Why would God permit such horrible lives and permit them after death.

[Aethel]

One of the things that I don't understand, for an omnibenevolent deity, is that he allows people to live lives that are disgraceful and embarassing.......

God gave human beings Free Will.  If people choose evil, why blame God?

If God didn't allow people to choose evil, He would have to deny what gives humans the ability to choose between good and evil.  He would have to deny Free Will.

Then what would be the point of us, if we don't have the ability to freely choose.

I have known some truly malevolent people.  They choose evil because they like it.  God permits this choice.  Do you think He shouldn't.  What would happen then?

It's true that some people have horrendous lives at the hands of appallingly wicked people.  Is this a reason for rejecting God?

At issue is not free will, why evil exists, etc. It's that if free will does exist, it's so hampered by external circumstances that there's no way it evens out among people, and some people who would be a good person in circumstance A would be a bad person in circumstance B. Or person A is a bad person but gets away with it because of his circumstances, and person B is a bad person but gets punished routinely because of his circumstances.

[james03]

Two questions then:

1. What makes "the Good" good without reference to material things?
2. Do you think the ignorance of the laity is what led to the collapse of the Church?

1.  God.  Who is not material.

2.  No.  The laity has always been "ignorant" for the most part.  I use the quotes because if the laity have Faith and do good works, then actually they are wise.  The collapse of the Church was a deliberate attack as the Church held back the evil which we now see.  Ultimately it traces back to the devil, but he has his human instruments.

[Michael Wilson]

1. Why would God even create such harsh inequalities and randomly give different people such drastically different struggles? It's nice to believe that things even out - but the rich white kid who gets a free trust fund will never experience the suffering of a homeless black man who dies on the street.

Material inequalities are not important in the long run; It is whether we live a virtuous life and die in the state of grace.
Communism attempted to build a society without inequalities, and built a nightmare. 

2. At some level, we necessarily project our own humanity onto the divine in order to make it comprehensible - in fact, Union with God necessarily means Union with man, for Christ himself is a man.

No, this is wrong. Union with God means that God shares His interior life of love and knowledge with creatures. It is first through Sanctifying Grace that God makes us a partaker of His divine life here below and this union is consummated in the Beatific Vision i.e. The vision of God "face to face", in Heaven.
Heaven does have a social organization, the Angels are in a Hierarchy and Christ rules as King over the Kingdom of Heaven.

- but what if someone is born or predestined without merit, or was given a life they really didn't want and couldn't find pride in? What if their very existence is a source of shame that they cannot fix?

All of us are born without having merited it. God predestines all men to Heaven conditionally and gives us the graces that we need to save our souls, in no matter what condition, place or time that we are born.
The existence of hardships here below are all part of God's loving plan to help us save our souls.

If I was born deformed, would I really want to be the patron Saint of deformed people?

You would be called by God to use the talents that He would give you in order to love Him and make your life here on Earth a virtuous one; and by this means to save your soul. The saint that became the patron of deformed people wasn't thinking "I will be the saint of deformed people", when they were struggling through life's difficulties, but seeking to make their life as pleasing to God and useful to their neighbor as they could.

3. I still struggle with the Nietzschean objection of promised opposites after death ("oh, don't worry about being rich now, in fact being rich means greediness, look to the future as you'll be rich after death (spiritually or otherwise)" contradictory because wealth is treated contradictory like a bonum in se and malum in se in the same argument) - but even that argument is rendered null when you look at the sheer inequality of life. One can be a spoiled white kid who lives a life of exuberant hedonism with daddy's trust fund, and then at the end of such merriment turn to Jesus so he gets to live it up in Heaven; meanwhile a person with methhead parents lives a horrendous life, and he finally gets to live it up in heaven - how could one say they both carried their cross? How could they two love each other in any real way?

