[Discussing whether or not children go to Heaven if they die]
The best explanation I ever heard was along these lines: God is able to look into the future and see what would have been had the child not died; He knows if that child would have chosen or rejected Him, and will base His judgement on that. It's not "predestination" in a Calvinist sense; it's foreknowledge. <b>To me, that's the only kind of thinking that makes sense.</b>
[Emphasis mine]
44 comments
this foreknowledge thing rather makes existance pointless. Why put us through this daily grind, wars, illness etc, if he can just see what might have been and allot us to our appointed place.
It is of course fundie-wriggle to get out of children going to hell if they don't accept Jesus as their master before they die. The problem is, that's what the strict interpretation of their babble says: and there isn't wriggle room because it's inerrant and every word means exactly what is says.
If God can see into the future, why did he not predict that his most "faithful" followers would turn out to be a bunch of bigoted, shit-for-brained, no life, self-righteous, celibate (except to young boys) ignorant morons??
Oh that's right, because God doesn't exist, therefore CAN'T see into the future.
And forgive me for my ignorance, but where exactly in this holiest book you call bible does it say God can se the future? (Seriously, i've never actually heard this before, but i don't make a habit of studying the bible)
Which describes Calvinist predestination exactly, and implies that there is no free will, since God already knows everything that will happen. In fact, he MUST know this to be omniscient.
This isn't really predestination, as he's going off what would have happened, which wouldn't have happened anyway, because it didn't.
Kind of like saying if I die of a heart attack at the age of 99, but would have converted to Christianity if I had lived to 100 (like in an alternate reality or something), I get to go to heaven.
"To me, that's the only kind of thinking that makes sense."
To me, this explains why fundies so often say things that make no sense.
So...God, being omniscient and omnipotent, lets the child dies, and then punishes them according to how they would have behaved in an alternate universe where they didn't die? Darn, I should have died young and let my alternate dimension self do all the footwork for me. Oh well.
Overall, I give you are B-. It is just as obvious that you are grasping at straws in order to make your God seem less unjust, while still holding on to the idea of salvation and damnation that keep people from holding your religion with the disinterest it deserves.
If God can see the future, and all possible futures, then why did he create the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden of Eden? He would have known what was going to happen.
If God can see the future, he must be able to see His own future, and know everything that He will ever do. Does He not have free will? Or is he not bound by cause and effect? My brain hurts.
BTW, does this mean that you have no problem with abortion? I mean, a baby that would have been good goes to heaven more quickly. A baby that would have been evil will never be born to do those bad things.
How, exactly, do you get "foreknowledge" of something that isn't going to happen. All foreknowledge will tell you is that the child died. There is no human existance for that child after that. So if that is the case, god is just making it up.
Of course, I defy you to find a verse that supports your belief.
And your last sentence is simply too LOL to comment on...
Wait, but, wouldn't He know if they died and didn't have a f-- oh, never mind, my brain hurts.
Like I said before...God would have to be messed up to send a child to hell over stuff he could not control.
Does this mean that all the kids who die of cancer were going to be ebil when they were older, and that's why they died?
So my life is meaningless since I have no free will and neither do they....
I can see the TV show now:
<announcer>Counterfactual Justice!
But you'll never not do it again.
@ Seabhag
Yeah, I got the reference: I was making a (weak) joke.
Abiding in vain is quite apt, don't you think, for a rapture that isn't going to happen.
So remember kids, when a couple has a miscarriage or loses their baby to SIDS, you can make it all better by assuring them, "God knew your baby was going to be bad. That's why he killed it."
"...makes sense" only in the sense of ...er...NOT making sense...
But hey, if god already knows, then why do you waste your time (and ours) preaching to us all the time?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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