Ask a Tim
Ask a Tim
Finally an answer to all your questions about everything. Not only an answer, but an answer from a Tim! E-mail all questions to AskingTim@Gmail.com or by clicking on the link on the left hand menu bar titled "Get your questions answered" and leaving a comment! I will reply (if I can) as soon as possible!
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The eternal question
Dear Tim,
Why do bad things happen to good people? Conversely, why do good things happen to bad people?
Dear Karma,
The way I look at it, there are two ways to look at it!
The first being the non-religious perspective. If you look at things from this perspective, that there is no higher power with a master plan for all, then my question for you would be, "What about being good makes you deserve only good things to happen to you?" If a person feels that they are picked out from others and unjustly persecuted, who's doing the persecution. Do the stars themselves control this. Are the large balls of gas seen in the night sky actually displaying intelligence by causing Mother Theresa's puppy to get run over or that asshole in accounting to win the lottery? If there is no almighty power, then there is no rhyme or reason to good or bad things happening, they just do, and without prejudice.
fine! you try finding a picture of Mother Theresa with a puppy...
The other point of view of course being the religious one. In this case, there is a belief in some higher power (God, Allah, Fate, Karma or otherwise) that has a master plan for all living beings. That means that everything happens for a reason, and your question would then be, "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people." My question there would be, who's to say it's bad? If God controls all, and has a plan for all, then somehow this "bad thing" actually has a good purpose.
I myself, am a macro thinker, I tend to look at things on a large scale, without caring too much with the short term results, as long as the big picture is created correctly. God, I imagine, would be a macro thinker on a much, much (lets say all-knowingly) larger scale. I would imagine that God would also be able to think in the fourth dimension, which is time, and would therefore see the big picture all at once. Under this thinking, Mother Teresa's dead puppy may have saved millions of people from death by acid 4500 years in the future, we just don't know!
One last thought, perhaps there is not a disproportionate amount of bad things happening to good people, and good things happening to bad people. Maybe it is just our perspective. Perhaps we never notice all the good things that happen in our life, and only focus on the negative. Then we look at all the good things that happen to bad people but not all the bad things in their life.
Plus, who among us mortals is to say who is truly good, and who is truly bad. Perhaps the church minister who seems good, was responsible for the genocide of thousands in Africa years ago, and not even his family knows. And perhaps the asshole in accounting, who just won the lottery, has a sick mother and father at home with medical expenses that he spends all his money on. We can never see the true nature of people just by looking at them.
There is a book out there somewhere, called "When BadThings Happen to Good People," by Harold Kushner. I have never read it, but it may help you. I'm sure you can pick it up where ever fine books are sold... or from the bookshelf of a friend who owns "Chicken Soup for the Soul." One self-help book tends to breed others!
One final question for you to ponder... If a person is truly good, would they question why things are happening, or do their best to make a bad situation good?
