Mentally challenged people

[Polak]

Babies in the womb or newborn have very limited mental faculties, yet they experience God through the safety and comfort of their mother when unborn, and their mother and other loving humans when born.

Yes, just as an atheist experiences God in this life, but doesn’t realise it. Experiencing God in your life because he is there and is the reason you exist, isn’t the same as actually ‘saying yes’ to God. ‘Saying yes’ to God is part of our salvation. Turning our backs on him is a path to damnation.

Are you worried that they’re going to go to Hell because they don’t have a personal experience of God?

Well given that God made them that way and there ain’t much they can do about it, I’d like to think he wouldn’t send them to hell. I just wonder why he made them that way in the first place.

But we trust them to God who is completely just and loves them more than we do.

Well perhaps I’m having a crisis of ‘just trusting in God’s plan’ and people giving me that as their answer isn’t enough to stop me wondering. It seems that whatever bad goes on, we just need to trust God and not question it. I mean, if God gave designed us with the ability to think rationally and use reason, surely he would expect us to be constantly questioning why he allows certain things to happen? It’s in our nature, and God designed our nature.

Creating a human being who is severely mentally disabled and a physical danger to others, is a very strange thing for God to do to someone, particularly if he loves them so much.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Creating a human being who is severely mentally disabled and a physical danger to others,

The vast majority of them are not a “physical danger to others.”

I’m sorry but I need to stop responding on here because it’s hard for me to read the way you’re talking about the mentally challenged - it sounds biased and negative to me.

 

[Polak]

Also, as much as I love hamsters, it’s not appropriate for you to be comparing mentally challenged humans with souls to animals.

I wasn’t comparing them to each other. In that post I was actually going to write ‘in case anyone says it, no, I am not comparing hamsters to mentally ill people’, but I figured it would be obvious to most people.

I’m sorry but I need to stop responding on here because it’s hard for me to read the way you’re talking about the mentally challenged - it sounds biased and negative to me.

It seems to me that you often stop responding to topics, once people start giving points of view you disagree with you. You always site ‘having better things to do’. Fine by me. I’m not being biased against or offensive to mentally handicapped people in any way. I actually feel for them deeply. It saddens me to see what so many of them have to go through.

 

[OddBird]

Yes, just as an atheist experiences God in this life, but doesn’t realise it.

No, it’s not the same. It’s about experiencing joy and a loving presence one maybe (but who knows for sure?) cannot put words or concepts on.

You seem to go from the premise that the “default mode” for mentally challenged people is a kind of atheism, but to me, atheism is just as intellectual as intellectual Christianity.

Why not go from the premise that they are more attuned and sensitive to God’s presence than we are, even if they can’t name, explain or rationalize it – which, from my limited experience, very much seemed to be the case for my uncle?

 

[Polak]

Okay, if you didn’t like the atheist example, how about someone who is spiritual, but not religious? They too often experience joy and love from somewhere. They gave and the splendor of life, but ultimately, don’t believe in God.

I don’t know if it is a prerequisite to believe in God. It seems to be for those of able minds. Perhaps it works a little differently for mentally disabled people? It might work as it does for a baby who is born and dies within days. It also did not get the chance to learn about God, but was put there by God, so perhaps in its own way, already had a relationship with him?

 

[fhansen]

It’s almost like their lives are being sacrificed to see how others deal with them.

And yet they may be well be happier than most of us! In any case there’s nothing necessarily fair about this life-and I believe the principle found in the following verses apply because ultimately God is fair:

“The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Luke 12:47-48

 

[OddBird]

how about someone who is spiritual, but not religious?

I still struggle with that example because that too involves an intellectual position –the way we choose to relate to things which belong to the spiritual realm is often not a given, it has the meaning we choose to invest it with. “Spiritual but not religious” people experience love and joy from a source they choose not to call God, but something else, and interpret accordingly within their own worldview.

