If Hell exists, Having Children Is Evil

[PRmerger]

1. Religious Freedom. The RCC taught very clearly that everyone in the world should be a RC, and that the world’s governments should all submit to the authority of the Roman Pontiff. Dignitatis Humane teaches the opposite: that no one should be coerced in matters of religion. This is an explicit contradiction of RC tradition.

Absolutely not.

Coercion has ALWAYS been condemned in matters of religion.

1. In the future I believe that the RCC will come to allow divorced and remarried persons to receive communion. I’m not sure how they will do this, but the groundwork has already been constructed. I predict that they will torture the meaning of the word “adultery” and come up with an elaborate justification for why they are not contradicting their prior teachings.

Just curious–do you believe that Jesus taught that divorce and remarriage was adultery?

At any rate…no one has given a good reason to suppose that it is morally right to expose one’s children to the possibility of eternal damnation.

That has been addressed ad nauseum.

If you do not see any immorality in exposing your child to the possibility of illness with immunizations, then you can extrapolate from that to your question.

And if you are one of those anti-vaccine apologists, then that explains mucho.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

This is contradictory. If something is objective, then there is no such thing as “according to them”. That makes no sense. What you ought to have said was, “Even though they thought it was moral to burn witches, it was not.”

OK, no problem, that is what I meant. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

LOL! Are you saying now that the CC believes that usury is a virtue now?

Not at all, but they have re-defined the very word. It used to mean lending money at any interest whatsoever. Now it just means “unreasonable” interest or something like that. Look in the 1993 catechism. A certain lack of clarity on the subject. Read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury

How can an institution that claims to speak for God and have the “fullness of truth” engage in such obvious sophistry?

Perhaps, thanks to the strident preaching of my Church, the sin of usury has practically vanished. I know that my bank does not practice it.

Your bank most certainly practices usury (according to the RCC’s original definition of it)! All banks do. Modern finance is based upon usury. The RCC has just departed from its initial definition of usury in order to save face when they radically altered their teachings about a matter of morality.

Answer this honestly: if a loan shark goes before a priest and asks, “Is it a sin for me to loan someone $100 and then demand that he pay me back $1000?” what do you think this Catholic priest is going to tell her?

Well, I suppose the priest will tell her it is wrong because it is some kind of theft or unjust deal. However, is is wrong to lend someone $100,000 and demand $250,000 back? This used to be very common with fully amortized 30 year mortgage loans. At current rates, the payback will be about $185,000. According to the early RCC and church fathers, these loans are usurious. As finance developed in late antiquity, the RCC changed her teachings on a matter of morality by changing the definition of the very words.

Firstly, it displays great ignorance regarding the Coptic, the Melkite, the Chaldean Catholics who are not members of the “RCC”, and who are still, according to EENS fully joined to Christ’s Body, the CC.

In my book, if you have to “submit to the Roman Pontiff” then you’re a Roman Catholic. Riles you doesn’t it? Why? Is it really just because you think this is factually incorrect? Could it be deeper? It used to rile me too. I wanted the RCC to be the universal and official arbiter of all truth and morality sooo badly. I didn’t want my religion to be an amalgam of greco-roman superstition and Jewish beliefs. Or, are you a member of one of the 23 other traditions? Do you submit to the Roman Pontiff? Or, do you consider yourself under a kind of ecclesiastic protectorate? You don’t have to answer, none of this matters. What matters is whether or not it is morally right to have children while knowing they might end up in hell forever.

We are departing significantly from the subject of this thread. I really don’t want this to be censored, and I’m worried that our actions will cause this.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Absolutely not. Coercion has ALWAYS been condemned in matters of religion.

Certainly not. Coercion is the opposite of freedom, and religious freedom (as we understand it commonly) has been repeatedly condemned by popes and councils. Read the essay I posted above.

Also, precisely what would you call burning heretics at the stake in public other than religious coercion? “Don’t agree with us? This is what you get! Fall in line or burn (in more ways than one).”

Just curious–do you believe that Jesus taught that divorce and remarriage was adultery?

I believe that the RCC thinks Jesus taught this. “Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18; cf. Mark 10:11–12). As for who Jesus really was or what he really taught, I have not the faintest idea, which is one of many reasons I am not able to believe that Jesus is God. I agree with your view that we only have reason to believe in the new testament by way of trust in the RCC. Hence: I do not view the new testament as God’s word, since I do not trust the RCC.

That has been addressed ad nauseum.
If you do not see any immorality in exposing your child to the possibility of illness with immunizations, then you can extrapolate from that to your question. And if you are one of those anti-vaccine apologists, then that explains mucho.

