If God sent your child to Hell.

[Anima]

In response I would like to provide you two excerpts from The Great Divorce:

"You mean, if I were only a mother. But there is no such thing as being only a mother. You exist as Michael's mother only because you first exist as God's creature. That relation is older and closer. No, listen, Pam! He also loves. He also has suffered. He also has waited a long time." "If He loved me He'd let me see my boy. If He loved me why did He take away Michael from me? I wasn't going to say anything about that. But it's pretty hard to forgive, you know." "But He had to take Michael away. Partly for Michael's sake. . . ." "I'm sure I did my best to make Michael happy. I gave up my whole life...." "Human beings can't make one another really happy for long. And secondly, for your sake. He wanted your merely instinctive love for your child (tigresses share that, you know!) to turn into something better. He wanted you to love Michael as He understands love. You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God. Sometimes this conversion can be done while the instinctive love is still gratified. But there was, it seems, no chance of that in your case. The instinct was uncontrolled and fierce and monomaniac. (Ask your daughter, or your husband. Ask your own mother. You haven't once thought of her.) The only remedy was to take away its object. It was a case for surgery. When that first kind of love was thwarted, then there was just a chance that in the loneliness, in the silence, something else might begin to grow." "This is all nonsense-cruel and wicked nonsense. What right have you to say things like that about Mother-love? It is the highest and holiest feeling in human nature." "Pam, Pam-no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods." "My love for Michael would never have gone bad. Not if we'd lived together for millions of years." "You are mistaken. And you must know. Haven't you met-down there-mothers who have their sons with them, in Hell? Does their love make them happy?" "If you mean people like the Guthrie woman and her dreadful Bobby, of course not. I hope you're not suggesting. ... If I had Michael I'd be perfectly happy, even in that town. I wouldn't be always talking about him till everyone hated the sound of his name, which is what Winifred Guthrie does about her brat. I wouldn't quarrel with people for not taking enough notice of him and then be furiously jealous if they did. I wouldn't go about whining and complaining that he wasn't nice to me. Because, of course, he would be nice. Don't you dare to suggest that Michael could ever become like the Guthrie boy. There are some things I won't stand." "What you have seen in the Guthries is what natural affection turns to in the end if it will not be converted." "It's a lie. A wicked, cruel lie. How could anyone love their son more than I did? Haven't I lived only for his memory all these years?" "That was rather a mistake, Pam. In your heart of hearts you know it was." "What was a mistake?" "All that ten years' ritual of grief. Keeping his room exactly as he'd left it: keeping anniversaries: refusing to leave that house though Dick and Muriel were both wretched there." "Of course they didn't care. I know that. I soon learned to expect no real sympathy from them." "You're wrong. No man ever felt his son's death more than Dick. Not many girls loved their brothers better than Muriel. It wasn't against Michael they revolted: it was against you-against having their whole life dominated by the tyranny of the past: and not really even Michael's past, but your past." "You are heartless. Everyone is heartless. The past was all I had." "It was all you chose to have. It was the wrong way to deal with a sorrow. It was Egyptian-like embalming a dead body." "Oh, of course. I'm wrong. Everything I say or do is wrong, according to you." "But of course!" said the Spirit, shining with love and mirth so that my eyes were dazzled. "That's what we all find when we reach this country. We've all been wrong! That's the great joke. There's no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin living." "How dare you laugh about it? Give me my boy. Do you hear? I don't care about all your rules and regulations. I don't believe in a God who keeps mother and son apart. I believe in a God of Love. No one has a right to come between me and my son. Not even God. Tell Him that to His face. I want my boy, and I mean to have him. He is mine, do you understand? Mine, mine, mine, for ever and ever." "He will be, Pam. Everything will be yours. God himself will be yours. But not that way. Nothing can be yours by nature." "What? Not my own son, born out of my own body?" "And where is your own body now? Didn't you know that Nature draws to an end? Look! The sun is coming, over the mountains there: it will be up any moment now." "Michael is mine." "How yours? You didn't make him. Nature made him to grow in your body without your will. Even against your will . . . you sometimes forget that you didn't intend to have a baby then at all. Michael was originally an Accident." "Who told you that?" said the Ghost: and then, recovering itself, "It's a lie. It's not true. And it's no business of yours. I hate your religion and I hate and despise your God. I believe in a God of Love." 

