Human Suffering

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It’s terrible isn’t it. I think of all the issues that makes belief in God so difficult for many people it is this problem of human suffering.

Yes why does one person suffer terribly and another seemingly sail through life untouched.

It bothered the Buddha a lot. So much so he went and sat under a tree until he solved the problem to his own satisfaction. Which was basically you must detach yourself from the world to detach yourself from human suffering. Mmm…but how can you become detached if you’re the one suffering? If you have a debilitating disease how can you detach yourself from it?

What do the other great religious traditions say? Well that esteemed English guru Glenn Hoddle sided with Hindu belief and agreed it was something to do with how you behaved in a past life. Karma see. You’re crippled because you acted badly in a previous life.

But does that really answer it? I suppose it is AN answer.

Islam? Allah’s will I suppose. Isn’t it all just Allah’s will. I think there might be a hint of ‘instant’ Karma in their belief. Namely If you behave badly in this life bad things will happen to you… in this life.. Don’t know if that is absolutely correct I am not an Islamic scholar.

The Jews? Well they certainly know about suffering. They have the Book of Job which basically teaches remain stoical and trust in the Lord. The Lord will come through for you in time. Be patient.

Yes the Stoics just grin and bear it. Maybe it allows for ‘character building’ in Stoicism,

don’t know.
What about atheism? It would all seem so pointless to them. All the suffering, all the pain, all the heartache all for nothing. Just hard luck.

Christianity. I was listening to a doctor whose wife died from cancer. He was a member of some evangelical church. And he was saying that even though the other members of the church were loving and supportive it was frowned upon to recognise she had anything wrong with her at all. It was the ‘you’re not getting well because you havent enough faith’ type thing. Pray, pray, pray. Both of them believed it even to doctor not giving her painkillers. So she suffered terribly with much pain and died.

Then he became Catholic and came to believe in the power of ‘redemptive suffering’ That understood correctly means you can grow in love and holiness from it. ‘It was the only thing that made sense’ he said.

I have someone close to me who suffers a lot. Not much in the way of spiritual progression I think. That is because she is busy dealing with the pain. Or busy enduring it. Nothing focuses the mind more than pain. Trouble is the focus is on the pain. Her whole mind is taken up with it.

I suppose these spiritual enlightenments come after the suffering is over. But with my loved one it is on -going. She asks me why does she suffer so much and I give the answer I gave above about growing in love-‘uniting our suffering with Christ’s’. But it does just sound hollow sometimes. it’s hard.

Saint John Paul-‘suffering is good for you’. Discuss.

How do you make sense of human suffering?

Nominated by: Miles Plastic

98 thoughts on “Human Suffering”

  1. How do you make sense of human suffering?

    If you actually believe a sky fairy watches and controls everything then human suffering is a malign imposition.

    Discuss.

    • ‘But it does just sound hollow sometimes.’

      That line should read-
      ‘But it does just sound hollow sometimes in the face of it’.

  3. Human suffering- an answer is only possible in the religious sense. Human suffering occurs because the world is imperfect. In the Catholic sense, it’s fallen and can only be redeemed through love of god. It’s no good talking about “sky fairies”. For those not gifted with deep religious faith (I’m not gifted with it) it’s difficult to understand that suffering can be alleviated by faith in god. It’s very powerful because it fulfils a basic human need to worship. I wish I had that depth of belief because it must be comforting. Outside of that it’s impossible to make heads or tails out of human suffering. It just is.

  4. Human suffering, detach yourself from humanity and accept that as animals we are as susceptible to the world around us.

    The Gods of all colours are manufactured by humans to control coerce and subdue, there is nothing on Earth that can prevent human suffering and even less so the ‘heavens’

    • God is not invented to coerce and subdue. Men sometimes invoke god to coerce and subdue. But that’s not god’s fault.

      I’ll get my coat.

      • That is the assumption that there is a God, I may have been a little vague in what I was getting at, it is the use of something unseen and unquestionable to distort everything.

        If God does exist then all religions have let him down badly.

    • Good nom Miles👍
      Sorry to hear about your loved one suffering.
      Some people suffer horrendous physical pain, its not nice.
      Ive been fairly lucky, nowt really,
      Some people you feel compassion for,
      Others? You think serves you fuckin right.
      But, id warn anyone from looking for answers off that Buddha!
      The lazy fat chinky cunt.
      His answer to everything was to sprawl about under a tree.
      Like a fat fuckin autumn apple.

