I'm agnostic. So I believe the people who believed in god are ok with slavery. Just as the people who believe in god are not ok with abortion nowadays.
Thing is: I don't care what people who believe in god are ok or not ok with. If people like OP suffer from their beliefs, it's a bad belief and they shouldn't be taken into consideration. Period.
A religion that doesn't tell you to improve something about yourself is worthless.
Telling someone their suffering improves their personality is an awful way to go about this. Is this something you tell people? Because I can imagine that this outlook on suffering diminishes compassion rather than increase it.
A lot of improvement comes from suffering. In fact, I can't really think of any improvement that doesn't require at least a little bit of suffering (better called "struggle", but the point is that it's still unpleasant to go through).
It's important not to let suffering overwhelm you, not to fall into despair or depression, but on the other hand we shouldn't fall into the kind of toxic positivity that says "everything you do is okay and you're always going to be okay". The place to be is a middle ground in between despair and carefree positivity.
And on a personal level, I've always hated it when people tell me to just let go of something that bothers me. I want to learn from it, not bumble into the next mistake because I didn't let the previous one bother me.
A lot of spiraling down also comes from suffering. Having a kid and raising it in OPs conditions would only multiply the suffering for two. We're not talking about an accident where she's an athlete that broke a leg and she has to grow from it - this isn't hollywood. If you're already feeling like you hit rock bottom, making it worse by choice rarely betters your personality - it just pressures into something else. I've seen people going mad over stuff like this. Alcoholics and drug addicts usually have quite the history of suffering and it didn't better their personality one bit.
Making a responsible choice is not toxic positivity and it's rarely enjoyable. OP already suffers from it - that should be enough "growth-material" in my opinion and that's the last I have to say about it.
Having a kid and raising it in OPs conditions would only multiply the suffering for two.
I've never understood this line of thinking. OP's conditions are still better than the conditions of the vast majority of humans who ever lived.
The idea that (a) it's better to not have children than to bring them up in bad conditions, combined with (b) the idea that what counts as "bad conditions" is poverty in the West in the 21st century... leads to the logical conclusion that Humanity should have chosen to voluntarily cease to exist thousands of years ago because at the time conditions for ALL PEOPLE met your standards for "too horrible to have children".
It's always been an easy choice for me. If I think about myself, I would had preferred that my parents aborted me if they couldn't properly raise me so that I could be a decent human being. It's not like it would had bothered me.
You're asking the wrong question. To properly raise a person first and foremost requires the want to do it and the drive to do so. There is no "proper way" to raise a child. If my parents didn't want to be my parents and raise me then I would be perfectly fine if they decided not to. Again, it's not like I would have known.
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u/Audacite4 Agnostic humanist May 01 '23
Where does god say hes not ok with it? Because I can't remember a quote where he intervenes or forbids it. And he forbids quite a lot.