Preview

Happen To Good People Kushner

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
809 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Happen To Good People Kushner
Barbara J McCoy
PSY101
Extra Credit Paper
July 27, 2014
Out of the three books that I purchased I was able to complete “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Harold S. Kushner. Kushner wrote this book after the death of his son Aaron due to premature aging. Kushner was not only a father but he was also a Rabbi and helped his congregation through turmoil of their own. Even as a man of faith the personal tragedy he experienced left him to think and question his own beliefs in God and the good and evil of the world.
Kushner outlined the way that humans try to salvage their view of God and try to answer the questions why good people die, children have disabilities, people get cancer and have other turmoil in their lives. Kushner
…show more content…
Even pick up the phone and talk with them personally and just say hey, I am here if you need me.
The comment that I agree with and taught my children would make a difference in the world if everybody would live their life this way. Kushner said, “This is what it means to be human "in the image of god." It means being free to make choices instead of doing whatever our instincts would tell us to do. It means knowing that some choices are good, and others are bad, and it is our job to know the difference.(Page 87) "Behold, I have set before you the past of good and the past of evil, the way of life and the way of death. Choose Life." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
As I am reading this book I keep waiting for him to answer the question "Why, then do bad things happen to good people?" and finally Kushner does. Kushner states, "One reason is that our being human leaves us free to hurt each other, and God can 't stop us without taking away the freedom that makes us human. Human beings can cheat each other, rob each other, hurt each other, and God can only look down in pity and compassion at how little we have learned over the ages about how human beings should behave. (Page

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In addition, I would make sure I found out what specific questions they had for me so I could answer them or if I did not know the answer find someone who did. I have found handouts help a lot with certain things. An owner is able to read over the information at home and they can find out what questions they have and can come in at a later time to talk with someone.…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Why Is Blackburn Wrong

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages

    He further argues God’s unwillingness to solve the issues at hand in the first place such as how the survival of some creatures are undeniably based upon the suffering of others; he goes as far as even giving…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Doing bad is easy but doing well is not”. Yes, that saying is the most concrete explanation why good people do bad things. Good people do bad things with good intentions. We, humans, are all sinful by nature. No one of us can behave perfectly and sinless. But we have the capacity to avoid temptations and to distinguish what’s right from wrong.…

    • 315 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wizard Of Oz Good Vs Evil

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us." He sighed. "It's people who claim that they're good, or anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of." (Page 213)…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    harold kushner response

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Why do good people suffer such bad things? “God wants the righteous to live peaceful, happy lives, but sometimes even he cannot bring that about...” (p. 43). Kushner suggests that we must come to the conclusion that God is not all-perfect or all-powerful, if that then our misfortunes are none of God’s doings(p. 44). God is not perfect. If God were all-perfect the world would not be so imperfect as it obviously is. An imperfect world indicates an imperfect God. Of course it is always possible that God would like to do better but that he is hampered by his limitations in power. “There are some things out of…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Boethius explains it in the text, some people are inherently set to be bad that his environment may lead his crime or bad actions to become worse. The example Boethius uses in the text, discusses a man in poverty who does crime. God must offer him some prosperity and wealth. If God does not, it may cause the man to commit more crime to steal money from others. (Book IV 138). God’s blessings on bad people allow for their bad actions to be less extreme compared to if God did not bless them. However, bad people do not always have good things happen to them. Bad people will be punished for their bad actions as God must make right with those the bad people have wronged. By punishing these bad people, it will teach them a lesson and reduce their chances of continuing to be bad and help them to become good. But, it will also prevent future bad from occurring by deterring others from committing crime or other bad actions because of the threat of…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Just listen don’t assume how they feel, that you know how they feel. Be there for them when they need you.…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Parent child relationship has never been easy. We can easily realize it in the texts that we have been reading. I preferred “mother” by Grace Paley and “Father” by Yasushi Inouye. The conflict in the relationship between parent and children is not very clear in those texts, but it is present. What really captured my attention was how in both texts this conflict was resolved by the death of the parents. I also liked how both authors painted the caring of a parent for his child. I think that both texts have a valuable lesson: that we should not take thing for granted.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The image of God in man is a doctrine that is fundamental to understanding the soteriological implications of humanity, which is best understood through the examination of Christ’s humanity with regards to various views held.…