  5. As our American cousins say ….
    ‘ Shit happens ‘
    Or as I say …
    ‘Life is like a game of cards. You have to play the hand you’re dealt …. or fold ‘
    Good afternoon.

    • Hello Jack, im with James Stewart in that I think its a wonderful life.
      Never be rich
      Never be famous
      But ive had a cracking time while ive been here!
      No regrets, simple pleasures see?
      A cheese n pickle butty on the moors and flask of tea?= Heaven.

      • Cheese and pickle.
        Ham and mustard.
        Spam and brown sauce.
        Bully beef and onion.
        All are acceptable.
        Afternoon, MNC.

      • Thats what I like about you Jack.
        Your open-minded about ways to heaven!

      • ‘A cheese n pickle butty on the moors and flask of tea?= Heaven.’

        Bloody lovely 👍

      • Trespassing… that’s what it is. Sitting eating on someone else’s vast acreage indeed.

      • 🎵I like to go a – rambling,
        Along Dick Fiddlers track 🎵

        Come on, Dick …… join in.
        🎵 Fal da ree,
        Fal de raaa 🎵
        Fal der ahahahah🎵

        May 17th ….. Ramblergeddon !
        😂

      • Heehee!😀👍

        “0h a knapsack on my back,
        Falderee faldera falder ah ah ahh…

      • Everyone head for Dick’s. It’s the new Woodstock.
        He likes company.

  6. Point of Order:

    Hindus do NOT believe that suffering in this life is “something to do with how you behaved in a past life.”

    That may be Glenn Hoddle’s simplistic interpretation of reincarnation – and fair play to him if that’s what he believes – but that is a misrepresentation of Hinduism.

      • Ah, I think you’ve got me there Miles…

        Btw, I was most impressed with a comment you posted on the MSM (7) nom regarding the crazy assertion by one of our colleagues that the Jesuits control the world. You replied:

        “Always to be thinking that one group of people or one institution is ‘behind it all’. The world is far too complicated for that.”

        Wise words indeed.

        Sorry to hear about your sister’s painful situation. From what you’ve said in previous posts she sounds like a really nice person who does not deserve such suffering.

  7. Listen to the voice of Buddha
    Saying stop your sericulture
    Little people like your offspring
    Boiled alive for some God’s stocking
    Buddha’s watching, Buddha’s waiting

    Yes, indeed he is, Miles.

  8. Once again we have a nom that seems to be someone suffering with their faith. I dont have faith so cant be constructive. I thought faith comforted it’s adherents not tortured them with philosophical doubt.
    I dont think vegans and anti vaxers have such misgivings. I could be wrong.

    • To doubt is to be human. I still say we are better of with faith than without it. Carl Jung is very good on this.

    • Your wrong CC.
      Im a lapsed vegan.
      I started to doubt the existence of soya.
      Found myself just paying lipservice to hummus.
      Got to the stage where telling everyone whod listen im vegan,
      Lost its pleasure.
      And my smugness and self importance suffered.
      Now im a fruitarian on Wednesdays, but eat live crickets on Thursday.

      • I trust you are only a strict windfall fruitarian on Wednesdays, MNC ?

      • Goes without saying MMCM.
        Although have to be careful of wasps.

      • You probably scrump fruit from some poor Soul’s vast orchards.

      • Actually I have my own apple trees Dick.
        They’re full of blossom at the moment, looking glorious against a country cream fence !
        Although to be honest I will steal other people’s fruit.
        Or wallets.
        😁

      • ‘ a nom that seems to be someone suffering with their faith.’

        Certainly this has been a test of it.

  9. Human suffering is created by humankind.
    I do not think any gods have a hand in it.
    The naked ape will do as all apes do – prevail by any means necessary and available.
    Irrespective of suffering received or bestowed.

  10. Without getting into the whole God thing, suffering for no apparent reason, random, senseless, undeserved, arbitrary. That is a real cunt.

    Any other suffering is manageable. That is also why suffering of others, particularly loved ones, is hard to take, I think.

    It is almost always possible to square things where the self is concerned eg ‘I shouldn’t have been such a cunt back then, to this or that person’ -‘what goes around comes around’, It could also be suffering for one’s beliefs, that too is bearable, even life enhancing/fulfilling.

