hitler in heaven - a test

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.

I was trying to liven things up with the smiley and trying to show that I am not trying to be mein here, sorry about that. I am not meaning it is just because of what the baby is doing, it is because of the sinful nature they have.

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]

There are babies that the Lord has changed before they were even born. Take John the Baptist for example.

Luk 1:11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
Luk 1:12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
Luk 1:13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
Luk 1:14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.
Luk 1:15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.

If the Lord has done this with John, why not other babies?

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]...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 expres ...[text shortened]... baby by picking it up, or because parents can't always figure out what a baby wants.[/b]

Vistesd, you are going more by science, I am going by what the Lord says. I understand the science part as much as what is said by the Lord. I am meaning the nature of man, not the development of man. This is two different things. The Lord says we are all wicked. And unless he changes that we will be punished for it. I am not saying 'all' babies go to hell. He can change them as well as an adult or older child. But if they were not going to be changed, why let them live and cause more problems for those who are changed or will be changed?

Originally posted by twhitehead
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 t ...[text shortened]... ot realted to him.
5. Where his sin came from and why God made him is not to be discussed.

NO. I have never blamed anyone else for my sins, I am totally responsible for them. The fact that sin entered into the world through Adam is not putting the blame on him. The Bible explains that when we sin, it is us doing it. We have the choice not to, but because of our nature we choose to sin. And one sin is enough for the Lord to punish the person for if they break on part of the Law they are guilty of breaking the Law. We have a law in our members to tell us what is right and wrong without the Lord telling us. This is why we are still guilty.

And BTW, I am not a he, I am a she. 😉

Originally posted by pritybetta
Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]"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 the rent from the everyday usage. I am meaning it as the nature of man.[/b]

I just searched for the phrase “born in sin” in a number of English translations of the Bible (both OT and NT)—KJV, NIV, NJB, NRSV, and couple of others—and it does not appear. In fact, the words “born” and “sin” seem to only occur together in the same verse twice: 1st John 3:9 and 5:18. The only other example I can find is John 9:34, where the Pharisees are speaking to the healed man (“You were born entirely in sins...” ).

The same for the word combinations “birth/sin” and “born/sinned” and a couple of other combinations.

“Born/sinner” appear in Psalm 51:5. “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”

Why would you take such statements as Isaiah’s and the Psalmist’s (or the Pharisees&rsquo😉 literally? That itself is an interpretive stance—and not one that I think you would apply to, say, God actually sitting on a throne.


At bottom, there is no clear explication of what being “born in sin” might mean in the Bible. People read (and have read) the Biblical texts (whether or not through some pre-determined theological “lens” ) and piece together an interpretation from interpretations of what various Biblical writers intended to mean by what they said, and that interpretive complex becomes a theological conclusion, a statement of doctrine, what “the Bible means”—or even, to those who have forgotten the process, “what the Bible says”.

Now, your literal reading of these texts could be correct; but I don’t think it is. Your theological conclusions from these texts read in light of others—and vice versa: the process of contextualization—might be correct; but I don’t think they are. (And I, too, have spent much time doing this stuff, as have you.) But the most either one of us might be able to do is to argue why we think our interpretive approach is the correct—or at least the best—one. And various people, both Christian and non-Christian, have presented various theological arguments over the millennia.

The Bible does not interpret itself. (I’m not saying you claimed that; if you did I don’t remember it.) When people use the phrase “self-interpreting”, they really just mean that they don’t seek their interpretation of a text from anywhere other than other Biblical texts.

It is quite possible to come to a good-faith impasse in arguments over Biblical interpretation: folks like Epiphenehas and jaywill and FreakyKBH and myself have gotten to that point lots of times. Sometimes it is just because what one of us sees as a primary text, with which to contextualize others, the other sees as a text itself in need of further contextualization. For example, I tend to take “The/this Logos was God” (John 1:1) and “This/the God is agape” (1st John 4:8 and 16) as such primary texts; their meaning is determined solely by the definitions of the terms used, and the fact that the paired terms are both in the nominative case as identities, etc.. These primary texts (and other like them) then become the contextual lens through which I interpret other texts.

But some people do not think these are such primary texts. And that difference can explain a whole lot of other theological differences between, say (just for example) some Greek Orthodox Christians and some Protestant Christians.

And the interpretive (hermeneutical) arguments we have had on here generally go on for pages and pages, as we form larger and larger interpretive complexes, weighing this piece against that.

Now, however, I have wandered far afield from anything else we were talking about . . . 🙂

________________________________________

EDIT: I just saw your other post to me. I think I see the differentiation you are making. Here, however, I think I have at least moved the question back to theological ground...? 🙂

If I blamed anyone else for my “sins”, I might blame you for sucking me into this one . . . 😉

[And that 😉 does indicate an attempt at good-natured humor!]

