One-eyed baby in Chennai, India: update (link to "graphic" photos)

Boing Boing ^ | Aug, 10, 2006 | Scott Carney

[Scarchin]

snip - The child was diagnosed with a rare chromosomal disorder, known as cyclopia. She was born with a single eye in the center of her forehead, no nose and her brain fused into a single hemisphere. With such severe deformities, it was a miracle that the girl survived even a few minutes after delivery. Yet now, 11 days later, she has lived significantly longer than other cyclopean cases.-Snip

[Wolfstar]

Sometimes, children like this are brought into the world to change the hearts of the people around them. That is their mission; that is their purpose. And they can do it in a way that is 1000 times more effective than any adult could.

Aside from the fact that there is one glaring inconsistency in the story you posted to me, I'm always struck by the sentiments in your paragraph above, tacked on at the end of the story. It requires belief that:

1. God deliberately lets children be born to experience great suffering immediately at birth and for sometime thereafter just to teach adults a lesson.

2. God values the adults involved more than the child, who gets to live a short, tragic life.

Such a point of view has always struck me as breathtaking in is self-centeredness. "It's all about me. God is trying to teach me a lesson." Magically, the lesson always is one that is supported by the society and culture in which the parents live.

The child is a separate human being. Any God who would use a child in the way you suggest is not a loving God. At least not as I understand what love means.

[Wolfstar]

Perhaps you need to be the one of us whom would have deemed "tragic" to understand where faith truly comes from...

I'm sure you draw comfort from the sentiments expressed in your post to me. As for myself, I saw the above opening paragraph to your post and immediately thought, "Don't lecture me."

[Wolfstar]

Sea, your post is a treasure beyond price. I love that song a lot, and for the very reasons you chose it to send to me. Thank you.

[Wolfstar]

Certainly God allows this to happen, but He doesn't will it to happen. Otherwise, God would will evil.

A few moments ago, I responded to a post to me on this thread in which the person said (paraphrasing) that God lets such children be born to change the hearts of the adults to whom the child is born. In that scenario, God is willfully using an innocent newborn baby to teach living adults a lesson. In other words, God is using cruelty to somehow achieve good.

In your scenario, if someone with the power to change something -- evil, as you call it -- stands by and allows it to happen anyway, that is extraordinarily ugly. Putting it in human terms, supposed I am aware that someone is going to fly a commercial airliner into a plane filled with people just going about their daily lives. By going to the authorities and telling them what I know, I have the power to stop it. But I don't. That makes me not only evil, but culpable.

If I had such knowledge and did not act, even if my motives were to teach other people some kind of presumably worthwhile lesson, I would be responsible for the death, destruction and suffering which resulted.

If I as a mere weak, fallible mortal, am held to a higer standard which requires me to try to prevent such acts, why, then, am I told to hold God to a lesser standard?

[Wolfstar]

That photo is so deeply disturbing on so many levels. I just wish I could be there to hold her and let her know she's not alone. As the Father of a soon-to-be one year-old girl, it breaks my heart to see this.

Yes, that photo is extremely disturbing on many levels. I share your wish to hold her. Just hold her. :(

[Wolfstar]

I was serious that in the end all will be well with this child but that she has a purpose now. What is it? I don't know. Maybe , it is to touch someone's heart at that hospital that seems rather cold.

I know you were serious.

It seems a deeply cruel way to use a child.

[Aquinasfan]

In your scenario, if someone with the power to change something -- evil, as you call it -- stands by and allows it to happen anyway, that is extraordinarily ugly. Putting it in human terms, supposed I am aware that someone is going to fly a commercial airliner into a plane filled with people just going about their daily lives. By going to the authorities and telling them what I know, I have the power to stop it. But I don't. That makes me not only evil, but culpable. If I had such knowledge and did not act, even if my motives were to teach other people some kind of presumably worthwhile lesson, I would be responsible for the death, destruction and suffering which resulted.

