Zygotes and heaven?

[vz71]

You have an elementary understanding of omniscience and I really am tired of this circular debate. You refuse to learn, that is all.

Most Christians have no understanding of the complexity of omniscience. I must learn to accept that I’m not going to change anyones unsophisticated understanding and leave it at that.

I will try one last effort…

Omniscience… A God would know precisely how a persons life would turn out, in every single conceivable circumstance, every mother they could be born to, every country they could be born in, every time they could be born in, as afterall, Christians are in fact talking about souls, which are not physical things, and can be woven into any physical person that God so chooses.

Do you understand? I didn’t think so, now lets move on and accept that your stuck in a rut of not understanding omniscience.

How comforting it must be to tell yourself that no one understands the concepts and therefore no one understands the way you do.
Do you really believe this tripe or are you simply regurgitating some elitist propoganda given you by someone else you have given authority over your life?

Everyone here has a very clear understanding of what omniscience is.
I am perceiving a problem on your end with personal responsibility.

 

[John7]

zygote goes morula (A) which blastulates in to a blastula (B)

 

[phantasm]

How comforting it must be to tell yourself that…

…there is a God.

 

[vz71]

…there is a God.

One need not be told there is a God.
The evidence of God is throughout creation.

But this is beside the point. Your original post appears to have been left far behind.
Am I to understand that you have difficulty with human souls given the opportunity to go to heaven or hell based upon their stage of development?

 

[JanetF]

Wow, this thread is all over the place.

Zygotes have souls because at the moment of conception they are bestowed by God with a soul. My miscarried fetus’ soul is in heaven, as I choose to believe. He is an angel who watches over my living child, as I choose to believe.

The magisterium, at least as I understand it, teaches us that papal teachings are infallible, the pope, and even bishops don’t just come of up dogma off the top of their heads, they study scripture, previous teachings, and with a little help from the HOly Spirit, they declare the truth. Papal infallability means that a pope cannot create dogma that is not true.

No one knows how our souls will appear in heaven. We are not meant to know. We do not need to know. Heaven is where a soul that loves Jesus/God exists after live.

Oh, and life on earth is not the final destination, it’s just the journey…life with Christ in heaven is the final destination.

Phantasm: You don’t realize that what you believe now could change tomorrow. In the future, you might indeed have a revelation and choose to believe in the tenets of the catholic faith and would then be accepted into Heaven, God is the only one who knows THAT.

The bad things in the world are permitted to happen, when one turns away from Christ and commits evil, bad things happen. The victims of the bad things that happen, are given the coping mechanisms necessary so that inevitably they will survive.

It has been my experience, and I believe, that God knows exactly what we can and cannot “handle”…we have to know and trust in him that he will not subject us to any more than that.

Some things are just things we are not meant to know about. I choose to live by the teachings of the catholic church because I cannot imagine my life without the presence of Jesus Christ. I suppose you can call all of this blind faith, but frankly, and probably simplistically to some, I’d rather believe and be wrong, that not believe and be wrong!

Oh and with respect to saints: not all souls who reach heaven are saints.

 

[jmcrae]

Wrong.

You have an elementary understanding of omniscience and I really am tired of this circular debate. You refuse to learn, that is all.

Most Christians have no understanding of the complexity of omniscience. I must learn to accept that I’m not going to change anyones unsophisticated understanding and leave it at that.

I think it is your understanding that is unsophisticated. You seem to have this idea that God is like a superman - that He is just nothing but a very, very powerful person, up in the sky.

You don’t realize that God is completely “other” - He does not “plan ahead” - He simply is and does. He does not experience sequences of events - for Him, everything is all at once - the beginning and the ending are all the same thing - as soon as He begins to imagine you, you already exist, and have lived, and have made your choices and have died. We (and all of Creation) are God’s thoughts. God can’t think of something that does not exist, because as soon as He thinks it, its entire existence from beginning to end has already happened. If God is thinking it, it is happening for real. He does not imagine potentialities.

I will try one last effort…

Omniscience… A God would know precisely how a persons life would turn out, in every single conceivable circumstance, every mother they could be born to,

Different mother, different person. The soul is the life of the body - if the body has different DNA, then it’s a different soul.

every country they could be born in, every time they could be born in, as afterall, Christians are in fact talking about souls, which are not physical things, and can be woven into any physical person that God so chooses.

Not so. The soul is nothing more nor less than the life of the body. Different life, different body, different soul. Under different circumstances, you would not exist at all - it would be someone else.

 

[Leopard]

…My miscarried fetus’ soul is in heaven, as I choose to believe…

First, please accept my sympathies for your loss. My wife and I have also lost children to miscarriage.

…He is an angel who watches over my living child, as I choose to believe…

This is not quite correct. Your child is a human person, so he (or she) is a saint, but he is not an angel. Angels are purely spiritual non-human persons.

…with respect to saints: not all souls who reach heaven are saints.

