hitler in heaven - a test

Originally posted by Nordlys
Wow. It is wicked of a baby to communicate in order to have its basic needs (which include human contact) met? Sounds like a baby without sin would die quickly, as the parents would have a hard time figuring out what it needs.

Like is said to vistesd, I never said that crying for a need was wicked. If the baby is being taken care of, they have human contact. They don't 'need' to have physical contact to live and grow. It is not a need like everybody tries to make it look like.

Originally posted by Nordlys
You mean if you were able to create a sentient being, it would be moral for you to do with it whatever you wanted, including any kind of cruelty? I would think that being the creator would give you more responsibility, not less, as you would be the one responsible for the being's existence and ability to feel (and ultimately for its faults).

What you see as cruelty from the Lord is really punishment for sin. 😉

Originally posted by LemonJello
"No. What I mean is that when we say someone is "wicked" we make an implicit assumption that they possess moral agency because we are really pointing to what we think are moral failings regarding the motivational/evaluative sets that have the support of their reason and guide their actions."

I am not making any implicit assumption, I am going by what the Lord says, not what I think, feel, or what the world has taught me.

" a newborn (let's say a neonate) simply is not a moral agent.

Would this mean that it is okay to kill a newborn because it is simply not a moral agent?

When you state that something like a neonate is "wicked" you are simply projecting agency where there is none. My point is that you have no good reasons for claiming that something like a neonate is capable of displaying wickedness.

NO! I am stating what the Lord has and that is the good reason for my claim. Just because you don't think it is don't mean it isn't.

"But you haven't demonstrated how they are even capable of wickedness. In what could their wickedness possibly consist?"

They are born in sin. The natural man is only capable of wickedness wether you think so or not. It is not untill the Lord changes the person that the sinful nature is depressed.

Wanting is a sin, the Bible says we are not to want, therefore, when a baby cries just to be held they are sinning.

"Nonsense."

Refer to the post to vistesd.

Originally posted by knightmeister
This is a test of your heart to see where you are at. It's aimed especially at the ToOne's and Rajk's of this forum.

Don't think too much about this or it won't work . It's a test of your spontaneous reactions....

Imagine you have arrived in heaven having lived a life of truth and compassion and you find when you get there that Hitler is up the ...[text shortened]... ness. You also have not understood that the parable of the talents was aimed at you.

Answwr: a).

Any further questions?

Originally posted by pritybetta
Like is said to vistesd, I never said that crying for a need was wicked. If the baby is being taken care of, they have human contact. They don't 'need' to have physical contact to live and grow. It is not a need like everybody tries to make it look like.

Yes, it is a need. A child who is denied physical contact will not develop normally.

Originally posted by pritybetta
What you see as cruelty from the Lord is really punishment for sin. 😉

You can't seriously believe that being burned is an adequate punishment for a baby who is crying because it wants to be held?? I must say I find this really disturbing. The amused smiley doesn't help.

Originally posted by pritybetta
Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]"No. What I mean is that when we say someone is "wicked" we make an implicit assumption that they possess moral agency because we are really pointing to what we think are moral failings regarding the motivational/evaluative sets that have the support of their reason and guide their actions."

I am not maki eld they are sinning.[/b]

"Nonsense."

Refer to the post to vistesd.[/b]

I am not making any implicit assumption, I am going by what the Lord says, not what I think, feel, or what the world has taught me.

Supposing that is true, your Lord must be quite mistaken at times. You might want to stop and ask yourself if what he says actually makes any sense before you endorse it.

Would this mean that it is okay to kill a newborn because it is simply not a moral agent?

Of course not. From that X is not a moral agent, it does not follow that X is not a moral patient. That the newborn is not a moral agent does not imply that it is not morally considerable.

NO! I am stating what the Lord has and that is the good reason for my claim.

But I think we have good reasons to think your Lord is mistaken on this issue. In a debate, we are supposed to enter into the practice of giving reasons that bear on the truth for or against. I have already given some reasons why I think your stance is false. I'm asking if you have some reasons that support your stance that I may be missing. If you think your Lord is correct here, what are the good reasons that undergirds his stance? If on the other hand, you are just blindly following what he says without any regard to, or even in spite of, the reasons available to you, might that not be a bit irresponsible on your part? Maybe your only reason is that you think your Lord is a reliable source in all matters. My response would still be for you to consider the reasons against your stance: clearly, your Lord is not reliable on at least this issue.

