seeds wrote: ↑Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:01 pm
I have often wondered how they determine a difference between an isolated human dying before understanding anything about the gospel, and that of a toddler or an infant who dies before understanding the gospel.
Yet (aside from a few extreme cases), most Christians assume that children who die before reaching an age that allows them to understand such things will surely be accepted into heaven.
So what’s the difference?
Kayla wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 8:04 pm
that in fact has been the traditional doctrine - children who are not baptized go to hell
Let’s look a little deeper into that “traditional doctrine.”
Imagine the situation of the alleged final judgment day.
Now I know it is difficult to fathom the logistics of such a thing, but imagine Jesus standing in the midst of billions of resurrected infants and toddlers, and proclaiming the following:
“...I realize that most of you neither now, nor at the time of your death, can even understand human language...
(not to mention the fact that most of you were born in areas of the world where knowledge of me was either nonexistent, or not promoted).
Nevertheless, because your parents (be they Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, etc., etc.) never made the effort to have one of my agents pour some special water on your head,...
(“special water” that would have absolved you of the actions of two mythological knuckleheads in a mythological place called the Garden of Eden)
...I therefore have no choice but to give you an indestructible body and condemn you to an eternity (trillions and trillions of years – on into infinity) of unspeakable pain from direct and deliberate torture.
I mean, surely you little ones can understand my position, right? No? Must be that language thing again.
Anyway, I Jesus (the paragon of love and forgiveness), do hereby declare that your writhing in agony and eternal screams for mercy shall begin on this day and shall last forevermore...”
And so ends the final judgment of unbaptized children according to the above mentioned “traditional doctrine.”
And people wonder why there are atheists.
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