    We can never really understand the suffering of others, although we might try to empathise.That is the rub, I think, Miles. Sorry to heat about your/your loved one’s troubles.

    Great nom , as ever. Peace be with you.

    • @ Twenty thousand. It relates to my sister’s Fibromyalgia. She suffers. But recently have finally got some professional care for her. So a bit better for her.
      Thanks for the concern.

      • Sorry to hear that Miles. I found it tough with my fathers dementia over the past few years, until he passed away last year. It’s horrible to not be able to do anything. He was better when we found professional care for him and it made it easier for me as well.

      • Thanks MMCM.
        The very worst part, the almost unbearable times are when she’s ‘hyper’. What happens she will sleep for many hours on end (which is a blessing because she’s unconscious of her pain). But it comes to an end and she’s then up, racked with part for 24, sometimes 36 hours. Those are the worst times.
        She is pumped full of painkillers. So there is nothing you can do.
        I know some people are sceptical of FM. But believe me it is a terrible thing.

  11. Being bothered about human suffering is pointless. I remember watching the Tsunami in Japan etc. It was on the telly in the Pub. My sister was beside herself.Her -“oh my god look whats happening” Me- “il have another pint of Guinness”. Whats the point in worrying about something you carnt effect. There is no point in giving money to “water aid” if the dumb fucks carnt dig a well after 150000 years. Giving money to Oxfam doesnt do anything. All I care about is my immediate family and the Nation where I live, and have a vote. Everyone else can fuck right off.

    • Well said Smug.
      That tsunami thing?
      I remember that, started watching it until I realised Godzilla wasnt making a appearance…

  12. Unless it’s me and mine I don’t really care.

    I did say I was a sociopath.

    • I’m the same apart from the “mine” ….”me” and the Hounds are all I give a fuck about.
      Humanity can stew in it’s own rotten juices for all I care.

      • ‘Humanity can stew in it’s own rotten juices for all I care.’

        Something Prince Prospero could have said in The Masque of the Red Death.

        Funny something reminds me of that film but I cannot think what it is.

      • Scratch the surface, Dick, and you’ll likely find that most people are exactly the same.

        It is just that some people feel the overpowering need to wear their virtue signal on their sleeve in an attempt to show the world how right, caring and virtuous they are. It is all a massive lie.

        From my own experience, I have found that the most ‘virtuous’ people are the ones that wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. ‘Good Christians’ complete with curly fish motif on the bootlid of their car, cunt swerved in front of me at the lights and then proceeding to drive like a daft cunt in front of me – and he fucking knew it. Christian? Oh fuck off and do me a favour.

        Many of the coffin-dodging churchgoers around here are stuck up cunts who address you with an air of smug superiority, like they are the fucking village squire.

        Telling the world you are a Christian is akin to telling the world you are a gigantic, selfish cunt. That’s my take on it.

      • Paul:
        This has always been my experience. The more pious, the bigger the cunt👎

      • There’s a lot of religious scepticism on ISAC. It’s true that sometimes the pious gobshites can be false. But there are genuine religious people who are caring and don’t shout from the rooftops about it. To be fair, there are atheists who brag about how virtuous they are but in reality, don’t give a shit and other atheists that are genuinely good people but don’t shout about it. So it’s not religion that makes hypocrites- it’s just human nature.

  14. What makes you think enlightenment is not suffering either? People assume it’s bliss, but in actuality it has more in common with death. The death of your individual identity, including your beliefs about the world and what it is, which is tremendously agonizing.

    Suffering is relative. Some odd people get pleasure from what others consider to be pain.

    Life is a slaughterhouse. Humanity, not god, makes it an order of magnitude worse than it needs to be. Through our concepts we inflict physical pain but also mental pain too by rationalizing the physical pain in some way.

    Maybe there’s things going on we don’t know about, but you’re not going to change that.. or humanity.. on your own. That is mental suffering. Why add more pain on to what already ‘is’?

    • ‘What makes you think the enlightenment is not suffering either? ‘
      Er what?

      ‘People assume it’s bliss, but in actuality it has more in common with death’
      What are you in about?

