Universal problems we share as humans
It doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Christian Jew, Atheist, agnostic, Druse or Hindu. This is one of the most universal problems we share as humans.
The responses to the “Gimme Gimme†post inspired me to put in my two cents about one of life’s most universal and most difficult realities…pain.
Legend has it that the Buddha said “the first fact of life is sufferingâ€. Philosophers and theologists have struggled to explain or justify it. An entire book in the Old Testament, Job, is dedicated to the discussion (I have even seen Job’s name pop up in the Qur’an I believe). A very religious friend of mine has a son who is barely surviving an 18 months battle with cancer. One day he rather spontaneously blurted out, “There is no explanation for it (suffering of a young innocent)â€.
I don’t have an answer to the “big†question of suffering, but I do have some ideas to share with you that might give a bit of insight.
I view suffering as falling into three, not mutually exclusive categories; self-inflicted, other inflicted and God inflicted. Let’s take these on one-by-one.
I believe the first category noted is probably the cause of most suffering, at least in more advanced societies where folk have gotten past a daily survival mode. Self-inflicted suffering is primarily related to our personal choices. We make a significant amount of choices that profoundly affect the quality of our lives. To note just a few; friends, spouse, food, exercise, alcohol/drugs, education, use of time, use of money etc. These personal choices make up, essentially, what becomes our lifestyle and reflects our essential values. The outcomes will have much to do with our happiness; health, emotional stability, knowledge, friendships, love etc.
Take a moment to just consider health. When we or a love one become ill, we often think of “external†forces. However, how many of our health problems could have been avoided through; diet, avoiding certain substances, exercise, avoiding reckless risks etc.? This idea can be applied to all domains noted above. Our choices have a great deal to do with our happiness and our suffering.
The next category of suffering is one that is primarily dependent on external forces. This is the bad (or sometimes good) that others do to us. We can easily come up with a list of these behaviors; abusive parents, abusive governments, abusive spouses or lovers, criminals, liars, manipulators, drunk drivers and, well, you get the point. Certainly our personal choice comes into play, but so does the accident of birth. No baby asks to be born into the family of a sociopathic child molester or into a horrific dog-eat-dog ghetto in Brazil, but it happens, it happens a whole lot.
This kind of suffering is much harder to avoid, especially for the much younger and/or much weaker among us. Certainly we have choices, but we can only choose from what is available, and often those choices are quite limited. Once again though, this type of suffering is primarily related to choice, free will, but it is the choice of “the other†that can often cause us suffering.
The last type of suffering, well that one I have no explanation for. This is the one I can only present to the reader. This section addresses the questions of Job. This is the suffering that can only be attributed to pure chance or probability (in a Godless world), or the acts of God. Let’s list a few; many of the birth defects, many diseases, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoon, drought, hurricanes, mental illness, certain animal attacks etc. Need I point out that there are horrific conditions that just cannot be attributed to man’s purposeful behavior or even innocent ignorance? These seem attributable to God and I am mostly at a loss for explaining most these acts, especially when it involves the suffering of the very young.
There is much more I could say…but perhaps it would be more attractive to leave this open to input and debate…should any of the readers have an interest in the subject.
