Last week the two month old baby of friends of ours died.
He had a heart attack in his fathers arms. There was no lead up to this, no warning, he was a healthy baby, it just happened. The father did CPR and the ambulance people managed to keep him alive long enough to get to hospital. But the baby died several hours later.
A horrible tragedy, but the point of this post is that the father is a fairly lackadaisical Christian but his mother is a full on, happy-clappy, born again fundamental Baptist. She spent all day in the hospital chapel praying for her god to save her child. But he didn't, he let him die.
The loss of a child is a devastating experience and the father is suffering gravely, but the mother has now also lost her god and we're all very worried for her.
It strikes me that if there's one purpose for believing in a god it's to get some comfort from the belief of an afterlife and a purpose but in this case she seems to have lost everything.
Atheists of course know that the vale of tears is all there is and life is both wonderful and ugly for no reason but how believers rationalise god killing his innocent children and ignoring his believer's agony is beyond me. I guess they must try not to think about it too much.
No condolences please, just answers.
Edited by Tangle, .
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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