IT HAPPENS

Have you ever been to the long term care ward of a hospital? Have you ever been to the oncology floor, particularly the section where they send you to die because there’s nothing left they can do for you? For that matter, have you ever been in the psychiatric ward?

If your answer is no then you need to go. You need to see human suffering up close and personal.

It will shake up your delusions. It will disturb you. If you have half a brain it might even make you question your faith.

Why would you want to do that?

If you think God created the world and everything in it and that it all works according to his plan, then you have to ask why he allows his creation to experience such agony. Why doesn’t he do anything to relieve the suffering? Why doesn’t he answer all the prayers going up for all these miserable people?

Let’s get personal. My mother died in agony, three weeks of internal 3^rd degree burns. My mother in law died a lingering death over an 8 year period in which she could not speak, move, or communicate in any way. My uncle died of throat cancer, you can imagine how ghastly that was. His wife, my aunt, died from Parkinson’s. My cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident along with his pregnant wife. My best friend died of colon cancer, eaten alive to the point he no longer even resembled a human being. Another family member endured schizophrenia, hearing voices that nearly drove him insane. My natural father died from diabetes. My wife has epilepsy and is partially paralyzed. I live in pain.

A couple of handfuls of people in just one small family suffered all that. Multiply that by a billion or two. Some far worse, some not as bad. And yet the religious will continue to insist God has everything under control and it’s all somehow part of his plan. They spent $40,000 in three weeks on my mother alone for pain killers because the agony was too much for her. God did not intervene. He didn’t intervene in any of these examples. Why not? All these people were Christians, God’s own children. I thought a parent would do anything to keep his children from suffering.

I walked away from faith because this is one thing I have never seen anyone of any faith adequately explain.

Don’t tell me it’s because of sin. Jesus cleansed us from all unrighteousness. He removed our sins as far as the East is from the West. Don’t tell me it’s because of Satan. He’s defeated. But it seems to me people somehow think he’s just as omnipotent as God. How can that be? Don’t tell me our light and momentary suffering here is nothing compared to how wonderful it will be after we die. No one has ever come back from the dead and told anyone how wonderful it is. There is no proof of an afterlife.

As long as you’re not up close and personal with anyone suffering like this, you might be able to shrug it off. It will all make sense someday.

But if you have experienced it several times you have to wonder how God created anything that involves so much pain. Personally, if God judges us for what we did during our piddly existence here and then rewards or punishes us eternally for it, I think we should hold him accountable for what he did or didn’t do to ease all that suffering. Assuming he actually exists.

If he doesn’t then there is no plan or reason or explanation. Isn’t that much simpler?

Shit happens.

This entry was posted on 11. July 2008 at 12:42 and is filed under wild guesses, education, emotion, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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