Why do innocent people suffer?

[popeye1945]

Why do innocent people suffer?




Mostly, the severe sins done on this earth are given punishments here only. The punishment given to a just born baby indicates only the sin done in the previous birth. Some religions do not believe in re-birth. In such case, it is the responsibility of those religions also to give the reason for the punishment given to the just born baby. Either you should say that God is cruel or the new born baby committed some sin in the previous birth. No religion blames God.

When the punishment is given by the judge in the court, the crime done by the criminal is not demonstrated in the court so that the public should know the details of the crime by visual means. The scripture gives the details of various punishments given to various sins. You can refer the scripture to know the sin committed by the criminal here by seeing the punishment. Even in the court, you know the crime informed through the judgement or can know directly from the constitution and infer the crime committed. You can refer the constitution to know the crime through the details of punishment.

The main point is that you are seeing only the latter part of the punishment and not the earlier part of the sin done either here or in the previous birth. Stop the attitude of criticizing the administration of God, which is always perfect. You say that some sinners live with happiness and some innocents are punished. This misunderstanding is also due to a lack of perfect analysis. The sinner is given some time for reformation. The punished innocent person was already given a lot of time and is punished now. You think that he is innocent since you do not know his background. Hence, all your analyses and conclusions are based on superficial and partial knowledge only.

Because all life is suffering, biological reality.

[Agent Smith]

Just what 'it' has been TOLD and which 'it' now, unfortunately, BELIEVES is the Truth.

Dattaswami isn't just rattling off his beliefs now is he?

"dattaswami" is 'rattling off' the BELIEFS of "others" as well, which have been passed on and into "dattaswami".

Dattaswami, me thinks, has put the cart before the horse.

[Iwannaplato]

Dattaswami, me thinks, has put the cart before the horse.

What do you mean?

[Agent Smith]

Dattaswami, me thinks, has put the cart before the horse.

What do you mean?

He's running around in circles. Look at how his argument (should) start(s) and how it ends.

[Iwannaplato]

Dattaswami, me thinks, has put the cart before the horse.

What do you mean?

He's running around in circles. Look at how his argument (should) start(s) and how it ends.

Ah, ok, I thought it was a more global criticism. I'm impressed you could find the start and end.

[Agent Smith]

What do you mean?

He's running around in circles. Look at how his argument (should) start(s) and how it ends.

Ah, ok, I thought it was a more global criticism. I'm impressed you could find the start and end.

I'm 68 years old (b. 1954). Not impressed now are you?

I like your points and I like Dattaswami's as well, but the two seem mutually contradictory. How about tryin' ta figure out the truth.

[Iwannaplato]

He's running around in circles. Look at how his argument (should) start(s) and how it ends.

Ah, ok, I thought it was a more global criticism. I'm impressed you could find the start and end.

I'm 68 years old (b. 1954). Not impressed now are you?

I like your points and I like Dattaswami's as well, but the two seem mutually contradictory. How about tryin' ta figure out the truth.

In a sense I think that it is a choice. There are a number of choices and his choice includes a denigration of emotions and desires, for example. That's not my choice. If that's what someone wants to do, I think they should do it. So, there's a value judgement at base...also. On the other hand, I think that DS is a very sloppy thinker. And I think his version of spirituality tends towards this because it is based on increasing splits in oneself. I think his posts show often quite ridiculous thinking and/or disordered thinking.

For example, I found this on his website...

In order for a woman to get pregnant, repeated sex is necessary. This is because the probability of conception is very low due to several gynecological factors. The lawfully-wedded couple engages in frequent sex in which the husband does most of the work to get his wife pregnant. The effort of the wife is minimal. Don’t you think that men could argue that this is an injustice for men that they have to take all the effort? They might say that God has rightly compensated for it by giving delivery pains to women! So, men take the effort in the sexual act, while women bear the pain of giving birth to the child. Sometimes, even after the repeated sexual activity of the husband, the wife does not get pregnant. In that case, the wife does not undergo any delivery pain even though the husband has undergone a lot of pain in terms of his effort of repeated sexual activity. In such a special case, don’t you think that the husband could argue that he has faced injustice?

