I heard about another horrifying incident just a day ago about a toddler who had been subjected to such incredibly horrifying injuries by its parents that the baby eventually died.  This toddler had been examined by various doctors just prior to death and they hadn't diagnosed that the child had a broken spine or that fingernails had been pulled off its fingers.  How could welfare officers have allowed this child to remain in that home when they had been called there so many times in the 17 months that the baby lived for? 

How could doctors who examined this poor little waif have not known that its spine was broken, not seen the fingers and the damage to the nails?  All of those medical specialists connected with this case should be disbarred immediately and fired from their jobs and they should have the book thrown at them.  The parents should be locked away in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives because we don't have the death penalty.  My heart aches for that darling little child and the horrors of its short life at the hands of the people who created a baby that didn't ask to be born.  Anyone not shedding a tear now has a hard heart indeed. 

When I was young I went to Sunday School.  I believed in God and Jesus and knew some of the Bible stories and believed them.  I prayed at night before I went to sleep.  When I was a teenager I began going to church regularly with my boyfriend and his family and went through confirmation in my church, the Church of England.  I wasn't brought up in a strict religious home but I did have religion in my life and I lived by its rules. 

I was married in the church and my children were all baptized.  However that's where religion in my life ceased, once my children were born and I began to notice things about this world of ours that just didn't sit right with me.  One very important fact of life made me change my direction about religion and it was the big question I always had in my mind and that I voiced to others.  I asked how, if there was a God that loved us all, could he allow little children to suffer like they did and how could he allow good people to suffer and die terrible deaths while those that are the lowest form of life in this world seem to thrive?

Someone always had what they considered a logical answer of course but I knew people who went to church every Sunday, and to confession, and then spent the following week making their families and those around them miserable because of the way they treated them.  I wondered about that too.  How could a week of unkindness towards others, a week of inflicting pain both physically and mentally, just be wiped out because a person went to church and to confession and had his/her sins forgiven by a Priest? 

I decided then that I could never reconcile any of the questions I had and as I couldn't believe in a God who was supposedly so powerful and who supposedly was with us every day of our lives and yet allowed humans to do such cruel and inhumane things, I gave up religion.  The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, was when the Church of England just disappeared and became Anglican.  My religion was gone as far as I was concerned when I heard about the change of name and I wiped my hands of the whole sorry lot.  I saw religion for what it was - just a big business venture, making money out of its followers.

My beliefs are solid that there was/is a creator, definitely not a God.  The world didn't just happen, it was created by forces so immense that the mind can't wrap itself around the possibilities.  And that's my religion.  I don't need to go to a church and pray and hand over money to the church to increase it's property holdings and assets.  I only need to gaze into the night sky, or into the day sky, to know that the creator is around us all day, all night, every day/night of our lives.  I don't need to see a picture of a man (white of course) that is someone's idea of how Jesus looked.  I look to the sky and I see a painting so incredibly beautiful and immense of our universe.  Now that is something to revere.

And so I don't think anymore about why God allows the dreadful things to happen that do happen daily in this world we all live in.  Religion is a fantasy that was created to keep the people in line by putting the fear of God into them.  A controlling agent to try and keep the masses under the thumbs of the controllers.  But then that's just my theory of life and whether anyone else agrees or not doesn't phase me in the slightest. 

I can't solve the dilemma about the abused children.  I just wish that the cause could be taken up in a huge swell around the world and that action, real action that hurts, was taken against those that abuse little people who can't defend themselves.  I see children being abused by teenage mothers frequently on public transport, in shopping centres and just walking in the streets.  I hear the tirade of foul language directed at these poor defenceless children and I know that they don't have much chance at all of ever having what I would regard as a decent life.  I wish I could pick these babies up and take them home and show them love, but I can't of course.  The only thing I can do is turn my back and walk away.  I suppose that's why I care so much for my 4 legged pets because they too are waifs without the love of their mothers.

I blame the Australian Government totally for the number of births to teenage girls.  Our Government gives them thousands of dollars because they have a child.  These children having children don't have enough brains to realise that the money will soon run out but the child will be there for a long time, unless of course they can dump it on someone else (like their parents for instance) and get on with the business of life and spending the money on a good time that was supposed to be spent on the child.

Sad world indeed and yet since the beginning of the human race children have no doubt suffered at the hands of parents and others and I wonder why.  They are gifts given to parents to cherish and love so that they will hopefully grow into adults who will bring their own children into the world and in turn show them love and compassion.  I believe there is no greater asset in life than to love and be loved by your own child.

Imagine - as John Lennon sang all those years ago.  A perfect world of peace loving people, gentle people, people that cared more about life itself than how many assets they could accrue or how much money they could spend on selfish, idle pursuits.  A world without religion.  Religion has been the cause of most if not all the wars in the world since the beginning of time, so how can it be something that humans need?  And children suffer in those wars, those religious wars that this so called loving God seems to support.    

As usual all of the above has come from my thoughts, my feelings, my heart.  I make no apology for how I feel or think or for what I write.  This world we live in supposedly supports freedom of speech and I am a freedom of speech activist.  If anyone reads what I say then it's because they wanted to - another freedom we have.  The Internet is so good because all it takes is the click of a mouse and you have rid yourself of whatever you don't agree with or don't like.

Vena McGrath