Can I get this on a Tshirt?
IIRC, Humans (or our predecessors) lived for a very long time in small groups. This groups were so small everybody knew everybody. So if you are a amoral person (steal stuff, lie, betray, kill babies, etc.), people will avoid you and you might get into serious trouble. So, we behave in a way that makes us some sort of moral by nature - because most of the evil™ people had their genes excluded from the pool over the time. So most of our genes tell us to be good™, even though it doesn’t necessary make sense anymore - the communities are much bigger today, and you could get through your life cheating and lying using “fresh” victims (and arguably, some people do).
I mean, people all over the world, regardless of culture, religion and what have basically the same rules - don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t be a dick. There are variations, but in general I’d say that religion has nothing to do at all with moral or amoral behavior of a person.
Up north, maybe. If I tried to get that printed on a t-shirt herebabouts, nobody’d take the order. I wouldn’t try WEARING it unless I happened to be slipping it on over my Iron Man armor.
That’s the problem with atheists, they have no balls.
Please. I have nine primary testicles – three for each penis – plus an extra twelve in keep in reserve at various undisclosed locations in the event of an Abelard & Heloise incident.
My ex got mine in the settlement.
I still think I had a crappy lawyer.
While I get the satiric nature of the question, I’ve sometimes pondered the philosophical question posed, removed from the actual world. As in, I’d never in a million years expect a real Christian to start murdering babies for their own good (unless the person was a total whackjob who just happened to be Christian).
Anyway, I think most Christians would answer that God said don’t do it, and what God says rules their actions.
But I think underlying that is that most people are basically decent, and no matter what kind of theological backflips they do to justify their faith (such as positing that infants who die go to heaven), it is overriden by overarching human morals.
But I think, if you want to engage in a purely theoretical discussion, it is arguable that killing babies to send them to heaven is more noble, or at least more selfless, than following the directives of God not to.
Because most modern Christians don’t actually implement the logical implications of many of their own beliefs, because doing so would get them tossed in prison or killed, or violate their ethics ( all ethics are by definition non-Christian; Christianity teaches obedience, not ethics ). And because long ago the various branches of Christianity laid down arbitrary rules ( like “no suicide” ) that go against the premises of Christianity, but DO preserve the priesthood’s powerbase.
I do agee with lots of what you are saying, most Christians do not follow the teachings of Jesus, but do hold to rules that serve the priesthood’s power base. This is the very system that Jesus came to abolish, in His day they were called pharisees. These people submit to the teachings of men, teachings they can never follow. This is not what Jesus taught, but very few find it. Jesus teaches submitting to the will of the Father for your life, surrendering yourself to Him, and having Jesus live through you.
As for atheists following ethics, ethics are nothing more then rules taught by men and fall into the same category as pharisees and the priesthood powerbase.
ALL rules are “taught by men”, or part of our biology. It’s just that ethics is a superior concept to Christianity, when it comes to results. “Right and Wrong” is better than “God’s Will”.
Which Commandment might that be?
I just got back from the Lesbian Republican Jewish African American Convention and I all got was a lousy t-shirt.
And Goldfinger.
" I expected you to die, Mr. Son of God."
You and I both know there’s no such group, you silly prevaricator.
It’s the Lesbian Republican Jewish African American MASONS. Cripes. :rolleyes:
Why don’t Christians kill babies?
So much more satisfaction in smashing the teeth out of assholes.
First, take baptism out of the equation. If that’s a concern, baptise them, THEN kill them; that should pratically guarantee heaven for most flavors of christian babies.
As to the parents, well, should every loving parent do whatever it takes to assure their children an eternally blissfull afterlife? So what if the parents go to hell for it, it’s worth it because they’ve presented heaven with a more deserving replacement. Or maybe 2 or 3, if they can get away with it. The more the better!
I believe that might have been #11. The one that Moses chipped off when he tripped. To refresh your memory:
#11. Every sperm is sacred
Why don’t babies kill Christians?
Think about it.
But (and I can’t believe I forgot this) babies are not without sin. There’s really no reason to believe they go to Heaven. I think it’s more logical to assume that, yes, they go to hell, or at least Purgatory, as they have the stain of Original Sin unwashed (unforgiven) by Baptism.
Plus, some babies are dicks. ![]()
jjimm, to a Catholic who follows her church’s teachings, intentionally preventing pregnancy is a violation of the Fifth Commandment.
[QUOTE=Contraception versus Abortion: A comparison and some implications]
Contraception as Sin
Contraception is also a grave or mortal sin with the sanction of spiritual death. In this the Church’s teaching - speaking with Christ’s authority - is constant. Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Casti connnubi of Dec. 31, 1930, proclaimed: “Our mouth proclaims anew: any use of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in it’s natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of grave sin.”
Numerous papal and episcopal statements underline the gravity of the sin of the contraceptive act. Here I quote only a few episcopal statements from the last century, before some bishops turned away from listening to the voice of Christ to the voice of dissenters:
(a) Contraception is “a vice against nature and a sin crying to Heaven” (Belgian bishops, June 2, 1909).
(b) Contraception is a “serious sin, a very serious sin, with whatever means and whatever way it occurs” (German bishops, Aug. 20, 1913).
(c) “The theories and practices which teach or encourage the restriction of birth are as disastrous as they are criminal” (French bishops, May 17, 1919).
(d) “The selfishness which leads to race suicide with or without the pretext of bettering the species, is in God’s sight, a detestable thing. It is a crime for which, eventually, the nation must suffer” (Cardinal Gibbons on behalf of the U.S. hierarchy, Sept. 20, 1919)
(e) Contraception “whether within the married state or outside it, is an unnatural vice, sinning against the nature, which the Creator bestowed upon us, and therefore grievously displeasing in His sight” (Cardinal Bourne of Westminster, Oct. 9, 1930).
(f) “Contraceptive methods were, are and always will be a sin… it was reserved to our generation to glorify vice with the name of virtue” (Bishops of India, 1957).
**
In sum the Church has never deviated from the teaching that contraception is a grave violation of God’s Fifth Commandment.**
[/QUOTE]
(bolding mine)
So baptise them AND give them extreme unction. Give them a nice cleasing soul bath. Then CHOP!.