Why does God hate babies who have not sinned?

[Greatest I am]

Why does God hate babies who have not sinned?

Scriptures indicate that God knows that babies in the womb have not done anything good or evil. They also indicate that God hates some babies even while in the womb and innocent. It is also said that God creates us and our characters. Our characters, as we evolve, cannot help but do evil. God then is responsible for the evil that we will do as he has created our natures. Natures that we cannot help but follow.

We can blame our free will and the choices we make for the evil that we do but this does not explain why our God created natures decide to do evil. Theistic evolutionists try to explain this paradox but the average literalist or fundamental Christian does not follow their reasoning.

We have no choice and no free will to deviate from our God given sin nature and God would know this as it is was all planned. Jesus was to die even before man was created. That is why Adam’s sin is called a necessary sin.

If we have no choice in following our sin natures, and cannot deviate from our part in God’s plan, then what is God’s reason for punishing us for being exactly what he created and programmed us to do?

That is why Adam’s sin is called a necessary sin. He could not help but sin and neither can any of us. You cannot help but do evil and thus sin.

This is all rather abstract so if you like I will imagine a viable scenario for us to work with. We all know that many are starving to death in various countries. Imagine one of these starving children walking past a farmer’s apple tree. The child knows that if he steals the apples that the farmer’s family will starve to death. He or she has a choice of either stealing apples to prevent their death or not. The survival instinct being our first instinct, I think apples will be eaten.

That child’s God given nature will choose life, as all natures do by default, and eat an apple. Does that child deserve hell when it’s God given nature drove it to sin?

We cannot do anything but follow our basic God given natures. Do we deserve hell for doing so?

Is God’s punishment unjust?

If sin was required for Jesus to manifest, Adam had to sin. Would his punishment and death have also been unjust?

Did God, knowing Adam would be a sinner and cause God’s/Jesus’ death, hate Adam as well when he was creating him?

Regards
DL

This clip explains theistic evolution and how you cannot help but do evil and sin.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#g/c/6F8036F680C1DBEB

 

[Jan Ardena]

Does this describe your belief system?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

jan.

 

[GeoffP]

Yeah, original sin was kind of an unpleasant issue for me too. Definitely a turn-off for Abrahamism.

Jan, you consider yourself a Christian expert: where's original sin in the Bible? Where does it mandate that you'll go to hell for it?

 

[Jan Ardena]

Yeah, original sin was kind of an unpleasant issue for me too. Definitely a turn-off for Abrahamism.

Jan, you consider yourself a Christian expert: where's original sin in the Bible? Where does it mandate that you'll go to hell for it?

Thank you for considering me a ''Christian expert'', but you are of course mistaken.

Original sin seems to mean the origin of sin. The first act one can perform, from which the illusion of separation from
God begins.

The idea of hell works in a similar way to the idea of 'prison'. One goes to prison having committed an offence, the worse the offence, the more severe the sentence. It called ''justice''.

As far as I know it doesn't mention one goes to hell for the original sin.


jan.

 

[Promo]

Thank you for considering me a ''Christian expert'', but you are of course mistaken.

Original sin seems to mean the origin of sin. The first act one can perform, from which the illusion of separation from
God begins.

The idea of hell works in a similar way to the idea of 'prison'. One goes to prison having committed an offence, the worse the offence, the more severe the sentence. It called ''justice''.

As far as I know it doesn't mention one goes to hell for the original sin.


jan.

So can one serve their time in Hell and then be released to Heaven?

 

[Greatest I am]

Does this describe your belief system?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

jan.

There were as many Gnostic sects as Christian sects with different views.
I was more of an esoteric ecumenist before apotheosis and choosing to call myself a Gnostic Christian.

Instead of describing what I believe against all the other cults, let me ignore them for now and give you my anecdotal story.
I would say two things though that from what I can tell, all Gnostics believed as Jesus did. God is within all of us and our bodies are the temple of God. And scriptures, even our own are not to be read literally. They are a tool for seeking and wisdom. Nothing more.

The Godhead I know in a nutshell.
I was a skeptic till the age of 39.
I then had an apotheosis and later branded myself a Gnostic Christian naturalist.
Gnostic Christian because I exemplify this quote from William Blake.

“Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white.”

This refers to how Gnostics tend to reverse, for moral reasons, what Christians see in the Bible. We tend to recognize the evil ways of O T God where literal Christians will see God’s killing as good. Christians are sheeple where Gnostic Christians are goats.
This is perhaps why we see the use of a Jesus scapegoat as immoral, while theists like to make Jesus their beast of burden. An immoral position.

During my apotheosis, something that only lasted 5 or 6 seconds, the only things of note to happen was that my paradigm of reality was confirmed and I was chastised to think more demographically. What I found was what I call a cosmic consciousness. Not a new term but one that is a close but not exact fit.

I recognize that I have no proof. That is always the way with apotheosis.
This is also why I prefer to stick to issues of morality because no one has yet been able to prove that God is real and I have no more proof than they for the cosmic consciousness.

The cosmic consciousness is not a miracle working God. He does not interfere with us save when one of us finds it. Not a common thing from what I can see. It is a part of nature and our next evolutionary step.

I tend to have more in common with atheists who ignore what they see as my delusion because our morals are basically identical. Theist tend not to like me much as I have no respect for literalists and fundamentals and think that most Christians have tribal mentalities and poor morals.

I am rather between a rock and a hard place but this I cannot help.

I am happy to be questioned on what I believe but whether or not God exists is basically irrelevant to this world for all that he does not do, and I prefer to thrash out moral issues that can actually find an end point. The search for God is never ending when you are of the Gnostic persuasion. My apotheosis basically says that I am to discard whatever God I found, God as a set of rules that is, not idol worship it but instead, raise my bar and seek further.

My apotheosis also showed me that God has no need for love, adoration or obedience. He has no needs. Man has dominion here on earth and is to be and is the supreme being.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Thank you for considering me a ''Christian expert'', but you are of course mistaken.

Original sin seems to mean the origin of sin. The first act one can perform, from which the illusion of separation from
God begins.

The idea of hell works in a similar way to the idea of 'prison'. One goes to prison having committed an offence, the worse the offence, the more severe the sentence. It called ''justice''.

As far as I know it doesn't mention one goes to hell for the original sin.


jan.

That would be in Eden yet Jews who get first interpretation have no such concept.
The opposite in fact. Eden to them was man's elevation, not a fall at all.

What is wrong with mankind becoming as Gods in the sense of gaining a moral sense?

Regards
DL
http://www.mrrena.com/misc/judaism2.php

 

[MacGyver1968]

Yeah, original sin was kind of an unpleasant issue for me too. Definitely a turn-off for Abrahamism.

Jan, you consider yourself a Christian expert: where's original sin in the Bible? Where does it mandate that you'll go to hell for it?

My sister and I had an argument about this recently. I was trying to explain to her how I thought the concept of "original sin" and "age of accountability" didn't make sense to me, and was one of the things that made me question my Christian upbringing. I think some of these "rules" don't actually show up in the bible...but are in fact made up by preachers to answer the smart ass kid who thinks he's come up with a trick question. "So preacher, what happens if someone lives their whole life, and never sins? Do they need salvation or do they just go to heaven?" "No Billy, everyone needs salvation, we are all stained with Adam and Eve's original sin...so we all need to be cleansed by Christ's blood." "So what about babies? If they are stained with original sin, but are too young to understand they need to accept Christ, do they just go to hell?" "No, Billy, babies that die before they are old enough to understand the need for Christ all go to heaven."

It seems to me, if God can somehow magically wash away the original sin from babies, so they can get into heaven...why doesn't he just do that for everyone?

 

[arauca]

Yeah, original sin was kind of an unpleasant issue for me too. Definitely a turn-off for Abrahamism.

Jan, you consider yourself a Christian expert: where's original sin in the Bible? Where does it mandate that you'll go to hell for it?

I am not Jan , but I believe the word sin started when Cain killed Abel.

 

[arauca]

Why does God hate babies who have not sinned?

Scriptures indicate that God knows that babies in the womb have not done anything good or evil. They also indicate that God hates some babies even while in the womb and innocent. It is also said that God creates us and our characters. Our characters, as we evolve, cannot help but do evil. God then is responsible for the evil that we will do as he has created our natures. Natures that we cannot help but follow.

