Effect of renal failure on faith

[stauffenberg]

I wonder how suffering endstage renal failure affects people's religious beliefs or the absence of them?  For me, despite my extensive religious education, by the time I was 12 I decided it was self-contradictory to assert that a world created and governed by an infinitely powerful and infinitely good God could have so much evil in it not obviously traceable to human responsibility, so when I developed renal failure, that seemed to be just one more horror in a world whose only meaning was what humans try to give it.  But I know other apparently rational people who believe firmly in God but try to explain away the evil in the world by various devices, such as retribution for the sin of Adam; Gnosticism; Manicheanism; etc.  Many believers, though, don't seem to take the existence of evil in the world seriously enough as a challenge to their beliefs, and I wonder if having something truly evil happen to them, such as renal failure, shakes them out of their faith?  Or, conversely, does it inspire faith in some people who lacked it before renal failure?  Many believers I know seem to become even more committed to their faith when confronted by a disaster like kidney disease.  What have other people experienced? 

[angela515]

I've always believed in God, or a higher power if you will, and having kidney failure has not changed that.

I believe that our 'spirits' go on to another place when our bodies pass away.

I do not believe the way most people believe... and I do not believe half of the things in 'The Bible' are real things that have happened. I believe it was written to inspire hope, and offer story's of faith and other ideas.

I am a big believer in science, and I like to go off the facts. Fact is, the world wasn't created and man wasn't created the way it was written in 'The Bible', science has proven that.

I guess I am getting off topic some, so let me conclude that my faith has not changed any since becoming sick when I was 12.

[paris]

I agree totally with Angela.   This disease is not different from say,cancer. Not a punishment or a "pox" on me for doing evil in the world.  It just happened.  I may not always agree with organized church, but I need to have a power to go to.  I can live with both science and theology--there were cavemen, that is a fact.  But, I need something more and my disease hasn't changed that fact.

[Adam_W]

I'm pretty much the same way. I don't believe that God is "torturing" me with kidney failure. Everything happens for a reason even if we don't like it, and I don't blame God (or anyone for that matter) for me getting sick. I actually feel my faith has gotten stronger since this happened, and I've learned so much and no longer take life for granted. As for evil in the world, the way I've always looked at it is God created free will, and we are not robots. We can chose to do right, or we can choose to do wrong. I try to do the right thing, but Lord knows I'm not perfect and I'm just as much a sinner as anyone, even though I don't want to do bad things, but I'm human. I have however had some friends who are big into "faith healing" question my faith because I trust my doctors and my dialysis machine. I don't dislike them or anything, but I have tried to explain that trusting medical professionals and treatment doesn't make me any less of a Christian, and I think they look at it a little differently now. I believe God has given those medical professionals the knowledge and wisdom to do what they do.

Adam

[Zach]

I'm pretty much the same way. I don't believe that God is "torturing" me with kidney failure. Everything happens for a reason even if we don't like it, and I don't blame God (or anyone for that matter) for me getting sick. I actually feel my faith has gotten stronger since this happened, and I've learned so much and no longer take life for granted. As for evil in the world, the way I've always looked at it is God created free will, and we are not robots. We can chose to do right, or we can choose to do wrong. I try to do the right thing, but Lord knows I'm not perfect and I'm just as much a sinner as anyone, even though I don't want to do bad things, but I'm human. I have however had some friends who are big into "faith healing" question my faith because I trust my doctors and my dialysis machine. I don't dislike them or anything, but I have tried to explain that trusting medical professionals and treatment doesn't make me any less of a Christian, and I think they look at it a little differently now. I believe God has given those medical professionals the knowledge and wisdom to do what they do.

Adam

Well said.

[George Jung]

Something about this "evil" in the world..... are we talking disease, natural occurrences, or human actions?  Much of the human controlled "evil" throughout the world is not even an "evil" intention.  Religious wars are not of an evil intention, unless the figure of worship in question were to be Lucipher.

"Evil not obviously traceable to human responsibility", right? 

What constitutes evil?  Something someone disagrees with, something they were taught?

Often people say things like "God has a reason for this." 
I am curious as to why an "infinitely good god" would allow disfigured, premature babies, ridden with disease from the time of conception and subjected to a life of suffering (among many other conditions) while giving free will to man who find it immoral to use embryonic stem cells for research to cure said disease.

*if I got off topic I apologize, I think I am confused.....as usual.

