Why did God allow such pain and suffering?

[Lu Elèison]

Welcome to the world - that old bug bear of a question. Theologians and philosophers have been wrestling with that question from the git. These links will help:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-suffering.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/innocent-suffer.html
http://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2012/07...suffering/

A paragraph isn’t going to do the question justice.

[Mariposa]

Please be encouraged
Lamentations 3:32
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
33
For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to anyone

[Bobby]

God isn't your dad. He doesn't stop you from doing anything or make you do anything. Alot of religions work on a principle of getting past yourself and working to earn god, whether that be a passive or active endeavor. Your friend dying is life. It is the actually of what happened and what would have happened. Death and pain are the physical reality of god as much as happiness and love are.

[Zulkiflu]

Download a short book which deals with such matters( the answer to your question) in 24 pages athttp://www.onereason.org/order-materials/downloads/ titled ' The man under the red underpants' it talks about the answer despite the title being mysterious

[Eric]

Several people obviously are having great difficulty dealing with their grief. Cutting is indicative of emotional problems and/or mental health issue. That person ought to get some counseling/therapy soon.

God allows suffering so that people know when something is terribly wrong. Without suffering and pain we would not know when we were hurt. God also allows people to experience the consequences of their choices. The person who died from alcohol poisoning obviously made at least one bad choice, that of drinking alcohol. People simply need to come to grips with the fact that there are consequences to every choice that we make.

[Alia]

First of all, I'm really sorry for your loss. No one should have to go through what you've been going through. I hope my answer can bring you some comfort from the Bible.

"IAN’s father was a heavy drinker. Although Ian grew up with what he needed materially, he lacked the emotional support that he longed to receive from his father. “I never had much affection for him, mostly because of his drinking and the way he treated my mother,” says Ian. As Ian got older, he began to question God’s existence. “‘If God really exists,’ I reasoned, ‘why does he allow people to suffer?’”
Why ask the question? Even if your life is relatively problem free, your sense of justice might be outraged when you see innocent people suffer. However, the question about suffering becomes especially significant if you, like Ian, personally experience hardship or if a loved one gets sick or dies.

Why ask the question?
Even if your life is relatively problem free, your sense of justice might be outraged when you see innocent people suffer. However, the question about suffering becomes especially significant if you, like Ian, personally experience hardship or if a loved one gets sick or dies.

What do some say the answer is?
Some believe that God permits suffering to teach us to be humble and compassionate. Others feel that people suffer in this life for sins committed in a past life.
What do those answers imply? God is unmoved by human suffering, making it difficult to love him. God is cruel.

What does the Bible teach?
The Bible plainly states that God is not to blame for human suffering. “Let no man say when he is tested, I am tested by God; for it is not possible for God to be tested by evil, and he himself puts no man to such a test.” (James 1:13, The Bible in Basic English) In fact, the idea that God is to blame for suffering is out of harmony with the way that the Bible describes God’s personality. How so?

One of God’s primary qualities is love. (1 John 4:8) To emphasize that point, the Bible portrays God as having feelings similar to those of a nursing mother. “Can a wife forget her suckling so that she should not pity the son of her belly?” asks God. “Even these women can forget, yet I myself shall not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15) Can you imagine a loving mother deliberately harming her child? A caring parent, on the contrary, would try to alleviate a child’s suffering. Likewise, God does not cause innocent people to suffer.—Genesis 18:25.

Even so, innocent people are suffering. You may wonder, ‘If God cares for us and is all powerful, why doesn’t he get rid of the causes of suffering?’

God allows suffering to continue at present for good reasons. Consider just one: It is often people who cause suffering to others. Many bullies and tyrants who inflict pain are unwilling to change their ways. So for God to remove a major cause of suffering, he will have to destroy such people.
Explaining why God has not yet destroyed those who do wrong, the apostle Peter wrote: “Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Jehovah God’s patience is an expression of his loving and merciful personality.

Soon, though, Jehovah God will act. He will “repay tribulation to those who make tribulation” for the innocent. Those who inflict unjust suffering will “undergo the judicial punishment of everlasting destruction.”—2 Thessalonians 1:6-9.

Ian, quoted earlier, found satisfying answers to his questions about suffering. What he learned changed his outlook on life. Read his account in the next article entitled “The Bible Changes Lives”.

To find out more about why God allows suffering and what he will do about it, see chapter 11 of the book What Does the Bible Really Teach? Available for download at http://www.jw.org

[Vanessa]

