So theologians... With regards to age, Is everyone condemned to hell?

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: xJesterx Abortion is against religion because it's taking a human life. While it's nice to say that they'll automatically go to heaven if you kill them - it's not your right (spiritually) to decide whether they have a chance at life or not. You are taking away their decision and their impact on the world.

Two options.

-Abort the fetus.
-Risk letting it go to Hell.

God must have an opinion on both of these options (hence the Bible).
God favors the second option.

Let's look at the pros and cons.. shall we?

-Abort the fetus.

The being goes to Heaven with God and is sorrounded by his love and light forever.

-Risk letting it go to Hell.

The being may or may not go to Heaven. If it goes to Hell, it will suffer for all of eternity with no chance of escape. I feel Christians have a sick way of ignoring how long an eternity is. Just so you know.. imagine pure torture for thousands of years. Now imagine torture for millions of years. Screw that, BILLIONS of BILLIONS of CENTURIES. Imagine how long that is. Got it? Now imagine that that is an infinitely small sliver of how long an eternity is. No end.

In other words. By letting the fetus live you may be damning it to infinite torture forever.

If you're a normal healthy human being, you know that that's horrible and repulsive.

Weigh those two options.

Now, why are we suppose to let lives be damned to Hell for an eternity of suffering? Oh yeah. God. That psycho. Please don't be offended when I call your god repulsive. That's just my honest opinion. Yours may be that your god is infinitely amazing and loving. I'm not offended by your opinion, so don't be offended by mine.

Quote by: xJesterx You don't go around killing priest and 8 year olds because they'll automatically go to heaven so it's therefore better to kill them off. Same logic - an unborn child is regarded in christianity as having the same rights as a human being.

If I could protect another grown life from an eternity of torture.. I would.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: Gabe2007 that is one of the most disgusting statements ive ever heard a peron say?? how is abortion a duty? what the hell is wrong with you? abortion is NOT a duty, as you call it! abortion is, in simple term, Infanticide! if its not you tell me. so how can you say depriving someone of life is a duty? if you a baby has died from a miscarriage, they go to heaven. if a baby is killed before they reach a certain age of realization, they go to heaven. its that simple. if a person has passed that age, which differs for everybody, then it is their decision if they want to go to heaven or not.. yes, God is just...that's why all the children, if you read the verse, "shall inherit the Kingdom of God"

What's your opinion on torture? Apparently you'd rather see a life tortured than sent to bliss with your god.

You, my friend, are the sick one here. If anyone's integrity should be in question it would be yours.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: OratorDeVeritas "When I really start to think about it, I dont know why you dont encourage the human species to die out. I mean, the odds are against you, if your ultimate goal is to help people avoid being sent to hell, then your failing massively. You only manage to convince 33% of the worlds people. So the majority are having to suffer an eternity of pain, and this can be ended with the end of the human race. Heh, no wonder you people talk about the end of days so much." Encourage the human species to die out?! God knows when the perfect time for His coming is, and no matter what we do, He will not come back until the perfect time. Failing massively? God can't fail, it is impossible. Personally, I think 1/3 is pretty awesome, that is a lot of people who get to live an eternal life with the Creator of the universe, and the One who loves everyone, even those who hate him, more than anyone else will ever love them.

Wow. You just don't me you think 2/3's of the population going to Hell is "pretty awesome." I'm about to puke.

[Cadre]

I wanna go with the whole free will argument and say "what would be the purpose to life if were to just abort it to get into heaven?".

We would be missing the lessons, the questions, the emotions/pleasures, sadness, despair. These are the real lessons that God would want us to endure, and understand, hopefully coming out of it with a strong faith in him.

By imposing our will upon the child we would be interrupting it's sense of free will and purpose here, taking a "shortcut" to heaven if you will.

But in this argument I still see a major flaw. It's really freaking sickening, that we are placed here to endure God's tests, and if we fail are subjected to an eternity of torture. That's basically it, dumbed down, and if you fail to see the horrifying nature of this, there's something wrong with your sense of judgement.

Which in turn, is why I see this view of God as absurd, and accept that if it were true, I could in no way embrace this God.

[Cadre]

Quote by: Lullaby Chainer If I could protect another grown life from an eternity of torture.. I would.

QUOTED FOR EMPHASIS.

If you could prove that, by killing that child, you would be saving it from an eternity of torture, you are saying you wouldn't because it would miss out on 75 years of human life

Based on probability alone it would be going to Hell to suffer that fate.

The reason people don't, is because they are sane, and see the illogical nature of the Christian/Catholic God.