We can blame our free will and the choices we make for the evil that we do but this does not explain why our God created natures decide to do evil. Theistic evolutionists try to explain this paradox but the average literalist or fundamental Christian does not follow their reasoning.

We have no choice and no free will to deviate from our God given sin nature and God would know this as it is was all planned. Jesus was to die even before man was created. That is why Adam’s sin is called a necessary sin.

If we have no choice in following our sin natures, and cannot deviate from our part in God’s plan, then what is God’s reason for punishing us for being exactly what he created and programmed us to do?

That is why Adam’s sin is called a necessary sin. He could not help but sin and neither can any of us. You cannot help but do evil and thus sin.

This is all rather abstract so if you like I will imagine a viable scenario for us to work with. We all know that many are starving to death in various countries. Imagine one of these starving children walking past a farmer’s apple tree. The child knows that if he steals the apples that the farmer’s family will starve to death. He or she has a choice of either stealing apples to prevent their death or not. The survival instinct being our first instinct, I think apples will be eaten.

That child’s God given nature will choose life, as all natures do by default, and eat an apple. Does that child deserve hell when it’s God given nature drove it to sin?

We cannot do anything but follow our basic God given natures. Do we deserve hell for doing so?

Is God’s punishment unjust?

If sin was required for Jesus to manifest, Adam had to sin. Would his punishment and death have also been unjust?

Did God, knowing Adam would be a sinner and cause God’s/Jesus’ death, hate Adam as well when he was creating him?

Regards
DL

This clip explains theistic evolution and how you cannot help but do evil and sin.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#g/c/6F8036F680C1DBEB

Why do you hate god , what did he to you ? you must be a very sick physically person

 

[Syne]

The age of accountability refutes the entire premise of this thread. Just like a child who believes in Santa does not possess the requisite experience for that belief to be lasting, a child must reach an age of understanding what it actually means to accept or reject a god, or even just exert a genuine conviction.

That would be in Eden yet Jews who get first interpretation have no such concept.
The opposite in fact. Eden to them was man's elevation, not a fall at all.

What is wrong with mankind becoming as Gods in the sense of gaining a moral sense?

This is contrary to all of your nonsense posts bemoaning punishment. If you actually held this to be true, you would be forced to admit that God only warned of the consequences before hand and these are all that were experience afterward.

 

[Jan Ardena]

So can one serve their time in Hell and then be released to Heaven?

What do you think?

jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Greatest I am,

I would say two things though that from what I can tell, all Gnostics believed as Jesus did. God is within all of us and our bodies are the temple of God. And scriptures, even our own are not to be read literally. They are a tool for seeking and wisdom. Nothing more.

The first part is corroberated by scriptures, but the second part seems a little mixed up.
We have to read the scriptures literally, in fact I would say we have to read everything literally, then decide what it means.

The Godhead I know in a nutshell.
I was a skeptic till the age of 39.
I then had an apotheosis and later branded myself a Gnostic Christian naturalist.
Gnostic Christian because I exemplify this quote from William Blake.

�Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white.�

Can you explain what this quote means to you?

To me it says that people use the Bible for in'iquitous reasons, and for the elavation of consciousness, performing in the mode of goodness. ''Night'' representing darkness of consciousness, or ignorance of knowledge, ''Day'' representing illumined consciousness, clarity of what is real and what isn't, being able to see.

This refers to how Gnostics tend to reverse, for moral reasons, what Christians see in the Bible. We tend to recognize the evil ways of O T God where literal Christians will see God�s killing as good.

Imagine you create an interactive computer game, and let's say me and few others really like the idea of the game and desire to interact. You allow us, and we enter into the game with our new bodies (avatars). Then let's say me and my mates act in a way that
contradicts the rules (which you set), and you decide to terminate our contract, thereby terminating our bodies. Would that termination affect us, no matter how brutal it was?

Christians are sheeple where Gnostic Christians are goats.
This is perhaps why we see the use of a Jesus scapegoat as immoral, while theists like to make Jesus their beast of burden. An immoral position.

