Christians: what happens to the souls of unborn children that are aborted?

[Lion IRC]

As before, I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say. Which of my premises is false, and which of my inferences from those premises is invalid, specifically?

The only problem with your logic is that it leads to an undesirable conclusion. This is a problem for people who start their logical processes with the conclusion and work their way backwards to the evidence or argument that supports it.
So such a person can't really deal with your premise until they get you to agree to their opinion of the conclusion. From there, the problem with your premise should come into focus.

The logic fail is because the ends is at cross purposes with the means.
It will result in FEWER people going to heaven.

If one person going to heaven is a good thing then two people going to heaven is TWICE as good.
Hello!!! Wake up ppl!

If you kill unborn babies then they can't go on to have unborn babies themselves - thus you are limiting the number of people who can go to heaven. You're defeating your own goal (and Gods)

That's why God said thou shalt not kill.

 

[blastula]

Christians are allowed to sin and still go to heaven, so they can have their abortion cake and eat it too.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Christians are allowed to sin and still go to heaven, so they can have their abortion cake and eat it too.

But would a Christain really need to repent the abortion? They took positive action to send a soul straight to Heaven, without a risk of it turning evil, or atheist, or Mormon... That would be something to be proud of, not repent.

Still haven't seen any logical support, or scripture, saying that this is a bad thing to do. Just angst and outbursts and emoji's...

 

[bilby]

The only problem with your logic is that it leads to an undesirable conclusion. This is a problem for people who start their logical processes with the conclusion and work their way backwards to the evidence or argument that supports it.
So such a person can't really deal with your premise until they get you to agree to their opinion of the conclusion. From there, the problem with your premise should come into focus.

The logic fail is because the ends is at cross purposes with the means.
It will result in FEWER people going to heaven.

If one person going to heaven is a good thing then two people going to heaven is TWICE as good.
Hello!!! Wake up ppl!

If you kill unborn babies then they can't go on to have unborn babies themselves - thus you are limiting the number of people who can go to heaven. You're defeating your own goal (and Gods)

That's why God said thou shalt not kill.

That counterargument only works if it's impossible for one person to carry out many abortions.

As long as the abortionist kills enough babies, the net total of heaven-bound souls will be larger than if there had been no abortions at all.

 

[bilby]

Christians are allowed to sin and still go to heaven, so they can have their abortion cake and eat it too.

But would a Christain really need to repent the abortion? They took positive action to send a soul straight to Heaven, without a risk of it turning evil, or atheist, or Mormon... That would be something to be proud of, not repent.

Still haven't seen any logical support, or scripture, saying that this is a bad thing to do. Just angst and outbursts and emoji's...

Lion prefers analogy over logic; analogy allows him to imagine that he is right, while logic is difficult, distressing and dangerous, carrying as it does the dire risk that it might expose his beliefs as being unreasonable and impossible.

Seeking the truth is all very well, but if it might not match his beliefs, he will make damn sure that he doesn't risk actually finding it.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That counterargument only works if it's impossible for one person to carry out many abortions.

It's also another distraction. He doesn't answer what makes it bad to abort a baby and send it to heaven, he delves into the consequences of adopting this as a policy.
I don't think he CAN answer it straight up, without going off on a fallacy tangent.

As long as the abortionist kills enough babies, the net total of heaven-bound souls will be larger than if there had been no abortions at all.

Yes, we don't have to kill EVERY baby. If every mother has three kids, to replace the parents and add one child to the succeeding generation, and has six abortions, then even if every single person that lives ends up hell-bent, three aborted babies even the score and three more give Heaven a net gain.

 

[Tigers!]

Yes I do.

Are you Catholic?

No, Baptist.

 

[Tigers!]

Right, then morality appears to be a matter of chance and luck. If the god that created our universe happened to favor planting car bombs in strangers' cars and told us to do so, then we would be obligated to do so. If the god favored poisoning the drinking water of nearby hospitals in order to gruesomely kill their sick patients and told us to do so, then we would be obligated to do so.

If the God that created our universe wanted us to love one another and do good then I am sure you would be happy to do so.

What we humans desire, what we favor, what we approve of, what we view as moral and ethical, etc. is irrelevant. Our only role would be to do whatever the god commands us to do. Obey, obey, obey.

