To ask, if you believe in a 'God'/Higher Being, how do you rationalise the death of an innocent child? **Contains graphic content - Thread titled edited by MNHQ**

[DM1209]

Good morning MN. I have been raised within a faith, Sikhism, and for the most part it brings me comfort and inner peace. My faith believes in equality for all mankind, standing up for those that cannot stand up for themselves and in doing good for the world which is why, in our places of worship we offer free hot meals all day to ANYONE that walks through our doors, regardless of their faith, gender, or colour.

Over time though I am finding myself asking 'that' question. If there is a higher power, why does 'it' not stop some senseless acts of evil from happening? I know it's not as clear cut as that and I know life is about balance, you have good and bad. But how do you rationalise this in your head if you follow a faith? And if you don't follow a faith, is it easier to understand the cruelty of mankind?

I know acts and deeds committed are the result of a person and their actions, they are responsible, I get that too....but why? Where is the intervention? Where is that 'angel' or that divine power that steps in?

I've just read about a 22 month old little girl who in her short life was neglected and abused and as a result of which, she died, no was murdered with a massive overdose of codeine.

She was also found with multiple head fractures, rib fractures, broken bones and a split liver. These injuries were consistent with those of a car crash victim. This little baby lay suffering and dying in her bed, over the course of about 4 days, while her 'mother' and her boyfriend played games and spent time on Facebook. I cannot imagine her pain and distress, the confusion in her mind and the acceptance that this was her life. Why? How is this ok if you are 'God'?

When her mother finally called for help, she was already dead and rigor mortis had set in which takes several hours. She was just left. No love, no warmth and no comfort. Then people say 'she's in a better place now.' No she isn't, she's dead and has only know suffering while alive.

Why? Just, why?

I'm not expecting answers as just, I simply cannot understand. Call it a crisis of sorts I suppose.

Agreed with whatisfred
I think God is looking at us/these situations and thinking -how could you let this happen.

I believe that in these moments God is there for us.

There is no existence of time for God. So a short,miserable, poor or sick life is just as precious to Him. He doesn’t measure the value of a life based on health or longevity.

As Catholics we believe God ‘makes better’ terrible Situations. Death,to us, is just a door we walk through to eternal life. And that child and others who suffer can be at peace in heaven.

As Catholics we believe God ‘makes better’ terrible Situations. Death,to us, is just a door we walk through to eternal life. And that child and others who suffer can be at peace in heaven.

Full on Kool-Aid swallow right there

Well, it all depends on what you think "God" actually is. To me, God is the way birds know how to fly in a V, the way flowers are bright colours so they attract the bees, the way humans instinctively know when something is "off" - if I was woo, I'd call it Mother Nature. God has nothing to do with this child's death.

As upsetting as this is, it would be more useful to determine what drove someone to beat a child like this in an attempt to prevent it happening again.

I think he’s talking about everyone who has the audacity to believe that they worship the one actual god out of “history’s endless parade of gods” Yes, you're right SinkGirl He's so caught up in this that he can't move past it to see any further. That religion is man-made, god or the source just is.

musical genius to boot. There's no accounting for taste.

The fact that you think there’s a distinction between the god humans have created and an actual god is a new one on me - could you elaborate? I can understand why you like Tim Minchin.

SweetRosie92
What a fantastic post . Really moved
Me

I am a Christian , but do I believe in god ? Don’t know . I do however believe in the comfort of ritual and of having a moral code . I am not saying that atheists are immoral . But for me having a code to adhere to and a way of treating others is very comforting

Religion gets massively slated in here . But some of the basics tenets of Christianity around forgiveness compassion work for me . And when the grim reaper is a coming having some rituals and beliefs can be enormously comforting and healing

So you can’t elaborate? Thought not.

His criticism is of religion, not God, because he believes god does not exist but religion most certainly does. I’m not sure why you’d criticise an atheist for not bothering themselves with a god that doesn’t exist.

I have a moral code, which is driven by two things.

1. 2000 million years of evolution has given me empathy. I don't do bad things because I'm able to put myself in the other person's shoes, and can imagine how I'd feel if it was done to me.

1. Selfishness. When I do good things I feel good. When I do bad things, I feel bad. And I'd rather feel good than bad.

That's it. The end. No god or higher power, fear of karma, reward of heaven or threat of hell required.

So you can’t elaborate? Thought not. Something other than religion and humans.

yes purplethistles i wasn't taught to believe in God, in fact the opposite, it was a feeling that built as life progressed. I have many, many times of doubt and times of stronger faith. I couldn't rationalize it though, it is for me by definition about the limits of what we know or can know.

I wish I could believe in God because I’m sure it would be very comforting. But like others say, I can’t believe in someone who apparently allows so many tragic, evil things to happen in the world.

If anything, I think religion is often a form of control i.e. if something awful happens to you, it’s just God’s will, even if you don’t understand his reasoning. Put up and shut up, in other words.

The baby suffered and died because people didn’t do the right thing. People, not God. Across generations, in a rangeof

Authorities and positions. When we gat it wrong bad things happen.

Ignore the X anon bit, the original upload was taken down and X anon uploaded it so that's why the link is from this source.
I think you will find this answers many questions in many faiths.

There are universal truths in religion that I completely believe that if all humanity followed them would mean a heaven on earth. We would have no fears. I had a breakdown and lost touch with reality. I really believed I was in hell and had visions for the future . If we all continue getting more and more selfish the future does not look good. If the babies parents had been brought up ideally to believe in them selves and had no fears ( and stayed away from drugs ,why do people turn into addicts ? Because they don't feel good enough) I think there would be no doubt the baby would have thrived. I love these sort of conversations .

