Book of Acts: Pure Fantasy

[Cyberman]

God does not make people sick necessarily, what actually makes you believe that God makes everyone sick. If you were to contract AIDS does that mean God forced you to have sex with an infected person. How do you know that God has not healed someone of AIDS?

I would concede that someone who has consensual sexual contact with an HIV infected person, or even one with full-blown AIDS, and who then goes on to contract the virus themselves, would have made a voluntary choice with life altering consequences. Were I to be in such a position I would have no alternative but to accept responsibilty for the results of my own actions; though I could blame God (or Satan, or Mickey Mouse) for making me do it - an excuse, by the way, that seems to trip all-too naturally from religious lips on occasion - I would not have any rational justification for doing so. Neither would the excuse be justified were I to share hypodermic needles with other drug dependents.

However, voluntary contact with an infected individual is not the only way to contract the virus. As well as non-consensual contact, including rape, there have also been other innocent people who have ended up infected after blood transfusions or handling infected bodily fluids and tissues. What about children born to HIV infected mothers? According to Avert.org, some 15-30% of such babies will become infected during pregnancy and delivery, while another 5-20% will become infected during breastfeeding. Innocents all - yet if you cannot entertain the idea of 'God' infecting them deliberately for some arcane or even sinister purpose, then 'God' either fails to prevent the infection, fails to care, fails to know and/or understand the problem, or fails to exist.