Show me where I said that. I was responding to someone mischaracterizing the OP. I don't work in medicine and don't stew all day in anger about any religion.
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Atheism and Sick Kids: Personal Experience at a Children’s Hospital
- Thread starter devenger
- Start date
Show me where I said that. I was responding to someone mischaracterizing the OP. I don't work in medicine and don't stew all day in anger about any religion.
They might not be wrong but this hypothetical person is an annoying asshole.
OP
OP
I appreciate the responses. "Get over yourself" is actually what I'm trying to do, so it's not bad advice.
I'm aware the problem is me, and what parents tell their children in pain has never been my issue. I don't think these people are dumb, though I obviously disagree with them. The source of my anger was the almost complete acceptance from family, staff, my professors, and fellow students that this was all part of God's plan. I don't undertsand it, but I'm working on changing my attitude, not anyone elses.
Good luck on your surgery, Echoshifting.
I'm aware the problem is me, and what parents tell their children in pain has never been my issue. I don't think these people are dumb, though I obviously disagree with them. The source of my anger was the almost complete acceptance from family, staff, my professors, and fellow students that this was all part of God's plan. I don't undertsand it, but I'm working on changing my attitude, not anyone elses.
Good luck on your surgery, Echoshifting.
ROFL.
And OP, because this isn't heaven. The world is fucked up and anything goes. If God is real, it's obvious God isn't micromanaging this. Is it messed up? Sure is, but don't hate on someone's post life hope - cause ultimately that's what it is.
See you on the other side.
I guarantee you that people have doubts, they just don't voice them.
(Ignore the wacky avatar in a serious thread, other things are going on)
I appreciate that, thank you. Good luck on your last day in the children's hospital.
My advice is to simply get over yourself and do your job.
Unless you're being forced to also pray with these families, then there's nothing wrong.
Leave people be. Focus on yourself.
Unless you're being forced to also pray with these families, then there's nothing wrong.
Leave people be. Focus on yourself.
Athiesm,agnostic and organized religions arent the only belief systems. Deism is another way of looking and interpreting the reality we live in. Basically its a belief in a larger power based on existance itself ( life the universe,solar system etc. ). I dont believe in religion/prophets/messiahs etc. but I dont believe everything has always just existed either. I like that we dont have all the answers, and dont feel compelled via religion to get all worked up about it.
Except that he totally could be.
If the argument is "What's more likely: Nonexistence or Magical Cloud Jesusland featuring dead family members?" It's pretty obviously the former.
However, if the argument is generalized into "What's more likely: Nothing happens or something happens?" I feel it's extremely disingenuous to still say that there's an obvious logical answer. Like a fetus in the womb, we likely will never have the context to accurately determine what (if anything) comes next before we're already there.
This too. In the event that our existence is the product of some metaphysical being, who knows if that being is even aware of us? When bad things happen in your dreams, it doesn't make you a bad person.
Deism, while pretty much the ONLY belief that actually fits the "you can't prove it's not!" defense, unlike say the YHWH character from the bible, makes even less sense to me in a philosophical way.... you can't believe the universe just is... so let me insert deity in here that always existed and has the power to create the universe, because that is... more reasonable/believable?
But that generalization ISN'T what they or most other religious people believe in. And THAT is what we're arguing, isn't it? Otherwise you're just goal post moving.
Also, it's certainly not true that even in your latter argument the two statements are equally likely. We understand how the brain works and all logical and scientific evidence suggests consciousness, us, essentially, is a byproduct of our complex brains. When our brains die, there is no reason to believe there's anything else, at least not without some evidence to the contrary.
I imagine most of the parents, religious or not, have already gone through the anger, the denial, the the refutation of God that you are going through.
I'm not religious, but if my kid was seriously ill I know I would be cursing and arguing with a god I don't believe in. And I would be telling my kid all the platitudes in the world to give them some kind of peace.
I'm not religious, but if my kid was seriously ill I know I would be cursing and arguing with a god I don't believe in. And I would be telling my kid all the platitudes in the world to give them some kind of peace.