____________________________

The Biblical words translated as “sin” do not necessarily entail any kind of moral wickedness; they are not exclusively moral terms at all. However, the Psalm 51 quote does seem intended to apply the moral failure meaning of sin. I just wanted to note that the word “sin” need not mean moral failure, or wickedness; I think that it’s Biblical use is much broader than that. The use of the word “guilty” in Psalm 51:5 provides an immediate “context” for deciding whether the Psalmist here intends to use the word “sin” narrowly or “broadly”.

Originally posted by vistesd
If I blamed anyone else for my “sins”, I might blame you for sucking me into this one . . . 😉

[And that 😉 does indicate an attempt at good-natured humor!]

____________________________

The Biblical words translated as “sin” do not necessarily entail any kind of moral wickedness; they are not exclusively moral terms at all. However, ...[text shortened]... ext” for deciding whether the Psalmist here intends to use the word “sin” narrowly or “broadly”.

Thanks vistesd for your responses. I was going to stop posting on this thread because everyone seems to want to keep arguing instead of trying to understand what I am saying. However, I didn't want you to think I was ignoring your post. I will consider what you have said and study and pray on it.

BTW, I didn't take the smiley defensively. I don't automatically think anything bad by smilies. In fact, most of the time when I see or use them they are to show no hard feelings about the conversation.

Originally posted by pritybetta
Thanks vistesd for your responses. I was going to stop posting on this thread because everyone seems to want to keep arguing instead of trying to understand what I am saying. However, I didn't want you to think I was ignoring your post. I will consider what you have said and study and pray on it.

BTW, I didn't take the smiley defensively. I don't autom ...[text shortened]... of the time when I see or use them they are to show no hard feelings about the conversation.

Look, Pritybetta, sometimes I express myself badly on here; sometimes that is because of bad thinking, sometimes just poor choice of expression. Sometimes, other people do too, and it takes us awhile to understand one another. And sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding on my part, or theirs.

Also, there are some people on here with whom I have such a long history that we could almost write one another’s posts—when we disagree with one another! I hope you stick around here that long. (I have both respect and affection for a number of people on here with whom I hardly ever agree, and with whom the argument has sometimes gotten a bit sharp. But—as perhaps I indicated in my non-sermon 4—that’s pretty muich what we’re here for.)

Thanks, and be well.

Originally posted by pritybetta
[b]Proof please.

Mariette Hartley.

Originally posted by pritybetta
Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]"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 the ...[text shortened]... rent from the everyday usage. I am meaning it as the nature of man.[/b]

That is just it, if someone goes by what they 'think' makes sense, they could be mistaken themselves.

This is just self-defeating. At the end of the day, isn't putting your faith in the Lord something that you "think makes sense"?

And what reasons are they...?

I've already given you some reasons why it makes no sense to say that something like a neonate is "wicked". Like, for instance, the fact that a neonate is not even capable of demonstrating moral judgment, whether it be deficient moral judgment or not.

Who is right and who is wrong here?

The persons whose views are correspondent with the facts are the ones who are right. So far, I don't think there is much we can say for your stance in that regard.

Do you get what I am saying here?

Not really. That whole paragraph confuses me. All you seem to be showing is that people, as a matter of descriptive fact, have differing views on morality? So what? That's one reason why we ought to engage in the practice of providing reasons for our own views when we debate.

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.

No you haven't. And I don't accept your view not simply in virtue of the fact that we entered this debate with different views: it's also because you haven't provided me with any good reasons to accept your view.

I understand that we are all children of the Devil and full of sin and deserve the utter most punishment.

Then I feel sorry for you.

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?

We're talking about neonates here. The lord must be offing them far before they could mature to the point where they could do something that "tearable". If that is the case, then why does your lord bother with bringing the neonate into existence in the first place? He could still prevent the future terrible occurrences and yet spare the neonates' suffering.

If you studied the Bible you would know what 'born in sin' means.

I'm not sure you're right about that (pace vistesd's comments). Anyway, I don't consider studying the bible to be a good use of my time. At any rate, I'm just looking for you to let me know what you think it means. I just want to know what you're trying to say.

It means we are born with the nature of sin, we desire sinful things.

So it means we desire "sinful things"? What "sinful things" does the neonate desire?

Originally posted by pritybetta
There are babies that the Lord has changed before they were even born. Take John the Baptist for example.

Luk 1:11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
Luk 1:12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
Luk 1:13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacha ...[text shortened]... st, even from his mother's womb.

If the Lord has done this with John, why not other babies?

That doesn't answer the question: if it is the case that these neonates die before the lord "changes" them, then these neonates are doomed to the fate of eternal torment and suffering, right?

And, anyway, what would it mean for god to "change" something like a fetus?

EDIT: And, by the way, in your previous post, you stated "Unless the Lord changes our hearts, which he only (my emphasis) does when we are under the hearing (also meaning reading) of his word".

So when would a fetus hear (or read) the word so that it would meet what you yourself claim is a necessary condition for being "changed" by the lord?