Suffering Is A Gift From God.

From Reflections of a Paralytic:

Suffering as a Gift from God

This is an excellent article from Steve Pokorny at Catholic Exchange. A bit of an intro:

Throughout human history, since Adam and Eve, there has been the temptation to want to take the powers of life into our own hands. There is the insidious idea that is floated through our fallible minds that if we manipulate things to our liking, then things will just go better. Or so we think.

Take the issue of euthanasia that is ramping up its exposure. From a recent Discovery Institute article entitled “Suicide Radicalism Surges in America,” we read that “Doctor” Philip Nischke of Australia “has brought his suicide seminar to California and Washington State, where he taught all comers how they can make themselves dead.” His logic (albeit misguided) leads him to “if we each own our bodies, he says, and if self-termination is an acceptable answer to human suffering, then assisted suicide shouldn’t be restricted to limited “subgroups” such as the terminally ill.”

“Dr. Phil” would be correct if our bodies were merely an instrument, something that is separate from ourselves. Yet this is the same trouble that dear fellow Descartes got himself into.

I don’t want to give too much away here – read the whole thing!

When we suffer, we work to find reasons why. Simply saying that life is suffering is not enough. The fear of death and pain demand that we find reason, justification. If we decide that we are not responsible for our lives, we can pass the responsibility to God. It's easy. He won't give you more than you can handle. You must learn from your pain. Suffering is God's punishment for your sins (as was Christ's) and your blessing.

Yet, not everyone believes this. Our society is pluralistic, of many races, genders, sexualities, income brackets, faiths, and ideas. Assigning our laws to reflect only one of these is discrimination against all others. If democracy can only exist when church and state are separate, the above advocates for a theocracy. And we all know how theocracies work out, right?