...When Bad Things Happen to Good People By: Harold Kushner Pablo Falcon Spring 2010 When Bad Things Happen to Good People Written by: H. Kushner “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” is a very personal book. The author talks about his belief in God and how people perceive the situations they get in as an act of God himself. The author explains that when unfortunate happenings occur people tend to blame it on God or the simple fact that the unfortunate happened because “the person must have deserved it”. The author also reflects upon the feelings that many people have when something bad happens to them or a loved one. They begin to question their faith. Why didn’t God answer my prayers? Is God real? What is God her for anyway? The main point the author illustrates is that the things that happen are not God’s doing. There is one point in the book that Kushner makes about how flight 205 crashed instead of flight 209. The plane crash caused people to die. God did not choose what families to afflict tragedy and pain on. If it was God’s choice he wouldn’t have had any of the planes crash. God gave flight 205’s families the courage to live on and look forward to the future. He did not cause the plane crash. Kushner says that, “Adam and Eve ate from the ‘forbidden tree’, also known as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Adam and Eve were given a test to see if they were going to be human or animal. Humans face choices. Animals have instincts. Adam and Eve became...
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...Michael DiNofa Mr. Stewart Fundamentals of Catholicism 24 March 2015 When Bad Things Happen to Good People The speech “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Harold S. Kushner discusses God’s role in tragedy and how humans should respond. Kushner states that a common response to tragedy is, “Why would God allow this to happen?” He says that there is no answer to this question and that he does not know why bad things happen to good people. However, he says that it is not God who is causing the tragedy. He states that we live in an imperfect world where things will happen that are beyond our control. Kushner says that the best way to deal with tragedy is to understand that God did not cause the tragedy and that he is weeping with us. He also states that we must ask ourselves what we can do to get over it and prevent it from happening to anybody else instead of asking ourselves why God would allow it to happen. In the speech, Kushner references the story of Job. The...
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...“Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason.” ~ Albert Schweitzer. People may change, but learning to let go is a reason. Things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they’re right. Good things may fall apart so that other things may fall together. I believe that all things happen for a reason. Although things may happen when not expected, everything happens for a reason because the reason for something to happen is because nothing can happen without a reason for it to happen. Think positive, good things will happen. Getting through the hard part may be challenging, but in the end good thing will happen. Good things happen because good people make them happen. There is always a reason for good things to happen. People themselves make good things happen....
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...The problem of evil; if God is all good how could he allow his people to suffer? This has been a controversial topic many people have questioned over the centuries. The first record of this question is dated back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus. If God is a benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God, how could he allow such horrible things to happen to good people? "Western religion has always held that there is a deep problem about why there is pain and other suffering—which there would not be if God were not supposed to be morally good" Richard Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil pg.7 1998. It is only natural for people to question why God would seemingly do nothing to prevent the bad things that happen everyday. Some of the...
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...have received was the advice from my mom who said " everything thing happens for good". My mothers advice was so true and applicable . It gave me hope that when bad things happened to me or things don't turn out the way I want them because of my mom's advice I understood it was is for a reason. I followed it also because through out my life it was easy to find situations where I could get upset. Since I was a little girl I heard my mom say "everything happens for Good" I heard her say it both for the good and the bad things that happened. hearing her telling me this when she saw me upset made me put it in my mind and apply it in my everyday life. Finding myself in small situations being mad like missing the bus to get to school or being rejected by a friend, I remember always getting mad at myself , people or even God. The time I applied for a job and after waiting two weeks for interview I was mad because I didn't the new job. This days thanks to God I have been changed because my mom' advice was so true and applicable. Now rather than just worrying myself why things always don't work out as I expected I learned not to give in or give up easily in every situations I found myself in but always I try to see beyond what is in front of me or try to focus on the positive sides of situations as they saying goes " you can either think the cup is half full or half empty". The best counsel that I got from my mother when I connected it with what I read on the bible where it says in...
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...When you’re not paying close attention to all of the good things that can happen to you throughout the day, you don’t really notice how many small things there are that can have a positive effect. Small things on their own aren’t much, but when you start to add them up they can become something huge. For instance, playing fetch with my Labrador Buddy, or giving in to that craving of chocolate and enjoying every bite are very small things in the grand scheme of things, but take either out of my life and it would be a tragedy. Every once in a while something happens that is clearly a big good thing, but they don’t happen often enough to really get you through that daily grind. For instance, my mom recently celebrated her 70th birthday after a year when she had a pretty serious health scare, and celebrating that milestone with her and my family was huge. Being able to see her turn a year older was a great feeling, and feeling like I might lose her was really scary. The day she had her surgery was another big one. Seeing her wake up and smile after everything went well was one of the good moments of the past year that stands out to me the most. These are the moments that make you feel stronger as a person and make you realize how close you are to your family. The little things don’t hit you so powerfully though. Over the course of my 21 day experiment I noticed that things like the smell of a good candle, eating a home cooked meal, and just enjoying a great workout always make...