'Christian' and 'Gnostic Christian' are merely names, and you seem to be under the idea that once someone attaches these ''names'' to themselves, they now personify them. Now that cannot be true. We know from our experience that everyone is different. We know that we have the potential to understand great things. And we know that such understanding can come about.

During my apotheosis, something that only lasted 5 or 6 seconds, the only things of note to happen was that my paradigm of reality was confirmed and I was chastised to think more demographically. What I found was what I call a cosmic consciousness. Not a new term but one that is a close but not exact fit.

What is ''Cosmic Consciousness''?

I recognize that I have no proof. That is always the way with apotheosis.
This is also why I prefer to stick to issues of morality because no one has yet been able to prove that God is real and I have no more proof than they for the cosmic consciousness.

No one can prove anything is real. We just don't have that ability.
So to stand aside and say well prove to me God is real, is nothing but an attempt to take yourself outside of God.
What you are really saying is, ''I don't want to believe in God''.

From a scriptoral sense, God is the origin of everything, the original cause. Understanding that, how can you be outside of Him.
What proof is it that can show, you are already inside of God, and God is inside of you?

The cosmic consciousness is not a miracle working God. He does not interfere with us save when one of us finds it. Not a common thing from what I can see. It is a part of nature and our next evolutionary step.

I believe there are many facets to this thing.

I tend to have more in common with atheists who ignore what they see as my delusion because our morals are basically identical.

Compared to some ideologies, I tend to have more in common with atheists. But again 'theist' and 'atheist' are merely words, and there's alot more under the hood of every single individual.

Theist tend not to like me much as I have no respect for literalists and fundamentals and think that most Christians have tribal mentalities and poor morals.

You seem to go out of your way to insult God, the object of their belief, as do the modern atheist movement, but you don't seem
interested (like they) in reasoning. You just beat us over the head.

There's so much misunderstanding in the things you say and feel about God.
You should try and reason it out.

I am rather between a rock and a hard place but this I cannot help.

You can help it if you really want to.

I am happy to be questioned on what I believe but whether or not God exists is basically irrelevant to this world for all that he does not do, and I prefer to thrash out moral issues that can actually find an end point.

Where does the idea of God ''not existing'' come from?
It actually doesn't mean anything, because there is absolutely no way to find out.

Your only position can be atheist, one who does not, or, lacks belief in God. Anything below that is foolishness.
The original position can only be ''God is''.

The search for God is never ending when you are of the Gnostic persuasion. My apotheosis basically says that I am to discard whatever God I found, God as a set of rules that is, not idol worship it but instead, raise my bar and seek further.

There's only one God.
We simply have to recognise Him.

My apotheosis also showed me that God has no need for love, adoration or obedience. He has no needs. Man has dominion here on earth and is to be and is the supreme being.

Well, I think your ''apotheosis'' needs to be questioned.

Regards
Jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

MacGyver1968,

"So preacher, what happens if someone lives their whole life, and never sins?

How can we not sin?
For example we kill, constantly, even going for a nice stroll on a summers evening, we are killing.
We eat, and wear animals which have been slaughtered for our personal pleasure, creating the demand to kill more
animals.

It seems to me, if God can somehow magically wash away the original sin from babies, so they can get into heaven...why doesn't he just do that for everyone?

We asociate innocence with the body of the baby. They have only just come into the world, and nothing is fully developed, let alone being to plot evil schemes. The driver of that body, however, is not brand new, and as been changing vehicles constantly from time immemorial. Each change means the driver has to go through the process of being born, and growing up due to being conditioned by the body type, but the driver isn't innocent. God knows the driver.

Just another way of looking at it.

jan.

 

[Balerion]

Yeah, original sin was kind of an unpleasant issue for me too. Definitely a turn-off for Abrahamism.

Jan, you consider yourself a Christian expert: where's original sin in the Bible? Where does it mandate that you'll go to hell for it?

Paul the Apostle broaches the concept of original sin in the (obviously) New Testament. He claims that Sin came from Adam, which is also why the Adam and Eve's eviction from Eden is considered to be what the fall of man refers to even though the guilty party (or parties) is not mentioned by name.

