# Dead Babies and Christianity



## JJkul (Oct 4, 2013)

Cheeta said:


> Just assuming you're not being sarcastic here: The Catholic doctrine is very inconsistent and incorrect when held against the Bible - Luther pointed that out centuries ago already and almost got 'reasonably' set on fire for it - so if you want to make fly it's "_objective, consistent, and reasonable_" you'll have to make a far stronger case than just stating that as if it is a fact. As I say it is not.
> In Catholic theology the Bible is an _optional subject_ (one of my friends who applied for study as a priest left the church desillusioned when he found that out) so if we're to point out Christians unable to quote the Bible appropriately start looking towards Catholics first, as even many of their priests are ill informed on it.


Any true inconsistencies between Catholic Doctrine and the Bible are from mistranslated, Protestant bibles. Take the King James edition of the bible, for example. There was a great emphasis put on "poetry" rather than literal translation. Very few editions of the Bible are worth anything more than toilet paper.


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## Cheeta (Apr 7, 2013)

JJkul said:


> Any true inconsistencies between Catholic Doctrine and the Bible are from mistranslated, Protestant bibles. Take the King James edition of the bible, for example. There was a great emphasis put on "poetry" rather than literal translation. Very few editions of the Bible are worth anything more than toilet paper.


Are you actually serious or just trolling?

Do you even know about the founding of the Roman Catholic (="Standard") Church by the pagan emperor Constantine I for political reasons, and how doctrine-selection went down during? You might want to have a look: First Council of Nicaea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But alright, let's play along: Which translation of the bible do you accept then?


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## JJkul (Oct 4, 2013)

Cheeta said:


> Are you actually serious or just trolling?
> 
> Do you even know about the founding of the Roman Catholic (="Standard") Church by the pagan emperor Constantine I for political reasons, and how doctrine-selection went down during? You might want to have a look: First Council of Nicaea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> But alright, let's play along: Which translation of the bible do you accept then?


I am completely serious. It's not my fault that most information about the Church available online is ridiculously biased, if not totally false.

As for the Council of Nicaea, I know that that's just one "example" you have of several that I may or may not be able to look forward to, but:

The First Council of Nicaea was not the origin of the "Standard" Church. The Church after that council was the same Church it had been; Arianism is a heresy that was tearing the Church apart, and needed to be addressed. As for Constantine's involvement, he paid travel expenses and provided other necessaries. One of the motivations being his desire to have his subjects united under the One True Religion instead of opposed fragments hardly constitutes "Political Reasons". As far as his being a pagan for some time goes, he obviously had a place in his heart for the Church, as he did much to help it, not the least of which was the Edict of Milan, ending the persecutions. His mother was the Catholic St. Helen, who I'm sure holds a great responsibility for his sentiments.


As for which version of the Bible to use, Douay-Rheims. There are other English translations that are fine, but the Douay-Rheims is the only one I know for sure, is the standard anyway. However, let me point out that the Bible isn't really the best thing to debate over with a Catholic. Not that the Catholic is incapable of debating correctly, or that anything in the Bible isn't Catholic, but because the Catholic Church is *much* more than the Bible, because you can't get anywhere with the Bible alone. (Indeed, one of the "Day 1" Catholic principles is that the Bible alone is not sufficient for salvation.)

The Bible is the Word of God, most people aren't capable of interpreting it correctly. That's why if you're going to have anything to do with the Bible, you need commentary from sources that are capable of correct interpretation.


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## Surreal Snake (Nov 17, 2009)




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## Scarlet_Heart (Oct 11, 2014)

I tend to look at these things intuitively rather than to go through some intellectual exercise or do biblical, scholarly research. So this might be completely useless to you because I know most people on this site want empirical, peer-reviewed, etc type evidence.

I've had babies of my own and it just doesn't make sense to me (assuming you believe in God in the first place) that God would create a beautiful thing and then send it to hell if it should perish. Something so beautiful and innocent? I don't believe in original sin. I think we are born perfect and are corrupted by our environment. So I think babies, who haven't become negatively affected by our ridiculous display of "humanity" and haven't had the chance to do anything bad, immediately go back to God if they should die.


