupidest thing to say to someone who is grieving.

[estarkio]

God had a dozen billion years or so of lead time, but he couldn't piece the plan together without giving your toddler glioblastoma.

Trust the process!

[TaurenHunter]

What if that child was to become a Hitler otherwise?

[senko]

This is the cruelest comment I've seen on HN in a long time.

[TaurenHunter]

It is not cruel, it is a hypothetical question/ethical dilemma just like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

If you could go back in time would you kill Hitler or silently give him neuroblastoma at an age before he announced his evil ideas so that he doesn't become a martyr?

Check out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734776/

[gunian]

man not even close HN is so cruel

[carlosjobim]

What would you accept to be said? What would be good enough for you? Words are not magical, they are just sounds. In the most important situations in life and in death, words are simply lacking. We as humans haven't been gifted with neither a spoken nor a written language which can encompass all our feelings and meanings. Words cannot even come close. So people have to do with what they have. And you are in no position to judge against somebody who means well.

[codr7]

It doesn't take much common sense to realize that someone who's neck deep into grief isn't going to find much comfort in being told something happened for a reason.

I happen to believe that everything does happen for a reason, because in general that makes more sense to me and there's no proof either way; but in the middle of the storm it's an extremely difficult position to hold.

What people actually do need in those situations is presence, someone who listens; not good advice.

[drdude]

I strongly agree!

I'd rather say something truthful and of support, backed by real action and history if actual support instead of saying something trivial. I remember a friend told me such thing when I was grieving (something along the lines of "you have to pray" or something) and I blurted "oh really? so I wasn't praying. so it was my fault? so I needed YOU to remind me at my worst times? what happened to reason?"... he stopped talking to me for few months, we are still friends... but if he hugged me and kept quiet just the looks of their face feeling sad for me would have been the perfect support I needed. Sometimes silence is way better than telling a religious lie to "comfort me".

[tourmalinetaco]

I pray you find God and peace in life.

[tasuki]

> What would you accept to be said? What would be good enough for you? Words are not magical, they are just sounds. In the most important situations in life and in death, words are simply lacking.

It's ok not to say anything.

> And you are in no position to judge against somebody who means well.

Oh yes I am. Having good intentions is not enough. I'm sure - in their own worldview - Hitler and Stalin and Mao had good intentions.

When my partner died and I was left to care for our toddler, I learned firsthand about what is and isn't helpful to hear in such situations. The person who said "I know how you feel, I felt awful when my dog died" missed the mark. So would anyone who would say "there is a purpose for everything". No, there was no purpose, and fuck anyone who suggests otherwise.

"God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", and "trust in the Lord" isn't said to comfort the grieving, it's said to comfort the one saying it (and to help them propagate their worldview). Again, fuck that.

[specialist]

> it's said to comfort the one saying it

True.

Such utterances are offensive. But what of it?

My culture (WASP in USA) sucks when it comes to death and grieving. Denial of Death, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, blah blah blah.

The only advice that's helped me cope with other people is "It's not about you."

When someone tells me "They're in a better place" (or whatever), I just try to remember your point: they're trying to comfort themselves, process their own experience.

[satvikpendem]

Yes, but that is nonetheless the context in which it is said.

[ZoomZoomZoom]

>I understand that this might sound repulsive on first glance...

First and subsequent.