Brothers, I am in need of help. I am struggling to deal with the horrors of birth defect/deformity like pic related and video related. I am part of the Orthodox Church, and I am wondering if there is a Church teaching which allows for doctors and families to mercifully let these children die. Wouldn't it be torture and evil to medically keep these people living? Wouldn't we be creating a hell on earth for them?
I haven't struggled with my faith in quite awhile, but seeing videos like this makes me want to cry and makes it hard to rationalize how our God–being so loving and merciful–wants us to keep these things alive.
You only say that because you find them ugly. If they had the exact same disabilities, but they were aesthetically pleasant, you would say nothing about them.
William Cox
Are you a liberal? Those are pretty huge assumptions.
Grayson Gutierrez
I didn’t reference them being ugly at all.
I was addressing the physical and mental deformities which leave them struggling to exist without constant pain and suffering. I’m talking about people who would spend their entire lives struggling to breathe or swallow, but modern medicine keeps them going even though they really don’t have any ability to make a decision for themselves.
A baby is born without eyes or a nose and can barely breathe, but a ventilator in a 10/10 Western hospital can keep them alive. Is it gods will for us to prolong their suffering? Or do we just let them go peacefully?
I don’t care at all how grotesque they look. There are people I know who look like 10/10 super models but live in such sin that they walk around more grotesque than any of these children.
Aiden Sanchez
That is the price of sin, living in a fallen world. And as such, technology comes with it more moral responsibilities because it is in our capacity to make that decision. Ancient people and poor people are not held accountable for the deaths of these individuals because they have no capability to do anything about it.
As much of a blessing as modernity can be, much of it can also be a burden.
Samuel Green
Doesn't matter.
Bentley Torres
Thanks. I'm only more confused.
Asher Jenkins
I know this is just words. But when I stopped having suicidal thoughts back when I was a fedora and then returned to the faith, I said to myself I want to live no matter what. What I and my little sister have (genetic illness) is not grotesque like your picture nor deadly debilitating to the point that would make someone beg for release, but the clock is ticking for us both. I hang onto hope that someday a new medical breakthrough will come. The last time I spoke with my physician last month, she said that the hospital will be getting tools for the procedure that might help with it soon. And the medicine I take daily is delaying and keeping the illness at bay. A lot of people are called by Him to medicine so that they can save those who are ill.
Does not matter if the person in question begs for release or not. If they wish, then renew hope so they will fight alongside the good physicians for their lives. Not just surviving, but living with all the joys and sorrows of it. If they do not, then good; fight alongside those who are doing everything they can to save their lives.
Ryan Edwards
They're part of God's plan, John 9:2-3 says it clearly. We keep them alive because life is precious. If the cost was too high, like millions of USD in a poor country, it would be justified to let them die.
Lucas Ross
Because loving your neighbors means loving all of society equally, and not just the retards.
Adrian Reed
Thank you. This response makes sense to me and it has helped me to better deal with the question in my original post.
I really appreciate your testimony and your story. Thank you. I will pray for your health as well, brother.
Ryan Miller
Thank you for the prayer, brother. It is not life threatening like I said, but it has a rather large impact on quality of life. So, much appreciated.
Logan Watson
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Jeremiah Young
This picture is really disturbing.
John Butler
Wait, so what makes you assume that these people are suffering? People who aren't conscious aren't aware that they're different in any way from anyone else, and they have no idea that most people would consider them to be missing something. You're making a pretty bizarre assumption here.
Kevin Hill
Everything. All ranges of terror and beauty across the board. Everything, the deepest horror and the most tragically beautiful ecstasy exists here. Only here on earth do we see the both of these elements. The battle is fought here on earth.
Isaiah Cook
Suffering is a test of faith. Stop being a humanist faggot.
Mason Gutierrez
But Jesus didn't answer the winnie the pooh question. That doesn't explain all the blind people who exist after Jesus was resurrected. John is pretty clearly asking why people are born blind and Jesus just says "so I could cure him and btw shit sucks after the Rapture."
Jace Edwards
blindness is very different from a braindead vegetable who cannot live without a feeding tube and breathing machine keeping people like that "alive" isn't extending life it's prolonging death
Jose Campbell
Why do you get to make that judgement? There's nothing unethical about keeping the braindead alive, as the braindead do not in fact suffer.
Julian Long
But braindeath is the medical definition of death?
