>>17445178Hey OP, there's no way I could fatham what you're going through, but as a history/anthropology student here's my take on God/afterlife and your experience with your wife and community.
We are desended from monkeys that lived in trees that were forced out of the trees onto the wide open savannah. Survival required general intelligence and strong social bonds to have enough creativity and teamwork take down blazing fast antelope or gigantic mamoth. Over a period of hundreds of thousands of years, the more intelligent and social hominids were naturally selected, outcompeting the others.
At some point, a hominid gained so much intelligence and sociability, that he began to ask all the questions that little kids ask their parents now. Where did grandpa stop breathing? Why did he go? Where is he now? To answer these and more quetions, the Spirit was invented as a way of coping with the fact that we are mortal, fagile beings, with only a limited time on the Earth, and when we die, we leave our physical community and pass on to the great community in the sky.
I would bet that around the same time, the idea of God came into being. The universe is a incomprehensibly large and powerful place, and we can do nothing to influence the weather, create mountains for rivers, make the grass dance in the wind for miles and miles. When faced with the incomprehensible, indifferent power of the universe, the idea of God was created. As something to alliviate fear that we have no control over our destiny, and reassure us that "everything happens for a reason. All is as according to God's will." It is an idea that humbles man before the universe, and connects him to everything around him.
You're questioning God, and why your daughter has cancer. It is because you were inculcated by school, church, and family that God is good. He is not. He is indifferent. The universe is indifferent. We are alll born, live, and die. It is the natural order of things.
