As the efforts to create an American healthcare system wither away to dust, the healthcare crisis has arrived on my front doorstep. My family has “excellent coverage” because my wife is a physical therapist with a major hospital. Nevertheless, my 23 year-old son, who seriously injured his back six months ago, has been repeatedly denied requests for treatment for various “technical reasons” created by policy changes wrought in negotiations between my wife’s employer and the insurer. Despite the pain my son has been living with for six very long months, he managed to tough-out his last semester in college and graduate. Now he is living at home because, under the terms of our health coverage, he cannot obtain treatment in another community. He finally succeeded in getting an MRI a few weeks ago and now has an appointment to see an “approved” local specialist this coming Monday.
At age 24, my son will become ineligible to participate in my wife’s coverage, and as we all know, his finding a job with coverage is not going to be easy in the current economic climate. As a family, we are now confronted with the prospect of getting him insured, and the added cost will not be trivial. Since he now has history of a pre-existing back injury, I can only guess that insuring him will cost more.
Why do we as a people, chose to live this way? Isn’t it enough that, as human beings, we must deal with injury and illness itself? Why do we condemn ourselves to living in perpetual fear? In matters of human consequence, we are fast becoming one of the poorest nations on earth.
Being human beings brings no particular gravity to our illness or injury from that of other living creatures. Cows, birds, dogs, fish and insects get injured and sick. Human life is of equal relevance to other life. Who cares about your kid except you? I certainly shouldn’t. And why do you care about him? He has no purpose and neither do you Marc. Is this not clear?
You think intelligent design of the universe is a bad idea, so fine, get comfortable with your meaninglessness.
Really, the above blog is heaped with implications that we ought in some way be concerned about something (something related to your plight or your kid’s plight): concerned about what? The “way?” “we?” “choose?” to “live?”
I like your blog Marc and I like you and I care about mankind and our plight, all because I believe in intelligent design, and specifically God and Jesus Christ of the Old and New Testaments.
I care about your kid’s back Marc because of my belief in God and human beings being created in His image. I care about you because I love you and I love you because He loves you and He asked me to love others.
Rule out God, and I don’t see why I would care or why you would care.
Chaos believers tend to adopt arbitrary quantities of human values and hold them important and even propose that others ought espouse that quantity of value, which does not follow from the premise of chaos.
Do you believe chaos is the origin of all things Marc?
In one of the bleakest world views I have ever encountered you (Gertifity) surmise, “Rule out God, and I don’t see why I would care or why you world care”.
Why does caring about others and for others require a belief in God? Isn’t it enough to know that I experience in life, feelings of joy, pain, love, fear, etc, and that I believe that others experience those feelings as I do? The joy and love experienced by others increases my joy and love. The pain and fear of others increases my pain and fear.
My belief or disbelief in God has nothing to do with my belief that others experience life as I do, and that my experience is connected to their experience.
The gist is the same.
If God does exist, then our empathy with others must be part of his or her design, so we should stop worrying about God, who doesn’t need our help, and start worrying about each other.