Making the connection between original sin and a ticket to hell is easy. Since hell is the punishment for sin, and original sin is still a burden that must be cleansed by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the messiah, it stands to reason that you can go to hell on the basis of original sin alone. Of course, this is a silly exercise since neither hell nor sin actually exist, but if we're talking theologically, there it is. Oh, and while the Catholics and others might teach that babies do not go to hell for original sin, that clause is never mentioned in the bible, as far as I'm aware. There's nothing in there about babies being exempt.

As for the age of reason stuff, baptism--at least as far as the largest Christian denomination in the world is concerned--is the mode of absolving oneself of original sin. So a baby doesn't actually have to arrive at an age of reason, they simply need to be baptized. This was why there was such kerfuffle over the church's position that unbaptized babies went to limbo. And given that the bible itself doesn't make such an exception, this was actually a concession made by the church itself. They have since reversed course and said that it's now official that unbaptized babies go to heaven, but again, this is not what scripture says.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Balerion,

Paul the Apostle broaches the concept of original sin in the (obviously) New Testament. He claims that Sin came from Adam, which is also why the Adam and Eve's eviction from Eden is considered to be what the fall of man refers to even though the guilty party (or parties) is not mentioned by name.

The whole Bible is based on the Adamic bloodline, so sin was introduced by Adam/Eve thereby corrupting a pure bloodline.
The sin itself was envy of God. Eve wanted to produce a son just like God.

Making the connection between original sin and a ticket to hell is easy. Since hell is the punishment for sin,

''The wages of sin is death'', not hell.

...and original sin is still a burden that must be cleansed by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the messiah,

Such an action is the first step, not an automatic cleansing agent.

...it stands to reason that you can go to hell on the basis of original sin alone.

Hell is a state of consciousness, and the place is a constuct of such consciousness.
The prison is a constuct of criminality.

Of course, this is a silly exercise since neither hell nor sin actually exist, but if we're talking theologically, there it is.

It's good to know that you can talk theologically.

Oh, and while the Catholics and others might teach that babies do not go to hell for original sin, that clause is never mentioned in the bible, as far as I'm aware. There's nothing in there about babies being exempt.

Children aren't responsible for their actions until they reach an age where they understand the difference between right and wrong.
Any action a child performs becomes the responsibility of the parent or guardian.

As for the age of reason stuff, baptism--at least as far as the largest Christian denomination in the world is concerned--is the mode of absolving oneself of original sin.

jan.

 

[Neverfly]

The whole Bible is based on the Adamic bloodline, so sin was introduced by Adam/Eve thereby corrupting a pure bloodline.
The sin itself was envy of God. Eve wanted to produce a son just like God.

I get it- so Eve was jealous of Jesus! That totally makes sense.

''The wages of sin is death'', not hell.

Don't sin; don't die. It's like Highlander, but don't lop off heads cuz that's sinful.

Children aren't responsible for their actions until they reach an age where they understand the difference between right and wrong.
Any action a child performs becomes the responsibility of the parent or guardian.

hmmm...

Eve wanted to produce a son just like God.

So if baby Jesus had sinned, God would go to Hell?

 

[Balerion]

The whole Bible is based on the Adamic bloodline, so sin was introduced by Adam/Eve thereby corrupting a pure bloodline.
The sin itself was envy of God. Eve wanted to produce a son just like God.

The sin was disobedience, not envy. They ate from the tree of knowledge when God told them not to. That's the original sin.

''The wages of sin is death'', not hell.

Hell is where the dead go, Jan. You have to understand that in Christian Theology, death only happened to sinners. This is the idiocy of a cult that believes the end-times are nigh. "This generation shall not pass," remember?

Such an action is the first step, not an automatic cleansing agent.

Oh, I didn't realize this was "Just Make Crap Up Hour". Well in that case, baptism also cures acne. And crabs. Wait, no, crabs like the water...

No, seriously, most denominations believe that baptism cleanses original sin, as it is a symbolic burial and rebirth into Christ. This is why infants are baptized; as it happens, that practice began around the same time as the concept of original sin was first considered in the middle ages.

Hell is a state of consciousness, and the place is a constuct of such consciousness.
The prison is a constuct of criminality.

