Why Does God Allow Suffering?Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties, And see if [there is any] wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.
-- Psalm 139:24-25 (NKJV)
Why does God allow suffering in the form of anxietal discomfort caused by sickening, crippling sounds?
Or, more generally-speaking, why does God allow anxiety?
This is ultimately one of the most important questions to deal with in NoiseSpeak. -- Which is what I suppose we could have called this blog. (Perhaps this blog may as well be known as NoiseSpeak, anyway.)
 |
| God creating Adam: Michaelangelo, Sistine Chapel |
We may as well ask the question: Why does God allow this-or-that form of suffering? Why does God allow high degrees of suffering? Trauma, for instance? Why does God permit Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), for instance? Lots of our brave military warriors in battle are working hard, serving their country, and they return with cases of PTSD. Why? Why does God allow this?
 |
| Why does God allow anxiety? |
Why? Because I think it's one of the most important, one of the deepest, most thoughtful things to consider when discussing sound, noise, anxiety, and these noisy times in this world we live in.
I know, I know. There are some people reading this who think: "Dude, you're just too sensitive to noise. Noise ain't bad. It don't bother me, dude. Noise just don't bother me. It ain't a bad thing."
 |
| Pandemonium. Otherwise known as Hell or 'chaos'. (click to enlarge) |
OK, it may not be a bad thing for you, but it's a bad thing for many of us in this world.
Have you heard of the word pandemonium? As I understand the word, it's derived from John Milton's naming it in his epic poem Paradise Lost; and pandemonium can basically mean either Hell or a place in Hell where demons gathered.
I describe some noise -- in some situations -- as pandemonium. Utter confusion; utter chaos.
For example: Southern California is a stressful place. It's a stressful area in which to live, work, shop, drive, dine, etc. And so, for example, when I've just finished driving twenty miles north on the crowded Long Beach (405) freeway to get to a lunch meeting, the LAST thing I want with my club sandwich is Celine Dion, Fleetwood Mac, or Alanis Morrisette in the foreground, right in my ears, passing through the ear canal to my autonomic or limbic system, affecting my nerves.
Or let's say I've finished walking half a mile in the rain to a City Council meeting, and the City Hall lobby is broadcasting Bon Jovi or Wilson Pickett over the ceiling speakers. Why did someone decide that I need that after a chilling walk to the building?
No problem, you say? Well, for many people, it's worse than listening to an amplified sound of fingernails screeching endlessly across a chalkboard.
I don't know. It's a question Bible scholars have studied and provided answers for us.
And they are forthcoming; in other words, I'll post them at this blog shortly.
I wish I knew. I wish everything had a simple, clear, pat, tidy explanation. I like answers. I like having the answers. I liked having answers in the back of my mathematics textbooks. I liked having the answers in the back of other textbooks, too. When there was a difficult problem -- a difficult thing to ponder -- and the answer wasn't in the rear section of the textbook, I was bummed.
I just wish I knew.
 |
| I hear ya, Cookie baby. I wish I had all the answers, too. |
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties, And see if [there is any] wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.
-- Psalm 139:24-25 (New King James Version)
Permalink: http://www.thedailydecibel.com/p/why-does-god-allow-suffering-why-does.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment