Children

[naomi24]

Last night I had a disturbing dream, which prompts me to ask this question. Why does god allow children to be born with terrible defects? Perhaps 'defects' isn't the right word, but I don't only mean physical and mental disabilities and I can't think of a better definition at the moment, so I do apologise. The point is why would god put someone on this earth with such ugly looks that it would blight their life forever? I knew someone like that - an extremely intelligent man with a good physique, but his face was truly ugly, and his looks made his life utterly miserable. Why would this loving, caring god we're told exists, do that to someone?

[luna-tic]

Obviously no one can ever really know the torment that must engulf such a person's life unless we have the same or similar appearance. But more than anything I think people with the looks you speak of can give us all a lesson about what it is to really be human.
We can see past the disfigurement to the beauty within each person and teach us that with all our everyday petty complexities, we should really cherish everything we have.
Within everyone's life we either choose to take the negative side as you described the man above has or use our time on this planet to do something positive. As I said at the beginning, that's easy for me to say because I am not that way. One extreme example would be John Merrick a.k.a the elephant man.

[naomi24]

Hi Luna, but John Merrick had a disease, didn't he. There was a reason for him to be as he was.

You're absolutely right. We can see past the ugly facade, but many people don't bother to try. In my friend's case, although he was a really nice guy with a great sense of humour, all he seemed to receive was ridicule - and he could never, ever, get a proper girlfriend which was a source of great sadness to him. His life was a daily struggle. I used to go out with him often, just as friends, but when I moved away from the area I didn't see him for several years. Then one day he phoned and said he'd be coming to my area, so I met him for lunch. The change in him was devastating. He had become very bitter and quite hateful, his lovely personality had disappeared, and he was no longer a very nice person - and all because of the face life had dealt him.

Very few people are physically perfect, but cases like this where someone is so very ugly seem so unfair somehow. I just wonder if the god of the bible was real, why he would wish this on anyone?

[luna-tic]

That's a real toughie question but I guess we'll never really know but by some accounts (is there any truth in it) that God's son wasn't supposed to be blessed with good looks and some said he even had a hunchback aswell.
His Dad really had it in for him.

[naomi24]

As it seems he has for everyone in one way or another!

[Lonnie]

As some of you know, my daughter is handicapped, but she's the most beautiful being on this Earth, but at her day centre, there's a chap in a wheelchair, and his whole head is a birthmark, but because he's also mentally handicapped, he just accepts his appearance as normal.

Over the years, I guess i've seen some of the most horrific (born with) disabilities there are.

I'd like to know the answe to your question naomi.

[naomi24]

Hi Lonnie, we had someone in our family who was mentally handicapped, and she was beautiful too - but not at all in a physical sense - so I understand exactly what you're saying.

[WaldoMcFroog]

With regard to physical disabilities, God admits to being responsible for them.

Exodus 4:11
Who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?

Not only that, he also bars them from Heaven:

Leviticus 21:17-23
"Whosoever ... hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. ... Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries."

Truly he is a loving God, who is verrily worthy of our worship. Can see where Mani gets his warped ideas from, can't you..?

[naomi24]

Precisely Waldo. What an obnoxious creature this god is! It beats me how anyone can even like him, let alone worship and obey him.

[naomi24]

PS. We'll probably have the Christians along in a minute (if any of them have the nerve to defend this) telling us that we should believe the bible word for word, but this bit (along with countless other bits) has to be translated differently!

[wizard69]

If the christians come along, it will be with some banal comment about "sin" or the bible doesnt really means what it says, or the scriptures quoted are old testament and dont apply now, blah,blah,blah...

[naomi24]

Par for the course. The bible's only right when it suits them.

[jackthehat]

Apparently he sends us these 'trials' (and I'm with naomi on the difficulties in grasping the correct word) in order to 'test our faith and resolve. And ultimately, we are supposed to come to the conclusion that it is because he has great love for us that he has chosen to test us in this way........

I remember being open-mouthed in the aftermath of the July London bombings by some beardy-weirdy sky-pilot stating that we should take comfort in the carnage because he could see evidence of God's love working in that place and at that time.......

........there really is very little that you can coherently answer to that, isn't there ?

[naomi24]

Apart from they're all stark raving mad!