True. But we don't occupy the same position as God. God can bring a greater good out of this evil, however difficult it may be for us to imagine. Keep in mind that the purpose of human life is eternal life with God, not a comfortable earthly existence. Heaven is our true home. Physical death, even horrible suffering and death, is nothing in comparison to eternal life with God.

Then why didn't God create us directly for heaven? God gave us free will so that we could love as He does. Without free will, we cannot love. We exercise our freedom in choosing for or against God in this life. We may choose good or evil, heaven or hell. God respects our free will so much that He allows us to choose to spend eternity separated from Him.

When we choose evil in this world, evils result, and people suffer. Yet God uses evil to bring about greater good, like the perfection of saints and the repentence of sinners.

Then why did God create anything at all? This question remains a mystery, ultimately. Yet this question is different from the question regarding God's allowance of evil.

If I as a mere weak, fallible mortal, am held to a higer standard which requires me to try to prevent such acts, why, then, am I told to hold God to a lesser standard?

The first principle of morality is to do good and avoid evil. God only wills good, so His acts do not violate this first principle. And of course, God excels the standard. While we may also, in good conscience, permit evils so that a greater good may come (as when I let my young children suffer the consequences of their poor decisions), God brings about far greater good by permitting evil than we can imagine, the greatest example being His condescending to human form and suffering a torturous death on the Cross for the salvation of mankind.

Again, I highly recommend the link I posted above.

[CindyDawg]

Do you believe God gives us a free will or controls us like puppets? If we have no free will then we aren't responsible for any of our actions, are we? It would be God's fault. If we have a free will then God is going to allow us choices, right? Did the mother take drugs that may cause fetal abnormalities? If so, did God make her take them or did she choose? Instead of God using this little one for His glory, what would you would rather He do with her?

[Wolfstar]

Do you believe God gives us a free will or controls us like puppets?

1. Don't lecture me. It's pointless.

2. The subject of free will is an intersting one, and you won't like my answer. Sure we have free will, but only after...

_ Our genes determine our sex; much of our personality; much of our likes and dislikes; our health at birth and for much of our lives; our race; whether or not we will be attractive; tall; short; and so on. Our genes determine our intelligence; our innate talents; heck, even the fact that we are human instead of some other species.

_ The family and culture into which we are born shapes what we learn; much of what we believe; our world view; whether or not we are loved and nurtured in childhood; whether or not we have material comfort in childhood; whether or not any latent talents we have will be recognized and developed; the opportunities available to us as we reach adulthood, and so on.

After all of that -- the interaction of our genes and our upbringing -- if we do make it to adulthood, then we have a measure of free will. But only a measure, and one that is constrained by all of the above factors.

[CindyDawg]

I'm sorry if you thought that was a lecture. I didn't intend it that way. I find genetics to be quiet fascinating actually. If this was caused from a drug though, genetics wasn't the reason. I was just curious , that if you thought it was cruel for God to use this baby for a good purpose, what you would prefer Him to do with her.

[beyond the sea]

Is there a God who may intend that we see a picture like that, to have a child in such a condition? I doubt it.

I'm sorry................. I die seeing the sad and horrible loneliness of that little girl.

And this silliness by some posters about God's intent is presumptuous and fool hearty.

(jmo)

[Hydroshock]

Prayers sent.

[Wolfstar]

I was just curious , that if you thought it was cruel for God to use this baby for a good purpose, what you would prefer Him to do with her.

The God I want so much to believe in does not use babies. Period.

As for the rest of your question, I reject its premise.

Each life is individual. Each life belongs to the person living it. The God I want to believe in does not create one life merely so it can be used as an object lesson for others. There is no good purpose for that baby's suffering, and I doubt the mostly Hindu population of Inda would think in the same terms you do about God or His "purpose."

As for what I would want God to do, it's irrelevant.

[CindyDawg]

Hey:') I think we have different definitions of "use" I see it as working thru , not abuse. Anyway, I won't keep pestering you about this. I pray that you find the answers you are looking for.

