The Christian "child Salvation" Scam

[thebatman]

I'm sure you guys have all heard of this. That if a child dies, then they automatically get to go to heaven even if they weren't Christians. How convenient eh? But this hidden doctrine is found nowhere in the bible. 

 

Some may argue that when David's bastard child died as an infant, David prayed "I will go to him". But what the hell does this prove? You would think that God would mention something as important as child salvation and make it clear. Not only that, but there's some sort of mystical "age of accountability" that is also nowhere mentioned in the bible. So a 12 year old goes to heaven, but as soon as she's 13, better get saved or burn bitch!

 

The truth is in fact much more gruesome. The truth is that Christian doctrine condemns ALL nonbelievers to hell. That includes children.

[mymistake]

Before Alexander the Great there was no concept of heaven or hell.  The pagan, polytheistic Jews believed their religion was about obeying The Highest God in this life - the only life they had.  Punishments in to oldest part of the OT are just death because they couldn't imagine anything worse.

[HymenaeusAlexander]

The truth is in fact much more gruesome. The truth is that Christian doctrine condemns ALL nonbelievers to hell. That includes children.

 

Well, since you're talking about Christian doctrine and not necessarily the Bible, I'm not sure I'm completely on board. While I think a case can be made that Evangelical Christian theology leads to the conclusion that children who cannot exercise faith are consigned to hell, I don't believe this is necessarily so for Catholic theology. Also, there is no reason to suppose that any amount of special pleading and arguments from silence couldn't be employed to get around this problem. The whole economy of substitutionary atonement and salvation by grace through faith is incoherent anyway. Why stop there?

[Ravenstar]

Catholics baptize infants... isn't that to prevent them from going to hell, or limbo or purgatory?.. somewhere anyway.

 

I'm sure the Catholics have some sort of convoluted, complicated doctrine around children's salvation. They are really good at that and have had a very long time to develop their stuff

 

But I wasn't Catholic... so not sure

[miekko]

Catholics baptize infants... isn't that to prevent them from going to hell, or limbo or purgatory?.. somewhere anyway.

 

I'm sure the Catholics have some sort of convoluted, complicated doctrine around children's salvation. They are really good at that and have had a very long time to develop their stuff

 

But I wasn't Catholic... so not sure

It's not unusual among protestants to have it either, believer's baptism is actually not that common outside the anglosphere, really, and even within the anglosphere you have the anglicans, the methodists, lutherans, and a few other large and important movements practicing infant baptism. (Believer's baptism is pretty much only practiced by really small groups of Christians in European countries, but I guess baptists and such have been fairly active in converting parts of the developing world, so you might find areas in Africa, I guess, where believer's baptism is common.)

 

The catholics - and lutherans, and anglicans - baptize kids primarily to enter them into the communion of the church, and there's also some idea about it conveying some kind of working of salvation on them, as it's considered one of the sacraments in all those. E.g. in Swedish-speaking lutheranism, sacraments are also called nådemedel - "tools of grace" or "means of grace". The idea in traditional varieties of these churches pretty certainly have been that non-baptized children have gone to hell, although catholicism with its optional belief - limbo - kind of permitted for a less terrible hell for non-baptized children. 

[Ravenstar]

Thank you... I remember reading about people who were not buried in hallowed ground in the middle ages because they weren't baptized (or were heretics, or excommunicated)

 

The very doctrine of original sin makes infants 'guilty' by virtue of being born, doesn't it - and not because of any actual commission of sin.

[midniterider]

I'm sure you guys have all heard of this. That if a child dies, then they automatically get to go to heaven even if they weren't Christians. How convenient eh? But this hidden doctrine is found nowhere in the bible. 

 

Some may argue that when David's bastard child died as an infant, David prayed "I will go to him". But what the hell does this prove? You would think that God would mention something as important as child salvation and make it clear. Not only that, but there's some sort of mystical "age of accountability" that is also nowhere mentioned in the bible. So a 12 year old goes to heaven, but as soon as she's 13, better get saved or burn bitch!

 

The truth is in fact much more gruesome. The truth is that Christian doctrine condemns ALL nonbelievers to hell. That includes children.

 

Jesus sends children to Hell because he loves them.