@PurpleThistles Their choice to behave so evil is on their heads not God's. He gave us free will

Right but you would do anything to prevent something awful happening to a small child. If you saw a child being abused and didn't call the police/intervene and did nothing and said it was because you don't have the right to affect someone's free will you would sound like an insane monster.

@headinhands As a Christian, I believe that little girl is now safe in heaven, in god's arms, free from any further pain or suffering. God did intervene. He took her away from this world where people choose to behave so evilly.

The question of why God allows suffering is never going to have a clearcut answer. I can only lool at it like this. If people want God to intervene, how and when do they want or expect him to do this? What about self caused suffering, should He intervene then? What if a person that has commited evil acts like murdering an innocent child and is suffering, should He intervene then? It seems to me like He can't really win, because people have very different views on suffering. Lets say God swoops in and takes away the suffering of a heroin addict. There would be as many people against that as there would for it. How could a loving god think that just removing suffering will solve the problem?

I finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom last night, the true story of how she, her sister and father became part of 'underground' during the second world war, sheltering the jewish, until eventually ending up in concentration camps herself. While she prayed for God to ease the suffering of her fellow prisoners, her sister prayed for God to ease the suffering of the guards and other camp officials.

If i was not to have my faith, if i was not to believe in God, Jesus and the Bible, if i was an atheist, then i would have to believe that little girl suffered for all her short life and then died without ever feeling love. I cant believe that anymore than an atheist can believe she is now safe and free from suffering next to God.

if i was an atheist, then i would have to believe that little girl suffered for all her short life and then died without ever feeling love. I cant believe that anymore than an atheist can believe she is now safe and free from suffering next to God.

And that's because you're a good person. I used to feel the same way. Now I think at least they're not suffering and that seems better for me because there's no cognitive dissonance where I'm juggling the idea of a god just sitting back and thinking 'I'll judge him for that later' when that's morally inferior to my doing anything I could to interfere with his free will.

There is no rationalising the death of a baby. Death full stop really. It brings misery here on Earth, anything. I don’t know that it’s fair though to blame a deity for it. We are fragile creatures really. Even those of us lucky enough to live a long, healthy, happy life still are not around long in historical terms. My take is that sometimes, nature lets us down. A baby is born that is simply too sick to live. It is tragic and it is horribly unfair. Sadly, nature isn’t fair. Would a merciful God want this No. Therefore I speak as someone who claims agnosticism but is actually probably an atheist too cowardly to admit it to myself or others. This is my two cents worth anyway.

The baby suffered and died because people didn’t do the right thing. People, not God.

Yet when a baby is cured of cancer, it's not because the medical team did the right thing. It's because of god. He answered the prayers, and performed a miracle.

He gets all the credit, but avoids taking the blame.

It stands to reason that most people would intervene to help a suffering child. As a christian or otherwise.

In terms of God intervening, my own faith, I believe that those that do evil will face gods judgment and will face an eternity of the worst kind...that of seperation from God. Whereas with innocents that suffer and die, whilst we feel grief and tragedy of a life cut short, those innocents are now in the one place where they are safe, loved and beside God. They do not have to live any more life on earth, have any more experiences of suffering. Yes we may feel sadness and anger for a life cut short in such terrible ways, we may suffer from the loss of loved ones in such ways, but when we have faith that loved ones or other innocents have gone to be beside God, we can be comforted.

In Corrie Ten Boom's book, when she loses her beloved father in one of the prison's before being moved to a camp, out of her grief comes the relief to know, really know, because such was her faith, that whilst she was surving in terrible conditions, her father was safe and well, next to God. It gave her strength to keep going.

I'd just like to add that my replies are my own faith and I understand that plenty of people don't share the same view points, I hope i have been careful in my wording to convey that and to not offend anyone. Nor is it my intention to make out I have all the answers. These are the answers I have reached through my own doubt only.

The element I struggle with is the suffering of the innocent and often it's the vermin that seem to go on and live long lives.

If you believe then presumably they will get their reward or just desserts in the after life/in their next life?

@PurpleThistles I'd just like to add that my replies are my own faith and I understand that plenty of people don't share the same view points, I hope i have been careful in my wording to convey that and to not offend anyone

Gosh you're fine, you don't sound offensive at all.

This is why I like to mull over the thoughts that’s the devil/Satan/luicfer is the good guy and god is the bad guy. Plus I’ve seen some pretty good satanic rules that seem much nicer than some stuff in God’s bible.

The best conclusion I've come to (for myself) regarding the 'problem of evil', karma etc. is this:

That we are literally all one and the same 'soul' or 'spirit' or 'source', reincarnating again and again into different lifetimes and ultimately every lifetime.

I had a near death experience when young that showed me directly that not every perspective experiences time as we do right here and now.

From a timeless place, you could reincarnate backward or forward in time and interact with different variations of yourself in different lifetimes.

You could, in fact, reincarnate over and over again until you had lived every lifetime that ever existed.

If this were the case, then it would be true that everything we do unto others, we quite literally do unto ourselves. It would also make true Jesus' sayings of 'what you do to these, the least of your brothers, you do to me'.

In such a 'universe', there isn't really any God at all, certainly not as a separate omnipotent person watching over us, but maybe it exists in the consciousness that is experiencing every life, the consciousness that exists in the timeless place and has knowledge of all lives, the consciousness we return to.

It's all just my slow-brewing theorising over time. For some time I thought I was alone in my thoughts, but I came across a short story that sums it up perfectly (not the author, although wish I was!).

The Egg by Andy Weir