But Zephyurs is making a reasonable point. If aborted babies get a free pass to Heaven, then wouldn’t getting an abortion be in their best interest? After all if they get born and baptised, there’s a non-zero chance that they may commit enough sins in their life to get sent to purgatory or even eternal damnation in hell. Why take that chance when you have a means of ensuring their direct entry into heaven?
My mom and step-dad are both Christian (the new Earth, born-again type) and I’ve often heard them say that God exists outside of time. While we have free will, apparently He already knows what we’re going to decide throughout our lives.
The net result, I would assume, is that God either doesn’t impart a soul to a fetus that isn’t going to get out of the womb alive OR perhaps he judges them on the life they would’ve lived if it hadn’t been for human intervention?
If I already knew they wouldn’t be born, I’d just skip the soul part. If I didn’t know ahead of time, I’d recycle the soul until it got a body that “took”. Of course, this could be why I don’t have my own universe… who knows.
That seems sort of arbitrary. If God judges souls on what they might have done in some other alternative life, where does it stop? If Adolf Hitler had been born in Iowa I doubt he would have grown up to kill millions of people. So could God judge him innocent based on the life he might have led?
Me: “So what happens to the souls of babies who die before they accepted Christ asn their personal savior?”
My Fundamentlist Christian Brother: “They go to Hell.”
Me: “Hell-Lite, or right there next to Hitler?”
MFCB: “Same Hell as Hitler.”
Me: “Wow, isn’t that kind of harsh?”
MFCB: “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”
His is a modern return to Biblical-literalism that rejects the revisionism of Baptists and other mainstream churches. Such churches don’t have names or charters, and form around an agreeable autocephalic pastor who pulls his vehicles out of his garage every Sunday and sets up a dozen or so folding charis for as many attendees. They don’t need a lot of fancy church trappings like, say, a name for their religion other than “Christian,”, since it’s stone-simple and bible-based.
Are you older brother? 'Cause our oldest brother sounds like MFCB.
Of course, that first sentence should be Are you my older brother.
How is this any different than going into the hospital nursery and smothering all the newborns? Those babies (at least according to most religions) would go directly to heaven too, but throughout the ages you don’t see too many religious-types promoting infantcide either. Part of the reason we don’t kill babies for their own good is that we’re supposed to value people being able to live out their lives good or bad and the other is that the murderer of babies is supposed to be looking after their own soul too, and s/he’d be damning themselves through the murders.
You can make the same rationale for infanticide. Thus, the inclination of some to theorize about fetal/infant souls getting a do-over, instead of a “go directly to Heaven” card.
Shoulda read the whole thread! Elfkin477 just made my point!
Except that the notion in question–post-death eternal damnation or bliss being determined by one’s actions in life–reduces mortal existence to being no more meaningful than an algebra exam.
But that raises another question: many Christians believe that God has a plan for everyone’s life, and that it is impossible to thwart God’s plan.
Combine that with the belief that life begins at conception, and you are led to the inevitable, absurd conclusion that God planned for a precious child to be conceived, live for a few weeks, and then be aborted. Why would God plan that? The only outcome is that a woman has now committed a mortal sin. It makes absolutely no sense.
…Ok.
That’s some crazy bullshit right there. Did Scientology rip off Hinduism?
We waited two years for that, but it was worth it.
Regards,
Shodan
This seems much more cruel to me. What of the pregnant women in Tappuah?
There is one example I can think of, it may be apocryphal, but there was a Spanish conquistador that performed joint baptisms and infanticide. Wholly logical given the framework.
I guess different churches have different doctrines on this point.
Sometimes a child dies in the womb or not long after birth, for natural reasons, or for traumatic reasons perhaps involving a sin or crime done by somebody, perhaps not. Why would God plan that? Nevertheless, IRL it does happen.
Catholics used to teach that the unbaptized baby who dies goes into a place called LIMBO, this may have changed, but that was what I was taught in Catholic school as a girl.
I believe that is still correct. Protestants believe the baby will go to paradise.
Then there was that deity that killed off all the babies in the world.
The two years since I wrote that have made me less sure of eternal punishment in Hell for anyone, and more sure of God’s grace and mercy, so that I am even more confident in saying that the souls of babies (born or unborn) will participate in the kingdom of God.
The current Pope did away with Limbo, though the article title is misleading: there’s still purgatory.
Makes “Delirium Tremens” seem a tad outdated 