[meadowlandsnj]

I wonder how suffering endstage renal failure affects people's religious beliefs or the absence of them?  For me, despite my extensive religious education, by the time I was 12 I decided it was self-contradictory to assert that a world created and governed by an infinitely powerful and infinitely good God could have so much evil in it not obviously traceable to human responsibility, so when I developed renal failure, that seemed to be just one more horror in a world whose only meaning was what humans try to give it.  But I know other apparently rational people who believe firmly in God but try to explain away the evil in the world by various devices, such as retribution for the sin of Adam; Gnosticism; Manicheanism; etc.  Many believers, though, don't seem to take the existence of evil in the world seriously enough as a challenge to their beliefs, and I wonder if having something truly evil happen to them, such as renal failure, shakes them out of their faith?  Or, conversely, does it inspire faith in some people who lacked it before renal failure?  Many believers I know seem to become even more committed to their faith when confronted by a disaster like kidney disease.  What have other people experienced? 

This is a very thought provoking topic and interesting one, IMO. 
Do you think your early extensive religious education played a part in your beliefs now?  I mean if you're taught and drilled as a child very extensively in religion that as you get older religion is a turn-off?  I find that among people I know the ones who have gone to religious schools, had very religious parents and were very into it as children (having no choice in the matter) are very anti-religion now, I know someone who is an athiest he says due to the constant dwelling of religion in his homelife when he was a child.  If you live so regimented and so afraid of "God" as a child of course you're going to rebel when you're older and can develop free thought. 
Anyway, I believe in God but my version of God is probably not what I was taught as a Catholic.  I believe in kindness and being loving to other people, to accept everyone, not to try to get others to believe what you believe in (Go out among my people and convert while in the meantime make them your slaves and exploit them which was done years ago in Africa and all over the world).  I believe in sharing and giving even though you may get nothing back, I don't believe in a man who sits in the luxury of his private little villa and who drinks the best wine and eats the best food while his "flock" are starving and suffering while he's sitting on billions and billions of dollars.  That kinda irks me.  Noit to mention the whole infallible thng..............Uh no.......I'll pass.  And I have to admit the last few months I've been kind of jaded, I don't really pray anymore.  Am I talking to somebody?  Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?  I don't know.   Nobody really knows.  I guess that's where faith comes in. 

Donna

[stauffenberg]

I believe in everything you do, Meadowlandsnj, just without the God part.  For me, the moral obligation owed to human society is sufficient basis for justifying all the attitudes and actions you describe.

Since my father was a fanatical Roman Catholic, and my mother was an equally fanatical Protestant, they compromised by bringing me up in both faiths simultaneously, which meant I hardly had a minute free on weekends without religious instruction or worship of some sort.  What they didn't realize, however, was that the net effect of learning both of these fundamentally opposed systems was to make all relgious belief seem relative and arbitrary, so 1 plus -1 added up to zero.

[Ken Shelmerdine]

I didn't have much faith left to lose. I lost faith in February 1980 after the death of our only child from Cystic Fibrosis aged 4. I think that the two issues of is there a God and is there everlasting life with the thought that one day we'll see our departed loved ones again, are mistakenly linked.

Supposing there's a God but no afterlife. The idea of justice, reason, good and evil are only concepts in human consciousness albeit necessary for the comfort and wellbeing of mankind but nevertheless a human only concept.

There is no evidence in science and the laws of the universe that the notion of good and evil have any part in natural occurrences such as natural disasters and the suffering of innocents.

 I am not an atheist. I do believe in intelligent design of the universe in the sense that some superior intelligence whom we call God set in motion the mechanisms for what we know as evolution, but I find it hard to believe that this God has any kind of spiritual contact with us and that any notion of good and evil is non existant with this being. Therefore as far as the human race is concerned, maybe God is irrelevant.

[stauffenberg]

The view of God as a distant creator who set things going but has not had much to do with things since is often called Deism, and was a popular notion at the end of the 18th century, held by Thomas Jefferson, among others.  There are also many people who describe themselves as Christians who do not believe in an afterlife.  A friend of mine who now holds a leading position in the Church of England said that she felt that talk about people being immortal if they believed in God only meant that they would become, by their faith, members of an historical movement of eternal significance, not that they would actually consciously live themselves after their death.  Interestingly, the idea that the dead person's consciousness continues after death was a main tenet of the Ancient Egyptian religion, which both the first Christians and the early Jews emphatically rejected.