Jordan Butler
It is evil to keep those beings alive.
They are either suffering from penance of past life's sins or possessed by daemons.
Leo Nelson
Is there any way to hide a thread? I think I'm going to have nightmares.
Nathan Ramirez
Pic related Additionally, on OPs, you can press the [-] and it will hide the thread.
Not all of them, since these deformities vary, but most of them wouldn't even have a point to being tested for faith, because how can you judge a human who's either braindead or a vegetable? It's stupid. Because I want to prevent needless suffering? When I take a look at humanism, I don't even think there's a single thing I can agree on. aboundingjoy.com/humanism_chart.htm
Nathan Russell
Leave here and read your Bible you retard, there's no reincarnation. Don't post until you've stopped being a retard.
Carter Ward
Just to clarify to those who'll respond to me, I'm against keeping people alive who are hardly even conscious, not someone with a genetic disease that is able to do many things a Christian do (pray, repent for sins that they recall, be able to take communion for themselves).
Past life's sins? What, since when did reincarnation become a thing in Christianity?
You're making pretty bizarre assumptions by assuming what it's like for them. Wouldn't they be suffering because they're a shell of a human being? Or that they don't even have a conscious?
Would you be ok with your parents keeping you alive for your entire "life" even though your not even concious for a second of your "life"?
What the hell did these deformed people do? Sure this may be just one symptom of our current world, and that it's a sign that we should start to repent, but should we keep them alive for it?
Alexander Roberts
I think what that user means by "past life's sins" is "generational spirits" See embed related
Dylan Turner
If they are hardly even conscious, what does it matter if they are kept alive or not?
Easton Stewart
I don't see how you can't see it cruel, but if you want a cold sounding answer relative to your cold and heartless sounding question, it's a waste of resources and effort to keep a live human doll alive.
Nathaniel Baker
I can't see it as cruel because there is nothing there. I can, however, see it as a massive tumbling block for people who think humans should be "above this" somehow.
So? Are the one paying for it? Am I the one paying for it?
Noah Reed
I dont know about orthodox, but the catholic church actually teaches we are not required to preserve life by extraordinary means. Administering food and water, whatever the method, is considered ordinary means and must always be done, but breathing machines and extreme drug regiments which preserve life are not required. In such a case we may let nature run its course without incurring sin.
We can never kill in this situation by administering lethal doses of drugs or poison, withholding food and water, or any other method of murder.
Hunter Reed
Toilet paper.
I'm not a christian.
Angel Jackson
sin isn't fair. It effects the whole world. Adam and Eve sinned and made all of humanity vunerableto diesease and death. That's not fair, but sin isn't fair. It's not fair for someone to die because they were stabed by another person, but sin isn't fair.
David Reed
artificially prolonging suffering is as grave a sin as outright euthanasia. if it's God's plan for them to pass, why use modern technology to force them to live past their natural life expectancy?
Kayden Russell
That's a funny objection since you yourself opened this thread by assuming what it's like for them. Why would they be? Lower states of consciousness can't comprehend higher states of consciousness and thus can't really desire them. A dog does not envy the consciousness of man, and a man does not envy the consciousness of God. This literally makes suffering impossible. Like, non-conscious entities are completely incapable of experiencing the condition of suffering. The closest they can come to suffering is taking physical damage, but even there they have no minds with which to recognize any suffering from this.
No, I wouldn't, but only in the sense that I would be unable to "be okay" with anything. I'd also be unable to "not be okay" with anything. There's no difference at all to me, so my loved ones may as well follow "Thou shalt not kill" to the best of their ability, since it would be their souls on the line rather than mine.
Landon Green
Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to abort, even late. I would feel better with an earlier abortion though. I do not want to bring someone into this world who has any sort of significant difficulty. But I'd feel guilty as winnie the pooh. Pray for me my brothers.
Yes? I don't know what libtardian paradise you live in but every single first world country has socialized medicine, including the US (unless you're white.)
Nathan Foster
This.
False. The Bible NEVER EVER calsl us to love equally. It calls us to love without interest. To love for the sake of God without expecting anything in return. Equality is clearly crushed in the biblical view, as a man is supposed to provide for his FAMILY FIRST and everyone else can only be secondary to that. even so, we are supposed to love GOD first and before everyone else. Equality is a false god, purge it from your dictionaries.
1 Timothy 5:8 "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."