---

The Great Divorce

"And yet . . . and yet ... ," said I to my Teacher, when all the shapes and the singing had passed
some distance away into the forest, "even now I am not quite sure. Is it really tolerable that she
should be untouched by his misery, even his self-made misery?"
"Would ye rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in
their earthly life."
"Well, no. I suppose I don't want that."
"What then?"
"I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to
all the joy of those who are saved."
"Ye see it does not."
"I feel in a way that it ought to."
"That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it."
"What?"
"The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the
universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that
theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven."
"I don't know what I want, Sir."
"Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the
makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can
destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll
accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or
ye'll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe."
"But dare one say-it is horrible to say-that Pity must ever die?"
"Ye must distinguish. The action of Pity will live for ever: but the passion of Pity will not. The
passion of pity, the pity we merely suffer, the ache that draws men to concede what should not be
conceded and to flatter when they should speak truth, the pity that has cheated many a woman out
of her virginity and many a statesman out of his honesty-that will die. It was used as a weapon by
bad men against good ones: their weapon will be broken."
"And what is the other kind-the action?"
"It's a weapon on the other side. It leaps quicker than light from the highest place to the lowest to
bring healing and joy, whatever the cost to itself. It changes darkness into light and evil into good.
But it will not, at the cunning tears of Hell, impose on good the tyranny of evil. Every disease that
submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still
having jaundice, nor make a midden of the world's garden for the sake of some who cannot abide
the smell of roses."

[Drich]

They are not your Children.

Thanks for once again demonstrating that xtians are dumber than ice-cold shit.

And I'd like to thank you for demonstrating that the 'best' Atheism has to offer, on a good day, is a cherry picker who rather than have a discussion, voices his own confirmation bias.

[Iroscato]

Thanks for once again demonstrating that xtians are dumber than ice-cold shit.

And I'd like to thank you for demonstrating that the 'best' Atheism has to offer, on a good day, is a cherry picker who rather than have a discussion, voices his own confirmation bias.

It would help if you stop happily asserting God is psychotic blackmailer who delights in burning non-believers in hell for all eternity. You do yourself no favours

[dahrling]

Thanks for once again demonstrating that xtians are dumber than ice-cold shit.

And I'd like to thank you for demonstrating that the 'best' Atheism has to offer, on a good day, is a cherry picker who rather than have a discussion, voices his own confirmation bias.

"Atheism" is not an organized religion, therefore it cannot have anyone or anything to offer.

Atheism is, according to the Oxford Dictionary, 

"Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. Also, Disregard of duty to God, godlessness (practical atheism)."

[Aroura]

Wow, that's a hell of a wall of text up there.

Quoting a work of fiction from C.S. Lewis, the man who admittedly "smuggled theology" into his work, and didn't even try to write a creatively.  Even his best friend, Tolkien, thought he was a hack writer, and said quite  few uncomplimentary things about his writing.  

What's your point, that a hack writer thought a relationship with god was more important the real, tangible human relationships?  

Yes.  Very convincing.

[Cyberman]

Yep, we'd prefer to hear your thoughts on it rather than have you simply post it without comment. Otherwise as Aroura said we don't have a clue what your point is.

[Losty]

My question is...what would theists think of the God who not only let this happen, but specifically planned it as part of his grand scheme for humanity? How would that effect your love for God and your trust in him? I am extremely curious to know.

Godchild answered that one in a similar discussion some time ago. According to him there's some divine lobotomy or brain amputation in stock for those who go to heaven. They will only have happy feelings and therefore not even remember their child. At least that's what I got from his reply back then.

I spent a lot of time fretting over this as a child. Going to heaven seemed as terrifying as going to hell. 

[rexbeccarox]

Added to which, we'd prefer to hear your thoughts on it rather than have you simply post it without comment.

Not to mention it's against the rules to post copypasta without adding your own thoughts.  It might also go against the 30/30 rule too, but I'll let that part slide.  

Anima, would you care to add something to that massive wall of text so that I don't have to pull my report finger out of my pocket?

[Aroura]

My mother claims I'm ruining heaven for her, so from personal experience, she's blaming ME and not god. I guess my mom never heard of the divine lobotomy theory.

[Faith No More]

That's a popular loophole.  The "I only dehumanize people who dehumanize people" argument.  If you only treat people nice who you decide to treat nice, then people aren't deserving of being treated well based on being a fellow human.  It's people who qualify under your set of rules.  

Of course, you don't view this as being a selfish prick, because it's their fault they aren't meeting your standards of behavior.  How dare they, quite honestly.  It's really kind of neat how we are able to form these crazy rationalizations to make ourselves turn out to be the good guys.

Oh, wow. I lost track of this thread.

The thing is, I'm sure you actually believe in the same principle, but you just draw the line in a different place.  If someone was trying to murder you, would you stick to the golden rule, or would you do what was necessary to survive?  I believe that people should only be given the benefit of the doubt to be treated fairly, but they can forfeit that right with their own behavior.  I  don't buy into the impractical and naive notion that the golden rule applies at all times.  I believe you reap what you sow. Sure, I make my own value judgements about what is and isn't acceptable, just like you would if someone tried to murder you.  The logical consequences of such passiveness is to allow everyone to walk all over you.

Lol at trying to make myself out as the good guy.  Apparently, you know jackshit about me.  It's more like life is too rough and short to put up with other people's bullshit.

---

You only have to impress yourself and if you're trying to justify yourself to others as you've tried unsuccessfully to do with me, you have failed at impressing yourself.

---

And I'd like to thank you for demonstrating that the 'best' Atheism has to offer, on a good day, is a cherry picker who rather than have a discussion, voices his own confirmation bias.

And I'm sure praying for cancer is the best theism has to offer?