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Aswad -> RE: Now God intended rape to happen. (10/24/2012 4:35:06 PM)
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ORIGINAL: LillyBoPeep
Honestly, that was one of the things that started me to lean away from Christianity. Predestination [...]
... isn't part of all Christian theologies.
In fact, I'd hardly encountered the idea until I started reading about American fundamentalism.
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You can explain anything with "the lord works in mysterious ways."
Or you can explain this with my sig-line. That God doesn't decide that Bob will rape Alice. Bob does that. If God does decide something, it is that Alice would make a great mother. Not that I'm saying that's the case, just that it seems a more reasonable interpretation. And, just to have that out of the way, since everything about predestination is entirely redundant, we can leave predestination out of any debate, pretty much. Assuming we have free will, we should leave predestination out of any debate (don't ask; huge detour).
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And that's part of the reason why so many of them defend not offering abortion even in the case of rape.
More likely it's for the same reason they forced the Romans to abolish infanticide.
You do know we would probably still be practicing infanticide in the West if the early Christians hadn't consistently risked crucifixion to put a stop to that custom, right? To some people, actively killing children of any age is wrong. To others, it's okay sometimes. I think it's okay sometimes. The Bible agrees on that point, indeed calls for it in some cases. But all the idiots and fundies are rarely good at dealing with nuances and details and complexities. If people want simple, they will find simple, or make it, whatever their denomination (or lack thereof).
Just have a look at some of the replies in this thread.
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It doesn't mean they accept rape as a "good" thing - it means they see it as something awful that God allowed because the outcome would somehow be worth it that person, or for everyone.
Or they see the pregnancy as something good which happened during horrible circumstances.
Like the love that blossomed in the midst of horrific conditions, back in the First Gulf War, in the Norwegian medical detachment. When even hardy veterans fainted during their visits, from seeing the suffering being dealt with by people that were supposed to only handle cases of stomach flu and the like. When the chef had to grab the mechanic's tools to help out with all the amputations in the surgical ward cause entire families were coming in with mine injuries by the truckload and napalm was used to incinerate the bodies to stop the wild dogs from digging up the whole area to eat the bodyparts. People forged strong bonds in the midst of that, some of them still married.
Every cloud has a silver lining, optimists say, and perhaps some Christians think a child might be the silver lining to a very dark storm cloud. There's enough things one can lay at God's feet if one is so inclined, but it seems to me the actions of men and women are not among those things. If one wishes to regard the child as a curse, and lay its conception at God's feet, then that's different. But let's face it: the child is innocent, unless you're part of the Original Sin crowd. It is not a curse. The rape is a curse, and it's one that isn't over quickly, but ultimately that curse is the work of a human. The child is just incidental.
Sometimes, a mother cannot bear the burden that a child conceived in rape can be, in which case the same curse is allowed to spill over to the child. That's okay: we're only human. Some will not be strong enough to bear their burdens in life and have to shed those burdens, and that's okay, even though it carries a cost for others. We all stumble, fall and get back up. We do cruel things, like killing children or raping our fellow citizens. Some reasons are good enough, others are not. But sometimes it is okay to kill. When that's what we need to do, we'll inevitably do it, one way or the other.
A child has no claim to life or love, even if innocent.
Some Christians may disagree with that. They will find little to no backing in the Bible for their objections. Indeed, the Bible states quite clearly that humans are fallible and often not strong enough to shoulder the burdens their lives present them with, and that we should forgive a person that is overcome by events, to say nothing of reaching out to them to help them carry the load if we can (another point the fundies tend to miss completely). I don't think many people are going to argue that abortion isn't a sad thing. But sometimes, it's a necessary thing, and we can allow it so long as we don't get all socialistic about women's bodies.
Even though my thoughts on these things are extremely superficial, it seems the gold standard is not to think at all, sadly, regardless of denomination (or lack thereof).
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Trials and tribulations, Job, etc etc etc - there's the thought that we all have these horrible struggles, but for some reason at the end.
Psychological studies indicate the Fair World Hypothesis is overall beneficial to those that subscribe to it, although it can be detrimental to those that are already on the losing side of the evolutionary arms race or who have had an overdose of bad luck. Evolutionary theories point at adversity as a source of strength through selection pressures. Child rearing theories emphasise imparting coping skills and not shielding one's offspring from all adversity. In short, it is pretty much beneficial to humanity if us individual humans are exposed to such pressures as will break just enough of us to keep the whole moving toward something better. If we stick together- as a certain guy said we should, some millenia ago- then we can overcome and pull most of us along, minimizing the cost of attaining excellence.
Incidentally, Job is numbered among the best texts humanity has produced, and one of the harder mysteries to unwrap.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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