They are born in sin.

I don't really know what that means. And, anyway, I don't think you are actually answering my question. My question, again, is in what does the neonate's wickedness consist? Can you point to motivational/evaluative commitments of this neonate that are morally deficient in some way? Not likely, since the neonate does not yet possess the ability to make considered moral judgments. So, you seem to be using 'wickedness' in a way that is different from everyday, normal usage. I would just like you to explain adequately what you mean here by the term. That "they are born in sin" doesn't explain anything -- it only seems to be repeating the fact that you think the neonate is wicked somehow.

Originally posted by pritybetta
Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]"No. What I mean is that when we say someone is "wicked" we make an implicit assumption that they possess moral agency because we are really pointing to what we think are moral failings regarding the motivational/evaluative sets that have the support of their reason and guide their actions."

I am not maki ...[text shortened]... eld they are sinning.[/b]

"Nonsense."

Refer to the post to vistesd.[/b]

They are born in sin. The natural man is only capable of wickedness wether you think so or not. It is not untill the Lord changes the person that the sinful nature is depressed.

By the way, this means that you think a newborn who promptly dies before "the Lord changes" the newborn is then sentenced to suffer for eternity in hell, right? Wow, you think that is just? God brings this entity into existence more or less just for it to suffer.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]They are born in sin. The natural man is only capable of wickedness wether you think so or not. It is not untill the Lord changes the person that the sinful nature is depressed.

By the way, this means that you think a newborn who promptly dies before "the Lord changes" the newborn is then sentenced to suffer for eternity in hell, right? Wow, yo ...[text shortened]... think that is just? God brings this entity into existence more or less just for it to suffer.[/b]

But it was a BAD BABY 😠

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
Answwr: a).

Any further questions?

I thought not. 🙂 (I was trying for a smiley with a halo....rats!)

Originally posted by LemonJello
I don't really know what that means. And, anyway, I don't think you are actually answering my question. My question, again, is in what does the neonate's wickedness consist? Can you point to motivational/evaluative commitments of this neonate that are morally deficient in some way? Not likely, since the neonate does not yet possess the ability to make -- it only seems to be repeating the fact that you think the neonate is wicked somehow.

Many Christians become masters at shifting blame. This is just another clasic case. It is extremely common to hear Christians blame the devil for all bad things that they do. In this case the idea is that the Christian in question is trying to admit to being sinful without taking on the guilt or admiting to being the cause of his sinfulness, so he needs to pass on the blame to his ancestors (e.g. Adam). So its basically:
"I am sinfull and need forgiveness from God, but its really not my fault as I was born with a sinful nature". But then the obvious problem arises that God knowingly allowed you to be born sinfull, hence the need for the whole Adam and Eve story, which is again a whole chain of blame game:
1. We aren't to blame for our sin - Adam is.
2. Adam isn't to blame for his sin a) he was ignorant at the time and b) who can resist the charms of a woman - blame Eve.
3. Eve was equally ignorant and was decieved by the snake.
4. The snake (the devil) takes all blame which doesn't bother us too much as we are not realted to him.
5. Where his sin came from and why God made him is not to be discussed.

Originally posted by Nordlys
Yes, it is a need. A child who is denied physical contact will not develop normally.

Proof please. I know of a few babies who's parents did not hold them when ever they cryed for it and they turned out just fine.

Originally posted by Nordlys
You can't seriously believe that being burned is an adequate punishment for a baby who is crying because it wants to be held?? I must say I find this really disturbing. The amused smiley doesn't help.

You do not get it. Read the Bible and truly study it. Unless you do this you will never know what I am saying or meaning. It is not 'just because the baby is crying because it wants to be held' and untill you study the Lord's Word, you will not know the true meaning. I can only try to explain it so much. The Lord does it much better than I ever can.

Originally posted by pritybetta
I pray that I will have eternal life with God, but if it is his will that I am not then what does 'wanting' it do for me? It is selfish to 'want' something for myself. I pray that my children grow up healthy and strong, however, if they don't then it is God's will that they (and I) learn something from it. It is not wanting something for myself and I woul away so that we can walk upright in the Spirit as new men (born of the spirit).