All the respect in the world to you if you're going into pediatrics. I could never do it. I'm extremely over-sensitive when it comes to bad shit happening to kids.
I've always said that doctors and nurses in children cancer wards are some of the greatest people on the planet. The mental strength that that job must take...I'd be in tears constantly.
I've always said that doctors and nurses in children cancer wards are some of the greatest people on the planet. The mental strength that that job must take...I'd be in tears constantly.
I do think you have a lot of self-reflecting to do if your reaction to their coping is anger. What exactly are you angry at? Are you angry that children are suffering in general or are you angry that they're suffering while being told comforting lies?
For me, I dont think of it in religious terms like Diety. I dont know what everything comes from, I simply dont think it just always existed or in the explanations provided by religous mythology.
I won't speak for Op, but to me it's clear he's angry not at the comforting lies told to the kids, but at the adults who seem to believe them, while not questioning the ridiculousness of an all loving, all-knowing, all-powerful deity that lets 4-year-olds die a horrible, painful, debilitating death.
I think that's a perfectly normal emotion to feel, especially for a non believer. It's frustrating. But it's clear that he is not being comfrontational about it. He minds his own business, he's just venting here his frustration.
I'm sorry OP. You are braver than I. I don't think my psyche could survive that kind of horrible situation day in and day out. You're doing god's work... because he can't be arsed to do shit himself, apparently.
Ignore the noise and just be there for those kids and their parents too when you can.
Well firstly, there will likely be innumerable paradigm shifts in our understanding of the mind over the next century, just as there were in the last few. The most brilliant minds of any era are still bound by the limits of science and technology at the time they lived, so we're likely far from the final conclusion on any of this.
Secondly, my argument is not one of knowledge alone, but also the context to interpret that knowledge. This is why I'd compare us to a fetus; we may be surrounded by evidence of metaphysical existence and simply be incapable of assessing or even acknowledging it. It is far from illogical to assume that there are some things which are beyond our comprehension.
I just... don't think anger is a particularly healthy emotion to be experiencing in the midst of someone else's health crisis. I could see if they felt sympathy or condescension toward these adults, but anger feels more deeply personal.
If another person, who you don't even know beyond your professional setting, chooses to believe in an otherwise harmless lie for the purposes of comfort I don't see why that should make you angry.
People are just going to have different cultural backgrounds and worldviews. Religion is going to be a part of that. Sometimes people will appeal to what seems like the improbable to cope with the emotionally impossible.
Yeah, as an atheist it's best to just join in and not upset the status quo in these situations. When my grandpa died he was a devout Catholic.. during communion I took the blessing not the communion as I know it's being respectful.
I often think of the same things you do, how can these people believe so clearly something that about something that's so clearly wrong right in front of them. The picture of the loving Christian god is at odd's with some of the horrible things we see in the world. Yet, it is what it is.
So yeah, accept a blessing, pray with them, give them whatever peace they need to get through the situation.
The thing is, no matter how hard to see this is for you, it pales in comparison to what they are going through with their loved one.
You and me both. Hearing the horror stories would make me want to tear some parents heads off.
Of course, there are things we don't yet know. But it's stupidity to assume they exist without evidence for them. It's one thing to say we don't know what happens when we die... even though we're pretty sure we do know.
Vs saying angels come and take us to heaven to be with our loved ones.
OP
OP
Anger is not the best reaction, I agree. I didn't choose it.
I'm frustrated with the general consensus in my healthcare setting that the suffering is part of god's plan we can't understand, and anyone healthy has been blessed. I'd like to get to a place where this doesn't bother me and I can provide care without internal strife. Or, trying to "get over myself." It's my problem to fix, not anyone else's.
I'm frustrated with the general consensus in my healthcare setting that the suffering is part of god's plan we can't understand, and anyone healthy has been blessed. I'd like to get to a place where this doesn't bother me and I can provide care without internal strife. Or, trying to "get over myself." It's my problem to fix, not anyone else's.
