What does Dan mean by “handicapped mentally and physically?” It’s a judgement without supporting evidence.
“Their son is in a wheelchair?” Why? For, how long? Who hasn’t sat in one of those things at one time or another? Hospitals like to wheel patients out to the parking lot after inpatient treatment just to avoid legal liability. Maybe he prefers riding to walking. If the child didn’t have legs, Dan forgot to mention it. If you think that’s the case, I think it’s your unsupported assumption.
Further, you are assuming that the parents think they are in " a difficult situation." Perhaps their judgment is different than Dan. Maybe they are “handicapped mentally” and to them their son is a genius. Maybe they value heart over intelligence and think their son is advantaged over the smart soulless people of the world. Parents often have a very different assessment of their children than the rest of the world. Are they suffering? Don’t know. Dan didn’t supply that info.
So I maintain that without info on what the individuals in question think and feel about their situation, we have insufficient info with which to judge. If they are happy, which they may well be, then the all powerful God is praise-worthy from their perspective. Why should your perspective matter while theirs doesn’t?
It was an illustration in which the most important, relevant information was omitted.
I don’t know. Now tell me what is on the mind of the man in the photo. If his own evaluation is irrelevant to you, then where is the moral problem? If subjective states are irrelevant, then all disease processes are merely processes in the natural world. Your own subjective reaction isn’t relevant either. There is no evil. What is your moral judgment but an emotional reaction? What is your emotional reaction but another natural phenomenon. Why do you privilege your emotional reaction over the persons’ whose reactions you claim are irrelevant? Isn’t it just an instance of egocentrism that is common to us all?
If God has all the orthodox Xian attributes including personhood and humans are persons, then what counts is the intersubjectivity between God and the man in the photo. What does the disease process on his face mean to him? If you discount that as meaningless, it follows that your moral reaction is meaningless as well.
That’s certainly not how I read it, to me it sounded like an underhanded insult with no address of the argument. Ok glad we cleared that up.
Of course I can’t answer that question since I don’t have that information, which makes the question a bit of a do you still beat your wife question really, but meh, I suppose even that question is valid sometimes. I’ve never been married incidentally.