I have no idea what you're getting at. What does that have to do with going to hell for original sin?

Children aren't responsible for their actions until they reach an age where they understand the difference between right and wrong.
Any action a child performs becomes the responsibility of the parent or guardian.

Well, yeah, thats how we think. But theologians back in the middle ages didn't agree. They believed that original sin prevented a person from getting into heaven, regardless of how old they were at the time of their death, which is why infants--who suffered from a ridiculously high death rate in the early middle ages--were baptized immediately. The practice began as the concept of original sin became popular. That wasn't a coincidence.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Thank you for considering me a ''Christian expert'', but you are of course mistaken.

Original sin seems to mean the origin of sin. The first act one can perform, from which the illusion of separation from God begins.

The idea of hell works in a similar way to the idea of 'prison'. One goes to prison having committed an offence, the worse the offence, the more severe the sentence. It called ''justice''.

As far as I know it doesn't mention one goes to hell for the original sin.


jan.

"It" here is the Bible. But the people who were making up these ideas back in the day didn't yet have a Bible, especially as we know it today. And the people who did have access to the various writings that were glued together centuries after Christ are largely discredited by the Religious Right (the folks today who think the Bible is the infallible source of Christian doctrine).

Scholars in general acknowledge that the Christian movement rose out of a long history of oral tradition. When the documents started to surface, they were not universally accepted. It took considerable wrangling by literate people of the day, who were at odds with dozens of factions who had their own versions of the story of Christ - one of which were the Gnostics:

The concept of original sin was first alluded to in the 2nd century by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in his controversy (written in Greek) with the dualist Gnostics.[2] Its scriptural foundation is based on the New Testament teaching of Paul the Apostle (Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22). Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose and Ambrosiaster considered that mankind shares in Adam's sin, transmitted by human generation.

Ask the average Bible-thumper who Irenaeus was (or the other patriarchs listed above) and their eyes glaze over. Similarly they probably know almost nothing about the critical analysis of the writings we call the Epistles of Paul. They certainly are not a first-hand account of the life and sayings of Jesus.

Original sin is like a hundred other concepts that arise out religious doctrine. They're inventions, done to explain the many paradoxes and contradictions that arise out of the basic premise of the creed. In this case, there was a convoluted message about reward and punishment. As the debate unfolded to resolve the controversy, the tradition did what it had been doing for hundreds of years. It continued to evolve the legend.

The question raised in the OP - hell for babies - was solved later by adopting the belief that a benevolent master of the universe was not a sadist, therefore He must have a special place for the unbaptized - purgatory. If anything the timing of the debate over Purgatory demonstrates how new the idea was of Original Sin, and, only recently before that, the concept of Heaven and Hell.

Yes, it's an invention, but so is the rest of the whole tradition, since it's founded in legend, myth and superstition.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Paul the Apostle broaches the concept of original sin in the (obviously) New Testament. He claims that Sin came from Adam, which is also why the Adam and Eve's eviction from Eden is considered to be what the fall of man refers to even though the guilty party (or parties) is not mentioned by name.

Making the connection between original sin and a ticket to hell is easy. Since hell is the punishment for sin, and original sin is still a burden that must be cleansed by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the messiah, it stands to reason that you can go to hell on the basis of original sin alone. Of course, this is a silly exercise since neither hell nor sin actually exist, but if we're talking theologically, there it is. Oh, and while the Catholics and others might teach that babies do not go to hell for original sin, that clause is never mentioned in the bible, as far as I'm aware. There's nothing in there about babies being exempt.

As for the age of reason stuff, baptism--at least as far as the largest Christian denomination in the world is concerned--is the mode of absolving oneself of original sin. So a baby doesn't actually have to arrive at an age of reason, they simply need to be baptized. This was why there was such kerfuffle over the church's position that unbaptized babies went to limbo. And given that the bible itself doesn't make such an exception, this was actually a concession made by the church itself. They have since reversed course and said that it's now official that unbaptized babies go to heaven, but again, this is not what scripture says.

I guess that's one of the differences between different brands of Christianity. In the Southern Baptist faith, babies aren't baptisted....you are baptisted after making a profession of faith.