The only responses to my objection have been that either hell is good (this seems obviously wrong) or that hell could potentially be justified if you believe that it is better than non-existence and that it is a totally free choice, and that it involves some kind of beneficial “payoff” (this is speculative and not supported by the RCC’s teachings, in my opinion).

Eternal hell is incomparably worse than any alleged negative side-effects of vaccines. To compare them reveals to me that you haven’t spent too much time meditating on this question.

For what it is worth, I believe vaccines are a fantastic good and the benefit to society of vaccines outweighs the risk to any individual child. But, if one of the risks of vaccines would be that the child would end up being tortured by demons for eternity, then the risk absolutely outweighs the benefit, even if the vaccine were to protect against death and make the child immortal.

 

[PRmerger]

The RCC used to teach that “usury” was a grievous sin. Look it up. Now, it is never mentioned. Have you ever heard a homily about the grave evil of usury?

I think this is a curious canon for determining whether something is considered sinful by the CC.

I have never, not once, heard a homily about the grave evil of adultery.

By your paradigm you would assert that the CC believes that adultery is just fine.

And I have never, not once, heard a homily about how lepers need not be treated as pariahs.

Are you asserting that the CC professes that lepers are pariahs?

See how peculiar your statement is, then?

 

[PRmerger]

For what it is worth, I believe vaccines are a fantastic good and the benefit to society of vaccines outweighs the risk to any individual child. But, if one of the risks of vaccines would be that the child would end up being tortured by demons for eternity, then the risk absolutely outweighs the benefit, even if the vaccine were to protect against death and make the child immortal.

I don’t think you understand analogies, PC. You are mixing your analogs.

The correct response would be: But if one of the risks of vaccines would be that the child would end up getting polio, then the risk absolutely outweighs the benefit, even if the vaccine were to protect against polio.

And, there is indeed a risk that the child might end up getting polio.

So you need to be consistent and be an anti-vaccine apologist.

See?

To make this easier to understand, let’s take this very simple analogy:

Christmas trees : ornaments :: earlobes :: earrings.

If someone said “That’s a false analogy–if earrings were hung on green trees with needles which are sticky and can prick you and smell like balsam, then your analogy would be correct.”

But surely you can see how this person has demonstrated an acute inability to think in the abstract? He has no ability to understand analogies.

 

[PRmerger]

Your bank most certainly practices usury (according to the RCC’s original definition of it)!

Source, please for the “RCC’s original definition” of usury. Thanks.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I think this is a curious canon for determining whether something is considered sinful by the CC.

I have never, not once, heard a homily about the grave evil of adultery.

By your paradigm you would assert that the CC believes that adultery is just fine.

And I have never, not once, heard a homily about how lepers need not be treated as pariahs.

Are you asserting that the CC professes that lepers are pariahs?

See how peculiar your statement is, then?

I’m not pointing to the lack of discussion to show that the RCC doesn’t teach that usury is sinful, but rather that they ignore the teachings they have changed in the past so as not to draw attention to inconsistencies. Most priests probably have absolutely no idea what the church used to teach about usury. The RCC does teach that usury is sinful, but they have changed the definition of usury to allow a substantial change in the doctrine. I believe a similar change is coming with regard to adultery. Prima facie, the teaching will remain the same, but they’ll change the definition of adultery to exclude remarried couples of certain kinds. Just a guess based upon a historical pattern.

It’s like this:

RCC: Usury is a grave sin!! (usury= lending money at any interest whatsoever)
World: Oh wow, that’s crazy, how can we have a productive economy?

RCC: silence quietly changes definition of usury…
World: totally forgot about this whole thing anyway, large financial institutions develop, most people in the developed world pay interest, the Church herself takes out mortgages.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I don’t think you understand analogies, PC. You are mixing your analogs.

The correct response would be: But if one of the risks of vaccines would be that the child would end up getting polio, then the risk absolutely outweighs the benefit, even if the vaccine were to protect against polio.

And, there is indeed a risk that the child might end up getting polio.

So you need to be consistent and be an anti-vaccine apologist.

See?

To make this easier to understand, let’s take this very simple analogy:

Christmas trees : ornaments :: earlobes :: earrings.

If someone said “That’s a false analogy–if earrings were hung on green trees with needles which are sticky and can prick you and smell like balsam, then your analogy would be correct.”

But surely you can see how this person has demonstrated an acute inability to think in the abstract? He has no ability to understand analogies.

I mixed the analogies on purpose to demonstrate to you that the serious evil of eternal hell is ever so much worse than something like polio! I accept the risk of polio for my children because it is a limited, mitigated evil (ends with death). Also, the societal benefit of widespread polio vaccination outweighs the individual risk to my child.