In terms of ethics then, it really is a good thing such a vicious god creature does not exist and cannot hurt us for disobeying it. We as a human species will determine our own fate, not some power-hungry and authority-driven psychopathic monster of a god.

I am glad the god you describe does not exist either.

 

[Brian63]

If the God that created our universe wanted us to love one another and do good then I am sure you would be happy to do so.

That is what I would want, regardless of whether the God that created our universe wanted it also or not. The God does not dictate for us what we should or should not value, appreciate, respect, love, etc. That is something we as organisms ourselves decide and then live on.

Brian

 

[PyramidHead]

Aborting them guarantees their salvation. Allowing them to be born is too great a risk, since it's their eternal soul at stake. Think of the fetuses, not yourself.

There are 3 persons involved in the abortion process - the unborn person, the mother and the abortionist. For one it is most probably a good deal but for the 2 adults not so good. tragically they have taken a life. I think of more than just the fetus.

Why is it tragic when a soul is painlessly sent to an eternity of bliss?

You can't have it both ways by acknowledging it's a good deal for the fetus while simultaneously calling it tragic. A tragedy has to befall someone who is worse off as a result of it, much worse off. Nobody on the receiving end of a good deal has ever been the victim of a tragedy!

 

[PyramidHead]

The only problem with your logic is that it leads to an undesirable conclusion. This is a problem for people who start their logical processes with the conclusion and work their way backwards to the evidence or argument that supports it.
So such a person can't really deal with your premise until they get you to agree to their opinion of the conclusion. From there, the problem with your premise should come into focus.

The logic fail is because the ends is at cross purposes with the means.
It will result in FEWER people going to heaven.

If one person going to heaven is a good thing then two people going to heaven is TWICE as good.
Hello!!! Wake up ppl!

If you kill unborn babies then they can't go on to have unborn babies themselves - thus you are limiting the number of people who can go to heaven. You're defeating your own goal (and Gods)

That's why God said thou shalt not kill.

Just so we're clear, you're saying that killing is wrong because it takes away someone's ability to have children that might go to heaven? That's a fascinating way of looking at it, and definitely nothing I've come across before. Is it okay to kill people who are infertile, or are too old to bear children?

What's more, you're essentially conceding that nothing bad happens to the victims of abortion. This is a huge breakthrough. If we could get more people to come around to this perspective, it would go a long way to de-stigmatizing the process.

Have you ever heard of in vitro fertilization? The number of fertilized eggs that can be created in the laboratory is essentially limitless, given the right technology. Suppose I set up an embryo factory and started cranking them out and killing them by the thousands. That would cause thousands of souls that wouldn't otherwise exist to be in heaven, wouldn't it? Sure, they wouldn't be able to have children of their own, but the factory would be many times more efficient than the old fashioned way. In any case, many more souls would be in heaven than if I decided NOT to set up the factory, right?

If unborn babies go to heaven anyway why do they need to be murdered?

Think about what you're saying and try again. Do you see many unborn babies walking around? How else are you supposed to keep them from being born?

 

[PyramidHead]

or
3) the earlier christians were not earlier catholics so any such comparison is misleading

It is known that early Christians c. 2nd-3rd C. when out into the streets and fields, woods to gather up the abandoned children and infants. So it sis not such a stretch for them to look after mothers before the birth to look after mother & child.

- - - Updated - - -

Well why don't you? A slack-jawed gape is a lazy way to meet a challenge to your beliefs. So tell me, what are the negative consequences of abortion if aborted fetuses simply spend an eternity in paradise in God's presence, when they would otherwise risk eternal damnation had they been born?

- - - Updated - - -

In that case, do you believe abortion is wrong?

Yes I do.

Do you think that the fate of unborn children who are aborted is probably worse than the fate of the average person who is born, lives, and dies?

Does the end justify the means?

When people ask that question, they do it in order to point out that even though the end result is a good thing for someone, the way of getting that good result may be a bad thing for someone else. In this case, the end result is that someone gets to go to heaven without needing to earn their place there. Under the theology we are assuming for the sake of argument, this is the only thing that happens to the soul of the aborted fetus; it is created, and then it begins an everlasting life in paradise. Those are the 'ends' We are talking about. The 'means' are the termination of a pregnancy by removing the fetus before it is ready to be born, killing it in the process.

