It’s the “repentance/confession” that opens the door for those +8
Case in point.
Jesus is on the cross. To his left is a thief on a cross. To his right is another thief on the cross.
The one on the left mocks Jesus and questions his ability to save himself. The good thief (on the right) points out that Jesus is the only innocent one up there. Jesus accepts this as repentance, waives the necessity of baptism and tells him (the good thief);
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Well, that’s the favored translation, the less favored translation is: “Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise.”
Big difference 1 comma makes. So, merely saying “Jesus I believe” might be enough. But probably not enough to earn the fast track pass upstairs.
How often do you actually make the argument you described in the OP? Don’t indulge in the fantasy that a belief system you oppose is so fragile you can destroy it with a single question.
Taken the the logical conclusion, that argument says it would be a good thing to kill infants and young toddlers before the age of reason to be sure they’d go to heaven, and Christians should be agitating for laws to allow them to do that. After all the whole point is that you shouldn’t kill a child, whether several months before birth, several seconds before birth, several seconds after birth, or several months after. If you’re arguing that killing before the age of reason is a good thing then it wouldn’t matter if it was before or after brith.
Right, I was hedging on the whole “born into sin” angle. Maybe we are sinless before birth and not so much at birth. Just in case this is true, follow the old saying “it’s best to abort so baby don’t fall short”.
Yes, that does seem to be the logical conclusion of what evangelicals believe about infant and adult salvation.
Each of those first three points where I summarize evangelical beliefs, taken individually, sound perfectly reasonable. (#4 is really just icing on the cake.) But taken together, they add up to an abominable conclusion.
You might want to see Infant damnation as to how it addresses the unbaptized and being born in original sin. Some thought they were going to Hell.
Personally, I see Jim Jefferies doing a good stand-up bit on your OP, and being able to get away with it.
That’s not it at all. It’s just another example that the omnibenevolence of the evangelical God is a farce, at least as compared to our society’s sense of right and wrong. The only way out of the age of accountability problem is to state there is no age of accountability and those that never perform an act to receive salvation are not saved, regardless of how helpless they are. So your aborted babies are going to hell, your 18 month old baby that died in a car accident is going to hell, those that have severe mental illness are going to hell, etc., etc. But this just seems so evil to us that we refuse to believe it. It’s another example on how we bend God’s morality to fit our own instead of the other way around.
This is just reiterating the suicide problem in a different form. The answer there is just as valid.
The suicide problem is as follows: “If heaven is so great, why don’t you just kill yourself?” The answer is “because then I wouldn’t go to heaven. God has me alive on Earth for a reason.” The same goes with doing something reckless for the selfish reason of going to heaven. Again, it doesn’t work.
Even if we take as given that all children go to heaven, killing children is still a sin. It is sinful to condone sin. Assuming abortion is the same as killing children, then abortion is a sin, and condoning it is also a sin. Not caring about a sin and letting it go unchecked is a sin.
The other arguments stated are also true, but, since they are apparently being ignored, I thought I’d just lay it out in terms without any morality getting in the way.
To put it simply: the beliefs you propose are themselves sinful. This is far from the only inference you might make from knowing part of Christian beliefs that then contradicts another Christian belief.
Finally, none of this should be construed as me saying I am pro-life, or even that I believe that all children go to heaven. I personally think that a being must have awareness of self and the ability to make a decision before it can possibly be said to be a person.
Err… Little Nemo, just in case you actually had a child die in an auto accident, in the quote above I’m using “your” in the plural sense, not referring to you specifically. :smack:
No, it’s not the same at all. First of all, the person considering suicide is past the age of accountability, if there is one. Second, it’s all wrapped up in one person, rather than multiple persons. See below.
OK, but what then? If I slaughter a thousand heathen infants, I go to Hell for eternity, but instead of maybe a few of them ultimately going to heaven, they all do. I have done infinite good, multiplied by nearly a thousand. And the cost is that I will suffer infinite pain, multiplied by…one.
A noble sacrifice!
Sorta implies that the logic should come out with my going to heaven too, for having saved so many from eternal damnation. But let that be. As I suffer eternal torture, I will be comforted by the thought of all those children in heaven who, if not for me, would be roasting down here with me.
What does that make me? I think it makes me a Christian martyr, if we assume the truth of points 1, 2, and 3 above, as the vast majority of evangelicals do.
But you’re just using ‘sinful’ as a wild card that trumps all logic. That doesn’t mean anything.
Depending on what part of the Bible you’re in “repentance/confession” isn’t necessarily a thing, aren’t necessarily two halves of the same coin. Wikipedia:
‘Repentance’ can simply mean abandoning your old ways and following Jesus, like Matthew the tax-collector in the Gospels. No confession, no “I’ve been a sinner, Lord, forgive me” needed. Just drop your old life and follow Christ.
Think of this in the context of the good thief. A murdering road agent according to some of the earlier sources. Referred to as Dismas in the Gospel of Nicodemus and in Catholicism as"Saint Dismas."
Dismas was not baptized. Yet he made it to salvation because he recognized Christ, repentance of his sins and accepted Christ as his salvation via the promise to be in paradise that day.
Simply saying “I believe Edith, I believe” while grasping one’s chest may not be sufficient. Or it might be. If 70 is passing, I’d still try to get 100.
But I don’t know. I’ve never tried to get past St. Peter’s gates.
To anyone planning on being saved at the end, I’d recommend keeping a long list of your major sins handy . Just in case.
Not to mention the illogic of taking an article of faith to its “logical conclusion”. Since when are basic articles of faith meant to be subject to the rules of logic?
All I’m saying is that it isn’t the only applicable context, that the one from the Gospels about people dropping what they were doing and following Christ is another one.
Let’s just say that I have some personal experience that gives me reason to claim that the second context is indeed efficacious. That doesn’t mean the first one isn’t; there’s no reason one can’t get one to Christ by either way.
One would hope they have some inner consistency. If they don’t, if they collide like bumper cars, how do you tell what’s right and wrong as a person of faith?
Little Nemo appears to be presenting a Catholic angle, one I’ve heard before. I can’t find the link at Vox.com, but I seem to recollect reporting on a pro-life demo, where they discussed abortion physicians receiving counseling if Roe was overturned and anti-abortion laws were passed.
Also, my Episcopalian church growing up never used the phrase, “Accept Christ as your personal savior,” IIRC. I think I first heard the phrase on TV.
