Prajāpati: Śrīla Prabhupāda, there was a great philosopher or preacher among the Jewish people whose position is that "If there is God and He let so many Jews be killed by Hitler, ten million Jews, and God could have stopped it and He didn't, then I don't care for that God." They say like that.
Prabhupāda: So their God, Jesus Christ God, he could not even protect himself also. The reply should be, Christian, if Jesus Christ is God, then why he could not protect himself?
Karandhara: Well, the Jews say Jesus Christ wasn't God.
Prabhupāda: Well, but somebody said.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is just like the concept that if God is all-merciful, why He is so impartial, somebody making happy, somebody making suffering?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is mercifulness. Just like when doctor says, "You don't take anything today. You fast," that is mercy. That is mercy. It is good for him. By starving, he will be cured. That is mercy. And according to Manu-saṁhitā, when a man is hanged, that is mercy. If he is hanged... He has committed murder. He should be hanged so all his sinful reaction finished. Otherwise next birth, he has to suffer. He has to be killed by somebody else.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the tendency is that the sufferer wants to complain.
Prabhupāda: No, that they will complain. Just like when a man is ordered to be hanged, he will complain, "Just see the police, judge. He has ordered me to be hanged." That complaint will go on. Just like a child. When the doctor says, "Don't eat anything." He will complain. He will cry, "Why doctor says like that?" But it has to be done.
Karandhara: Well, then they'll say, "Well, if you see somebody suffering, then why do anything about it, if it just what they..."
Prabhupāda: Yes, we are doing everything to stop his suffering.
Karandhara: They will say, "Why? If that's what they deserve, why try to stop it?"
Prabhupāda: No, because he has come here to suffer. You cannot expect in the prison life a very comfortable life. You must suffer. But if somebody goes there, that "Don't commit stealing anymore. Come out and don't come here again," so that is required.
Rūpānuga: Just because a man goes in the prisonhouse doesn't mean his thieving is cured. He will come out a thief unless he is actually rectified.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Yes. Otherwise again he will commit the same thing and again he will come. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). Therefore he requires instruction, good instruction. Sometimes government invites. We were invited that Ahmedabad jail. You remember?
Śrutakīrti: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Oh, there was big meeting of the prisoners. Kīrtana, everything, yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So by lacking the understanding, they say that God is not merciful. The sufferers. People, who are suffering, but by not knowing that it is the mercy of the Lord, we complain that God is not merciful. But he is impartial.
Prabhupāda: No, God is merciful, but this fool does not know because he is ignorant. The same thing, mother says. One child, she is feeding very sumptuously. Other one, "Oh, don't take it. You go away." Does it mean the mother is merciful to one child and not to the other? The child does not know it, he cries, "Why shall I not...? Why I shall not eat? Why I shall not eat?" So these foolish questions will be stopped as soon as one becomes God conscious.
Karandhara: But unless they understand the difference between spirit and matter, they can't accept this logic.
Prabhupāda: Well, foolish men cannot accept any logic. Their logic is stick. "If you don't accept, I shall kick on your face. Accept it." That is the... That is wanted.