...babies do develop the neurology for being able to express wants long before 12 months. My girls 'wanted' to be held after 3. They would cry and cry until someone picked them up and as soon as they were picked up they quit. Nothing else would keep them from crying.

My point was that crying, at those ages, may be the only means they have of expressing such wants, since they do not have the ability to say, “Please hold me”.

And the fact that a parent cannot figure out what want is being expressed (I recall that that was difficult at times!) does not mean that a reasonable want is not being expressed—in all cases.

__________________________________

I would need some references on the question of babies not needing physical contact (e.g., being held, caressed, spoken to) in order for normal development to take place—including neurological development for the capacity to love and to express love. The neurology does not develop in a vacuum. My wife is more of an expert on child development than I am, but I do believe that speech centers in the brain tend to be more “retarded” in children who are not exposed to human speech long before they themselves can speak, or even know the meanings of the words they hear.

EDIT: I don't think we're asking about some permanent damage because a parent sometimes did not respond to a crying baby by picking it up, or because parents can't always figure out what a baby wants.

Originally posted by LemonJello
"Supposing that is true, your Lord must be quite mistaken at times. You might want to stop and ask yourself if what he says actually makes any sense before you endorse it."

That is just it, if someone goes by what they 'think' makes sense, they could be mistaken themselves. They could be going by what they have been taught to feel on the subject and not consider to study it and find out why the Lord said it. I believe the Lord knows what he is doing and knows far more than you and I can ever imagine.

Of course not. From that X is not a moral agent, it does not follow that X is not a moral patient. That the newborn is not a moral agent does not imply that it is not morally considerable."

Yes, I know that. I was just wondering what your response would be. 😉

"But I think we have good reasons to think your Lord is mistaken on this issue. In a debate, we are supposed to enter into the practice of giving reasons that bear on the truth for or against. I have already given some reasons why I think your stance is false."

And what reasons are they, what you have grown up to believe to be moral? There are many people who have grown up to believe that killing someone who has down syndrome is just as moral. We do not think it is however they do. Who is right and who is wrong here? You would claim you are but they would claim they are. Do you get what I am saying here? We are taught what is moral by the society we live in. The Lord has provided us his Word to live by, but many disregard it because of things that they read and think are immoral because of what they have been taught by the society they live in.

I have given good reasons on my part too, however, nobody wants to accept them because of what they believe to be moral instead of seeing 'why' the Lord says it.

" I'm asking if you have some reasons that support your stance that I may be missing. If you think your Lord is correct here, what are the good reasons that undergirds his stance? If on the other hand, you are just blindly following what he says without any regard to, or even in spite of, the reasons available to you, might that not be a bit irresponsible on your part? Maybe your only reason is that you think your Lord is a reliable source in all matters. My response would still be for you to consider the reasons against your stance: clearly, your Lord is not reliable on at least this issue."

No, I am not blindly following what he says. I understand that we are all children of the Devil and full of sin and deserve the utter most punishment. Has anyone considered that 'if' some of these babies were to grow up, they may have well been killers, rapist, thieves, etc.? What if the Lord was saving someone else's life because he knew if this child were to live he/she would do something tearable?

"I don't really know what that means."

If you studied the Bible you would know what 'born in sin' means. It means we are born with the nature of sin, we desire sinful things. Unless the Lord changes our hearts, which he only does when we are under the hearing (also meaning reading) of his word.

"And, anyway, I don't think you are actually answering my question. My question, again, is in what does the neonate's wickedness consist? Can you point to motivational/evaluative commitments of this neonate that are morally deficient in some way? Not likely, since the neonate does not yet possess the ability to make considered moral judgments. So, you seem to be using 'wickedness' in a way that is different from everyday, normal usage. I would just like you to explain adequately what you mean here by the term. That "they are born in sin" doesn't explain anything -- it only seems to be repeating the fact that you think the neonate is wicked somehow.

If you really wanted to know, you would be studying the Bible to find out what I am meaning. The Lord's word can explain it more than I could. Yes, you are right, I am meaning wickedness different from the everyday usage. I am meaning it as the nature of man.