Apart from not knowing much about men and woman and sex, it's not knowing about the comparative levels of pain involved in men's working so hard - which few men would consider work - during sex and the pain of childbirth.

OK, hey, he's lived a cloistered life as a guru. But he doesn't seem to know that this may have skewed his understanding of things. And he is presented on his website by himself and by his devotees as not just a messenger of God and THE messenger of God, but as an incarnation of God, on a level with Jesus, the Buddha, and a short list of incarnations of the deity.

[Lacewing]

For example, I found this on his website...

In order for a woman to get pregnant, repeated sex is necessary. This is because the probability of conception is very low due to several gynecological factors. The lawfully-wedded couple engages in frequent sex in which the husband does most of the work to get his wife pregnant. The effort of the wife is minimal. Don’t you think that men could argue that this is an injustice for men that they have to take all the effort? They might say that God has rightly compensated for it by giving delivery pains to women! So, men take the effort in the sexual act, while women bear the pain of giving birth to the child. Sometimes, even after the repeated sexual activity of the husband, the wife does not get pregnant. In that case, the wife does not undergo any delivery pain even though the husband has undergone a lot of pain in terms of his effort of repeated sexual activity. In such a special case, don’t you think that the husband could argue that he has faced injustice?

Ah yes, MEN DESERVE SO MUCH MORE! They work so hard! Those LAZY women...birthing kids, caring for family and home, and putting up with idiot guru husbands. They should bow down to their husband and recognize him for the god he is!

Dattaswami... how can you think so highly of yourself when you are so foolish? Oh, right! Being so foolish is exactly how you can think so highly of yourself. It's as laughable as it is disgusting... and you are completely unaware of it.

[Agent Smith]

Ah, ok, I thought it was a more global criticism. I'm impressed you could find the start and end.

I'm 68 years old (b. 1954). Not impressed now are you?

I like your points and I like Dattaswami's as well, but the two seem mutually contradictory. How about tryin' ta figure out the truth.

In a sense I think that it is a choice. There are a number of choices and his choice includes a denigration of emotions and desires, for example. That's not my choice. If that's what someone wants to do, I think they should do it. So, there's a value judgement at base...also. On the other hand, I think that DS is a very sloppy thinker. And I think his version of spirituality tends towards this because it is based on increasing splits in oneself. I think his posts show often quite ridiculous thinking and/or disordered thinking.

For example, I found this on his website...

In order for a woman to get pregnant, repeated sex is necessary. This is because the probability of conception is very low due to several gynecological factors. The lawfully-wedded couple engages in frequent sex in which the husband does most of the work to get his wife pregnant. The effort of the wife is minimal. Don’t you think that men could argue that this is an injustice for men that they have to take all the effort? They might say that God has rightly compensated for it by giving delivery pains to women! So, men take the effort in the sexual act, while women bear the pain of giving birth to the child. Sometimes, even after the repeated sexual activity of the husband, the wife does not get pregnant. In that case, the wife does not undergo any delivery pain even though the husband has undergone a lot of pain in terms of his effort of repeated sexual activity. In such a special case, don’t you think that the husband could argue that he has faced injustice?

Apart from not knowing much about men and woman and sex, it's not knowing about the comparative levels of pain involved in men's working so hard - which few men would consider work - during sex and the pain of childbirth.

OK, hey, he's lived a cloistered life as a guru. But he doesn't seem to know that this may have skewed his understanding of things. And he is presented on his website by himself and by his devotees as not just a messenger of God and THE messenger of God, but as an incarnation of God, on a level with Jesus, the Buddha, and a short list of incarnations of the deity.

I didn't know Dattaswami is a guru and his own band of followers and a website to boot.

That however doesn't vitiate his (attempt at an) argument on why innocent folks suffer. If I were in Dattaswami's shoes, I'd just go with life's not fair.

[Agent Smith]

For example, I found this on his website...