      ‘The death of your individual identity, including your beliefs about the world and what it is, which is tremendously agonizing’

      ‘Suffering is relative. Some odd people get pleasure from what others consider to be pain.
      Maybe something in that

      ‘Life is a slaughterhouse’
      What the fuck?

      ‘Humanity, not god, makes it an order of magnitude worse than it needs to be.’
      Don’t understand again..

      ‘Through our concepts we inflict physical pain but also mental pain too by rationalizing the physical pain in some way.’
      You know Chunky at the moment the Israelis and Palestinians are blowing each other to bits, cironavurus dead are washing up on the shores of the Ganges in their hundreds and now doctors in India are having to remove jaws, noses and eyes from patients that are afflicted with this new black fungus! That is human suffering going on now.
      And you talk about –
      ‘Through our concepts we inflict physical pain…’

      ‘Maybe there’s things going on we don’t know about, but you’re not going to change that.. or humanity.. on your own. That is mental suffering. Why add more pain on to what already ‘is’
      I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.

      • Why are you being hysterical? You can understand my reply. I understood yours.

        What’s going on now is no different to any other era of human history. I didn’t say suffering doesn’t happen. I’m all too aware of what is happening now, my point was a philosophical one about how suffering is a relative thing.

        It’s not rocket science. Watch any nature documentary. I watched something today about these beetles that target frogs and eat them alive. Nature IS a slaughterhouse. But we make it worse through our own ingenuity and ignorance.

        Tying yourself up in knots about that is mental suffering. Do you think other animals lament nature like we do? No. They don’t even have time to ruminate.

        Again, why are you being hysterical? That’s not an insult but a question to ponder.

      • Other animals don’t have the capacity to lament nature like we do. It’s not rocket science.

      • Elephants, dolphins, there’s some intelligent animals besides us. They mourn their dead, can solve abstract puzzles in the case of dolphins.

        But they get on with things. They’re not sitting around lamenting the self-inflicted suffering we cause ourselves.

      • Maybe you should take a leaf out of their book then.

        Assuming you’ve got any books written by elephants and dolphins.

      • Fuck you. Miles is the one being hysterical over suffering, not me. He asked ‘How do you make sense of human suffering’. I gave my answer in a philosophical way because that’s the only way you can approach it.. there is absolutely no point in getting emotional about it because we’re not going to change it any how. All we can change is our own perception of it.

        If you’re just going to be a cunt for no reason then piss off and bother someone else.

      • Theres ‘I did it on porpoise’ by famed dolphin author Flipper.
        And ‘ dont call me a pachyderm!!’ by Dumbo.

        Admittedly not many.

      • ‘All we can change is our own perception of it.’

        ‘It’ is suffering.
        ‘All we can change is our own perception of suffering’
        Sounds OK, philosophical.

        Let’s change the word from suffering to pain.

        ‘All we can change is our own perception of pain’.
        Doesn’t sound right.
        Add the word intense. Try again.
        ‘All we can change is our own perception of intense pain’.
        That doesn’t sound right at all.

        You cannot change your ‘perception’ of your pain.

  15. I wonder if this just boils to – “If God exists, then it’s a cunt”?

  16. Good old god, loves a bit of suffering. He must do, as there is so much of it.
    All part of his glorious plan.
    What about animal suffering? Fuck them, they are just food and playthings.
    Who would kneel for such a cunt?
    Thank fuck its a fantasy.

    • After working his nuts off for 6 days to create the world he deserves for us to suffer.
      I think he did a good job right up to the point where created religion and then it all went tits up 😂

      • Or, when we created religion it went tits up?
        That’s far more likely….🥴

  17. If you believe in God, then why not gods? Maybe as in the gnostic gospels we didn’t get the god we are told we did? The God we are told of in the three major religions created everything. He created good, he created evil, he gives the Earth and all in it into the power of Satan.

    Not sure what point you are trying to make Miles?

    • That’s Gnosticism. God did not create evil. Evil is an absence of god.

      I’ll get my coat – again !

      • Isaiah 45:7
        King James Version

        I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

      • Good quote Sixdog. But this is a mistranslation. It refers to adversity, affliction, calamity. Not evil as such. We all know God could do these things when he was pissed off in the Old Testament.