[RipVanWinkle]

Those Xtians who believe infants and young children are spared hell haven't thought that through. If that were true it would always be better to kill a baby than to let it live because, in the former case he/she will be guaranteed a place in heaven, in the latter case, the baby may not grow up to be a Xtian and therefore  go to hell. So this belief should remove all objections to abortions for any reason.  This makes as much since as the res tof the Xtian doctrines: None.  bill

[HymenaeusAlexander]

Those Xtians who believe infants and young children are spared hell haven't thought that through. If that were true it would always be better to kill a baby than to let it live because, in the former case he/she will be guaranteed a place in heaven, in the latter case, the baby may not grow up to be a Xtian and therefore  go to hell. So this belief should remove all objections to abortions for any reason.  This makes as much since as the res tof the Xtian doctrines: None.  bill

 

I recently put forward a similar argument with a friend that if Christians really believed in the existence of hell they would practice celibacy. The reward of bringing a child into the world as a potential worshiper of God could not possibly outweigh the risk of that child growing up to reject Christ and go to hell. I don't think he understood the argument.

[Overcame Faith]

I once heard someone argue that the various genocides ordered or condoned by God in the OT, were justified because:  (1) The children went to heaven; and (2) The remainder were all accountable and had sinned so badly that they deserved what they got.  And this peson was serious.

 

Here's what I say:  any doctrine that condones the mass killing of children on the grounds that they will go to heaven, is of the most despicable, vile, and evil nature imaginable!!

 

I also agree that reading only the words in the Bible leads to one inescapable conclusion - babies who die must go to hell.  As Ravenstar correctly pointed out, the doctrine of original sin applies to all human beings and so a baby is as much a sinner as everyone else.  However, the baby is not capable of belief, faith, repentence or any of the other "necessaries" to obtain salvation and escape hell.  This has been a major problem for Christianity and so historically the church (particularly the Roman Catholics) have come up with ways around the problem.  My rule of thumb is that whenever something or the other that Christians put forward as a theological truth requires too much reading between the lines, they have invented something that, if one reads the Bible, they don't want to accept.

[mcdaddy]

Those Xtians who believe infants and young children are spared hell haven't thought that through. If that were true it would always be better to kill a baby than to let it live because, in the former case he/she will be guaranteed a place in heaven, in the latter case, the baby may not grow up to be a Xtian and therefore  go to hell. So this belief should remove all objections to abortions for any reason.  This makes as much since as the res tof the Xtian doctrines: None.  bill

I caught my still-believing wife in this conundrum a few months back.  Her response?  I wouldn't kill the baby because I don't want to "play god".  :/

 

I told her, "if it literally guaranteed my kids a spot in heaven, i'd kill em all! and you're horrible for not doing the same!"

[ExCBooster]

Catholics have it covered: limbo. My parents raising me outside religion caused no end of consternation with the extended family. My grandfather called the me "little heathen" and my great-grandmother tried to get me stealth baptised with a splash of holy water. Cue nutty arguments with the relations about who's going to hell and whatnot. We mostly get along on that point, though. One of my college room mates, though, wasn't from the kind of Christianity that believed in limbo or purgatory or whatever. She literally lost sleep over the idea of what happened to people who were born after Jesus died, but still hadn't heard of him. That can't be healthy, to worry like that over things. It looks like, for every problem Christianity patches, it opens up a lot more to stress about. Heck, mortal life is stressful enough. Why take on worries about eternity too? (This makes me wonder if any of them really think about how long eternity is...)

[RipVanWinkle]

Mcdaddy: If you said that to your wife you're a braver man than I.    bill

[mcdaddy]

Well, maybe I didn't yell it at her, but I did say it. I wouldn't chance my kids to hell. Thing is, I never, deep down, REALLY REALLY thought it was real. It never seemed right or believable completely. If I had evidence it were, absolute proof, you're damn right I'd kill Em if it kept them from eternal torment.

[Deva]

I really think most Christians can't actually imagine a baby going to hell. Interesting then, that they also believe in "original sin".  Talk about contradiction! The various ways the churches treat this subject shows that they can't even agree on this doctrine and don't want to face up to its true implications.

 

If we really have this gulf separating us from God, and it is due to some sin of our ancestors, why would there not be babies in hell? This also cuts into their argument of free will as an excuse for Biblegod.  I say no, there is no choice involved in our being born into this world.

[RipVanWinkle]

Mcdaddy: Truthfully, I agree. There really isn't a good response for Xtians who believe babies all go to heaven. The have painted themselves into a corner, but refuse to recognize it.   bill