In order for a woman to get pregnant, repeated sex is necessary. This is because the probability of conception is very low due to several gynecological factors. The lawfully-wedded couple engages in frequent sex in which the husband does most of the work to get his wife pregnant. The effort of the wife is minimal. Don’t you think that men could argue that this is an injustice for men that they have to take all the effort? They might say that God has rightly compensated for it by giving delivery pains to women! So, men take the effort in the sexual act, while women bear the pain of giving birth to the child. Sometimes, even after the repeated sexual activity of the husband, the wife does not get pregnant. In that case, the wife does not undergo any delivery pain even though the husband has undergone a lot of pain in terms of his effort of repeated sexual activity. In such a special case, don’t you think that the husband could argue that he has faced injustice?

Ah yes, MEN DESERVE SO MUCH MORE! They work so hard! Those LAZY women...birthing kids, caring for family and home, and putting up with idiot guru husbands. They should bow down to their husband and recognize him for the god he is!

Dattaswami... how can you think so highly of yourself when you are so foolish? Oh, right! Being so foolish is exactly how you can think so highly of yourself. It's as laughable as it is disgusting... and you are completely unaware of it.

[Iwannaplato]

I didn't know Dattaswami is a guru and his own band of followers and a website to boot.

That however doesn't vitiate his (attempt at an) argument on why innocent folks suffer. If I were in Dattaswami's shoes, I'd just go with life's not fair.

That is precisely what he does not believe. That is not possible in his system of belief.

There's also his opinions about homosexuality. That's quite harsh.

[dattaswami]

That however doesn't vitiate his (attempt at an) argument on why innocent folks suffer. If I were in Dattaswami's shoes, I'd just go with life's not fair.

The cycle of actions and fruits is very deep subject (Gahanaa). The reason is that the basic concept of this subject itself is misunderstood. The misunderstood basic concept is that the list of the punishments of a soul is in the hands of God and the punishments are given to the soul according to the order of time-sequence in which the actions were performed by the soul. This means that if you have stolen the money of some good person today and suppose you have tortured some good person yesterday, the punishment for the action of yesterday will be given first and then only the punishment of today’s action follows.

This appears to be that the punishments for the sins are given based on anger and vengeance towards the sins. The reformation of the soul through the punishments is not at all in the mind of God in this misunderstood fashion of the punishments. Only time sequence and the anger and vengeance towards the sin as tit for tat appear in this method. This is not at all correct. The reason is that the judge and the jailer are not related to the sinner in any way and hence the punishments are given and implemented respectively without any element of love and kindness towards the sinner. God is not only judge and jailer, but also, the Divine Father of all the souls and hence the Divine Father of the sinners also.

The list of the rewards for good deeds and punishments for sins is prepared by the administration staff for which the deity of the justice is the head of the department. Whenever the soul is departed from this gross body, embedded in energetic body, called as Preta sharira, it reaches the first sub-world called as preta loka in which the list is modified by deletions of fruits enjoyed in his world and additions of fruits of actions done in this world. This takes place in a time span of ten days. From here, the soul is directed to go in one of the three ways:

1) Swarga loka to enjoy the fruits of good deeds,

2) Pitru loka to enjoy the fruits of normal actions like performing the ordained duties and 3) Naraka loka to enjoy the punishments of sins. The process of going to preta loka, naraka loka, pitru loka and swarga loka constitute the path of dakshinayana or Krishna gati as said in the Gita. This world in which we live is called as martya loka or karma loka.

Martya loka, preta loka, naraka loka and pitru loka are the four sub-divisions of bhu loka. Above the bhu loka lies bhuvar loka or jyothir loka and above this lies suvar loka or swarga loka. These three worlds constitute the area of Krishna gati. The second path of the departed soul, which is constantly involved in the divine service of God to propagate the spiritual knowledge, is uttarayana or shukla gati through which the soul reaches the mediated God or Divine Father.