This is also not quite correct. All persons in heaven, whether human or angelic, are saints (from sanctus, meaning holy), but not all are canonized and thus given the title of Saint (capital S). This is not necessarily because non-canonized saints are less holy, but merely because the canonization process is long and complex, and the vast majority of souls who have lived (or angels, for that matter) have never been proposed for canonization by the Church.

 

[Abbadon]

…there is a God.

I continually attempt to convince my self that mirror daemons and psychically overpowered psychotic 14 year old girls in red dresses are real… It’s a small comfort I give my self.

 

[Abbadon]

…there is a God.

I continually attempt to convince my self that mirror daemons and psychically overpowered psychotic 14 year old girls in red dresses are real… It’s a small comfort I give my self.

I should verify, this is not sarcasm. I am serious. Why is it so acceptable for you to do the same about your fantasies (god) and not me for mine?

 

[phantasm]

Wow, this thread is all over the place.

Zygotes have souls because at the moment of conception they are bestowed by God with a soul. My miscarried fetus’ soul is in heaven, as I choose to believe. He is an angel who watches over my living child, as I choose to believe.

With all due respect, how do you know this or how have you come to believe this? Does the Catholic Church teach that people can become Angels upon their death?

 

[vz71]

Why is it so acceptable for you to do the same about your fantasies (god) and not me for mine?

Call it an act of charity.

Pascal’s wager.

Smile.

 

[Leopard]

With all due respect, how do you know this or how have you come to believe this? Does the Catholic Church teach that people can become Angels upon their death?

I presume that when you say people you mean humans. The answer is no. Angels and humans are completely different kinds of persons. Angels are pure spirits, humans have a physical body and a non-material immortal soul.

The correct term for human persons in heaven is saints. However, since the word saint just means holy, it is not improper to refer to holy angels as saints as well.

 

[jmcrae]

With all due respect, how do you know this or how have you come to believe this? Does the Catholic Church teach that people can become Angels upon their death?

No, of course not.

But if you wanted to have a debate with learned theologians, you have come to the wrong place. We are ordinary believers - housewives and ordinary working folk. Not all of us are at the same level of education or understanding. We are all learning as we go along.

 

[JanetF]

With all due respect, how do you know this or how have you come to believe this? Does the Catholic Church teach that people can become Angels upon their death?

I SAID as I choose to believe. And I’ve already been corrected in that thinking by another poster (thank you very much). See those posts.

Phantasm, if you want categorical answers, you should probably do some reading. I have found “The Essential Catholic Survival Guide” to be quite helpful in explaining why the Church teaches as it does.

Personally, I don’t have all the answers, I’m on a continuous spiritual journey, following the catholic faith, learning as I go and realizing that my catechism education as a child was of poor quality, as evidenced by the correction to my thoughts above.

 

[JanetF]

First, please accept my sympathies for your loss. My wife and I have also lost children to miscarriage.

This is not quite correct. Your child is a human person, so he (or she) is a saint, but he is not an angel. Angels are purely spiritual non-human persons.

This is also not quite correct. All persons in heaven, whether human or angelic, are saints (from sanctus, meaning holy), but not all are canonized and thus given the title of Saint (capital S). This is not necessarily because non-canonized saints are less holy, but merely because the canonization process is long and complex, and the vast majority of souls who have lived (or angels, for that matter) have never been proposed for canonization by the Church.

Thanks for clarifying for me Leopard! As I stated in my response to Phantasm above, my catechism education as a young child was poor. Oh, and thanks for your condolensces. Baby #1 was soon replaced with my daughter, and I do find solace in believing “he is watching out for her”

 

[Abbadon]

Call it an act of charity.

Pascal’s wager.

Smile.

U do know pascal’s wager is flawed. One flaw is it forgets to take into account other belief systems it presents a false dichotomy.

i.e What if the muslims are right and your wrong?

Anyway Alma Wade trumps god any day of the week. For me… Sure she’ll probably kill me… but it would be worth it…

 

[Abbadon]

I presume that when you say people you mean humans. The answer is no. Angels and humans are completely different kinds of persons. Angels are pure spirits, humans have a physical body and a non-material immortal soul.

The correct term for human persons in heaven is saints. However, since the word saint just means holy, it is not improper to refer to holy angels as saints as well.

And of course you know these intimate details concerning the specifics of “heavenly entities” through… MAGIC

 

[Abbadon]

Thanks for clarifying for me Leopard! As I stated in my response to Phantasm above, my catechism education as a young child was poor. Oh, and thanks for your condolensces. Baby #1 was soon replaced with my daughter, and I do find solace in believing “he is watching out for her”

We all find solace for horrible things that have happened to us. Some of us just have stranger ways of dealing with it than others. People could call our coping mechanisms crazy, but there is sanity in numbers.

 

[vz71]

U do know pascal’s wager is flawed. One flaw is it forgets to take into account other belief systems it presents a false dichotomy.

you are making assumptions that are not true.

pascal’s wager is not an argument for anything other then the existence of God.

And it applies perfectly to the argument/question posed.

 

[Leopard]

And of course you know these intimate details concerning the specifics of “heavenly entities” through magic.

No, through the teaching authority of the Church. Magic refers to attempts to manipulate God.