Thanks for the answer. However, I guess that just pushes the question back one step- why is life sacred? The amount of time here on Earth is nothing, not even a blip, in the face of eternity.
And, okay- killing someone is bad, no matter the reason (we’ll just ignore those holy wars and such). But why mourn anyone who’s died? Sure, you won’t see them for a while… until you die, and you get to spend eternity with them. And in the meantime, they’re in not only a better place- they’re in a *perfect *place. So why mourn?
People are pretty self-centered. We mourn their loss in *our *lives, not that bad things are happening to them. (Well, kinda sorta. A hard core old school Catholic might indeed fret about their loved one’s duration in Pugatory. They may say prayers or purchase Masses to reduce that time spent burning off sins so the loved one can get into Heaven sooner. But that sort of thinking is falling by the wayside.)
Because we’re essentially hybrid animals, part spirit, part flesh. We live in time and we experience life as a good thing and death as a loss. There is comfort in knowing we’ll see loved ones again, but that doesn’t necessarily negate the feelings we have now, here on earth where we have to be for a while yet. Where we miss them in the time we still have to live through.
What we know and what we feel don’t always mesh as well as we would like.
I’m not a Christian, but I used to be, so I can point out several different answers.
Humans are evolved to abhor the killing of babies and small children even more than we abhor homicide in general, and it is difficult (thankfully!) to overcome that genetic inclination.
Many Christians believe that babies who die without accepting Christ go to Hell, not to Heaven (see: Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” so your modest proposal would only increase the numbers of those suffering under Mephistopheles’ lash. (Of course, this opens the questions of why one would choose to worship a deity who’d condemn babies to hell, but that’s a whole 'nother issue.)
Of the Christians who believe that babies who die go straight to Heaven, most believe that the decision of when humans should die belongs only to God and do not wish to take the stain of murder on the souls.
Most people aren’t insane whackjobs, as your OP makes you sound.
My personal answer to that question is precisely your argument against it. Who was the philosopher that likened a lifetime to a sparrow flying through a room? Darkness, a brief moment of light and warmth and experience, and then darkness again? The brevity of life is what makes it beautiful. We have a tiny interval to do our best or our worst, to be comfortable or uncomfortable or mean or nice or happy or miserable. How you use that interval is important. What you believe, what you do, affects the world in small but measurable ways.
Christian dogma says life is sacred 'cause God made it. He put a soul in that meat your parents made, and it’s up to you to decide what to do with it. He did that for everyone, and it shouldn’t be a human choice to shorten the life God gave you.
And in Dogma, Spiff, didn’t God basically express Her general annoyance with the angels trying to do an end-run around Her condemnation? It ended in angel bits, IIRC.
Skald, I think you need to refer to your parody thread scorebook. I’m not sure if it’s possible to cover all of the Why Don’t Some Group Of People Do Some Activity threads, as they seem to be multiplying like mold, but there you go.
I just saw the thread this one is mocking. Anyway, I lost my scorebook when I gave up the Evil Overlord thing; I think Wendy & the Wonder Twins took it when they were released from the sex slave pens.
Which means that evolution plays a bigger role in our behavior than faith. Also, don’t forget- until just recently, the Catholic Church maintained that humans didn’t evolve, they were made in God’s image.
But not all- and most, if you ask them, will likely say that unbaptized babies *don’t *burn in Hell.
Then leaving them outside to freeze to death, or refusing them treatment when they’re sick, would avoid that particular problem, as I pointed out in my “idiotic” OP.
Besides, God could always prevent the kid’s death, if he wanted to. That’s the neat thing about omniscience and omnipotence. If he doesn’t want to stop it, then it’s got to be part of his ineffable plan.
And, as I pointed out- by killing the infant, you’re doing the infant a favor (assuming, of course, that innocent children go to Heaven).
All I did was take the logic to its extreme outcome. I didn’t make up the rules, don’t blame me.
Killing children would be choosing death and curses. Here God specifically mentions the reason to choose life, so that you and your children may live.
Also it is taking control that is reserved for God, taking matters into your own hand, which God allows, but that person will have to bear the consequences of their choice.
God also instructed the Israealites to kill every person in Jericho, Ai, and the other cities of Canaan which they supposedly conquered, down to the baby born yesterday.
God killed 42 children (using a she-bear as a weapon) for mocking Elisha’s bald head.
God allowed Jephtah to sacrifice his daughter to Him with nary a word of objection. I mean, Abraham and Isaac at least got an angel who came down at the last second to say “Just fooling, guys, now put down the knife.”
God authorized the Israelite army to rape Canaanite women whom they found attractive (so long as they were virgins), so long as they got their heads shaved and 30 days to mourn their families.
God allowed King Herod to murder all the male babies in Bethlehem. You’d think he could have sent a couple of angels down to impress upon Herod that this was wicked, or at least made Herod’s donkey or pet cat or whatnot talk to him and dissuade him.
God personally murdered every baby in the world during the flood, not to mention every adult man and woman other than Noah, Mrs. Noah, their sons, and their sons’ wives.
God personally murdered the first-born of all the Egyptians to get Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. This AFTER Pharaoh had decided to release the Hebrews; as God was not yet done raping Egypt, he hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he changed his mind.
The only thing that prevents the God of the Bible from being history’s worse villain is the fact that, like Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, and Gargamel, he doesn’t exist.