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## Waif (Jan 3, 2015)

I'm assume the Bible is well-translated. The JPS Tenakh reads like the NASB OT, and went through the middles ages with a 99.9% (insignificant) error-margin from the Dead Sea Scrolls. There were also serval thousand copies made of the New Testament from the time it was produced. 

But this is not important to the overall discussion, which is based Sola Scriptura. 
@Scarlet Heart, your statement, "I've had babies of my own and it just doesn't make sense to me (assuming you believe in God in the first place) that God would create a beautiful thing and then send it to hell if it should perish," is grounded in common sense. I'm going to ignore the rest of your argument, however. Yes, presuming that the nature of God is good, this makes sense to me. It's something to heavily bear in mind, even if you can't rest an argument on such a statement.

What I'm going to say next is controversial. I don't think God's request to kill babies in the OT was cruel. It seemed humane and understandable. If the Hebrews were God's Chosen People, and a nation would, at all odds, wipe God's Chosen People from the face of the earth, this is an act of self-defense. Therefore, God is telling his followers to be defensive. Any sentient human left alive, male or female, would be after the Hebrews if left alive. However, if you leave the babies alive, they'll die of starvation, which is cruel. So, just giving a disclaimer, I'm not debating from an "Old Covenant" P.O.V. as well. Of course, I'd like to see where Christianity puts these children in the afterlife, but I'm not interested in their deaths. I see them as pragmatically having completed a morally rational goal. Bleak, I know.


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## with water (Aug 13, 2014)

I've made it a game to go to threads like these and see just how far the topic has drifted by the most recent post.


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## Waif (Jan 3, 2015)

WT_Neptune said:


> I've made it a game to go to threads like these and see just how far the topic has drifted by the most recent post.


So far, I've managed to keep it pretty well on track, if I do say so myself.


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## Waif (Jan 3, 2015)

Stumbling Blocks
7 “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!

8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than [f]to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. 9 If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than [g]to have two eyes and be cast into the [h]fiery hell.

10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 [_For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.]

Ninety-nine Plus One
12 “What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? 13 If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. 14 So it is not the will [j]of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.


This at least implies that any Jewish child, under the present ("Old") Covenant, would be allowed into Heaven. No surprises there. 

The sheep straying is a curious choice of words. So, if Yeshua is the Good Shepherd, his line of reasoning here is that if there were 99 people under his care (let's be literal for a minute) and one person elected to walk away disobediently (so, we are talking about adults aged, I believe, twelve and up at the time who probably would have been expected to observe Mitzvahs), he would chase after that one disobedient person, so that there would be an entire flock. That's just what he does. He wants everyone there. Therefore, he would not abandon a (Jewish?) child. 

You can slim this down and break-up the context. The practice of Judaism had (according to Yeshua) become impractical at that time. So, don't worry about following Mitzvahs inappropriately, due to naivety. The All Hebrew Children go to Heaven, and they are totally naive. It's more important to look on God in Heaven in the way these children do. Look at the intent of the Mitzvah and worry less about the practice of them. If a Hebrew hadn't followed Mitzvahs for his entire life, and then started being spiritually observant, He could still go to Heaven: in fact, God makes the effort to get sinners into Heaven. God makes the effort to get all Jews into Heaven, and you have only to seek to follow his instructions. (Note: this is contextually before the Death of Yeshua; the ministry of Yeshua was a strictly Jewish ministry. Sometime after the death, and possible resurrection, of Yeshua began the ***** ministry; therefore, it makes sense to consider the words of Yeshua in a Jewish context, and rely on those after him [Paul, Peter, etc.] for a ***** context.)

