40-Year-Old-Atheist has a son with Type I Diabetes. Recently, he went to a conference for families dealing with the same issue and he encountered a lot of religious families.
That set him apart:
I do not ask “Why him?”. Not ever.
But that very question was asked (or at least implied) by several people over the course of the day. It started with the Keynote speaker who frequently invoked God in trying to give comfort to us. “God has a plan” he’d say. “Your child’s diabetes is God’s way of strengthening your character” he’d say.
40-Year-Old-Atheist knows why his son has diabetes. It may not be as comforting as thinking a god has some special plan in motion, but at least it’s honest:
“The reason our sons have diabetes is that one in four hundred children get diabetes and, unfortunately, our children drew the short stick in the statistical lottery. Our sons becoming diabetic is no different from the fact that one in eight women get breast cancer, or that one in four men are bald by the time they are 30. There is no ‘why me?’ to these statistics –- they simply describe the fact that shit happens in predictable frequencies within the population.”
I know being on the short end of the stick isn’t the greatest feeling ever. But sometimes, that works in our favor, too. (We’re alive, aren’t we?)
I find it discomforting, anyway, to think a god’s special plan for me or my family involves our health or physical well-being not being as good as it should be.