As far as God being necessary to set the universe in motion, philosophers of science now view the whole concept of causality with considerable suspicion and hold it to have only highly limited application to finite, everyday events, but not to cosmic contexts.  Just as there will always be one numer greater than another if you look at pairs or finite groups of numbers, but it is not clear what taking that to the extreme of saying that there is a single greatest number would mean, so too philosophers say that there it makes no sense to say there is a cause of everything, even though cause is a well defined concept for small-scale events.

[Ken Shelmerdine]

. Interestingly, the idea that the dead person's consciousness continues after death was a main tenet of the Ancient Egyptian religion, which both the first Christians and the early Jews emphatically rejected.

Yes that is true. The early christians believed they were living in the last times and spoke of eternal life which implied that the present human condition would soon end in their lifetime, that Christ would return to rule the world and those who believed in him would remain alive eternally. The notion of an afterlife after death is a later invention of the catholic church.

[goofynina]

I'm pretty much the same way. I don't believe that God is "torturing" me with kidney failure. Everything happens for a reason even if we don't like it, and I don't blame God (or anyone for that matter) for me getting sick. I actually feel my faith has gotten stronger since this happened, and I've learned so much and no longer take life for granted. As for evil in the world, the way I've always looked at it is God created free will, and we are not robots. We can chose to do right, or we can choose to do wrong. I try to do the right thing, but Lord knows I'm not perfect and I'm just as much a sinner as anyone, even though I don't want to do bad things, but I'm human. I have however had some friends who are big into "faith healing" question my faith because I trust my doctors and my dialysis machine. I don't dislike them or anything, but I have tried to explain that trusting medical professionals and treatment doesn't make me any less of a Christian, and I think they look at it a little differently now. I believe God has given those medical professionals the knowledge and wisdom to do what they do.

Adam

Couldnt have said it better Adam 

[Stacy Without An E]

My Faith evaporated the first three months on Dialysis because the burning in my arm was so intense.  I was so miserable and haven't spoken to God since.  This isn't a matter of blaming a higher power, but when I was on the day shift I was surrounded by so much misery.  Old women screaming for three hours, "Just let me die!"  One of my Dialysis neighbors Pat not only endured Dialysis but ended up having her insides eaten away by cancer.  She was such a friendly and lively soul and life took her in her 40's.

I ask myself continually, "Where was God?  Where the hell was God when all of this was going on?"

Lately though, I must admit, I am slowly starting to realize that all of the experiences may have happened to teach me a huge lesson about life.  It's also taught me how strong I truly am and that when I undergo adversity, I can overcome.

And maybe that's where the seedlings of Faith begin.

[kitkatz]

I just keep wrapping prayers around rocks and chucking them up to heaven.  I hope God knows I just mean the prayers and not the rocks.  Here goes another one!

[Krowbar]

My family was never religious so even as a child, I didn't believe in God (or Santa or whatever). I always felt religion was just an organized and institutionalized version of superstition. After I started dialysis, it didn't have any effect on my "faith" as I never had it to start with.

[okarol]

I think there's a reason it's called "faith" - it is a leap for some and a given for others.

I believe. Has my faith wavered during Jenna's health challenges? Yes.

I pray for guidance and strength and for my path to be shown.

[Ohio Buckeye]

I'd have to say my faith has gotten stronger.
There has been a lot of sorrow, heartache, pain and but
the Lord has been mighty good to me.  I don't really like where my life is
right now but because of where it is I have seen how the Lord supplies
my every need in most amazing ways.  When these old storm waves crash in
on me He is my anchor.

[keefer51]

I was born into a catholic family. That lasted till i was eleven. When i became ill and was in the hospital the things that happened there i never talk about. It was a catholic hospital. In my early teens i went to a non-denominational church where i became "saved" When i married my first wife we became members of a similar church. When she left me for herion and a junkie, i no longer went. When i married my second wife and was on dialysis we had attended a Methodist church. When she divorced me in another state and claimed i was too sick for her. I no longer went to that church. I had tried to attend several churches since but i have no peace. When i married my third wife who was Pentacosal i got a kick out of their fake rantings. When i came back home and thought about going to a church i thought about my past and decided against it. Dialysis has made me mad. I try and reach out for comfort and like Stacy said that burning is so intense i want and pray for it to go away. But it never does. As i sit now in my little room i have to reflect on God in my life. Sometimes it seems He may help. But most times He doesn't. If he does have a son called Jesus who struggled so hard on a cross for our sins. I want to tell them i would rather go through that then sit in the damn dialysis chair and stare blankly into space. I feel safe where i am now. I don't worry about praying to a God who has no ears. I don't care.

