Suffering
I read something by somebody (I think it was Nate) on this site that said that we'd rather read something called:
"My tragic Tale of misery."
Than something like:
"My happy journey."
This is because we are drawn too misery instinctively, as a topic of interest. Perhaps it is part of our nature to create it as well? Now, the obvious example people would choose is the holocaust. Why did the members of the nazi party beleive this insane, murderous evil of Mein Kampf as gospel truth? It is the same, in some respects, as religion. When an adult tells a child sternly that they must not walk into the road, or jump down the stairs or something else dangerous, we know to obey, because they are serious, and if we disobey them, we will face something horrible. So when an adult, in the same tone, tells a child that God is the only way to avoid a horrible afterlife, the child obeys without asking why. Perhaps this is where some evil comes from. In the 1920s and 30s, people would be told with the utmost sincerity by lunatics such as Adolf Hitler, Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder and Karl Harrer, four insane and black hearted men, they accepted it.
However, this example is a cliche', and I never appreciate it fully as an answer. It was just a few men that got lucky, anybody could say that. They would then tell us about Satan, but what about day to day stuff? Anyway, that's aside of the question, the question what religious beleivers feel about the existance of hardship, and how it comes. That was my view, that just like religion, evil can spread due to adults being serious with younger people, until they are strong. David Swinburne, a very religious man, says that people can use hardship as a way to become strong, and show valour and purity. Otherwise, how could people get into heaven? How can you do good without suffering? Perhaps you can hold a door open for somebody with heavy books. That might do.
But between the years 1939 and 1945, seventy million people died in a war so big that the effects are still felt. When I visited Berlin, I saw a few buildings that hadn't even been fixed yet. Seventy years on, and people still have not forgotten what our grandparents went through. And so Swinburne says that seventy million people died so that other people could do good? Seventy million? For that? And I thought god loved us. Another example would be the tsunami of 2004, in which more than 225,000 people died, so that other people could send aid, or pull them out of the water and get into heaven. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous if you ask me!
