What parent hasn’t asked themselves just what they will say when asked that most proverbial of all questions? Clearly many recycle answers even they don’t believe. “God has mysterious ways.” That kind of thing. Others of us wonder if perhaps there isn’t a better solution, one approaching intellectual honesty. Thus, the following limerick.
“My Daughter’s Question”
If God is benevolent, why
do all living things have to die?
One day I’ll be asked
such a question, and tasked
to resist all temptation to lie
I’d think you’d be more horrified by the thought of not dying. One of my favorite poems, even if it is atheistic (you may be sure that gods referenced do not actually exist) AND Victorian is The Garden of Proserpine.
Key stanza:
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
The thought of not dying is pure fantasy. I disagree with the idea that life may be prolonged after death through some kind of paradise, or hell, or what have you. If humans live on, it is through the memory of them and their works, ideas, deeds and – yes – atrocities. How do you explain that to a four year-old?
Thanks for the Victorian lyric; I’m not familiar with it. But how do you know that the gods referenced do not exist, if not by the same logic that I know no God exists?
Sorry, I was rather unclear. It was written by Swinburne, who was about as godless as it got. When I said the gods didn’t exist, I meant within the context of the poem. There are no gods in the world of Proserpine.
It’s quite lovely, though obviously I have rather a differing viewpoint.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Proserpine
Swinburne! What a watery, languid death-lyric that is. Thank you.