[beyond the sea]

if you thought it was cruel for God to use this baby for a good purpose, what you would prefer Him to do with her

Your "question" is presumptuous and (jmo) very foolish!

****

[TheWriterTX]

Considering the fact that my brother and sister-in-law, who lived through every moment of Eric's life, have read this article many times and never pointed out any "inconsistencies," I would be interested to know just where you thought a true account of my nephew's life was misrepresented?

You honestly don't think that God uses tests and suffering as a means of creating a greater good? Look to Jesus' suffering, look to Moses' suffering, look to countless stories in the old and new Testament. God loved them all, but they all suffered - some of them suffered greatly. God understood completely what we were all going through; He went through it Himself.

Self-centered? Hardly. Self-centered would have prompted me to not care a whit about him; he was going to die soon anyway, so why bother loving him?

I guess it's one of those things a person has to live through to understand.

[skr]

Agreed; hopefully that was only a momentary lull.

[Wolfstar]

I would be interested to know just where you thought a true account of my nephew's life was misrepresented?

I didn't say it was misrepresented. I said there was a glaring inconsistency. Big difference, and it would due for you to pay closer attention to what a person actually says.

The story says:

Linda had been well past her due date, so the doctors induced labor. The delivery was traumatic. Eric was 9 lb. 10 ounces at birth; because of his large size and Linda's forced dilation, the doctors broke his shoulder bone pulling him out. For some 45 minutes, Linda received stitches to stop the hemorrhaging. My usually unflappable brother was externally composed, but I could smell the coppery tinge of confusion and anxiety when I stood close to him.

Almost immediately after being born, Eric began to seizure. The doctors rushed him from the room, several staff members fighting to keep him alive. By the time I got to the hospital, he was in the Neo-Natal ICU, tubes and needles sticking out of his plump baby limbs.

The person writing this story (you?) was at work when mom called with the bad news. The person gets to the hospital after the baby is born and in Neo-Natal ICU. However, the person also speaks of how, "My usually unflappable brother was externally composed, but I could smell the coppery tinge of confusion and anxiety when I stood close to him." This sentence is written in the context of being in the delivery room with the brother. Glaring inconsistency.

You honestly don't think that God uses tests and suffering as a means of creating a greater good?

You demand an answer as though you have a right to one. You don't. You have a right to your beliefs, but no right to impose those beliefs on others.

Lastly, you wrote, "Self-centered? Hardly. Self-centered would have prompted me to not care a whit about him; he was going to die soon anyway, so why bother loving him?"

Once again, you completely misread what I actually wrote. The self-centeredness I was talking about had to do with the notion that: (1) God deliberately lets children be born to experience great suffering immediately at birth and for sometime thereafter just to teach adults a lesson, and (2) God values the adults involved more than the child, who gets to live a short, tragic life.

What that notion says is that the baby has no intrinsic value as a separate human being, and only has value as an object lesson for others who were born before. I reject such notions totally.

[Wolfstar]

Oh, and by the way, in the story of Jesus, He voluntarily was born as a human. He got to grow up and only when he was an adult did he suffer and die on the cross. He did it exercising his free will. There is absolutely NOTHING in the story of Jesus that leads one to believe that God (not the tripartite God of Christianity, nor any other god except Allah, it seems) would use innocent babies in the way people who share your religious point of view believe.

[IIntense]

I appreciate your reply, Scarchin. Again I ask, was this child's condition known before birth? If so, the child would most likely be killed in the womb, in the U.S. (And in many other countries, also).

I'm dragging this out, but there ARE those who abhor abortion no matter what the circumstances.

I admire their position and I will never say they are wrong. But how many of them have "walked the walk"...how many have had to personally face some of these terrible problems? It's easy to talk. SOME may decide their committment was not as strong as they believed it was.

I'm not defending abortion here. I have never had one, nor has anyone in my whole family, including my three grown children. Do you see this baby in India as a "hypothetical example"? What is your view about abortion in this case? I'm really interested to know.