I’m not sure at all of how it is for someone for whom meaning is not one of the first categories, and intellect not the primary approach to reality. My uncle seemed to have a very spontaneous and joyful love for something he “felt”, and he learnt to call that something “God”, but I do think the experience came before the name. I often had the feeling he had a kind of “direct line” to heaven, a connection which was much more easy and natural for him that it will probably ever be for me.

 

[Kei]

I have serious doubts about whether severely intellectually disabled people understand the idea of Christianity in any way shape or form.

I don’t intend to imply that they do, but they may have a relationship with God we do not, perhaps cannot, understand.

 

[neophyte]

Why did God put them here?

So that we can serve them in their need. How can we do God’s work, if there’s no work to do? And what better work is there for us to do, than to assist in the repair of the world?

 

[pulchraesamicamea]

I’m highly offended by your post because your post sees disabled people as burdens, not people. I have understood that God has given me a cross to bear, and that even disability is a blessing. I’m in pain every day, but God brings me joy through my disability.

There are some mentally disabled people who are very much happy and enjoying their lives. For example, some developmentally disabled people can be considered savants, who demonstrate extraordinary abilities. Some mentally ill people become psychologists and health workers because they understand what it is like to suffer from mental illness.

I have psychotic depression, a severe form of depression accompanied by psychosis. I also suffer from a degenerative genetic illness. Your statement is exactly what I am afraid of: stigma and the view of society.

As a mentally ill and physically ill person, I am well aware of what others think of me. I have had people yell at my face and said I should be locked up and tortured to death. I had people who said I should be beaten up for all to see. I had people who said I was a degenerate. I actually kept locking myself out of this world because of people like you, who thought that we are burdens. I actually thought I could be violent, and I refused to talk to anyone. So, I stopped socializing and I stayed at home because I thought I was unworthy in the eyes of society.

Please think about how many people you are hurting by perpetuating stigma against the mentally ill. We are mostly just scared of what’s happening, and we are scared of people who hold such views. It causes us to lock ourselves out of this world, never to socialize or to love, or to be loved ever again.

I am a daughter of the Most High Priest, not a burden.

Thank you.

 

[pulchraesamicamea]

Creating a human being who is severely mentally disabled and a physical danger to others, is a very strange thing for God to do to someone, particularly if he loves them so much.

You are automatically assuming that people who are mentally ill are dangerous. I am mentally ill and I have never hurt anyone. If you read studies, violent mentally ill people are less than violent sane people. Your views are not founded on correct statistics. I’m honestly surprised that people still think we are dangerous. No matter how much I try to advocate, I always get answers like these.

Your statement makes me believe that I should be left for dead as a mentally ill person, or be locked up- just like what my abusers told me years ago.

 

[pulchraesamicamea]

I’m not being biased against or offensive to mentally handicapped people in any way. I actually feel for them deeply. It saddens me to see what so many of them have to go through.

If we truly sadden you, you have to stop seeing us as a trap of society and as a burden, and stop seeing us as violent. Your post was enough to make me offended. While I understand where you are coming from, I just want to help you understand that we are not here to cause you harm. We are just people, like you.

 

[Diaconia]

Mentally challenged / disabled persons live like angels among us.

Their very existence reflects the glory and love of Christ our True God.

They should be treated as Abram entertained the angels representing the Trinity.

Our world is graced by their presence,
Deacon Christopher

 

[benjammin]

1. First of all, understanding God doesn’t mean you don’t love him.
2. A life is a life. No if’s ands or buts about it.
3. Even those who are disabled mentally can do lots of things. I’m tired of people thinking they don’t have much to give in their lives. Even very pro life people fall into this ableist trap where they try to make it seem as those who are disabled are poor little victims or innocents. Treat them like people, with dignity.

 

[Anicette]

@Pulchraesamicamea,

I am very shocked by what some people have said to you. It’s awful, very violent, and as you know untrue and undefensible.
I am not sure they had any legal right to speak to someone like that and that it may be punished.