WHY SO MUCH SUFFERING?
5 People of various religions have gone to their religious leaders and teachers to ask why there is so much suffering. Often, the response is that suffering is God’s will and that he long ago determined everything that would ever happen, including tragic events. Many are told that God’s ways are mysterious or that he brings death upon people—even children—so that he can have them in heaven with him. As you have learned, though, Jehovah God never causes what is bad. The Bible says: “Far be it from the true God to act wickedly, and the Almighty to act unjustly!”—Job 34:10.
6 Do you know why people make the mistake of blaming God for all the suffering in the world? In many cases, they blame Almighty God because they think that he is the real ruler of this world. They do not know a simple but important truth that the Bible teaches. You learned that truth in Chapter 3 of this book. The real ruler of this world is Satan the Devil.
7 The Bible clearly states: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) When you think about it, does that not make sense? This world reflects the personality of the invisible spirit creature who is “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (Revelation 12:9) Satan is hateful, deceptive, and cruel. So the world, under his influence, is full of hatred, deceit, and cruelty. That is one reason why there is so much suffering.
8 A second reason why there is so much suffering is that, as discussed in Chapter 3, mankind has been imperfect and sinful ever since the rebellion in the garden of Eden. Sinful humans tend to struggle for dominance, and this results in wars, oppression, and suffering. (Ecclesiastes 4:1; 8:9) A third reason for suffering is “time and unforeseen occurrence.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11) In a world without Jehovah as a protective Ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
9 It is comforting for us to know that God does not cause suffering. He is not responsible for the wars, the crimes, the oppression, or even the natural disasters that cause people to suffer. Still, we need to know, Why does Jehovah allow all this suffering? If he is the Almighty, he has the power to stop it. Why, then, does he hold back? The loving God that we have come to know must have a good reason.—1 John 4:8.
A VITAL ISSUE IS RAISED
10 To find out why God allows suffering, we need to think back to the time when suffering began. When Satan led Adam and Eve into disobeying Jehovah, an important question was raised. Satan did not call into question Jehovah’s power. Even Satan knows that there is no limit to Jehovah’s power. Rather, Satan questioned Jehovah’s right to rule. By calling God a liar who withholds good from his subjects, Satan charged that Jehovah is a bad ruler. (Genesis 3:2-5) Satan implied that mankind would be better off without God’s rulership. This was an attack on Jehovah’s sovereignty, his right to rule.
11 Adam and Eve rebelled against Jehovah. In effect, they said: ‘We do not need Jehovah as our Ruler. We can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.’ How could Jehovah settle that issue? How could he teach all intelligent creatures that the rebels were wrong and that his way truly is best? Someone might say that God should simply have destroyed the rebels and made a fresh start. But Jehovah had stated his purpose to fill the earth with the offspring of Adam and Eve, and he wanted them to live in an earthly paradise. (Genesis 1:28) Jehovah always fulfills his purposes. (Isaiah 55:10, 11) Besides that, getting rid of the rebels in Eden would not have answered the question that had been raised regarding Jehovah’s right to rule.

12 Let us consider an illustration. Imagine that a teacher is telling his students how to solve a difficult problem. A clever but rebellious student claims that the teacher’s way of solving the problem is wrong. Implying that the teacher is not capable, this rebel insists that he knows a much better way to solve the problem. Some students think that he is right, and they also become rebellious. What should the teacher do? If he throws the rebels out of the class, what will be the effect on the other students? Will they not believe that their fellow student and those who joined him are right? All the other students in the class might lose respect for the teacher, thinking that he is afraid of being proved wrong. But suppose that the teacher allows the rebel to show the class how he would solve the problem.
13 Jehovah has done something similar to what the teacher does. Remember that the rebels in Eden were not the only ones involved. Millions of angels were watching. (Job 38:7; Daniel 7:10) How Jehovah handled the rebellion would greatly affect all those angels and eventually all intelligent creation. So, what has Jehovah done? He has allowed Satan to show how he would rule mankind. God has also allowed humans to govern themselves under Satan’s guidance.
14 The teacher in our illustration knows that the rebel and the students on his side are wrong. But he also knows that allowing them the opportunity to try to prove their point will benefit the whole class. When the rebels fail, all honest students will see that the teacher is the only one qualified to lead the class. They will understand why the teacher thereafter removes any rebels from the class. Similarly, Jehovah knows that all honesthearted humans and angels will benefit from seeing that Satan and his fellow rebels have failed and that humans cannot govern themselves. Like Jeremiah of old, they will learn this vital truth: “I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”—Jeremiah 10:23.
WHY SO LONG?
15 Why, though, has Jehovah allowed suffering to go on for so long? And why does he not prevent bad things from happening? Well, consider two things that the teacher in our illustration would not do. First, he would not stop the rebel student from presenting his case. Second, the teacher would not help the rebel to make his case. Similarly, consider two things that Jehovah has determined not to do. First, he has not stopped Satan and those who side with him from trying to prove that they are right. Allowing time to pass has thus been necessary. In the thousands of years of human history, mankind has been able to try every form of self-rule, or human government. Mankind has made some advances in science and other fields, but injustice, poverty, crime, and war have grown ever worse. Human rule has now been shown to be a failure.
16 Second, Jehovah has not helped Satan to rule this world. If God were to prevent horrible crimes, for instance, would he not, in effect, be supporting the case of the rebels? Would God not be making people think that perhaps humans can govern themselves without disastrous results? If Jehovah were to act in that way, he would become party to a lie. However, “it is impossible for God to lie.”—Hebrews 6:18.
17 What, though, about all the harm that has been done during the long rebellion against God? We do well to remember that Jehovah is almighty. Therefore, he can and will undo the effects of mankind’s suffering. As we have already learned, the ruining of our planet will be undone by the turning of the earth into Paradise. The effects of sin will be removed through faith in Jesus’ ransom sacrifice, and the effects of death will be reversed by means of the resurrection. God will thus use Jesus “to break up the works of the Devil.” (1 John 3:8) Jehovah will bring all of this about at just the right time. We can be glad that he has not acted sooner, for his patience has given us the opportunity to learn the truth and to serve him. (2 Peter 3:9, 10) Meanwhile, God has been actively seeking sincere worshipers and helping them to endure any suffering that may come upon them in this troubled world.—John 4:23; 1 Corinthians 10:13.
18 Some might wonder, Could all this suffering have been prevented if God had created Adam and Eve in such a way that they could not rebel? To answer that question, you need to remember a precious gift that Jehovah has given you.

[Miroi]

Download a short book which deals with such matters( the answer to your question) in 24 pages athttp://www.onereason.org/order-materials/downloads/ titled ' The man under the red underpants' it talks about the answer despite the title being mysterious