The ends do not justify the means if something bad happens because of how you made something good happen. But in this case, it's hard to see what bad things happen as a result of abortion. The only thing that happens to the fetus is something good--it goes straight to heaven and doesn't have to worry about hell. The person who has the abortion, and presumably the person who assists her, have committed an act whose result is a net benefit for the recipient. In the process, they haven't hurt anybody else (assume anesthesia has been properly used). So, what is bad about the means? It's not enough to say it's bad because killing is bad, because killing isn't always bad. The Bible includes many examples of justified killing that are arguably harder to defend than abortion.

 

[Lion IRC]

For the last time, for the sake of the theoretical argument about God and heaven and hell and souls etc.

- killing innocent babies is a sin and sinners go to hell. But according to this thought experiment we are trying to get more people into heaven. We should be preventing abortion/sin not encouraging it.

- killing innocent babies is a zero-sum game because you are wiping out the very generation of people needed to help create more unborn babies. And a heaven populated entirely with unborn babies will have fewer 'saved' souls than would otherwise eventually be the case.

- killing unborn babies is not necessary or even desirable as a hypothetical means of 'saving' souls. I want to go to heaven but I don't want anyone to kill me as I'm walking out the confessional. The person who kills unborn babies can't plead altruism if neither God nor the abortion/murder victims want that to happen.

But I get a sense that the atheists in this thread arguing in favor of killing unborn babies and trying to win the support of Christians have a disingenuous motive. They happily argue about salvation while ignoring God's plan for salvation - which certainly does not include depriving unborn babies of the life He created.

 

[James Brown]

killing innocent babies is a sin and sinners go to hell.

Even when God orders it? (See Deuteronomy 20)

But according to this thought experiment we are trying to get more people into heaven. We should be preventing abortion/sin not encouraging it.

If God wants more people in heaven, then why not create them there?

It's estimated that roughly half of pregnancies end in miscarriages or spontaneous abortions--often before the mother is even aware that she's pregnant. Christians tell me that it's God who is ending those pregnancies, and since he can do whatever he wants, then it's okay. But by your argument God is working against his own purposes.

 

[PyramidHead]

For the last time, for the sake of the theoretical argument about God and heaven and hell and souls etc.

- killing innocent babies is a sin and sinners go to hell. But according to this thought experiment we are trying to get more people into heaven. We should be preventing abortion/sin not encouraging it.

I'm not saying we should kill innocent babies, I'm just asking why abortion iss a sin if the only outcome is that the fetus goes straight to heaven.

- killing innocent babies is a zero-sum game because you are wiping out the very generation of people needed to help create more unborn babies. And a heaven populated entirely with unborn babies will have fewer 'saved' souls than would otherwise eventually be the case.

Again, I have no interest in increasing the number of souls in heaven. My question is purely this: if the only effect on a fetus of being aborted is going straight to heaven, why is it a sin?

- killing unborn babies is not necessary or even desirable as a hypothetical means of 'saving' souls. I want to go to heaven but I don't want anyone to kill me as I'm walking out the confessional. The person who kills unborn babies can't plead altruism if neither God nor the abortion/murder victims want that to happen.

If heaven is a place of pure happiness, then you shouldn't care if someone kills you when you are absolved of all sin. If you think you'll miss the people on earth, you're just not properly imagining how good heaven is. The whole concept makes life and death meaningless, I guess is what I'm saying.

But I get a sense that the atheists in this thread arguing in favor of killing unborn babies and trying to win the support of Christians have a disingenuous motive. They happily argue about salvation while ignoring God's plan for salvation - which certainly does not include depriving unborn babies of the life He created.

Well, we ignore God's plan for salvation because there is actually no God. We're just putting the hypothetical question to people who believe there is, and that dying in a state of innocence gets you a free ticket to his heavenly kingdom. So far, what you've conceded is that the 'victim' of abortion is vastly better off than anyone on earth. That utterly destroys the pro-life argument from 'compassion'. There is no reason to feel sadness for someone who is guaranteed eternal life in a state of perfect bliss. So that goes out the window. What are you left with? What exactly is the sin of abortion, if the person who gets aborted isn't harmed by it (and is actually really, really benefited by it)?

 

[James Brown]

The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out: by this means they secured these infants went to Heaven. No orthodox Christian can find any logical reason for condemning their action, although all nowadays do so.

--Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian

 

[funinspace]

The logic fail is because the ends is at cross purposes with the means.
It will result in FEWER people going to heaven.

If one person going to heaven is a good thing then two people going to heaven is TWICE as good.
Hello!!! Wake up ppl!

If you kill unborn babies then they can't go on to have unborn babies themselves - thus you are limiting the number of people who can go to heaven. You're defeating your own goal (and Gods)

That's why God said thou shalt not kill.

Just so we're clear, you're saying that killing is wrong because it takes away someone's ability to have children that might go to heaven? That's a fascinating way of looking at it, and definitely nothing I've come across before. Is it okay to kill people who are infertile, or are too old to bear children?

What's more, you're essentially conceding that nothing bad happens to the victims of abortion. This is a huge breakthrough. If we could get more people to come around to this perspective, it would go a long way to de-stigmatizing the process.

Have you ever heard of in vitro fertilization? The number of fertilized eggs that can be created in the laboratory is essentially limitless, given the right technology. Suppose I set up an embryo factory and started cranking them out and killing them by the thousands. That would cause thousands of souls that wouldn't otherwise exist to be in heaven, wouldn't it? Sure, they wouldn't be able to have children of their own, but the factory would be many times more efficient than the old fashioned way. In any case, many more souls would be in heaven than if I decided NOT to set up the factory, right?

Oh, jeesh don't give them any ideas. Thousands? I would bet it could be up to billions per year, in short order, with all the underutilized eggs and sperm laying about. As most of the Christians that think aborting a fetus equals murder, posit that the 'soul' enters the fetus at conception. The lab only has to succeed in getting the egg fertilized, and if bored wait for the first cell split and then they could sterilize it in any number of fashions... Or even let a few female feti mature to about 18 weeks, and then harvest the 6-7 eggs. A billion here, a billion there...

 

[PyramidHead]

I'm just fascinated that nobody has tried to argue that abortion is bad for the fetus. I was expecting more resistance on that point, since it's kind of the whole justification for saying abortion is murder, it's wrong, it's a sin, and so on. If you concede that the soul of the unborn baby isn't harmed (and actually gets a "good deal" out of abortion), well, the whole song and dance about looking out for the vulnerable innocents kind of goes out the window, doesn't it?

All those protesters holding up signs with pictures of dead fetuses, as if there's any reason to feel pity for them! They should put big block letters on each sign that say

"NO CHANCE OF HELLFIRE FOR THIS SOUL, FREE TICKET TO ETERNAL LIFE"

 

[bilby]

I'm just fascinated that nobody has tried to argue that abortion is bad for the fetus. I was expecting more resistance on that point, since it's kind of the whole justification for saying abortion is murder, it's wrong, it's a sin, and so on. If you concede that the soul of the unborn baby isn't harmed (and actually gets a "good deal" out of abortion), well, the whole song and dance about looking out for the vulnerable innocents kind of goes out the window, doesn't it?

All those protesters holding up signs with pictures of dead fetuses, as if there's any reason to feel pity for them! They should put big block letters on each sign that say

"NO CHANCE OF HELLFIRE FOR THIS SOUL, FREE TICKET TO ETERNAL LIFE"

I suspect that the real objection is that they are not actually as certain as they claim that there even is an afterlife.

I want to go to heaven but I don't want anyone to kill me as I'm walking out the confessional.

Why doesn't LionIRC want anyone to kill him as he's walking out [of] the confessional? If he really believed what he claims, then how could he NOT want that? It makes no sense.

I don't want to die, because I want to know what happens next; and once I am dead, that's the end - it would be like having your favourite show canceled half way through the season. I know it's going to happen one day, but I have no desire for it to be any sooner than it needs to be.

But if I thought that I would persist after death, I would be less concerned; And if I thought that things would be better for me after death, I would welcome it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's estimated that roughly half of pregnancies end in miscarriages or spontaneous abortions--often before the mother is even aware that she's pregnant. Christians tell me that it's God who is ending those pregnancies, and since he can do whatever he wants, then it's okay. But by your argument God is working against his own purposes.

This may tell us something about why so many things are so fucked up in the world. God takes those he likes immediately into Heaven and the only ones who get born are the souls who've done something to piss him off.