[Demetri Martin] Sort of [/DM]
Actually some early Christian Fathers did believe unbaptized infants would be condemned to the fires of Hell. Then, probably because even then some Christians were a little uncomfortable with this, from about the time of Augustine the concept of Limbo was introduced, a place where, among others, infants free from personal sins but not from the taint of Original Sin (which baptism washes away) could serve a few aeons before attaining Heaven.
Yeah, but didn’t the Pope abolish limbo some time back? What happens to the little buggers now? And don’t those that have been sitting in there for the past couple of hundred years feel kind of fucked over now that everybody’s getting a free pass?
Since we’re in the Pit I thought about insulting you, but instead I would like to make a request. Can you explain why a God who does the things I listed above is worthy of worship? Here’s the list again:
[ol]
[li]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. [/li]
[li]God killed 42 children (using a she-bear as a weapon) for mocking Elisha’s bald head.[/li]
[li]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.”[/li]
[li]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.[/li]
[li]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.[/li]
[li]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.[/li]
[li]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.[/li]
[li]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.[/li][/ol]
If you could share with us any reason other than “fear” for prostrating to such a deity, I’d be grateful. Thanks!
Race suicide as a reason against abortion. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9404E2DE1F3EE233A25753C2A9669D946697D6CF I wonder what Gibbons and Roosevelt would have thought of the present President. Times have changed in the last 100 years, but have not changed enough. Time to recognize religion for what it is – false authority used by the eligious to try to give weight to whatever positon they hold, be is good or bad.
If you really believe God did all that, you better get some fear yerself.
As an ex-Christian I’ve often wondered this same thing. I’ve read the thread and tried to understand, but I’m still not clear on some of these things.
If I’ve read this correctly, Christians don’t kill babies because God says it is wrong and life is sacred. But this obviously isn’t universally true just by looking at the “Just War Theory”. I’m not comparing the Just War Theory to killing babies, I’m just pointing out that the sole argument for Christians not killing babies can’t be because killing is wrong. Killing isn’t always wrong, apparently.
Even if killing babies is always wrong, it is wrong for me and not them. As Boyo Jim points out, if I wait until after they are baptized they should go to heaven.
For me this is the only life I’m going to get and so I do the best I can trying to make it as good and long as I can. But if I thought I could take away all the suffering and pain for all eternity for my kids by jumping off a cliff I’d be fish food right now.
WhyNot said that you can’t kill in the morning, repent in the evening and get up and do it all again the next day because you haven’t really repented. But what if you wait to repent until 10 seconds before they throw the switch on the electric chair?
Babies are born with original sin, but if you have time to kill them, you have time to baptize them instead and then let them grow up. Then they have the free will to blow their shot at heaven on their own.
And they don’t say it is, most of them. They say killing *innocents *is wrong. While babies are not without sin, they are innocents. Opposition soldiers, guys holding a gun to your head and Ann Coulter are not innocents, and may be killed without it being a grave sin.
Okay, okay, it’s probably a sin to kill Ann Coulter. Dammit.
But surely if war is to be wage innocents will get killed?
First, we have to draw a distinction between Catholic and Protestant theology. Yes, as **WhyNot **says, the Catholic church says babies are tainted with original sin (one of the many reasons I find Catholicism loathesome). But I believe there are many Protestant sects that preach an age of accountability, before which children will automatically go to heaven if they die. Anyway, you could always baptise them first just in case. Presumably it would clear them if the Catholic belief is true, and wouldn’t harm them if the Protestant belief is true.
And it’s true you have to be truly repentant for Catholic confession to “work.” But my point is that someone willing to go to hell, because they wouldn’t truly repent, and who made that decision from the get-go, would arguably be a more righteous and selfless person than all the people who obey God’s laws in order to get into heaven. And nicer than God, come to think of it.
As for the just war, in this day and age, you can’t draw the distinction between innocents and the enemy. It is a fact that in any war, innocents will be killed. I’d say it’s no more acceptable to go to war than it would be for a Catholic woman to take misoprostol for an ulcer while she was pregnant - in both cases, the death of an innocent is not your primary purpose, but it is sure to happen, and your choice of action is the cause.
IANAPope, but I would say that, as a soldier, if you kill an innocent, you should repent, confess, get forgived and not (intentionally) do it again. Intent does matter. If you’re a soldier going out and intentionally killing civilians, then yeah, you’re a murderer and a sinner.
I’m sure the Church has some official paper or three gazillion papers on the topic, but I’m kind of bored of googling to satisfy “gotcha” posters. While the existence of God and the truth of the Bible may be terribly questionable, Catholic *theology *really isn’t that full of loopholes. They’ve had a long time for a lot of smart people to think this through. The whole thing might be bullocks, but it is pretty internally consistent bullocks.
According to Catholic teachings, *if *there is not a safe non-abortifacient drug which can be used instead, the mother should go ahead and take the medicine she needs to preserve her health, even if it results in the abortion of her fetus. Or, of course, she could choose to suffer for 9 months; suffering mothers have a special place in the hearts of Catholics. 
You may not take the same drug with the *intent *of aborting your fetus, however. Likewise, if your intent to to kill civilians, that’s sin; if your intent is to win a war with which the Church agrees (ie, a “just war”), then killing civilians in the course of that is unfortunate, but not a grave sin.
I don’t believe God did any of that. But anyone who holds that the Bible is literally true obviously does. And even persons who hold the Bible to be only metaphorically true should wonder why God allows himself to be slandered by the spreading of such tales.
I wouldn’t personally kill Ann Coulter (though as my signature says, I reserve the right to do other mischief). But I suspect that, upon examining the record of a person who did, St. Peter would stifle a smile, turn to his assistant, and ask for some white-out so he could pretend it wasn’t on the record.
Reports of Limbo’s abolition are premature. The present Pope, when he published the results of a Commission’s inquiry into the question authorized by his predecessor, basically allowed good Catholics to subscribe to the ‘theory’ of Limbo, if they so wished.
From the wiki in my last post:
Thanks for the replies, WhyNot. I really don’t want to try to play “gotcha” posting. Personally, I don’t see the consistency you do which is why I’m asking. As you said, some very, very smart people have thought about this long and hard I’m trying to understand how they see things so differently than I do.
I had more questions and thoughts but I don’t want to push things. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to respond and I’ll go back to thinking about this some more.
So it’s just a theory, eh? 
To:
‘Be fruitful and multiply’ (Gen 8:17, & 9:7) and also I would add ‘Choose life so that you and your children may live’ (Deut 30:19)
In general to answer your question, God does let man continue in his ways up to a certain point, but all man’s ways are wicked and lead to oppression and bondage (though some of this population may appear to greatly benefit from the suffering of others and live pretty well). He lets sin accumulate up to a certain point, and sin doesn’t go away, it just adds on top of itself.
God doesn’t like to see His children (talking about all people here) suffering and really not knowing who they are really meant to be. When this point is reached God will pour out His wrath on the people, which serves to reset the order of things and people who benefit from the oppression no longer do, and many times either fall or go into bondage, and the oppressed people are free.
Or you could just kill yourselves. Ask Camus.