Question for atheist parents or prospective parents. [View All]

There have been a few posts from atheists of late regarding humanity suffering from acts of man and conditions of nature.

These posts have set me to thinking about the nature of the world and the fact that any children we create will, inevitably, suffer.

While we usually have the choice/control over wether or not we create another being we often have little or no control over what that being will encounter and experience.

In many respects, I would suggest, the life experience and the degrees of health/ happiness/ pain/ suffering/ joy/ despair….are a crap shoot.
Environment, recourses, parenting, community can all be contributors to positive experience…but there are no certainties or guarantees.
The children we create may experience all manner of natural or man made debilitating or crushing events- disease, disfigurement, mental illness, assault, war, hunger and heart break.
They will suffer, they will experience pain, the ballance between joy/sorrow pleasure/pain cannot be known...they will die.

For the theist bringing a child into the world there are a number of psychological/ spiritual ‘buffer’ beliefs- The child will be guided and protected by a supernatural agency- angels/god. The child can be aided through the intercession of prayer. Whatever happens to the child, be it a lifetime of suffering or early death, there is the afterlife/reincarnation. Whatever the nature or duration of suffering the child the experience is placed in the context of a potential eternity in heaven/paradise.

PLEASE…I’m not putting >any< of the above theist beliefs forward as actualities/realities …they may well all be false.
I’m not interested in arguments from theists or atheists that support or refute these beliefs.

I am content that the beliefs themselves exist and be considered only as psychological buffers in life and in the creation of life.

What I am inviting atheist parents or prospective parents to speak to is the creation of a being in the absence of these psychological buffers/spiritual beliefs.

Does the absence of these buffering beliefs create any intellectual/ethical dilemma, restraint or restriction when considering bringing a child into the world?

Does the certainty of suffering, to one degree or another, for that being disincline you in any way towards considering creating a child?