Why do bad things happen to good people?

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Alexander17
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Why do bad things happen to good people?

Post by Alexander17 »

I understand that everyone goes through trouble in their lives no matter how innocent or guilty they are, but why do horrible things happen to good people? To people who never did anything wrong? What are your thoughts?
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Re: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Post by Meleagar »

Alexander17 wrote:I understand that everyone goes through trouble in their lives no matter how innocent or guilty they are, but why do horrible things happen to good people? To people who never did anything wrong? What are your thoughts?
Why wouldn't bad things happen to good people? Is there some kind of universal law that is supposed to prevent bad things from happening to good people?

I've always considered such times to be opportunities for me to test myself and views. I would not be the person I am today if not for the bad (as well as the good) things that have happened to me.
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Post by Dewey »

This question is based on an assumption that the difference between good and bad is known. But we don't, so the question is currently unanswerable.

Paridoxically, that doesn't mean we should not try to answer the question. Isn't it Russell who says the process of confirming these negative findings in itself yields new infomation and positive possibilities?
Belinda
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Post by Belinda »

The difference between good and bad is subjective. Efforts towards justice and freedom are for making good and bad objective so that they can be dealt with by commmunities.

Philosophy, i.e. moral philosophy, is largely about objectively formulating goodness and badness.

Communal religions always include moral components because communal religions grow from the needs of communities to maintain themselves as communities.As a result, the communities' religions pontificate about wars, about provision for the members of the community regarding mutual services in particular about service to the regime.All of these measures are communal efforts to allay badness. Naturally some individuals are more powerful thsan others and the more powerful ones usually suffer less than the weaker ones.

The communal parts of modern religions are geared towards equality of rewards including freedom from suffering. There are plenty of answers to the question'why do the innocent suffer?'Those answers fall into one of two categories: moral evil and natural evil.

Left wing people tend to attribute most or all suffering to natural evil, while right wing people tend to attribute a higher proportion of suffering to moral evil.
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P.James Flynn
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Post by P.James Flynn »

There is a better question here and it is why do you think that bad things should not inflict the good?
Clearly you are carrying the predudice of Judeo Christian thought .
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Post by Dewey »

Maybe I'm just echoing James" question (though not, I hope, his criticism).

You seem to categorize some conditions as being evil despite not having, as far as I can see, any evildoers.

Are you doing that? If you are, won't that rob the term "evil" of its present clarity and cogency?
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Kowalskil
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Re: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Post by Kowalskil »

Alexander17 wrote:I understand that everyone goes through trouble in their lives no matter how innocent or guilty they are, but why do horrible things happen to good people? To people who never did anything wrong? What are your thoughts?
And why do good things happen to good people?
And why do bad things happen to bad people?
And why do good things happen to bad people?

The answer is the same for each of these questions.

Ludwik Kowalski

profile: http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/my_profile.html
Wbaunda
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Re: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Post by Wbaunda »

Alexander17 wrote:I understand that everyone goes through trouble in their lives no matter how innocent or guilty they are, but why do horrible things happen to good people? To people who never did anything wrong? What are your thoughts?
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Post by wanabe »

'Bad' things happen to 'good' people because there are no 'good' people. There are people do act 'good' more than they act' bad'.

As has been said before good and bad are subjective terms. It is also up to the persons to see the good/bad in any action. If however in your subjective version of the world you have a good and bad established then of course to you they are not subjective.

Perception is ones reality, not reality it self. We implore others to see the world as we do, either by coercion or by discussion.
Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, Help All Others To Do So.Meaning of Life Is Choice. Increase choice through direct perception. Golden rule+universality principal+Promote benefits-harm+logical consistency=morality.BeTheChange.
Wbaunda
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Of course there is universal good, Do good without thought

Post by Wbaunda »

wanabe wrote:'Bad' things happen to 'good' people because there are no 'good' people. There are people do act 'good' more than they act' bad'.

As has been said before good and bad are subjective terms. It is also up to the persons to see the good/bad in any action. If however in your subjective version of the world you have a good and bad established then of course to you they are not subjective.

Perception is ones reality, not reality it self. We implore others to see the world as we do, either by coercion or by discussion.
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bittercrank
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Re: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Post by bittercrank »

Alexander17 wrote:I understand that everyone goes through trouble in their lives no matter how innocent or guilty they are, but why do horrible things happen to good people? To people who never did anything wrong? What are your thoughts?
Bad things happening to good people is a problem, but what troubles us more is when good things happen to bad people. That really gets our goat.
MindlessPhil
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Post by MindlessPhil »

First off you have to define what makes a person good. This can be debatable threw different morals or ethics.

2nd you have to know that A personal belief, to think you are good can be judged differently by others. An extreme example, a suicide bomber can think of him self as good as he thinks he is severing a greater cause. Thus you get into ethics, and morals about what is good and bad, or right or wrong.
You have to understand judging some one else to be a good person when they could not be one. Meaning you could perform a good action but with an evil motive. Like warming up to some one so that you can get close to them to assassinate them. Thus you have good actions, vs bad motives. So what makes a person good or bad in this sense, is it his actions or his motive?

4th, you must define what happens to you is good or bad, this can be different based on other peoples views. Meaning one person can win 1,000 dollars in a lotto ticket, but disappointed that he did not win the 100,000$ prize, thus he can say to him self why does bad things happen to good people, because he sees that not winning the grand prize as a bad thing. And threw another persons view who has won nothing, and sees the man who has won 1,000 think to him self why does good things happen to bad people.
Thus you have 2 different views on who is good and bad, and 2 different views on the thing that happened to be good or bad.

Thus in conclusion, bad things happening to good people, is false and nonsense in so many ways, that it only is used as another way of saying why me, or why them, based on personal objectivity.
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P.James Flynn
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Post by P.James Flynn »

Dewey wrote:Maybe I'm just echoing James" question (though not, I hope, his criticism).
Thus starting another thread "Why Does criticism Happen to Good People"
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Post by hilda »

One thing you might want to consider is the (valid) classification "good"; I mean it presumes a valid authority which one would never applies within that specific class. From within the evaluative class one uses these terms as in "good boy", "good girl", "good dog", "good brat"?? etc to refer to something not intrisically gentlemanly but which has behaved acceptably in its own terms.

If you could come see things this "chauvinistic" way as a matter of fact this clarifies the matter considerably; the reason why bad things happen to good people is simply the negligence of gentlemen (considered as an Adamic blessing) with regard to the eventuation of bad things per se.

Concretely, the inconcievably successfull jumping of Chamberlain by Churchill, the jumping of the succession by a lady etc.

The conundrum is just how on earth CAN a consciousness of that magnitude be subverted? If it were an inside job the inside would have to have been a gentleman? How on earth can your conciet predominate?
Srinath Naivaruni
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Re: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Post by Srinath Naivaruni »

Alexander17 wrote:I understand that everyone goes through trouble in their lives no matter how innocent or guilty they are, but why do horrible things happen to good people? To people who never did anything wrong? What are your thoughts?
The answer to your question can be found in the law of "Karma" in Hinduism. If one could believe in the basic Hindu Idea of Life as a series of Births and Deaths on the path to ultimate salvation, or what we call " Moksha" the release or liberation from the Life- Death Cycle, the answer to your question can be found.

The Good or Bad ( although subjective) that happen are essentially the consequences of one's "Karma" not just in this life time but the many lives that we have lived through.
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