However, hell is infinitely worse than polio! Having children (roughly analogous to giving the vaccine) isn’t worth the risk because the negative consequences are so horrific. The problem here is that, in the case of vaccines, the children already exist and it is possible to have a third option (ie don’t vaccinate). In the case of whether or not to have children, there are only two choices: 1) have them and expose them to hell or 2) don’t have them.

Basically, this analogy fails because hell is unimaginably worse than any disease. Further, it fails because we don’t have the third option to have children and not expose them to the risk of hell (like we can simply not vaccinate our children).

I’m beginning to suspect that you are attempting to bait me into discussing something off-topic in order to cause this thread to be censored. I refuse to participate in an off-topic discussion. One problem at a time please.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Council of Carthage, AD 419: %between%

Canon 5:

Aurelius, the bishop, said: The cupidity of avarice (which, let no one doubt, is the mother of all evil things), is to be henceforth prohibited, lest anyone should usurp another’s limits, or for gain should pass beyond the limits fixed by the fathers, nor shall it be at all lawful for any of the clergy to receive usury of any kind. And those new edicts (suggestiones) which are obscure and generally ambiguous, after they have been examined by us, will have their value fixed (formam accipiunt); but with regard to those upon which the Divine Scripture has already most plainly given judgment, it is unnecessary that further sentence should be pronounced, but what is already laid down is to be carried out. And what is reprehensible in laymen is worthy of still more severe censure in the clergy. The whole synod said: No one has gone contrary to what is said in the Prophets and in the Gospels with impunity.

Here is a convenient list of quotes regarding usury: earlychristiandictionary.com/Usury.html

 

[Ignatius]

earlychristiandictionary.com/Usury.html

That’s an interesting kind of “dictionary” that gives no definition of the term.

It has always been understood that but someone may lend without incurring any loss to himself. Clearly, the person who gives to the point loss will soon have nothing to lend, thus eliminating his ability to do any good for those less fortunate.

The true definition would be “the practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest”

 

[PRmerger]

I mixed the analogies on purpose to demonstrate to you that the serious evil of eternal hell is ever so much worse than something like polio!

And that demonstrated an inability to understand analogies.

Again, using my very simple analogy, what you have done is say that the absolutely true analogy (Christmas trees to earlobes) is false because Christmas trees have green needles that can prick you and smell like balsam, and earlobes don’t.

This is the response one deserves when one says that!

 

[PRmerger]

Certainly not. Coercion is the opposite of freedom, and religious freedom (as we understand it commonly) has been repeatedly condemned by popes and councils. Read the essay I posted above.

sigh!

No, PC. Religious Freedom is the mantra of the CC.

usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/fortnight-for-freedom/index.cfm

I find it amusing that you would assert this, given that this ridiculous assertion you’ve made comes right on the heels of the Fortnight for Freedom, which begins June 21.

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/05/05/fortnight_for_freedom_in_us_church/1141851

 

[DCNBILL]

I believe that it is always moral to burn witches (the creatures that they were thought to be,) because any being in league with the devil that could turn you into a mashed turnip and steal your soul should not be allowed to survive.

 

[tonyrey]

“best” begs the question in two respects. It presupposes that “good” is meaningful in an ultimately valueless and purposeless existence. It also presupposes that society is more valuable than individuals, an assumption which doesn’t correspond to the vast amount of injustice in the world. If persons are derived from the impersonal, purpose from the purposeless and meaning from the meaningless there is a whole mass of contradictions which don’t make sense. In a senseless universe that it is to be expected. Reason disappears and nonsense has the last word!

John, you are incorrigible! You have ignored every single point I have made…:tsktsk:
In your belief system nonsense has the last word whereas the teaching of the Church is eminently reasonable:

From the great doctor of the church, Thomas Aquinas: “Anyone upon whom the ecclesiastical authorities, in ignorance of the true facts, impose a demand that offends against his clear conscience should perish in excommunication rather than violate his conscience.” For any Catholic in search of truth, no stronger statement on the authority and inviolability of personal conscience could be found, but Aquinas goes further. He insists that even the dictate of an erroneous conscience must be followed and that to act against such a dictate is immoral.
From Fr Joseph Ratzinger (later, Pope Benedict XVI): “Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church.”
From Vatican II’s “Decree on Religious Freedom”, which, note Salzmann and Lawler, embraced Aquinas’s judgment on the inviolability of conscience: “In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in order that he may come to God, for whom he was created. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.”

http://questgaycatholic.org.uk/conscience-the-catholic-way-to-choose-the-good/

 

[oldcelt]

John, you are incorrigible! You have ignored every single point I have made…:tsktsk:
In your belief system nonsense has the last word whereas the teaching of the Church is eminently reasonable:

http://questgaycatholic.org.uk/conscience-the-catholic-way-to-choose-the-good/

I have ignored statements like the above, because I won’t play into the trap. Why, since it is clear that Church teachings have evolved over time, is anything that I have said unreasonable? Society has always taken precedent over individuals. What is Leviticus all about?
Are you functioning under the assumption that all humans must find value and meaning in life in precisely the same way that you have?