[harami]

Wow! Some of you folks seem to think the soul is formed before cell division starts. Is that counter to conventional wisdom? There could be a market for post coital baptism. 33% of the world is not a small market. I have not heard of a priest being called in to bless the mess in the toilet, so perhaps Catholics don't extend the soul's inception to that early of a stage.

Historical note: some early Christians delayed baptism until just before death, notably Constantine.

[Gods_Mercenary]

How could something that never sinned go to Hell, that's based on an outdated understanding of wierd theology.

[Cadre]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary How could something that never sinned go to Hell, that's based on an outdated understanding of wierd theology.

Christian/Catholic theology is always changing to fit social norms though.

And I think they were trying to use that logic in the argument, that if the probablity of people going to hell and suffering eternal damnation is 66%, than a child's death at birth is a blessing because they would be escaping the odds and getting a free ticket to heaven.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Who said 66% of people go to Hell? Anyway, we don't have the right to decide who should go to heaven so that aborting thing would still be wrong. And Catholics didn't believe that the unborn babies went to hell, they believed that they went to limbo, a sort of blissful state in the middle. That was rejected a while ago because it was sort of made up in the middle ages, not because of social norms.

[Cadre]

Major religious groups - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christianity = 33%

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Who said 66% of people go to Hell? Anyway, we don't have the right to decide who should go to heaven so that aborting thing would still be wrong. And Catholics didn't believe that the unborn babies went to hell, they believed that they went to limbo, a sort of blissful state in the middle. That was rejected a while ago because it was sort of made up in the middle ages, not because of social norms.

What you said IS the changing of interpretatons and theological beliefs due to social norms. GM quit jumping into threads late and debating covered points hehe :p

[Gods_Mercenary]

How is a bunch of priests looking at a belief and saying, "ya I guess we don't really need this" bowing to a social norm? How is rejecting birth control bowing to a social norm?

[Cadre]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary How is a bunch of priests looking at a belief and saying, "ya I guess we don't really need this" bowing to a social norm? How is rejecting birth control bowing to a social norm?

social norm
an expected form of behavior in a given situation

Therefore, when someone in the medieval ages proposed a theory of a state of limbo, it was widely accepted because socially, it was considered a legitimate theory by the majority.

When the same theory was considered a century later, it was rejected because socially, the concept was considered highly uncredulous by the majority.

This is the changing of interpretations and theological beliefs due to social norms.

It may not be the objective truth, but in human society subjective truths, are the only forms of truth. And the greater a following a subjective truth has, the more social power it develops.

This lends no creedence to a religion that is consistently mutating and adapting. It makes it appear as more of a method of control and manipulation since subjective truths are being sought (social norms). The same conclusion might be drawn in my 'purpose of prayer' thread regarding how mislead the majority of prayer's could be.

Either way off-topic :S

[Gods_Mercenary]

No I think that was just the preists saying, we're not really sure where this came from, we'll get rid of it, the Church is known to have bowed to pressure, but I don't think this is an example.

[Cadre]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary No I think that was just the preists saying, we're not really sure where this came from, we'll get rid of it, the Church is known to have bowed to pressure, but I don't think this is an example.

Well then where did it come from and why was it accepted in the first place?

There must have been some sort of hierarchichal struicture that made a decision regarding the adoption of this theory, or agreed on it as a group as an interpretation from the bible. Later on, they must have perceived it as incorrect and decided upon a new subjective truth that a majority must have ruled to set in motion. Whether it was people outside, or within the church is irrelevant. It still shows a measure of inconsistency.

That is a shift, due to a social norm.

Social normalities exist in all levels and sub levels of a society don't forget.

ie.

The social norm of guitar players is that fender makes the best guitar

This may not be objectively true, but subjectively due to said social conditioning factors (advertising) they are perceived that way.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Because some guy was trying to convert a bunch of barbarians, they wanted to know what happened to babies, so he made something up to satisfy them. The belief became popular and the Church never bothered to look at it. When they did, they decided that it was kinda wierd and unnesecary, so they threw it out.

This isn't necessarily true in this instance, but it shows how beliefs come about without a decision by the hierarchy.

[Cadre]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Because some guy was trying to convert a bunch of barbarians, they wanted to know what happened to babies, so he made something up to satisfy them. The belief became popular and the Church never bothered to look at it. When they did, they decided that it was kinda wierd and unnesecary, so they threw it out. This isn't necessarily true in this instance, but it shows how beliefs come about without a decision by the hierarchy.

I like your point. Especially the bolded one .

But either way, the example is still not something to be respected. Are we then to assume that the church would adopt principles that some barbarian made up and was popular amongst the savages?

I thought we were interpreting the word of God.

What you have provided me with then, is again, another example of popular subjective truths (social norms) that manipulated a religious belief.