If the good looking, the rich and the talented were happy, then all the Hollywood stars would be the happiest people on Earth; yet the contrary is the case. I just read a book about famous Hollywood stars that converted to the Catholic faith, and none of us here would want to trade lives with these people.
"It is easier for a Camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to save his soul".
Neither the R.W.K. Nor the Meth are 'carrying their cross', while living in the state of sin; to "carry one's cross", is to be faithful to one's daily duties, to God, to our neighbor and to our selves.
You have to ask yourself: "What is my purpose here on Earth?"
Our purpose on Earth is to Know God (faith) love God (Charity) and serve Him (fidelity to our duties), and through these means obtain our eternal salvation.
All of the focus of your questions appear to be on the importance of attaining material and transitory goods in this life as a means of happiness; these things will never make you happy. God created you with a spiritual soul that has a deep need of loving and being loved; when men try to live with the plan of  making ephemeral goods, their ultimate end, they live constantly frustrated by the emptiness in their souls that no matter how many or how much of these things they possess, they ever grow more and more desperate to fill.
Only God's love will fill that empty space, partially in this life and completely and totally and everlastingly in Heaven.

[Julio]

Humans created the standard that to be rich, powerful and/or entitled is what it takes to have a good life. This kind of thinking is almost the way of all the cultures of the world. There are few exceptional people who think that there is goodness in the life of simple and candid ways. Like, in case of a slave who is obedient to his master and enjoys the act of service and the beauty of graceful actions can find happiness in it. He maybe envied by his master who cannot find satisfaction amidst the wealth and power.

A pauper or in a case of a black person who died in the street is not at all different from Kurt Cobain who killed himself in terms of mental torment, stress or any kind of suffering. The possible difference is that the former may find place in the Kingdom of God if such pain was offered to Jesus.

The trouble in this world is everyone wants to be on the top. There seems to be no desire of cultivating ones condition. Jesus suffered on the cross but it did not mean He was not in the state of grace. Almost all of the apostles died as martyrs. None from among them stated about doubt to the goodness of God.

Freewill is God's creation. He made the law as benchmark in relation to the obedience by the Angels and humans to His will. He should permit suffering for He is the truth. He can never be inconsistent to the freewill that He made and willed as part of the complicated constitution of His creations. His simple being cannot be applied to the complicated beings that He made for God is not among His creations.

Horrible lives can be a ticket to heaven if one can just understand the truth of God and can communicate well to ones' own guardian angel that is the testament of God's goodness. This life in this world is not the end of the human soul that is part of how to be a human. Suffering in this world is not something to be feared at, rather it must be the eternal damnation. Truly, to live a Catholic is really hard but it is so easy to die as a Catholic, by reason of that desire to be with God.

[Miriam_M]

Horrible things can happen to good people as well as bad.  The difference is that those who suffer on earth while rejecting their Creator and Lord -- pretending that they are their own Creators and owe obedience only to themselves -- will suffer worse after death than during life.  Those who suffer through no fault of their own (victim of crime or disease or calamity) while acknowledging their Creator and sovereign Lord will be comforted after death and eventually partake in joy infinitely surpassing their earthly pain.

Those who struggle with belief because they were not born into it -- but earnestly try to understand and find a way to believe -- those souls will not be abandoned, I believe.  God reads our hearts because He is Truth itself, and His name is Mercy.

[Maximilian]

I can say without doubt that God allows suffering, sometimes extreme hardship, to remedy an area of our life that is not what or where it should be. The difficulty is that we simply don't see it at the time. We're tempted to believe that, if there even is a God, He doesn't hear us. I cannot tell you how many times in my life I have looked back upon episodes that were dark only to see what God was bringing about. My family and I are going through such a hardship now and I can already see the reasons why God is allowing it to happen. It isn't pleasant. It's sometimes confusing. We simply don't see the end from the beginning as God sees it. If I have learned anything so far in life it's that we must always hold onto that assurance that God works all things for good, even if it hurts.

Very well put, thank you.

