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<p>Jack, you seem to be a pretty well read dude. I’m certain that you have some knowledge of the bible and at least the basic premise behind Christianity. If you do, then you would know that your statement that I quoted is not at all true and completely addressed in the bible.</p>
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<p>Thanks for the compliment - seriously. I’m well-read mostly because I have no other choice, due to the school I go to - but you’ll find all about that when you come here next year. </p>
<p>In response to your statement, where in the Bible or in Christian doctrine does it say that God is not all-powerful, and thus did not at some level deliberately choose for those babies to die as opposed to them living?</p>
<p>I know that the standard explanation is that God works in mysterious ways, that we cannot comprehend his reasons for doing what he chooses to do, etc. It doesn’t change the fact that an ominpotent God necessarily means that he has the power to help those babies live, and chooses not to exercise it. At the very least, you’ll excuse me for not jumping at the chance to worship this God.</p>
<p>because life is an illusion</p>
<p>jack:
as He created them, God can choose to “take” an individual (infant or otherwise) when He feels it necessary (man cannot comprehend his reasons for doing so)… but that’s just my $0.02 :)</p>
<p>For some reason this discussion (about babies dying at birth) reminds me of something I read about God and evolution, and could show that God would not be responsible for the death of a baby.</p>
<p>There are many different views on how God was involved with Evolution (if you don’t believe the world was created in 7 days). One is that God created the universe and left it relatively on it’s own to evolve, only interfering when necessary (such as to give humans souls or when Jesus became man). But otherwise, according to this theory, life is not being constantly controlled by God.</p>
<p>Consequently, if God was constantly controlling every aspect of nature, we as humans would lose our free will, and since we have free will, chances are God is not controlling every aspect of nature. Hence, God did not cause the baby to die-nature did.</p>
<p>Earth sucks so that heaven will seem really awesome by comparison.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059930676-post2.html]#2[/url]”>quote</a> 42 .
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<p>kikib1028:</p>
<p>Wit is the cadence of an enlightened mind and a derivative of the [Answer</a> to Life, the Universe, and Everything](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything]Answer”>Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Wikipedia).</p>
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<p>If you had the chance to press a button to save a baby’s life and made the choice not to, where does that put you in terms of responsibility?</p>
<p>All of Christian theology holds that God is omnipotent, which means that he could have saved that baby’s life without exerting the slightest bit of effort. So why didn’t he?</p>
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<p>Maybe he was just being nice, if the world sucks as much as you say it does. :P</p>
<p>This conversation will just go in circles…</p>
<p>If they were all saved, we’d start to wonder why children weren’t saved, and then why adults weren’t saved, and then we’d all want to be saved from dying. God would end up having to keep everyone alive. That wasn’t part of his plan, though, to have everyone united in heaven. People do die, and for the earth to be able to sustain itself they have to die.</p>
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<p>no it doesn’t. that’s not what I was taught at all.</p>
<p>the catholic church teaches that god is *<strong><em>ed at us because of original sin. baptism washes some of it off, but you’re still basically god’s </em></strong> for life. we had our shot at paradise and we screwed it up for ourselves. that’s probably what would happen if we created a utopia in real life 10 times out of 10…it would become corrupted.</p>
<p>this is what would happen if life were fair =/</p>
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<p>watcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside that trunk?</p>
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<p>So why did he make a world in which people had to die? Why was that necessary? </p>
<p>(You don’t have to keep answering my questions. By this point, they’re rhetorical; I’m just trying to point out that instead of saying “Well he did all this for reasons we can’t comprehend,” it makes more sense to me to say that Christian theology describes an inaccurate and unnecessarily complicated image of whatever “God” exists, if any.)</p>
<p>Luminaire is right, I learned that last year. According to this teaching, humans started off in harmony with nature and everything else, but once the first humans disobeyed God (or made a choice against him) that harmony was lost, and the rest of us were born with original sin, and humans gained a tendency to sin known as “concupiscence”. Once out of harmony with God, nature, ect. humans began to experience pain and suffering and death. (I don’t remember whether humans would have died before that point…) Then, when Jesus died and Resurrected, our suffering became something that made us more like Him, and death became a gateway to heaven (something which it wasn’t before).</p>
<p>InquinlineKea’s ([#32](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059952168-post32.html]#32[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059952168-post32.html)</a>) excellent reference is from [Figments</a> of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind](<a href=“Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind - Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen - Google Books”>Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind - Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen - Google Books).</p>
<p>Religion, as an anthropological and cultural phenomenon, can be studied through the evolutionary lens. </p>
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<p>When we study religion as an evolutionary adaptation, we find that it has been (and continues to be) a man-made, two-edged sword. In fact, scientific reseach is also revealing that morality itself is a by-product of evolution:</p>
<p>[Generous</a> players: game theory explores the Golden Rule’s place in biology](<a href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_4_166/ai_n6151880]Generous”>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_4_166/ai_n6151880):</p>
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<p>LOL. I love how poetically that was put. </p>
<p>Don’t forget good ole Catholic Purgatory. That always blew my mind, having grown up Protestant. Man I kind of miss Catholic school…</p>
<p>I heard one time a teacher told a girl that she would spend 3 more days in Purgatory because she handed in an assignment late…</p>
<p>That said, I don’t think Purgatory is a place.</p>
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lol, silly educators…</p>