Clearly it traumatizes you and have negatively impacts your life.
If you had not done yet, I may suggest to speak with your psychatric or other therapist.

I am not sure how true, it is, but have heard that disability in general is not see well in South Korea. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I hope I am not becoming offensive. Your last post on the unaccessibility of public transportation in Seoul suggests that the situation can be improoved, anyway.

I don’t think the OP will think of you as dangerous. He was more probably speak of people who have to constantly live or frequently have to spent time in psychiatric hospitals because of their unmageable violent behavior, that may result in crimes.
It’s still probably an unacceptable distinction to make, so I understand your feeling.

 

[Anicette]

A mother of a school friend who also has a son with an intellectual disability, came one day to our classroom to speak with us. She said she was a believer, yet she was shocked when some parents of children with speacial needs, said something like “what have we said to God to deserve that?”. She said we don’t have done anything wrong, of course.

The morality is that disabilities, as well as many things we don’t agree with, happened in our world. he let the world runs is own rules. Why some people are in such a condition they could not speak, moove or need always someone for their basic need? Maybe because of earthly laws, not because God in unloving.

Many reasons can create a disabilty. It can be from conception, but also happen during pregnancy, because of prematurity, during chilbirth and at all ages. Can we say that God can only have create the people with a disability only when it’s genetic?

If yes, it would probably exclude a lot of people that met your description (as far as we know) as “created like that by God”?

For eg, a person can find himself in this tragic situation following a stroke, car accident or at the final stages of a degenerative illness, for eg. Many rational logic can explain how the process of human deterioration happened.
Why did it happened? Is God has wanted the stroke? Did he wants the accident? The Old Testament suggest that God punish people who are desobeying him in this life with many eg. The New Covenant seems to offered a more loving comprehension. God was probably not behind the accident, it has some explanations. He can also try to find some divine explanation and speculate… whe we don’t understand the cause.

 

[Polak]

Some people are still very much misreading what I am saying.

1. I am not asking why God puts mentally disabled people in the world in general. I know there are mentally (and physically) disabled people who are able to make great contributions to society, and even if they didn’t, they can still do a great number of things in life. I am referring to those who can’t do anything and don’t understand anything.
2. No I am not suggesting these people are violent. I am saying that there are cases where violence is part of the illnesses. You even here stories of people who have killed others and it turned out they were mentally ill. This is where I think, why would God create a person who is by default out to harm another living creature, since this is completely against how God wants us to be and against what Jesus taught? I know people who are not mentally ill also harm others, but that is a choice and they choose to do the wrong thing.

 

[BarbTh]

I recall what my Mum used to say to me when a child to my endless wanting to know the why of things: “because why is a crooked letter and you can’t make it straight”.
I don’t know how many hours I spent in my bedroom as a child with pen and paper trying to may Y a straight letter. Somewhere along the line, I have no idea where, I realised that some things are impossible and impossible to explain.
There is so much in our world that is mysterious and we just cannot explain it. We do not understand. I think that mystery does not explain itself until we love and serve God and He begins to reveal Himself - and the whole of life, all that is, reveals itself as a gift of a Loving God…as beauty…but still mystery and -we still cannot explain many things.

Thomas Merton explained his awakening:
On March 18, 1958, Thomas Merton was running errands in downtown Louisville when he had an experience that would change his life and influence countless others. The spot is marked with a historical marker, the only one that I know of in the United States that marks a mystical experience.

Merton described it this way [in his book"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander"]

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

A story (or myth) around St Augustine is that he was walking on a beach trying to work out The Blessed Trinity. An angel appeared to him and told him that he may as well try to count every little grain of sand on every beach in the world.

Incidentally, statistics reveal that there are far more violent people in the so called sane and normal than in mental illness sufferers. In fact, mental illness sufferers are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators. The problem is that “mentally ill person kills…” makes headlines and sells, makes dollars. “Bricklayer kills…” does not.
It is that ignominious stigma constructed of FALSE FACTS re mental illness and mental illness sufferers. The false facts that many people seem to want to hang on to come what may.

