I'm pregnant - hence the question!

[stelleyespan]

If God is all-knowing and all-powerful and created the Universe (as my next door neighbour keep telling me) why are some babies still born?

My scan and blood tests were all good news but I still wonder.

Which god are we referring to?

I don't know. A person I know who had a stillborn baby said maybe it is because 'what kind of place would heaven be without any babies?'

By the way, I am not religious. I don't particularly believe in one almighty god or indeed heaven and hell. I do believe in some sort of afterlife though.

It's all part of the problem of suffering. Why do some kids die of starvation? Why do good people die o f horrible diseases?
The answer I give my kids is that God is sad along side us, but doesn't always intervene because he gives us free choice, and that means sometimes bad things happen. But also sometimes some good can come out of that bad, but being human we can't see the whole big picture.

OK, stream of consciousness here:

I'm not a believer in God as a higher power, but I am a believer in the divine as a presence within and among all of us - a universal connectedness of spirits and souls.

I am drawn to the ancient notion that we are chosen as parents by the spirits of our children, and that every 'life' we have does bring us further along the journey of spiritual evolution. Also that we have a job to do when we come to earth - whether that's to touch another person's life, to help them on their spiritual journey, or to move a little further along our own path.

If that is the case, then a stillborn baby's soul chose his parents knowing that the experience of a stillborn baby would teach them things, and lead them along the paths they've chosen themselves.

This is purely stream of conciousness, and not well-thought out, and certainly not a Christian perspective, but, having been brought up a Christian, I have also questioned why a 'loving' God would treat his 'children' so appallingly.

Would you imagine the furore on here if we said 'AIBU to ask my son to sacrifice his son to prove how much he loves me' or 'AIBU to send my daughter to a fiery hell because she had sex with someone who wasn't her husband?'!

But I am unwilling to live a life believing that there is no more depth to life than what we see, and I just don't believe that life is like that anyway. There is definitely something more - we just don't understand what it is. I'm certain it's not a higher power, but I do believe that our spirits are all connected, and that time and space are immaterial when it comes to the spiritual realm (which quantum physics bears out, although they use different words ).

Spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, and Paganism, explain in a way that really speaks to me horrors such as stillbirth, awful diseases and war - Christianity doesn't.

I like your thoughts on the subject flamingo

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. When I was little my Nans sister told me that babies cannot go to heaven becuase they are born with sin. It scared me then, it scares me now.

What a horrible thing to tell a child

I think unbaptised babies not going to heaven is a core belief of the Catholic Church. Nans sister was Catholic.

The Catholic church no longer teach or believe in this particular doctrine.

Congratulations Stelley!

My thoughts on human suffering? Well, when you look at the world with an atheist viewpoint, human suffering isn't as confusing, it just 'is'. I don't mean that lightly or that an atheist doesn't feel the need to address it, of course they do, but you don't have to square an all loving god who is ignoring human agnony, you don't have to arm yourself with oodles of explanations and justifications.

Also, as an atheist you can't hide behind the fact that it is "gods way" and you know that it is our (human kind) responsibility to fix it.

stelley - your nan told you an incorrect version of a Catholic teaching. Catholicism teaches that unbaptised babies go to a place of beauty and happiness called limbo - they will not see God as they would in heaven but they will be happy forever. In Catholicism if a baptised baby dies it will go straight to heaven to be with God as it has not had time to commit ay sin.

I agree with mummytime about the reasons for suffering.

Princess - even better , the Catholic Church has now officially abandoned the teaching of limbo ( it was never a doctrine, just a widely held belief or more of a guess at what happens to stillborn babies). Now we trust they go straight to heaven

stelley
Christians do believe that God created everything good and wonderful but then sin entered the world and with it death and all the corruption in nature.
We also believe that, thanks to Jesus, this world will come to a pass and we will inherit the new one, such as God always intended it to be. Death no more.

Thanks evening - interesting. I always thought it makes sense that stillborn babies go to Heaven.