GOOD DISCUSSION GM, I'm off to watch the UFC fight, happy new year everyone im gone for the weekend MUAHAH.

P.S. resume discussion with lullaby_chainers posts on page 2 if we want to stay more on topic.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Certainly it's not a nice thing, but realistic and inevitably true with some of our beliefs. Which is why we have theologians, to weed out the ones that just come about by accident.

Yep same to you, not gonna log off yet though.

[KillerArgument]

Quote by: iahag So surely you would want all babies to die before even being born. I mean, no chance of a ETERNITY of hell is better than a chance at all right? (In perspective... Well, you cant put that in perspective. Its an 'infinite' amount of time of suffering that which is unimaginably horrible). Oh right, but that makes you a murderer... But what about all the other christian murderers in history? I thought there was a way around this? I postulate that christians either: dont actually literally believe in hell or do not think that an eternity of hell is so bad or fully believe that an eternity of unimaginable pain is a suitable punishment for not being 'enlightened' during ones lifetime. When I really start to think about it, I dont know why you dont encourage the human species to die out. I mean, the odds are against you, if your ultimate goal is to help people avoid being sent to hell, then your failing massively. You only manage to convince 33% of the worlds people. So the majority are having to suffer an eternity of pain, and this can be ended with the end of the human race. Heh, no wonder you people talk about the end of days so much.

You are pitting a hypothetical against an actual.

All of the Hell-bound of today are producing other people who will be saved.

To Hell with the unsaved! Sinners who don't want Jesus fully deserve what's coming for them.

I didn't cry over Saddam's hanging, did you? Why not?

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Lullaby Chainer Two options. -Abort the fetus. -Risk letting it go to Hell. God must have an opinion on both of these options (hence the Bible). God favors the second option. Let's look at the pros and cons.. shall we? -Abort the fetus. The being goes to Heaven with God and is sorrounded by his love and light forever. -Risk letting it go to Hell. The being may or may not go to Heaven. If it goes to Hell, it will suffer for all of eternity with no chance of escape. I feel Christians have a sick way of ignoring how long an eternity is. Just so you know.. imagine pure torture for thousands of years. Now imagine torture for millions of years. Screw that, BILLIONS of BILLIONS of CENTURIES. Imagine how long that is. Got it? Now imagine that that is an infinitely small sliver of how long an eternity is. No end. In other words. By letting the fetus live you may be damning it to infinite torture forever. If you're a normal healthy human being, you know that that's horrible and repulsive. Weigh those two options. Now, why are we suppose to let lives be damned to Hell for an eternity of suffering? Oh yeah. God. That psycho. Please don't be offended when I call your god repulsive. That's just my honest opinion. Yours may be that your god is infinitely amazing and loving. I'm not offended by your opinion, so don't be offended by mine. If I could protect another grown life from an eternity of torture.. I would.

There are actually three ways this could go:

A. Born: Person chooses the wrong path. Goes to hell.

B. Born: Person chooses the right path, and takes another group of people with him to heaven.

C. Child aborted: Take the 66% chance that the people that person could have led to heaven will be led to heaven by another. And also take the 22% chance that the person would not have surrendered to the mission field and gone to a group of people that noone else would have reached.

If the value of one person's salvation is enough to make the angels have a heaven-wide party, how much would all of those people the abortee wouldn't reach be worth?

[Praxius]

Quote by: xJesterx Abortion is against religion because it's taking a human life. While it's nice to say that they'll automatically go to heaven if you kill them - it's not your right (spiritually) to decide whether they have a chance at life or not. You are taking away their decision and their impact on the world.

But talk of abortion never really took off until the last couple of centuries. Back when the bible was still being kicked around and fixed up, and when Jesus shot hoops in his backyard, there wasn't much talk about the unborn and what they have coming their way. It was mostly those who revised the bibles, and new-age priests and popes who deemed it wrong, not god.

Once again, there's still the problem as to what is considered a life prior to being born, so until you can officially say a fetus is a life, prior to being born, determining weither or not they goto hell or heaven is irrelevant.

One step at a time, lol.

You are pitting a hypothetical against an actual. All of the Hell-bound of today are producing other people who will be saved. To Hell with the unsaved! Sinners who don't want Jesus fully deserve what's coming for them. I didn't cry over Saddam's hanging, did you? Why not?

Well it's good you think that way.... thanks. Hopefully my living my life the way I see fit, will produce a hell far better then your heaven..... then perhaps Lucifer will appoint me as leader of his hell army and when we come and invade heaven and kill you all off, we'll have two Hells, and more room to play.

"pitting a hypothetical against an actual?" Tell me what exactly is Actual here? Everything sounds hypothetical to me.