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...Since the beginning of times, the problem of evil has been in our planet. In a matter of a natural catastrophe, spiritually or intentionally hurtful actions by people, evil has been causing pain, damage and drastic negative changes in nature and human lives. If we consider these facts, a question arises:- “Why bad things happen to good people? Or why bad things happen in the world?.” There has been a lot of investigations from all type of people that practice different religions in reference to these questions, also psychologists and philosophers have been part of this big interesting research. Some of them have found that evil is located in the self, that means that we people have the free will to do right or do wrong, and if we choose...
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...Williams Phil-1-L02 2/28/2014 Week 7 essay assignment The stoics idea that all things that happen are meant to happen is something that I live by strongly. I think that when you stress about what to come or the past circumstances you can become anxious and stressed. The stoics have sort of a “go with the flow” philosophy, so they tend to stay calm about things to come. I do agree that the test of faith is anxiety, because when you worry about an out come of a situation it tends to make you anxious rather than letting the will of God be done. I use this philosophy in my life everyday. I think that the stoics were correct in saying that those who let the divine plan be done will lose all anxiety, because it means you will worry not about the bad or good things that can happen. People always say that you shouldn't let bad things get to you, so it seems that that there philosophy would be correct. I've personally met people in my life who seem to be unafraid and not effected by the bad that may come of this world, because they have accepted that it bad things happen, and it is just apart of everyday life. I do think that just because there is a divine plan for our life doesn't mean we just sit and let life pass us by, and I think a lot of people get that mixed up. For example the path of my life may be to become a doctor, but siting at home claiming that if it's meant to happen it'll happen will get me there, I must take the initiative to become a doctor and if circumstances...
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...Man’s search for understanding why bad things happen to people have raised many issues and challenges resulting to some questioning their faith. When tragedy occurs many are quick to ask why, and begin to question God for allowing those things to happen. We often blame others, ourselves, or even God, resulting to bitterness, hatred, and even loneliness. How tragic the news is when we hear something very distressing or how awful it is when it hits so close to home. Why do we react in that manner? Why must we blame God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Harold Kushner’s, When Bad Things Happen to Good People allows one to better understand why he wrote the book and his positive insight bringing light to a seemingly dark matter. Kushner is a Rabbi, a man of God, whom “spent most of his life trying to help other people believe, and was compelled by a personal tragedy to rethink everything he had been taught about God and God’s ways (p.3)”. Hence, it was difficult for Kushner to fathom why or how this could happen to him, his son, and his family. It is easy to sympathize with Kushner because we would probably have reacted in the same way if we were in his shoes. True, it seems unfair how bad things can happen to some, more than others, especially if one attempts to live a life led by God and believes in the goodness of the world, we ask, "how can God let this happen? Kushner contends that the main reason he wrote this book was to “affirm life”...
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...There are many pros and cons when it comes to foster care. There are some really good things about being a foster parent or child, but there are also some really bad and hard things when getting into foster care. It affects the parent's life, the foster child’s life, and the whole family's lives. But, is becoming a foster parent worth it? Is the feeling of helping out a child who is really in need worth some of the bad things that might come of it? It could be a really good feeling to help out a family who needs it. Foster care can be confusing for some people, it is not the same thing as adoption, although it can lead to it. Foster care is a temporary care for a child, birth to 21 years old, whose parents cannot have custody of them until they get their home safe for the child to come back. This can be because of abuse, neglect, drug abuse, or anything that could cause harm to the...