[Goldfinch]

Aderant autem quidam ipso in tempore, nuntiantes illi de Galilæis, quorum sanguinem Pilatus miscuit cum sacrificiis eorum. Et respondens dixit illis : Putatis quod hi Galilæi præ omnibus Galilæis peccatores fuerint, quia talia passi sunt ? Non, dico vobis : sed nisi pœnitentiam habueritis, omnes similiter peribitis. Sicut illi decem et octo, supra quos cecidit turris in Siloë, et occidit eos : putatis quia et ipsi debitores fuerint præter omnes homines habitantes in Jerusalem ? Non, dico vobis : sed si pœnitentiam non egeritis, omnes similiter peribitis. (S. Luc. 13:1 et seq.)

And there were present, at that very time, some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answering, said to them: Think you that these Galileans were sinners above all the men of Galilee, because they suffered such things? No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower fell in Siloe, and slew them: think you, that they also were debtors above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem? No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish. (S. Luk. 13:1 et seq.)

Fr. Haydock comments thus:

Ver. 2. Sinners, &c. People are naturally inclined to believe, that those who are unfortunate, and afflicted with calamities, must likewise be culpable and impious. The Jews were very much given to these sentiments, as we see in many places of Scripture; John ix. 2 and 3. Our Saviour wishes to do away with this prejudice, by telling them that the Galileans, who are here spoken of, were not the most culpable among the inhabitants of that country; shewing by this, that God often spares the most wicked, and sends upon the good the most apparent signs of vengeance, that he may exercise the patience, and crown the merit of the latter, and give to the former an example of the severity which they must expect, if they continue in their disorders. Neither can it be said, that in this God commits any injustice. He uses his absolute dominion over his creatures, when he afflicts the just; he procures them real good, when he strikes them; and his indulgence towards the wicked, is generally an effect of his mercy, which waits for their repentance, or sometimes the consequences of his great anger, when he abandons them to the hardness of their reprobate hearts, and says, "I will rest, and be angry with you no longer." Ezechiel, C. xvi. 42. This is the most terrible mark of his final fury.

[Aethel]

This is the problem of believing in what I call "never ending summer block party heaven".  Oh look, it's grandpa Joe.  I really missed him.  And Sparky the Dog!  Good ole Sparky.

This is what is taught to children so that they form certain correct opinions.  God is good.  Heaven is something we strive for. Etc...  But it is completely wrong.

Heaven is the Beatific Vision.  And this is not a special cope.  St. Augustine, writing 1600 years ago:

For this contemplation is held forth to us as the end of all actions and the everlasting fullness of joy. ... this it is which we shall contemplate when we shall live in eternity.  For so it is said, "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent." ... Then will take place that which is written, "In thy presence is fullness of joy."  Nothing more than that joy will be required; because there will be nothing more that can be required.

This is WHY you stop at the scenic look out, and WHAT you are looking at is Beauty, though through a thick veil.  This is how all men are ordered.  And malice is the rejection of this, who you are.  Embracing the lie.  And God shows mercy to these also, giving them a place where they may pour out their hatred and screech their curses.

I don't know if the discussion is really going anywhere, so I won't really respond much more, but again, this only pushes back the question: what makes God good outside of a reference to the material? Even things like the "beatific vision" reference the material.

If you are referring to the "beauty of nature" or "love", these things are necessarily rooted in the material. After all, we can only conceive of those things by reference to the material?

I echo Nietzsche when it seems that God promises the have-nots materialist good things after death when it doesn't matter anyways, because nobody knows what happens after death.

[Michael Wilson]

I don't know if the discussion is really going anywhere, so I won't really respond much more, but again, this only pushes back the question: what makes God good outside of a reference to the material? Even things like the "beatific vision" reference the material.

If you are referring to the "beauty of nature" or "love", these things are necessarily rooted in the material. After all, we can only conceive of those things by reference to the material?

I echo Nietzsche when it seems that God promises the have-nots materialist good things after death when it doesn't matter anyways, because nobody knows what happens after death.