  18. Chinese communist party, anyone who believes in religion must die. The end.

  19. Watching somebody close to you suffer and you can do nothing about it is a painful experience.
    A good friend of mine died of cancer the other year and I will never forget holding her hand in the hospice when she told me “I’m dying”.
    I have never felt so fucking useless in my whole life because there was nothing I could do to help.
    But on the positive side that potato faced old biddy Mother Teresa says on the subject…
    “Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you”.
    I shall get the deranged old bitch to clarify the situation when I join her in hell.

  20. God doesn’t always win. Sometimes the devil gets his way.
    Then there is the luck of the draw. The cards you get dealt, genes, the roll of the dice.
    Life is deeply unfair but it’s how you play the cards you are dealt.
    Right, where’s the beer?

  21. Thank jebus you’re not football supporter too!

    Fuck off!

  22. Was it Dr Lecter who enjoyed collecting news clippings of church ceiling collapses?

  23. As my devout Uncle once said to me before he departed due to cancer, “This life is a test”.

    Just for Miles’ pleasure, it all comes down to free will and, wait for it…Lucifer’s grand exit from heaven.

    • You and Lucypants* have a thing going on together Cuntologist?

      *Mrs Plastic’s name for him.

      • Well the old light bearing, fiddle player is ruler of this world, leading people into temptation and/or obliviating them to the spiritual warfare that abounds.

        I feel like Brian Dowling right now – demons!

  25. They say life’s a bitch and then you die. Why is it that pain is always more intense than pleasure? Maybe because we confuse pleasure with relief. The human body’s capacity for pleasure is minimal, it’s designed that way. If we inject drugs the pleasure decreases each time until we’re injecting just to feel normal. Life is a load of shit.

  26. Has anyone else noticed that horrendous shit and early deaths strike lovely people?
    Whereas evil people tend to experience lots of good fortune , good health and live to ripe old ages?
    Henry Kissinger will be a 100 soon,. Tony Blair will be too, in due course, I’ve no doubt
    I believe Sydney Cooke will end up as Britain’s oldest man in a few years!
    I often wonder if there is a God but he’s evil and perhaps hates humanity.
    Perhaps we are dealing with a Gnostic or Zoroastrian situation.?
    Perhaps divine sparks trapped in an evil material realm, separated form a non-material good realm?
    Maybe warring deities of light and darkness?
    Or maybe we are just chemical slime reproducing for no reason and the world we live in is all just plan less chaos and we hopefully look for patterns in the random noise?
    My difficulty with Christianity, and indeed the Abrahamic God, is the ‘ problem of evil’
    If bad shit happened why didn’t God stop it- either he wanted it to happen(and so is evil) , or he was powerless to stop it, and so isn’t omnipotent
    I figured that out for myself when I was about 11 and was gratified to discover later that other great thinkers got there before me. Indeed it goes back to Epicurus
    Millennia later there is no satisfactory resolution of the problem

    • I refer you to the reply given some hours ago-

      ‘That’s Gnosticism. God did not create evil. Evil is an absence of god’.

      • Hi Miles I always look forward to your noms and I’ve a lot of respect and affection for you
        I think if god created the created the universe, he created the evil in it too didn’t he? Including Satan?
        ‘ evil is the absence of god’ , I thought I heard something sometime about Omnipresence ? To go along with the omnipotence and omnibenevolence ?

      • Wasn’t Lucifer a archangel?
        A beauty to behold?
        Cast from heaven for challenging gods authority?
        A Marxist type.
        A pretty boy.
        Sort of like Owen Jones if he had a backbone.

      • Evening MNC Yes that’s the chap, real wrong un.
        Not to be confused with Syd Barrett’s girlfriend’s cat Lucifer
        Both were named after the brand of matches

    • Some say that God created the universe then fucked off to do something else. All the shit thereafter is nothing to do with Him.

      • Thanks VL.
        How to answer…?
        He is as all the omnis. No.

        Sorry to get pious on you. What do we see when we look at a crucifix? Someone suffering. But who was that someone? The God/Man Jesus Christ.
        So God has entered into our human suffering. He has sanctified it. Mmm…

        ‘Come down from the cross and save yourself’.the Roman soldiers said. Which being God, He could have done. But he chose not to. He chose to suffer and die.

        So the teaching is suffering is good for you if it makes you more loving, more like Christ.

        Really, as the doctor I mentioned in my Nom said; ‘it is the only thing that makes sense’.

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