Cray Z. Mann has invented a poison. It will cause all pregnant women to miscarry and he intends to put it in the water supply of every city in the US, one by one. Why? Because he believes that he would be guaranteeing that every one of those embryos and fetuses would then be guaranteed Heaven. They would never have had the opportunity to sin and Cray believes if you don’t sin, you go to Heaven.
Now, Cray thinks that killing them all is a sin, but he’s willing to go to Hell in order to save all of these kids. He doesn’t want to go to Hell, but he thinks it’s worth it. You can’t convince him he’s wrong just by saying it’s a sin. He knows that. He also thinks he will be a mass murderer and he’s sad about that but still determined. The only argument that might sway him is a theological one–something that says that his plan actually wouldn’t work.
Can anyone convince Cray Z. Mann that his plan is theologically–not morally, legally, or ethically, but theologically–flawed? Use your own tradition’s theology, or your best approximation.
Don’t babies need to be baptised to get into heaven? I’m no expert but if they’re not baptised…well, I’m not entirely sure what happens but I don’t think they can get into heaven.
Much of Christianity; at one point, tools to baptize a baby in the womb were invented because an unbaptized baby would be damned. And I understand it was a common belief in Catholicism that unsaved babies go to Limbo, although they’ve officially decided that isn’t so recently IIRC. And there’s the argument that it was OK for God to kill babies in the Flood because they were “evil babies”.
Is he going to do this until humanity dies out? If so, he’s condemning billions of people to hell, based on the inevitable terrible sins committed as the population ages beyond the point of being able to feed itself and care for itself: cannibalism, mass murders, etc.
Is he just going to do it one time? Then he’s going to turn many many people away from God, as the problem of evil overwhelms them (what sort of God would allow for mass miscarriages like this?) – and then the next generation born after this one will be all kinds of fucked up with survivor guilt and will quite possibly turn toward other sins to compensate.
Even a sheer numbers-game situation is a little hinky. A certain percentage of those kids would go to heaven anyway, so he’s only saving the hellbound ones. And most of the kids born will be replaced by a new set of kids, since most pregnancies are desired.
I guess the question is whether he’ll be quick enough in his loop that he can terminate all pregnancies, or whether some will sneak through. If the former, I’d use the first argument; if the latter, I’d use the second argument.
I don’t think he is really all that concerned about anyone who is already here and sinning. Just the sinless ones. After all, he’s convinced that he himself will go to, and deserve, Hell, so it’s not like he’s making any sort of argument against someone else’s free will. They can choose whether or not to sin, just as he is choosing to sin and preventing the unborn from sinning.
Unless I’ve got my Chistianity mixed up, your mass murderer is wrong about babies getting a free pass - even if they’re absolutely innocent *per se *they still carry the taint of the original sin (and the un-absolved sins of their fathers). And if Dante Alighieri’s self-insert fanfic is to be believed, Crazy McTool is sending all those foetuses and babies straight to Hell, albeit not one of the worst Circles (1st I think, along with the virtuous pagans and guys who pre-dated Christ ?).
If “life” begins at conception, as some believe, then babies are tainted by Original Sin, same as everyone else. Killing them before they have a chance to obtain Salvation would therefore damn them to Hell for all eternity.
ETA: Ninja’d by Kobal2.
I’m not sure why Cray feels that evil must be performed in order for ultimate good to be accomplished. The notions of good and evil are too subjective anyway. Now, I know two wrongs don’t make a right, and he should know that, too. Evil only begets evil, Killing babies will only make things worse than they already are.
I would suggest that God has required belief and submission to Jesus in order to attain heaven. But God is good, or at least not evil, so He can’t send dead babies to hell. But he can undo their souls and send them into oblivion. What God does to people too young to choose is allow them to end utterly and without consciousness. The babies he’s going to kill won’t enter paradise. They will shut off and the universe will be as if they never existed.
I’d come up with some scriptural cites for that and try to get all weepy, pretending I really believed that crap. Then when I got close enough to take his hand, I’d stab him in the throat and upper chest until he stopped moving.
As an alternate hypothetical, it’d be harder to dissuade the same person except if he was an atheist anti-natalist mad scientist who was trying to direct a large meteor to smash the earth. No theology to fall back on.
The argument is easy: there is no God, therefore he is doing nothing but obliterating thousands of innocent children.
Convincing a murderous religious zealot before he can put his plan into effect is the hard part. I might make a token effort in the unlikely event that he can be swayed, but I’d expect to have to use plan B: “shoot his crazy ass”.