God is good, because He exists, and He is pure existing actual being; there is no potentiality in God. Secondly, because He is infinitely happy in Himself from all eternity in His relationship of mutual knowledge and love in the eternal processions of the Blessed Trinity.And finally, because He wills to create other beings so that He can share His innate happiness with, either in giving them existence or even more, in bringing them into a loving relationship of friendship and intimacy with Himself in the Beatific Vision.
2. We know what happens after death because Our Lord Jesus Christ descended from Heaven became man and told us what happens. He claimed He was God and worked miracles in the sight of thousands of witnesses to demonstrate that He had divine power; and finally He resurrected from the dead after three days, as He had prophesied and ascended to Heaven before the very eyes of His disciples.
3.Finally, Descartes had it wrong, we think because we are; even those who do not think are; and do not cease to be, if they cease to think.

[james03]

I don't know if the discussion is really going anywhere, so I won't really respond much more, but again, this only pushes back the question: what makes God good outside of a reference to the material? Even things like the "beatific vision" reference the material.

If you are referring to the "beauty of nature" or "love", these things are necessarily rooted in the material. After all, we can only conceive of those things by reference to the material?

There is no reference to the material.  The material participates in the Good, which is God.  God is the standard.  I ask, "why do you stop at the scenic overlook?  WHAT are you looking at?".  The godless heathen has no convincing  answer.  You've flipped it around, trying to presuppose "good" without God.  God is the unchanging standard.  I wrote about shoveling snow for some widow.  It is objectively evil because of the sore back you suffer the next day for no MATERIAL gain.  And yet everyone KNOWS it is good.  Because it is based on God's Will and therefore Love.

[james03]

Even things like the "beatific vision" reference the material.

This is false, or sloppy.  EXPLAINING the beatific vision requires analogies to the material world because we are currently temporal.  Though with work no analogy is required.  This is mysticism.

If you are referring to the "beauty of nature" or "love", these things are necessarily rooted in the material. After all, we can only conceive of those things by reference to the material?

Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) Realism.  Nature is beautiful because the matter of nature participates in the Form of the Good.  The Form of the Good is completely immaterial, and is God.

[Aethel]

This is false, or sloppy.  EXPLAINING the beatific vision requires analogies to the material world because we are currently temporal.  Though with work no analogy is required.  This is mysticism.

So then the material world necessarily must be good or at least have good in it if God designed it such that we could only comprehend him through the material.

But I find the material world filled with indescribable horrors, some of which does not come from free will. Deformed people, for instance.

Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) Realism.  Nature is beautiful because the matter of nature participates in the Form of the Good.  The Form of the Good is completely immaterial, and is God.

Well I think there's an inherent tension within Christianity which clashes with the "Seek a Kingdom not of this World" you find in Christ and Paul and the Hellenistic thought Christianity incorporated (I concur this was incorporated right at the beginning with Saint John and Saint Paul, this wasn't something the Church came up with later). I don't think the flawed nature of the world, based on what I've read, was really a main point of Hellenism. Plato thought the world was flawed, but that the creator must have had good intentions and you could find that goodness within the world - as far as I'm aware. And yes, there was an idea of "Escaping the Cave", but that strikes me as something more akin to Hindu, Buddhist, or even a Gnostic philosophy (although Plotinus hated the Gnostics) where perfection / salvation can be achieved now rather than after death by pursuing what's good hidden within life, hidden within the world.

In fact if one were to derive spiritual meaning from something like Ovid's Metamorphoses (a Roman author far past the cultural novelty of Plato reinterpreting the myths), you would find there is way less separation or tension between the spiritual or the physical. Hercules dying nobly as a hero of this world and Zeus transfiguring him into a god. In fact the gods themselves are flawed figures, just as we are.

A better way of putting it is this: Christianity seems to totally isolate its soteriology from the world we live in. It's ambivalent at best, outright escapist at worst. Hellenism was not like that as far as I'm aware - seek salvation by working in the world. But by framing the "good" in reference to "the world", it seems contradictory.