[Rerun]

I'm pretty much the same way. I don't believe that God is "torturing" me with kidney failure. Everything happens for a reason even if we don't like it, and I don't blame God (or anyone for that matter) for me getting sick. I actually feel my faith has gotten stronger since this happened, and I've learned so much and no longer take life for granted. As for evil in the world, the way I've always looked at it is God created free will, and we are not robots. We can chose to do right, or we can choose to do wrong. I try to do the right thing, but Lord knows I'm not perfect and I'm just as much a sinner as anyone, even though I don't want to do bad things, but I'm human. I have however had some friends who are big into "faith healing" question my faith because I trust my doctors and my dialysis machine. I don't dislike them or anything, but I have tried to explain that trusting medical professionals and treatment doesn't make me any less of a Christian, and I think they look at it a little differently now. I believe God has given those medical professionals the knowledge and wisdom to do what they do.

Adam

This is what I believe too.

[jblamb]

I have to say, after reading these replies, that it truly saddens me to see so many people without faith.  I know for a fact I could not have gotten through one day of this without the Lord standing with me and holding my hand.  He has always been a constant with me and has never let me down. Although I know I have let Him down many times.  Don't get me wrong - there were times when I held onto my faith with a fingernail.....especially when I was on dialysis for three days a week times 4 hours each. and my fistula kept clotting up .  The first time they had to do angioplasty they didn't give me anything for pain and it was torture.
But....God doesn't MAKE these things happen.  He created a perfect world ...people messed that up. We are all born in sin and have a free will to make choices. As for 'faith healers' telling people that they don't have enough faith or they would be healed..........poppycock!!!!  That's just not true - nor is it biblical.  I do believe you can be healed if that is what God wants to serve His purpose...however...there may be other reasons known only to God for you to be on dialysis.  Maybe that person next to you needs to talk to you; or needs to hear about Jesus; or etc etc. 
My faith is stronger but I am a very spoiled child of God.  I went from three days/4 hours ea  to two days/2hours each  . I have two churches praying for me all the time and family members also.  I feel God has been healing me slowly over the past three years possibly to teach me patience or perhaps to give hope to others in my situation.  Make no mistake my friends....There IS a God ...and He cares very very much for each of you and wants to support and help you through these times.  But you need to call on Him - He won't intrude were He is not wanted.

God bless you all.

[goofynina]

Well said Jblamb, thank you 

[angela515]

He created a perfect world ...people messed that up.

What do you mean by this statement? Sorry, I don't want to assume it's meaning, and it can be taken a few different ways, so in order to reply correctly I wondered the meaning you intended.

[goofynina]

I believe she means that humans corrupted the world (which we did) 

[stauffenberg]

Obviously pure rationality and common sense would never be able to show how humans were responsible for most of the things which cause misery in the world, whether volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, the bubonic plague, the pituitary gland releasing so-called 'death hormones' which naturally time our cells to die, etc.  Religion has to rely on pure faith to establish that we all somehow inherit the sin that Adam and Eve committed in the Garden of Eden by 'participating in their same metaphysical nature' or some such thing, so that the evils visited on us by apparently non-human fate are in fact really caused not just by our human ancestors but by us in some mystical way.  But since you need faith to believe in such a complex mechanism to relieve God of his responsibility as Creator of the World for all the horrors in it, and you need exactly the same sort of faith to believe in God in the first place, the one story can't help you find your way into the other if you truly stand outside of the whole mythology and demand a logical, common sense route into it.

Interestingly, various United Nations conventions and international treaties affirm that 'Sippenhaftigkeit,' the finding of someone criminally responsible just because of something wrong that their parents or distant ancestors did, is a major violation of human rights which should be punished by international human rights tribunals.  Everyone agrees that this makes perfect sense, but when God violates the same principle, believers don't seem to be bothered by it!  I guess if you buy the metaphysics which identifies all people with Adam and Eve in their sinfulness -- even babies just being born, who haven't yet become sufficiently conscious to be consciously and individually guilty of anything, but who nevertheless suffer from innate and incurable cancer -- then you can find a way to believe in a God who is simultaneously infinitely powerful and good.

[glitter]

while wanting to be respectful of the fact that not everyone has the same beliefs, if I had any belief in God at all by the time my husband was diagnosed with cancer, I surely do not now. Just as surely 'fairness' does not exsist, and justice for all- really only means justice for some. I DO believe in the strength of people who are amazing,
and I beleive that there are some people who care about other people more then some others do.