It's not going anywhere soon. I don't agree it's just your problem but they'll certainly never aknowledge it as a problem.
You don't choose it but you can, and it looks like you are, trying to identify the specific emotion (if it's actually anger or something more complicated) and where that emotion comes from.
This is 100% OPs problem to work through. As long as there aren't any workplace violations being done due to religious quackery how is it anyone else's problem?
I understand the OPs perspective from a certain extent. While I do not work in the field, I've been in hospitals enough to feel annoyed about things religious people would do that were extremely inconsiderate to everyone else (IE, having 50 people from your congregation packed into a waiting room which left no space for families with patients in the hospital). I also came to resent how praise always went to God and generally never to the caregivers. God didn't set that PICC line or NG tube. God didn't deliver that baby alive at 1lb, 2oz. God didn't rotate that baby on regular intervals or wash them carefully. God didn't put them under a Bili light to make sure their bilirubin levels were in check. Nurses and doctors did that. Science did that.
We had a 7 week stay in the NICU when my daughter was born and I seriously have no fucking idea how those nurses don't go home and kill themselves after a long enough stretch of what I saw in that place. It was traumatizing.
We had a 7 week stay in the NICU when my daughter was born and I seriously have no fucking idea how those nurses don't go home and kill themselves after a long enough stretch of what I saw in that place. It was traumatizing.
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Being ignorant about a problem doesn't mean the problem isn't there. But i agree the OP will have to deal with it himself since it's the only way.
That people don't realize some of the stuff they say is actually pretty harmful and contra-productive but they'll never realize it because they are brainwashed since childhood.
I work in healthcare as well. One of the most frustrating event I saw was this little 10 year old kid was hit by a car and paralyzed for life. Our department decides to start a donation for him to help with expenses. One of my peers then replies with "this kid is so blessed with God. God is good!" And I'm thinking wtf? This kid is now paralyzed for life and you think God is good because we ourselves set up donations for the kid?
Granted we aren't dealing with the patients nor their parents directly but this logic is frustrating. Parents in that situation are desperate so I get that much.
Granted we aren't dealing with the patients nor their parents directly but this logic is frustrating. Parents in that situation are desperate so I get that much.
So then what don't you get? Their just happy their child is alive despite the really tough road ahead? They still have hope. That's all.
I used to change sharps containers for a living OP, and once my mom fell ill, the sickness of all the patients struck me like a bolt of lightning. I'm an atheist, and had to quit. If others are able to find more comfort through religion - more power to them. I had to go.
Are you sure that's the general consensus of your colleagues? Or is it that a few co-workers say things like: "It's all part of God's plan" or "God has a plan," and others don't voice disagreement because they don't have the desire to get into theological debates at work?
A few times, when bad stuff has happened, a random person here or there has said to me "God has a plan," which is one of the most frustrating, bizarre things a person can say. But I stay quiet, because I don't want to get into it. I don't even want it explained to me, because it'll just annoy me. If someone were listening in on those conversations I had, they might wrongly assume that I was in full support with the "God has a plan" stuff.
It's what others have expressed in this thread. To state God is good when a tragedy just occurred is baffling. Logically, that doesn't make sense to me, but as a coping mechanism then sure just like how I get that eating ice cream can be a coping mechanism or drinking alcohol can be one, etc.
A lot of those family members(or friends) are probably doubting religion/god and wondering why this is happening to their loved ones as well, it's just a coping mechanism.
It's really sad, I admire people that work at hospitals because I assume at some point you're just numb about it and... damn.
It's really sad, I admire people that work at hospitals because I assume at some point you're just numb about it and... damn.
Today 250 children will die of cancer.
Children wasting away in pure agony with a smile on their face proves Christianity transcends the crusades, pedo priests, Benny Hinn, racism, bigotry, and the Republican Party. The hypocrisy of such scenes are blissfully lost when a mother witnesses a father hold his son for the last time. If anyone struggles with such a religious outpouring, keep the moral discourse strictly solemn within this context. Whatever "understanding" you feel you possess, keep it tactful.
God Bless.
Children wasting away in pure agony with a smile on their face proves Christianity transcends the crusades, pedo priests, Benny Hinn, racism, bigotry, and the Republican Party. The hypocrisy of such scenes are blissfully lost when a mother witnesses a father hold his son for the last time. If anyone struggles with such a religious outpouring, keep the moral discourse strictly solemn within this context. Whatever "understanding" you feel you possess, keep it tactful.
God Bless.
Not every dying child finds peace in Christanity or God. Not every smile is thanks to a god.
Some might believe in something else entirely, what is important is that each child has something to believe in.
The thought of a god who is willing to let a child suffer might make it worse for many, let children find their own explanation.
Maybe there is an afterlife, maybe for them they will be reborn, maybe they will be send to a place free of pain. Its entirely up to each child.
As it is for each of us to decide what to believe.
Some might believe in something else entirely, what is important is that each child has something to believe in.
The thought of a god who is willing to let a child suffer might make it worse for many, let children find their own explanation.
Maybe there is an afterlife, maybe for them they will be reborn, maybe they will be send to a place free of pain. Its entirely up to each child.
As it is for each of us to decide what to believe.
I'm atheist in the medical profession as well, OP and have years of experience dealing with families in end of life situations, both those with faith and those without. My advice: whatever gets them through. Until you've been on the other end of the bed, with a dying loved one or sick/dying yourself, I think there's no way to estimate what you'd need in that situation. To me, religion is all mental gymnastics to explain the varying difficulties people have dealing with existence, but speaking as a parent as well, I think the coping mechanisms to deal with a sick/dying child in particular are whatever they need to be to support the person going through it.
Hey OP I have just read your post. Having said that, I see your frustation. Because it seems that there is nothing you can do... and the worst part they bring this almighty Christian God that doesn't do anything to heal these little guys. He nevers shows up to give them a hand. Who would want a God like that right.
In today's social/cultural environment mankinkind has always had this idea that a God can do a little miracle here and there to make your life easier right? They want this God to solve hunger, wars, rape, and so on. There is nothing wrong with that idea, but what if I told you that God allows all that. In case you did not know, there was a time were God did "visit" mankind through certain characters, but even then its chosen people would not want his influence over their life. He provided with food and water (that was the life back then).
Fast forward, his son comes in and tells you that salvation is here because it only comes through him by doing what he teaches you in his parables. He has the most horrible dead and he still loves you and tells his father "forgive them, they do not know what they are doing". His last message while having dinner was something along the lines "love each other as I have loved you"
This is were you come in, based on our on history, we do not want that Christian God in our life, yet he leaves the greastest rule that all must live by.
Make a difference, that guy called God that you judge so much, has left you with an important job at that hospital. Look over people, give them peace, give them your attention, your love, your time, because that will show them a God Exists because there is somone like you that is willing to go the extra mile for someone that is about to die. They will see God in someone like you. And you will see God in them.
Aks that God for the strength to go through this. Since it hard to go alone.
Peace out!
In today's social/cultural environment mankinkind has always had this idea that a God can do a little miracle here and there to make your life easier right? They want this God to solve hunger, wars, rape, and so on. There is nothing wrong with that idea, but what if I told you that God allows all that. In case you did not know, there was a time were God did "visit" mankind through certain characters, but even then its chosen people would not want his influence over their life. He provided with food and water (that was the life back then).
Fast forward, his son comes in and tells you that salvation is here because it only comes through him by doing what he teaches you in his parables. He has the most horrible dead and he still loves you and tells his father "forgive them, they do not know what they are doing". His last message while having dinner was something along the lines "love each other as I have loved you"
This is were you come in, based on our on history, we do not want that Christian God in our life, yet he leaves the greastest rule that all must live by.
Make a difference, that guy called God that you judge so much, has left you with an important job at that hospital. Look over people, give them peace, give them your attention, your love, your time, because that will show them a God Exists because there is somone like you that is willing to go the extra mile for someone that is about to die. They will see God in someone like you. And you will see God in them.
Aks that God for the strength to go through this. Since it hard to go alone.
Peace out!
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My earlier reply might have sounded harsh. For what it's worth, as a Christian, I agree completely with you that this idea of "God has a plan for you, if children suffer and die it is ultimately good and God's will" is morally atrocious, and in my opinion it is a theological absurdity and an error. I have never encountered this view myself, but so many people online complain about it that I'm willing to believe it exists.
First, I assume you are a Christian. I strongly disagree with you that God "allows" suffering. This makes God unworthy of worship. This isn't like the parable of the prodigal son, where the father allows his son to leave with his inheritance and spend it on fleeting things. God is certainly said to permit us to use our free will to isolate ourselves from Him, but nowhere in scriptures or tradition is it even implied that God permits suffering, especially not suffering that is not self-inflicted.
Second, I agree with you that facing adversity pushes us to charity and love. However, I strongly doubt that the OP particularly cares about your talk of God, considering the OP is an atheist. You sound very preachy, which I don't think is what the OP needs right now. The OP most likely lives in a Western country and is obviously surrounded by religious monotheists, I assume Christians. The OP already knows what Christianity is.
You are greatly overestimating children. You would be right if you were talking about adults who were maybe part of a religious tradition but who were not particularly pious and who were essentially forced by their relatives to hear about a bunch of prayers and religious stuff while they were agonizing. However, if a child is raised by religious parents, and is on their death bed, what do you think is going to happen? That they'll have an ontological dilemma about religion and the nature and will of God? No, what they need is to be comforted by the things they already know.
"Let children face their own explanation"... I feel like you don't have to deal with end-of-life stuff very often.
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Yeah I don't understand the praying to God to save someone. If he "saves" them he gets all the credit, if he doesn't then "he needed another angel". Either way, it doesn't seem he can lose.
And wouldn't he have made up his mind already on this person's fate? Do people think they can actively change the mind of God?
I don't know if this could be of help, but please check out this recap about book of Ecclesiastes I was just seeing, it's pretty short:
(Also with cool animation)
A child rarely dies from one minute to another.
And children at the age of 4 are already capable to find their own answers to god and believes. Surely they are often influenced by their relatives believes, but even then they will come to own conclusions.
You dont sit there and say "no god doesnt exist" nor "god will protect you". You return the question "what do you think will await you?" let children paint an own picture and active listen to their view. Ask questions, enchant it. Make it a real place through their own words.
Source: years of experience in child care where children keep finding their own answers to these things.
OP
OP
I live in the South, (US) so yeah most people are Christian here. To the point where they assume other people are and often just start talking about God. I nod and smile in these situations.
We met with the hospital chaplain, 1 of 12, so the religion is institutionalized. As someone pointed out before, that's not surprising or even offensive; Christians do have a long history of being involved in hospitals and helping people. This hospital has several people there just for prayer and support. And they help religious people so more power to them.
As noted, I'll pray with people if it helps. I have no desire to argue with anyone. The unhealthy response of anger comes from the large number of people who see a 5 yr old in incredible pain and say "the family is blessed to have this time with her" or "we can't see His plan." But my own personal agitation with this is again, my problem to solve.
Thats what I'm doing here, reading many takes and trying to adjust my attitude.
We met with the hospital chaplain, 1 of 12, so the religion is institutionalized. As someone pointed out before, that's not surprising or even offensive; Christians do have a long history of being involved in hospitals and helping people. This hospital has several people there just for prayer and support. And they help religious people so more power to them.
As noted, I'll pray with people if it helps. I have no desire to argue with anyone. The unhealthy response of anger comes from the large number of people who see a 5 yr old in incredible pain and say "the family is blessed to have this time with her" or "we can't see His plan." But my own personal agitation with this is again, my problem to solve.
Thats what I'm doing here, reading many takes and trying to adjust my attitude.
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