Question: Do all Hebrew babies still go to Heaven, or must their parents also accept Yeshua as savior? If it's not the will of the Father that any one of these kids perish, I would assume that all Hebrew children still go to Heaven. However, it can't be said definitively, but there is a strong implication that in a couple of years, when Yeshua died, the rules didn't all of a sudden change. There wasn't all of a sudden a "God doesn't want your little souls around looking at Him anymore" rule. So, beyond a reasonable doubt, even if their parents didn't accept Yeshua, the children would still at least be Kosher for Heaven Approved. 

This is not because their particular parents worshipped God (Yeshua is considered God, as well as a part of God). However, you might make the argument that Hebrew children are automatically protected under the Abrahamic Covenant, based on Matthew 18. The other argument is that all children are protected. Because the Hebrew children are indiscriminately protected at random in this case (one of the kids he pointed to might have been the child of a murderer, for example). So the salvation of a Hebrew parent makes no difference to his or her child's sanctification. 

But now, we're unearthing the definition of "church". The early church consisted of Hebrews and gentiles. Romans 11 gives a good illustration of the church (Google it NASB translation, or Complete Jewish Translation). After Yeshua, you might see the death of Judaism, and the rebirth of two new world religions (this is due to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.). These new religions were Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Each considered themselves to "the true Judaism." To this day, it makes sense to look at Christianity in this light. In fact, Romans 11 talks about just that. He reminds the ***** that they are adopted into Judaism by the grace of God. So instead of being "strangers" allowed to live among the Jews (like Rahab and her family), they are adopted into the Jewish family. There is a "Remnant" (a few Hebrews who have remained loyal to Judaism, in spite of most Jews abandoning it) that are Blood-heirs. After every Goy (nation) has heard, there will be more than a Remnant. According to Paul, it is impossible to fully convert the Hebrews (more than half, the majority) until the Nations have heard. If you ever see a breach of that, you can totally write-off Christianity. However, I don't think that possible. You can't get to 50% and convince a Jew to join Christianity, because then they would know it was an illogical religion.

So, case in point: automatically, being a Christian does not tie you into the Abrahamic Covenant (blood, as evidenced by circumcision), but it does make you a follower of God and a Jew by adoption. So we don't have to worry about Hebrew babies and we don't have to worry about the babies of Christians. We do have to worry about pagan babies, which is most babies. 

Of course, God wants as many people to get into Heaven as possible. That's the established motive. The question is only how that comes about, and if the means for that coming about includes pagan babies, or if pagan babies do not get into Heaven, because they have nothing to make them kosher (because the Bible talks about some guy being sinful in his mother's womb somewhere, and I don't feel like digging that up right now). (Interesting, though, the babies who qualify go straight to Heaven. I'm not sure if this is the case for everyone, but maybe I'll save this for a different post).

1 Corinthians 7:14 says that the spouse and children are "sanctified" by the Christian in their family. Looking at it closer, does this mean they are going to Heaven because of the spouse, or that they are being effected (in the process of sanctification) because the spouse is a Christian? If you argue that the non-Christian husband of a Christian woman goes to Heaven, than you can definitively argue that the babies of Christians and Hebrews go to Heaven, and the babies of pagans do not. If you argue that they are "being sanctified" (that is, being lead toward sanctification), then you might argue that pagan children go could possibly go to Heaven.

You could actually present an argument either way. You could argue that, because families were often lead to Christ in the Bible, salvation is a familial experience, with the family being (possibly) defined as the husband or wife in a nuclear family. You could also argue that because the Bible says to examine yourself to make sure you are a Christian, salvation must always be a personal experience for (competent) adults. I'd be open to either argument._


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## Waif (Jan 3, 2015)

I should probably add:

The Jewish children were pointed-out indiscriminately as good enough to enter Heaven, regardless of their parents' holiness.

There likely would have been Jews in the Corinthian congregation. So, both Jewish and Gentile parents would have heard the letter, unless it was an implied message to only the Gentiles. There is a strong case for this, because he seems to be specifically talking to the ethnically Greek in Corinthians. This is typical of his other books as well: although there would be a mixed congregation, he specifically talks to the major ethnicity of the church. There is another letter for the Hebrews, called "Hebrews". 