Martya loka is called as karma loka since the soul has full freedom to do good or bad actions as per its will. It is like the period of the examination for a student to give right or wrong answer. Other than this martya loka, the upper worlds are called as bhoga loka in which there is no freedom for the soul in any way except to enjoy the fruits. The body of the soul in martya loka is the materialised gross body (Pancha bhoutika sharira). The body of the soul going to the upper worlds is energetic body, called as preta sharira while going to preta loka, called as yatana sharira while going to hell (naraka loka), pitru sharira while going to pitru loka and bhoga sharira while going to heaven (swarga). The energetic body of the divine servant going to God is called as divya sharira.

When the soul goes to the upper worlds for enjoyment of the fruits, the time sequence of the actions was strictly followed by the administration staff of these worlds. The main aim of these upper worlds is only to reduce the intensities of the interest of the soul in the deeds. By the reduction of such intensity, the selfishness becomes weak. Remember that even good deeds are performed with the motto of selfish aspiration only. This is the reason why the soul returning from the upper worlds, after taking birth in this world is not so selfish for some time and thus, the praise that children are God came up. In course of time, the selfishness in the soul grows by the pollution of this world.

[dattaswami]

I didn't know Dattaswami is a guru and his own band of followers and a website to boot.

That however doesn't vitiate his (attempt at an) argument on why innocent folks suffer. If I were in Dattaswami's shoes, I'd just go with life's not fair.

That is precisely what he does not believe. That is not possible in his system of belief.

There's also his opinions about homosexuality. That's quite harsh.

A sinner is born in sinful atmosphere and the surrounding sinful atmosphere increases the sinful nature of the soul. It is a double punishment. Both don’t contradict each other. A sweet, soaked in sugar solution becomes sweeter.

A saltish bread in salt solution becomes more salty. It is only reinforcement and not a contradiction for reconciliation. Prahlada is an exception, since Lord Vishnu told that He Himself is going to be born in demons (Prahlaadashchaasmi daityaanaam— Gita). Let us examine the whole system of cycle and deeds.

The Gita says that the cycle of deeds and fruits is very much complicated with so many parameters surrounding from all sides resulting in a three dimensional network (Gahanaa karmano gatih). I will give a small example: a boy became seriously ill. His parents surrendered to God for cure. The illness was cured and the parents developed their devotion to God. In this incident, the development of devotion of parents is important. For this, the boy must be ill. For the illness, some past sin should be searched and its fruit should be given to the boy as illness. The boy has to suffer with illness someday or other due to the fruit of sin pending in the list. But, if the boy suffers illness now, the parents will immediately reform more through devotion.

Generally, all the sins are punished in hell. When the soul is born here, it is in free atmosphere to go in any line. The past sin should not be brought into this earth because all the sinners are punished in the upper world (hell only). Even though the soul has undergone the punishment, the sin is only reduced and not eliminated. The reduced sin exists in the account of the soul as ‘sanchita’. But in the above case, the specific sin reduced in intensity existing as sanchita is brought into this life and is exhausted in punishment as a special case for the development of devotion of the parents. There is no loss to the soul since it has to undergo the punishment today or tomorrow and hence the soul is not made a scapegoat for the sake of its parents. Hence, even though a basic rule-pattern exists, God is monitoring progress of every soul.

For that purpose, any adjustment can be done in the interest of the progress of the soul. When you go to a bank, the manager will do many adjustments in the basic pattern of rules of administration in order to help the customer. Without violating the fundamental set-up of the administration, some talented ways may be applied by the manager so that the customers feel happy and the bank is maintained with many customers supporting it. In similar way, God is following the case of every soul with utmost care for its reformation and uplift. For this advantage of soul, God does so many adjustments in the rules of administration of cycles of deeds of souls. The uplift of the soul through the reformation is topmost priority for God. God is taking utmost care of each case independently in every birth. You can imagine the unimaginable intelligence of God in attending each soul with utmost care and this supports why God is unimaginable.