 

[oldcelt]

I believe that it is always moral to burn witches (the creatures that they were thought to be,) because any being in league with the devil that could turn you into a mashed turnip and steal your soul should not be allowed to survive.

Never thought of it that way. Think I’ll have to watch “The Holy Grail.” “She turned me into a newt.”

 

[PRmerger]

That’s an interesting kind of “dictionary” that gives no definition of the term.

Egg-zactly.

PumpkinCookie: you seem to not be able to see the difference between “interest” and “exhorbitant interest”.

One is good. The other is not.

Kind of like not being able to see the difference between “rain” and “acid rain.”

You are saying, when you say that my bank is guilty of the sin of usury, something akin to, “Whenever it rains, it’s bad for the environment because rain lowers the pH of lakes and rivers and pollutes the water supply and deposits harmful chemicals into our streams”

Um…no. Acid rain = bad. Just plain rain = good.

Similarly, usury = bad. Interest = good.

My bank is absolutely NOT guilty of the sin of usury.

And I am still waiting for the definition of usury given by the CC that you’re using.

 

[tonyrey]

John, you are incorrigible! You have ignored every single point I have made…:tsktsk:
In your belief system nonsense

Please explain why it is a trap.

Why, since it is clear that Church teachings have evolved over time, is anything that I have said unreasonable? Society has always taken precedent over individuals. What is Leviticus all about?

The Church itself recognises the need for the development of doctrine:
amazon.co.uk/Essay-Development-Christian-Doctrine-Series/dp/026800921X
Review:

The sainted Cardinal Newman’s “Essay” is a masterpiece, one of the few books of its kind. This work, which was undertaken by him while he was in the process of deciding to convert to Roman Catholicism, is based upon a simple premise - that the nature of the human intellect is to grasp the full implications of an idea or set of related ideas slowly, over time, by a process of development. Because of this, any set of formal doctrines held to by a body of believers will necessarily grow and apparently change over time, in just the same way that a human being grows and changes over the span of a lifetime. However, just as the human being is physiologically and metaphysically identical with himself over the course of his life, so too will be the body of doctrine and the standards of practice given to the faithful, provided it is guarded from corruption by a teaching authority insured from error.

N.B. - this is not the same thing as saying that revelation must be ongoing. The faith itself may be delivered once and for all, in its entirety. What needs time to develop, and what can never be truly completed, is the systematic exposition of what that faith means, and why it is so rather than otherwise. For example, that there is a God is an article of the Creed that can be communicated once and adhered to forever. But why there should be a God, and only one rather than five or six, and why that God should have such attributes as He is said to possess - these matters are the doctrines that are historical and developmental, and each of them will in turn raise more questions that will need to be answered. Revelation is finished, but theology, the explanation of revelation, is a continuously growing enterprise…

amazon.co.uk/Essay-Development-Christian-Doctrine-Series/dp/026800921X

Are you functioning under the assumption that all humans must find value and meaning in life in precisely the same way that you have?

Why are you functioning under the assumption that I believe all humans must find value and meaning in life in precisely the same way that I have?

 

[PRmerger]

Certainly not. Coercion is the opposite of freedom, and religious freedom (as we understand it commonly) has been repeatedly condemned by popes and councils.

Declaration on Religious Freedom, from Pope Paul VI:

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html

 

[oldcelt]

Please explain why it is a trap.
The Church itself recognises the need for the development of doctrine:
amazon.co.uk/Essay-Development-Christian-Doctrine-Series/dp/026800921X
Review:
amazon.co.uk/Essay-Development-Christian-Doctrine-Series/dp/026800921X

While i speak respectfully of your faith, even when pointing out what I view as flaws, you use terms such as nonsense when referring to my belief system. On here that is known as the ban trap…I respond in kind and get tossed…not gonna happen.

Secondly, you consistently speak of other views as being bereft of meaning. That leads me to think that you believe that only your beliefs can bring fulfillment, peace…whatever term you wish to apply. Let me assure you…you could not be more mistaken.

So let me conclude my conversation with you on this subject by returning to the OP: In my view, if hell exists, which I do not believe, it would be the height of selfishness to risk a new life by bringing it into such a system. Of course, your God knew I would say that…mine didn’t.