So yes, "Does God _not_ send some babies to Hell?" still depends on the context of the word "sanctify" in 1 Corinthians 7:14. If husbands go to Heaven because their wives are Christian, some babies go to Hell. If their rejection of God sends them to Hell regardless of spouse, then all babies _might_ go to Heaven.

Still, in the vain of the argument, Yeshua is a replacement sacrifice, but the oldschool blood sacrifice covered the sins of the family. So, that's a point to consider.


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## Desolan (Nov 14, 2011)

Ever since Adam ate the apple we died spiritually and so live in death(whatever that means). When we die we go to judgement. From there we could again be reborn in death(reincarnation), wait in an afterlife (hell, heaven, purgatory etc), or perhaps eventually be reborn in life (like Jesus). 

I would guess that babies that have had no chance to redeem or alter their souls would again be reborn in death.

-I do not necessarily believe nor have evidence for these things I say and have done very little research on the subject but it's as good a conclusion as any. Feel free to establish the religion


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## Apolo (Aug 15, 2014)

Desolan said:


> Ever since Adam ate the apple we died spiritually and so live in death(whatever that means). When we die we go to judgement. From there we could again be reborn in death(reincarnation), wait in an afterlife (hell, heaven, purgatory etc), or perhaps eventually be reborn in life (like Jesus).
> 
> I would guess that babies that have had no chance to redeem or alter their souls would again be reborn in death.
> 
> -I do not necessarily believe nor have evidence for these things I say and have done very little research on the subject but it's as good a conclusion as any. Feel free to establish the religion


Biblically, there is no reincarnation, or purgatory, as far as I have researched or know of. And when you die, you do not automatically go to be judged, that is reserved for Judgement day during the end times.




Scarlet_Heart said:


> I tend to look at these things intuitively rather than to go through some intellectual exercise or do biblical, scholarly research. So this might be completely useless to you because I know most people on this site want empirical, peer-reviewed, etc type evidence.
> 
> I've had babies of my own and it just doesn't make sense to me (assuming you believe in God in the first place) that God would create a beautiful thing and then send it to hell if it should perish. Something so beautiful and innocent? I don't believe in original sin. I think we are born perfect and are corrupted by our environment. So I think babies, who haven't become negatively affected by our ridiculous display of "humanity" and haven't had the chance to do anything bad, immediately go back to God if they should die.


Biblically, you are born with Sin nature, not corrupted by your environment, but that does not mean a child is sent to hell if they die.


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## Desolan (Nov 14, 2011)

Apolo said:


> Biblically, there is no reincarnation, or purgatory, as far as I have researched or know of. And when you die, you do not automatically go to be judged, that is reserved for Judgement day during the end times.


Assuming of course that Judgment day has not already begun. After all "To me a day is like a thousand years" (lol, I quoted God) Also "the dead rising again" in prophesy may be able to be taken as a form of reincarnation. (I think some actually say rise from their graves but am in no position to interpret original texts to see if it means this literally in all cases)

With stories being out there of near death experiences and past life memories, I'm not about to rule out an afterlife or reincarnation. (I don't believe in reincarnation continuing forever though)


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## Waif (Jan 3, 2015)

Well, these are interesting ideas. I may start another post about Heaven and Hell (and Sheol too!), because I'd like to see if the Bible says anything definitive about the time-frame on this. For example, one verse I quoted said something about little cherub babies circling God in Heaven. 

It may or may not play into the conversation about how babies are judged for their sins. Which you could argue that babies either sin or don't, but you should definitely use scripture to do that.


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## Waif (Jan 3, 2015)

@ Apolo: Well, these are interesting ideas. I may start another post about Heaven and Hell (and Sheol too!), because I'd like to see if the Bible says anything definitive about the time-frame on this. For example, one verse I quoted said something about little cherub babies circling God in Heaven. 

It may or may not play into the conversation about how babies are judged for their sins. Which you could argue that babies either sin or don't, but I'd like to use scripture to do that
@Desolan, Now we're talking about eschatology. That might be somewhat pertinent, but I'd like to get there kind of deductively.


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