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...Why Death Isn’t So Bad For You When it comes to death, many people are often afraid of the unknown. Because everyone may have their own beliefs about what occurs after death, the thought of death can be scary. Nobody, except for perhaps God (if He exists), knows what happens after death. But if death is defined as total, permanent annihilation, then it really is not bad for the person who dies. I do not mean for this statement to be confused with the attitude that there are no bad aspects of death. Death is not bad for the person who dies because they no longer exist, and therefore anything that happens in any world no longer affects them in any way. Also, one does not need to be afraid of death, because in the state of permanent annihilation, they will not be aware of their loss of life. Before discussing why death is not a bad thing for the person who dies, it should first be noted why total, permanent annihilation is not a bad thing. Permanent annihilation means just that; everything is completely destroyed and non-existent forever. In regards to the asymmetry problem, if pre-natal non-existence is not viewed as something bad, why should post-mortem non-existence be viewed as something bad? Non-existence is not bad thing. There is an infinite list of people, objects, and events that have and will never exist. Is it bad for these people and things that they are non-existent? Many argue that the asymmetry problem does not work because pre-natal non-existence...
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...plants, animals, and people. What makes up plants animals and people? The same thing that makes up everything else, matter. What is matter made of? Atoms. And atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons can be broken down even further into the quarks up, down, charm, strange, top, or bottom. What can quarks be broken down to? Theoretical matter aka empty space. How do these things work? Energy, pure energy. When you break it down everything comes down to either empty space or energy. How do you control energy? You control energy with energy. There are several types of energy, but let’s start with the most basic. Good and bad. Good energy is when the energy you are using or the energy that is around is being used or put to a good purpose. Bad energy happens when the intent is to harm or negatively affect someone or something. You also have physical and mental energy. Physical energy is when you affect something outside of yourself, mental energy is what happens inside your own mind. There is potential for mental energy to become physical energy (like when your brain sends signals to muscles to move you) but one thing at a time. First let’s focus on bad energy. Define “bad”. Well: “bad-adjective-having undesirable or negative qualities.” Any type of energy can be “bad energy”. We all create bad energy every day. If we are angry at someone or angry at ourselves, that’s bad energy. If you hurt someone or yourself, that’s bad energy. Even if you are...
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...Suffering and Compassion No one anticipates whether something good or something bad will happen to them. People hope to find the answers to these questions and to relinquish their heart ache that has been given to them, so people look for answers where they cannot be found. Some believe that it is a simple act of nature, luck, and even the power of God that causes pain even though the reason of these occurrences that happen to us cannot be known. When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a book in which the author Harold S. Kushner asks the question: why God? When his son is diagnosed with a degenerative disease Kushner cannot understand why such an act of pain is happening to him and his family: “People try to make sense of the world suffering by assuming that we deserve what we get. That our misfortunes come as punishment for our sins” (Kushner, 1995, 12) can this statement make sense? How can it? Kusher is a rabbi, and helps others through their difficult times, listening to people confess the pain that they are feeling. Kusher is one of God's holy followers, so how can this statement explain the loss of his son and the feeling of emptiness in his heart that may never be filled. Spiritually, one would like to believe that religion can be a form of comfort in a situation of suffering, but questions emerge, such as how can there be a kind and loving God who is responsible for the bad things that happen to people. This forces us to question the power of God. (Kushner 1995, 34)...
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...Are people basically good? Are people basically bad? These questions have been ask constantly by us, we want to know what we are. But we are not basically good people we have done so much terrible things to our world and to our own people throughout man-kind. From the start we have done wrong in Genesis 2:6 in the bible God created man, after then man was created he had created woman by taking a rib from the man and making them almost as one. They were to eat, sleep and live together on earth, life was great until they sinned against God and they ate the apple off of the tree he prohibited. And from that point man has been a sinful animal throughout all of history. Throughout history we have thought what we were doing at the time was right, from having slaves to killing our tress today. But despite the many bad things, we have many good things also but it does not overcome the other one just yet. As a student in school when learning history all I have heard was what terrible things leaders have done, what we did to people...
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...Free Will The problem with free will is that if karma really exists then the subject of free will is in question. Free will is having the ability to make all decisions in your life and that you choose what to do. There are many different opinions about if free will is a real thing or is everything in your life predetermined by past events. Examples of these are determinism, libertarianism, and fatalism. Determinism as a whole is defined as believing that things that happen to you is directly affected by what happened to you in the past. There are different types of determinism and it can be split into two types; hard and soft. Hard determinism states that free will does not exist and that everything that happens in your life is predetermined by events in your past. Soft determinism says that you can both have free will about some things and that some things are predetermined. This is also known as compatibilism. An example of this is if you are walking down the street and someone points a gun at your head and says to give him your money. In this case, you do not seem to have a choice whether or not to give him the money. In the same scenario with a homeless man, you choose to give him the money because you want to help him. In both cases, you gave someone else the money but in the first, it was determined for you that you would have to give up the money to live while in the second case you choose to give up the money freely. If you have complete control over the situation...
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