    • 4644 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Road Bad

    • 2166 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Because, in fact, he doesn’t understand the necessity of hurting others and the refusal of helping others if they are considered themselves the “good guys.” The boy cries when his father refuses to help the man who is struck by the lightning (50), even though clearly, there’s no way to help him. He also constantly asks his father to help others like sparing the thief (257) or sharing food with the old man (163). The boy cannot agree with his father that the right thing to do is to refuse to help others who are in dire need, especially when they do not show any evidence of being dangerous. Surely the father is less trusting and more aware of the potential danger of their journey as the human morality vanishes in the disaster. Even though it is his response to a threat to his son’s safety, the act of killing still makes the father, in an instance, falling into the category of “bad guys.” Is the evil part of human being created by circumstances, or is it something always hidden inside? Also, how much “evil” is considered “evil”? In the broken world of The Road, the distinction of bad and good is vague. Choices in difficult situations are intensely and attentively made. Because, the opportunity cost of making a wrong choice is death. It’s hard for not only the father and the son, but for all of us to persistently maintain what is called to be a “good guy.” The earth is filled with darkness and coldness, where the “banished sun circles like a grieving mother” (McCarthy 32), “the mummied dead everywhere” (24) and “the only thing moved is the blowing ash” (24). In a world where there’s no sign of life, where the basic principles that signify a human is lost, can hope still being kept up? The concept of love and dignity no longer exists in a way that has human meaning. Living in such a hopeless…

    • 2166 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Worship Is a Verb

    • 2621 Words
    • 11 Pages

    (Webber, 2004, p. 109). Webber talks about how we respond to God Himself, God’s actions, and…

    • 2621 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    When someone does something good, great, amazing; however it is said, a reward is expected. That’s just the way the human brain has been trained in many cultures. People think just that with every good deed that is done. Movies have taught us that the “bad guy” never wins and that a hero will always triumph in the end. Not so much in the real world. Religious views, daily decisions, and just pure coincidence, if you will, all influence the outcome of a good deed. But, when answering one of the world’s most difficult questions: Why do bad things happen to good people, maybe we should first ask ourselves: Is the idea of a “good person” even remotely plausible to exist?…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As adults in today's society, we are often faced with the task of making moral choices in difficult and complicated situations. The dilemmas we face today are a far cry from the issues that our ancestors a generation or two ago faced. Today, for example, we place opinions on how we feel about cloning, stem cell research, Ten Commandment postings in governmental buildings, or school prayer. These issues make these ethical decisions more and more complex in a rapidly changing world. The issues themselves are often of such complexity that a person must gain a depth of understanding in several areas in order to make informed ethical decisions. Religion, science, education, and our cultural traditions are but some of the factors that must be considered in making good moral choices. In an ever-changing world, I have found but one standard that serves as the measuring rod for all of life's questions, and that standard is the Bible. It is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and it never changes and is always "present tense."…

    • 340 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    practice makes perfect

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This supports the reason that people are trying to be good but in the end people who are evil end up that way despite of knowing they are wrong-even though they were inhereitly good…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Proverbs Essay

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages

    This paper will focus on Proverbs 10, 12, and 14, Solomon's Proverbs, to display this theme of choice and discernment. Proverb 10 is an antithetical parallelism, because the second line is opposite of the first. This passage is both observational and didactic. Some of the passages are subtle entities and some are teachings that promote an ideal. " Wise children make their fathers proud of them; foolish ones bring their mothers grief" (10:1). This first passage is very simple; if you are wise, then you will be good to your parents, the teaching is, do not be foolish. The next passage has great insight, "wealth you get by dishonesty will do you no good, but honesty can save your life" (10:2). This passage is an ellipsis because it leaves out detail to how exactly honesty can save your life, but it will do you more good than being dishonest. You will be rewarded for choosing to act wisely. "The Lord will not let good people go hungry, but he will keep the wicked from getting what they want" (10:3). This passage shows the world as a just world, that God/dess will keep things even keel, even though this is not the case. Things are unfair sometimes, and using observation on personal life experiences, bad things can happen to good people. Although this passage does teach that if you choose to be good, you will be taken care of, and if you choose to be wicked you will…

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays