How does religion explain birth defects?

[DeistPaladin]

Hell used to be fairly nice. Tartarus was used only for Titan storage, it wasn't until the rise of Christianity they started writing in 'evildoers' subject to torment there. Then there were the Asphodel Meadows or Elysian Fields, no worship required. Not to mention the option for reincarnation. You only had to remember coinage for the Charon, and even if forgotten you weren't left to yourself for eternity, but you did have to wait a century after death for free transport. Ah the good old days...

I understand from the prophet Scott Adams that there is an analog to the Asphodel meadows, a place for the not-good-but-not-bad people. It's called "Heck" and it's run by Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light. He carries around a big spoon and "darns" souls to Heck for a finite period of time. I hear the temperature there is set to uncomfortably warm.

[Minimalist]

Yep...Dilbert's my favorite.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

As I already explained before, there is both good and bad in the world, and if the bad things never happened in our lives, then we're going to be less appreciative about all the good things that we already have. And secondly, the sufferers will get their payment of the good that they deserve in the next life and it's going to be proportional to how much they suffered.

Unless, of course, they were gay or worshipped the wrong religion. I can't help but wonder, of those pictures you've linked earlier, what all religions those individuals ascribed to. I also understand that the quality of life improves dramatically from the benefit of humanity's godless science and not the hope that their lives improve after they're dead.

That's... horrifying.
Birth defects aren't proof or disproof of god's existance. They're disproof of what people regularly call 'god's everlasting/eternal love of humankind.'

I don't believe that God's love is eternal/everlasting/universal either.

But, I believe that His love is greater than His anger because this is what was told by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), in which he said, "When Allah decreed the Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him (the following): 'My mercy prevails over my wrath'" (Hadith Qudsi # 1).

How many genocides (caused direclty by this creator) and lives enshrouded in pain and living torture does it take for a god to prove his love?
That's a massive twist in belief and morality you have to spin in order to allow a murder to prove his love by murdering and torturing his own children.

Then god can go fuck himself.

Whenever you speak evil about God, you're not speaking against Him, but only against yourself, because your own words will come back to you one day (or in the afterlife). Uh oh.

No. What minimalist has done is speak against the guy with a wrench.
If that guy broke Minimalist's legs, it wasn't minimalist's fault.
God holds all the supernatural omnipotence, but it's no less his fault for eternally torturing his own children for misbehaving over a comparatively brief existance on Earth.

It's downright assinine and any being that calls this morality is delusional.

[Minimalist]

I think you need to stop smoking whatever it is you are smoking, Rayaan.

[Lethe]

Whenever you speak evil about God, you're not speaking against Him, but only against yourself, because your own words will come back to you one day (or in the afterlife). Uh oh.

... I had to.

[Skipper]

Adam's sin brought death and all other ills, such as birth defects, into the world. But even people born with defects can accomplish a lot of good.

http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/

Some guy and a woman thousands of years ago got tricked by a talking snake into eating an apple off a tree therefore some poor kid has to be born Harlequin Ichthyosis?! Fuck your sick religion!

[WiiRHim]

How does religion explain birth defects. Well first of all, how does science explain them? Several people have mentioned that science has an explanation, but no one has said what that is. From a religious point of view, the ultimate cause is sin. What happens to something when it is left alone for a long time? It deteriorates. It goes from order, to disorder. That is the second law of thermodynamics if I remember correctly. Before Adam and Eve sinned, there bodies were perfect, made to last forever. However, after they sinned, things started to deteriorate. That is why people no longer live as long as they did back then, our bodies and genes are deteriorating. So it can be seen that the most basic cause is likely the same as what I am assuming the scientific explanation you guys talk about says: that our genes are deteriorating and causing problems. But that doesn't mean that a person's defect is necessarily due to their sin, or their parents sin. In John 9, the Disciples asked Jesus about who's sin had caused a man to be born blind, if it was his, or his parent. Jesus told them that it wasn't because of sin, but so that God's work could be show in his life. Sometime a person's defect may be caused by his or her parents' sin, like a child with a defect from the mother being drunk all the time while she was pregnant, but it isn't always caused by sin in that sense.

A bunch of people have asked how a loving God could allow things like defects and such. Do any of you have children? If you a child, and he or she has a choice to either do the right thing, or do the wrong thing which has consequences, and you let him or her decide, and he or she chooses to do the wrong thing, what do you do? The child knew the consequences for his or her choose, yet he or she choose it. So a good parent would go through with the punishment, so that the child would learn that there really is consequences when he or she is disobedient. It is the same way with God. He has given us free will, the ability for each of us to choose. If we choose to sin, we face the punishment of that sin. Adam and Eve knew they weren't supposed to eat the fruit, yet they did. So they faced the punishment. God disciplines us because he loves us, just like a parent disciplines a child the he or she loves. We don't always know why a child was born with a disfigurement, but that is because we are not God. We can't always understand His ways, because He is greater than us. He made each an every one of us special, and loves us all.

This may be a little off topic, but it fits with what some of you have been talking about. Have you ever though about what if you are wrong? What if there really is a God? If there is really a God, then one day you will stand before Him as He judges you. Do you like to be tortured? Do you like being in pain? Do you like agony? If God is real, and the Bible is correct, that is what you will face, and even worse things in Hell. It isn't something to joke about, it is eterarnal punishment apart from God. And yes, I have thought about what if God isn't real. If He doesn't exist, then I'm not really out anything, because then the point would be to live so that you are the happiest you can be, and the way I am living right now is the happiest I can be, so even if He isn't real I still haven't lost anything.

Sorry if I rambled on a bit, I sometimes start typing and the next thing I know I'm wondering how I got all those pages.

[Lethe]

How does religion explain birth defects. Well first of all, how does science explain them?

This video explains it rather well (though be prepared for snark, it's combating Christian theology in particular):

What happens to something when it is left alone for a long time? It deteriorates. It goes from order, to disorder. That is the second law of thermodynamics if I remember correctly.

This only applies to closed systems.

A bunch of people have asked how a loving God could allow things like defects and such. Do any of you have children? If you a child, and he or she has a choice to either do the right thing, or do the wrong thing which has consequences, and you let him or her decide, and he or she chooses to do the wrong thing, what do you do?

I don't have children, but I do have a dog and she does the 'wrong thing' all the time. I do correct her, distract her, refocus her attention, becoming annoyingly repetitive with her, but I see no need to punish her. If my demands are reasonable and my approach sensible, she will obey, if they are not, then she will not, and I don't begrudge her this. I'm more patient with her than I am with anyone else, because she is the closest thing I do have to a child, and while, especially during early puppy-hood she frustrated me to no end and I occasionally fantasized about beating her over the head with a mallet... I controlled myself, and I have bipolar disorder. Why could God not do so?

Have you ever though about what if you are wrong? What if there really is a God?

Ah, Pascal's wager.

[Loki_999]

Well first of all, how does science explain them?

Is there a facepalm big enough for this statement?

Ok, I suggest you go and learn some basic science. We got the basics in school level biology, although the devil is of course in the detail which you can learn about through some research or taking a higher education course in the appropriate subjects.

My wife has a PhD in Biochemistry and i'm sure she could wax lyrical for hours on this topic.

[Darwinian]

This may be a little off topic, but it fits with what some of you have been talking about. Have you ever though about what if you are wrong? What if there really is a God? If there is really a God, then one day you will stand before Him as He judges you. Do you like to be tortured? Do you like being in pain? Do you like agony? If God is real, and the Bible is correct, that is what you will face, and even worse things in Hell. It isn't something to joke about, it is eterarnal punishment apart from God. And yes, I have thought about what if God isn't real. If He doesn't exist, then I'm not really out anything, because then the point would be to live so that you are the happiest you can be, and the way I am living right now is the happiest I can be, so even if He isn't real I still haven't lost anything.

• But what if you are wrong and the Muslims are right?
  
• But what if both you and the Muslims are wrong and the Jews are right?
  
• Maybe you, the Muslims and the Jews are wrong and the Hindu's have got it nailed!
  
• What if you, the Muslims, the Jews and the Hindus are wrong but the Vikings got it right all those years ago?
  
• What if all the worlds religions both past and present got it wrong and the atheists are right?
  
• What if there really is a God but he despises people who blindly follow religion rather than try to work out how the Universe really works?
  

It seems to me that the only way to even come close to understanding life, the universe and everything is to look at the Cosmos around us and simply ask questions of it. And the best way to do that is to use science, logic and reason with a sense of awe, wonder and fascination and to never get so arrogant as to assume that we have absolute truth and knowledge and that the search for knowledge is over, because that way stagnation lies. And, if there really is an all caring and all loving God then it would seem utterly oxymoronic to imagine that he would cast me into the pits of hell for following a philosophy of wonder and curiosity and a quest for knowledge about his creation and a refusal to simply believe, what on the face of it, seems to be nonsensical ramblings from the worlds religions.

I think that most of us here will agree that if it does transpire that 'The Christians Were Right' then we have all been victims of the cruelest, most wicked and unfunny practical joke ever!