Sometimes in the problems life presents before us, we can be like little children trying to make Y a straight letter. If you should feel that your question is not understood, let alone answered, put away your pen and paper because Y just is a crooked letter and that is that.

 

[BarbTh]

It is not at all that some things in life are ugly and/or even evil. It is that I would be spiritually short sighted. And being spiritually short sighted, I cannot see the Permissive Will of God enacted and rejoice, giving thanks. We cannot see and embrace Divine Providence. All of us are spiritually short sighted to some degree or other. We cannot escape this because we are finite and God is Infinite.

Catholic Doctrine of The Active and Permissive Will of God, both under the umbrella of “God’s Will”:
God's Will "The ordaining will of God is also known as the “active” will of God, i.e., God’s plan for the whole of creation as well as each individual. God desires only our good and thus our human perfection. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church provides, “The ultimate purpose of creation is that God ‘who is the creator of all things may at last become ‘all in all,’ thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude’” (no. 294; cf. nos. 290-96).

The permissive will of God refers to that which God allows to happen. For example, God allows sinful behavior, even though He does not desire it. Why does God allow sin? God truly loves us and love necessarily implies freedom. God lovingly allows us to freely choose or reject His will for our lives. When man rejects God’s will, he freely sins. God permits such sin (along with all that is ugly and/or evil) , as a consequence of the freedom He gave man, but He would never ordain such sin. The Catechism addresses the issue of God’s permissive will succinctly:

"Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil , incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it" Catholic Catechism: God’s Active and Permissive Will (Scroll down to God Carries Out His Plan “Divine Providence)”

 

[Anicette]

I understand that you make the difference in your feelings toward disabilities on the basis on severity (“people who can’t do nothing and understand anything”).

the objections I will raised are :
All people have an inherently human dignity and value because they are humans. Made on the image of God.
As a consequence, the Catholic’s view (who is different from some philosophies and utilitarian principles) would think it is offensive and dangerous to separate the people who are valid, or have a disability but still “can make great contributions to society”= it is seeing people’s worth on a economical perspective only.
(a video that circulated some years ago on the social media, was showing a dutch teacher of economy who was calculated how much cost a person with down syndrome to the society per year. And we know these people can do things. We know where these sorts of evil can lead).

I am referring to those who can’t do anything and don’t understand anything.

Every human being who is alive can at least do one thing: live. Some are in coma for a long time.

It’s more likely that the people who you think of can make and understand things. It’s not because they cannot speak an intelligent langage that they cannot communicate their needs, such as confort, disconfort, emotions etc. A baby don’t speak, but you can communicate with him. A person who care for a severely disabled person will learn who to interact with her and understand her needs.

If someone has not the capacity to have a deep intellectual understanding of the world, it’s not necessary that they have an intellectual knowledge of God. It’s not a need for their salvation. They can be baptized, I cannot see why not confirmed, going to mass with their carers etc.

I am saying that there are cases where violence is part of the illnesses

Such as some people on the autistic’s spectrum when they make a crisis. They can harm others people without any evil intentions. And these people can have productive lives.

You even here stories of people who have killed others and it turned out they were mentally ill.

I think you speak of some rare cases, when someone with skizophrenia type of illness have killed someone else.

This is where I think, why would God create a person who is by default out to harm another living creature, since this is completely against how God wants us to be and against what Jesus taught?

It comes again to the old debate. Is God create the illness? And is he creates it only when it’s from conception?
It has its importance because autism is cause that is debated and psychiatric illnesses can appear later in life.

maybe the answer is the same as why there is illnesses? Why young people will die from it, it’s unfair.
because illness are part of our human’s condition.

If someone is done without knowledge, even if it hurt someone else, it cannot be against what Jesus’s taught. He was speaking to people who are able to make decisions, and cure the disabled people.