Christians: You would do anything to prevent your children from severe pain. Why doesn't God do that with his

Question

Don't you try to prevent your kids from having pain even if they don't have faith in you?

Answer 1

First of all, you must remember that God is God and I am not. So, if you want answers from God then you must ask him.

For me, I've learned that my children need some level of pain and suffering in their lives. Without pain, suffering, trial, and error then life doesn't have any boundaries. One finds it difficult to learn about life with the absence of pain and suffering. For example, I watched a PBS article about this young girl who could not feel pain. She easily would break a bone, chew off a finger, or hurt herself and not knowing why. When she was a baby, they had to put her hands in a cast and even sew her eyelids shut because she would scratch and tear at her eyes. If she had felt pain then she would have learned limits to her body. As with life, when we feel pain or suffer we learn about the life and world which we live in.

As a parent, it is my obligation to teach my children about pain and suffering by choices and consequences. If I don't, then they will have an unrealistic view of life. They might also have to deal with more severe pain and suffering consequences later in life if they don't learn it at an early age.

I believe there is more to life than we know and that there is something greater after this life. Somehow and some way, God is allowing pain and suffering as well as the natural consequences of this fallen world to shape us. When injustice happens, however, God grieves too.

Answer 2

They're just going to throw the dogma at you. "God so loved us that He sent His only Son..." Never mind that "God" (as such) could by definition have affected the "Atonement" any way He saw fit - He apparently just happened to feel that sending His own Son to earth to be sacrificed back up to Him was the best possible way to proceed. And, of course, why did humanity need "salvation" in the first place? "Original Sin." Well - clearly! - that "sin" itself was just a setup by God to prepare the way for the comic-tragic farce of the Atonement. Nobody can really "rebel" against an all-powerful, all-knowing God. Satan himself is but God's agent.

The Christian position is pure emotionalism and sentimentality. The idea is to make you feel guilty for Jesus' horrible death. Then you're supposed to say "Wow - THAT'S how much God loved us." All I can say is, if this works on you, then you can be pretty certain you've been brainwashed. Any non-partisan 10-year-old would laugh at the absurdities and cringe at the barbarity of this doctrine.

Sentimentality is also the problem with your question, BTW...applying the human concept of a "father" to "God"...but I assume you're just making a point on the ridiculousness of the dogma.

And once again, that's what I'm doing - criticizing the dogma, not the abstract idea of "God."

Answer 3

Your right. God should prevent all pain....

He should strike dead on the spot anyone who commits a sin that pains another.... except that then he would be accused of being violent, hateful and destructive - so that won't work

He should take away your ability to decide to do harmful things to yourself or others ... except that they he would a dictator creating nothing but robots and puppets - so that won't work.

He should arrange it so that when people do sin, it has no consequences or causes no damage to others ... except then the whole concept of love and hate is gone. Love would not be able to exist if it no more value or reward then hate - so that would not work.

He should take all the people who want to continue living in sin and harming others and lock them away somewhere forever ... except that would be cruel and evil to place people in a hell or something - so He can;t do that.

Or maybe he is smart enough to know how it is all going to work out in the end. Through his omniscience (that means the understanding of everything) he might have weighted all the alternative and found the one with the least harm, hurt and pain, and implemented it. Just maybe he knows what he is doing. And it is only our limited understanding and our being tied to the moment that prevents us from seeing it?

Maybe he is doing the right thing to prevent his children from even worst....

Answer 4

Christian parents are human parents, too. We are no different in that regard. I would die for my son if necessary. (And I am quite sane!)

God loves us more than we know how to love - we are always emotional - God is wise. He knows what's best for our development and our promotion from one level to another.

If He allowed us the freedoms and laxity we allow our children, we would be worse off than we already are. Meaning that we spoil ours; they become 'bratty' and we wonder where they got that 'strange' behavior; why are they mouthing off at me when I am trying to tell them something; why are they not doing their homework but hanging out at the mall with friends; why are they smoking pot; what's wrong with these kids today, we ask!

It's our fault! They want 'brands', we give them although it costs us the gas money. They want to go to a movie on school night when they have an exam the next day and we let them. They want to party all night where drugs are being shared and we don't ask a question, we just let them go.

God set commandments - rules by which we could examine our lifestyles. We choose to go the other way and then ask why me when the anvil falls. He can't do it our way when he knows we are so imperfect and we will fail more times than not. The good 'parent' that He is, says "Not so!"

Answer 5

Why don't WE prevent others having pain?

God doesn't inflict pain. Man does. God isn't going to clean up our messes, what good does that do?

Answer 6

See the thing is its up to us to decide how we want to live our lives and unfortunately there are somethings we do that cause us harm. That is NOT God's fault we made the wrong decision its ours. And there are those who will say "well what about the cancer patient they didn't do anything wrong" but if we took care of our bodies the way we should and didn't have all the pollutants in our enviroment that we purpsoley put there then there would be no cancers, again its NOT God's fault.

Answer 7

Do I want my kid to get hurt? - no.

But the truth is, I am going to encourage my kid to participate in things that will probably lead to injury and pain at some point - I'd like my kid to learn how to walk, to participate in sports, to ride a motorcycle (like the rest of our family does), to play with their friends.

Yeah, my kid is probably going to get hurt, but I think what he/she (still waiting to find out if it's a boy or girl) will gain from these experiences will be worth the pain.

Answer 8

Have you ever heard of the bad seed?
The incorrigible child?
No matter what you do, it will not change the child.
After a while, you just give up.
You see that there will never a change.
You have to turn them over to the reprobate mind.

Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Rom 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Rom 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Answer 9

My response is that he has already demonstrated a willingness to lay down his own life. I am puzzled as to what more you would want...

What he is not willing to do, is to force us against our conscious free will to accept an offering of peace.

Answer 10

According to their beliefs, many children of devout Christians are going straight to hell. But these devout Christians don't care, as long as they themselves can get to heaven.