--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Or maybe almost an automatic response to something Bob really doesn't > understand and doesn't want to acknowledge...who knows why. Or maybe > he understands it all too well and just wants to bury the anger instead > of dealing with it in a responsible way. I don't see how people who > mindlessly repeat that children "got what they deserved" can live with > themselves. > > OTOH, if God doesn't play dice with the universe, if it is > a just universe, if what we experience is meant to be an > evolutionary lesson of some sort, how else do you explain the > suffering of apparently innocent people?
It's also been said that between lives we have a chance to evaluate our karma and *choose* which parts of it we want to deal with, and how, in our next life. It seems to me that since we can't *know* why we're suffering, it makes sense to pick an explanation that enables us to face the suffering with the greatest equanimity. That explanation will be different for different people. For some, the idea that one deserves one's suffering may generate guilt feelings, which probably aren't going to enhance equanimity. For others, the notion that suffering is random and uncaused may generate feelings of helplessness and rage, while others may be fine with it. If I had to pick one, it would be the idea that we choose our suffering between lives. But I strongly suspect none of the explanations humans are capable of devising reflect the real situation, whatever it may be.
