A man in India sued his parents. A follower of anti-natalism, which teaches that it’s morally wrong for people to procreate because to be born means to suffer, he claimed that his parents had selfishly brought him into the world and were, therefore, obligated to take care of him for the rest of his life.
“I want everyone in India and the world to realize one thing…that they are born without their consent. I want them to understand that they do not owe their parents anything,” he said. “If we are born without our consent, we should be maintained for our life. We should be paid by our parents to live.”
However strange his thinking, there is some logic to it, is there not? None of us asked to be born; none of us chose when or where we were born; we didn’t choose our parents, our genes, our birth gender or our age. We chose very little, if anything at all, of our early life, and much of what was handed to us without out choice affects us long after can start making decisions for ourselves.
And here’s why it’s so important that we understand what the plan of salvation is, and what the plan of, well, “damnation” is as well. Yes, we didn’t ask to be born, especially in a world of sin, suffering and death, which is why, though, Jesus came and died for us, and thus offers us the promise of hope in a new world, one without sin, suffering and death. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).
That’s the plan of salvation.
On the other hand, because we didn’t choose to be born, God says that, Ok, if you don’t want to accept eternal life that I offer you, then basically you can go back to the nothingness out of which you first came. That is, there’s none of this eternal torment in hell nonsense. Instead, yes, things have gone off the rails due to sin, but God promises to make it all right for us. If, however, we don’t want that, and because we didn’t ask to be here in the first place, we are given the choice not to be here, and forever too. “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction” (Philippians 3:18, 19). Destruction, as in going back to the non-existence that we came from. That’s the plan of damnation.
Yes, we didn’t ask to be born. The Lord knows that. But He offers us, through Jesus, the hope of an existence so wonderful that, despite all the hardship now, we will be grateful, eternally grateful, that we had been born.