The general basic pattern is that this earth is called as karma loka in which the souls do works in free atmosphere. Leaving some emergent sins and good deeds for which the results are seen here only, generally, the fruits of all deeds are enjoyed in the upper worlds (bhoga lokas) in a separate span of time after death. This earth is called as karma loka because here only deeds are done without any pressure based on the discrimination of the soul. Here, the soul is not disturbed by the enjoyment of fruits so that there will be free time for the soul to learn the spiritual knowledge and get reformation. Based on the achieved spiritual knowledge, some souls change their behaviour. Some do not change. Some change a little. The further treatments in these souls differ from one category to other. Based on the different requirements, different procedures are implemented, which need different requirements of fruits.

God is free to use even the fruit of a very long past deed also specifically for a case. The fruits of intensive deeds, good or bad, which are to be implemented in this birth itself, are also used for such emergency. Such arrangement of fruits of intensive deeds to be enjoyed here is specially framed so that the souls will understand that the enjoyment of fruit of any deed is inevitable for any soul. Therefore, the treatment of each soul is specially attended by God and He is free to change the procedure of the treatment at any place, if He feels it necessary.

God is like the chief doctor in the hospital attending every case giving remarks to continue the existing treatment or to introduce any change in it depending on the progress of the health of the patient. The basic administration of the hospital is certainly based on certain standard stages of activity, which are routine. But, the final decision in any point of treatment is based on the God-chief doctor only. The procedures and fruits of deeds are reshuffled by God in a systematic way to suit the need of requirement in the progress of every soul. The basic procedures stand as usual in the hospital except in a special treatment that is needed for the progress of a soul. The general setup of the basic administration takes place like the treatment by junior doctors. The senior most chief doctor is giving guidance to them.

[Iwannaplato]

Ah yes, MEN DESERVE SO MUCH MORE! They work so hard! Those LAZY women...birthing kids, caring for family and home, and putting up with idiot guru husbands. They should bow down to their husband and recognize him for the god he is!

It was unfair, in a way, to isolate this quote. In context he is trying to do a reductio ad absurdum around the complaint that women suffering in birth is unfair, since men don't suffer their role in birth. So, he is less bound to the argument he makes than it might seem. It's more like 'hey that's stupid, because this is stupid'. But the problem is that his argument is so much stupider than the other one. It shows a misunderstanding of how most men view this 'painful effort'. To be blunt: yes, the man is burning calories when he is moving his hips, but desire is causing that to happen. It's not picking cotton for the plantation owner or serving customers at McDonald's or cleaning toilets. It's something men tend to choose to do as much as they can and do not have to be paid to do it. And it's generally not painful. Nor is it, in and of itself, life threatening and dangerous. We don't rush men to hospitals when they are having sex. Or rush expert midwives to their beds to make sure the sex goes well. Just as swimming is not pain nor dancing. Further his assumption that sex invovles the woman just lying there - sure, he comes from India and there may be more traditional ideas about who moves and how in sex in the land of the Kama Sutra, especially in whatever portion of the land he grew up in. But still, it's a werid assumption for someone taking on the role of understander of all important. So, his level of naivte and confusion about sex is huge. And he's not a Catholic priest, who is restricted from sex himself and from talking about sex, etc. While there are huge concerns in portions of Hinduism about releasing sperm, sex isn't the taboo in Hinduism that it is in many parts of Christianity, so he could be well informed, but he's not. I know all the above is fairly obvious to you. I didn't need to explain how silly his comparison was. But I kinda liked just exploring that absurdity. It can be a fault in my communication. I am often thinking out loud. Just why is this so funny and wrongheaded...blah, blah.....

I'd have a different reaction to his lack of knowledge and comparison here if he was not presented as the current incarnation of the deity and if he was not in a leadership role in relation to everyone he comes in contact with, as reflected in the way he approaches dialogue here.

I'd still react negatively to the comparison, but much more gently. We get to be naive and confused.

[popeye1945]

All life is suffering and as Schopenhauer stated, life is something that should never have been. All the more reason for the expressed compassion towards all living creatures in a world where life lives upon life, symbolically the snake consuming its own tail or the ouroboros. It is a nonsensical question when one considers the nature of the world as in the plight of all living things.