Which brings me back to my main point - if we assume Christianity is correct, why would God create a world that is inherently "fallen" or "corrupt with Original Sin" that doesn't allow any real Justice whatsoever, and then promise an afterlife in which you can only interpret by reference to the fallen world, which - by its very nature - is ruled by Satan and can lead to damnation by being "of this world" rather than "not of this world"

I know I'm jumping from point to point, but it's all connected. I guess with all of these inquiries, I have two main points:

1. I question Christianity in isolation compared to other religions, because of the inherent tension between the material and the immaterial, the latter seemingly only understood through the material,

2. I question God in total in all religious systems (Greek, Hindu, or Christian alike) which seem to use the material as a carrot and a stick to get people to do good things, but the material is filled with such horrors, abuse, and unfairness that I wonder if there can even really be "The Good" when "The Good" is only understood by the material, but the material itself has pits of hell that far exceed the imagination of any Renaissance poet. I personally don't believe the good people are capable of doing outweighs the evil they are capable of doing.

[Aethel]

I am more than willing to admit that the human being, naturally, as a defense mechanism, will give more weight towards things hostile to its existence and well being than good things. "Fallen nature" and whatever.

And maybe I'm culturally conditioned by the access of Mass Media and the Internet to see way more of the eldritch horrors of life than what would have been common place in the past; for example, I see school shootings and kids getting murdered way more than usual, and such a thing isn't as frequent as my media perception makes it: and with that constant exposure, my perception is flawed from how bad the world actually is (not to mention I work a job where I'm constantly exposed to the worst of humanity) - But I don't know, I think we have way more information about life than a Plato, a Jesus, or a Buddha had back then when people still debated whether the world was round or flat.

[Aethel]

There is no reference to the material.  The material participates in the Good, which is God.  God is the standard.  I ask, "why do you stop at the scenic overlook?  WHAT are you looking at?".  The godless heathen has no convincing  answer.  You've flipped it around, trying to presuppose "good" without God.  God is the unchanging standard.  I wrote about shoveling snow for some widow.  It is objectively evil because of the sore back you suffer the next day for no MATERIAL gain.  And yet everyone KNOWS it is good.  Because it is based on God's Will and therefore Love.

But a scenic overlook is still material.

If you want a godless heathen answer, maybe our biology creates "beauty"  from the human desire to propagate people with physically beneficial genes (for example, symmetrical faces indicate good physical genetic quality) and the human desire to live in comfortable and clean locations (which is why gardens look beautiful; healthy vegetation indicates good land quality, space / symmetry indicates room to live).

Even if it's ultimately "God" that is what "goodness" derives from, you still have to use the material.

[james03]

Even if it's ultimately "God" that is what "goodness" derives from, you still have to use the material

Kind of got it.  This is hylomorphism, the material participating in the immaterial form.  However the topic of discussion is this immaterial Form of the Good.

If you want a godless heathen answer, maybe our biology creates "beauty"  from the human desire to propagate people with physically beneficial genes (for example, symmetrical faces indicate good physical genetic quality) and the human desire to live in comfortable and clean locations (which is why gardens look beautiful; healthy vegetation indicates good land quality, space / symmetry indicates room to live).

So by this explanation we should expect people to be repelled in horror at the sight of Canyonlands National Park in Utah, completely devoid of life.

1. I question Christianity in isolation compared to other religions, because of the inherent tension between the material and the immaterial, the latter seemingly only understood through the material,

You perceive a tension, others have no idea what you are talking about.  Consider your perception may be flawed.

I personally don't believe the good people are capable of doing outweighs the evil they are capable of doing.

Hard to judge.  And we don't know what happens on the death bed.  But the Lord Himself said few are saved.

One thing I have found interesting.  Most people rail and rail against predestination, but careful examination shows most people really hate free will.