I'm enjoying the posts. So far, all that has been said makes me continue to think that religious beliefs are impossible to prove by either logic or philosophy. However, I also believe that the suppositions of the sciences are not conclusively proven by logic or science. Both may be correct or incorrect. I just do not know yet. Each is a field to it's own, and is valid within the realm of it's own knowledge. Neither faith nor science needs to be exclusive of the others knowledge base. Many actually do take advantage of both worlds.

 

Maybe you will. You're not done yet. I'm only medium-rare and I've been in progress for almost 60 years.

 

So back to my burning infant....

Is this infant a Christian? You were so sure, just a little while ago, that this infant was brought to heaven to experience eternal bliss, so we should not mourn his loss.

Does religion require sentient thought? Intelligence? Reasoning?

Can an infant be religious? Can he have faith? He hasn't yet heard the Scripture, he hasn't yet seen the Glory of Televangelism, he hasn't yet listened to Sunday School mythology. Can he then be considered good? He's incapable of making a decision about God. Does that make him a Christian? Does that make him an atheist?

What about a zygote... or better yet, a just-fertilized ovum. Is this newly-conceived life Christian life? When it is spontaneously aborted because it failed to implant in the uterus, does it go to Heaven? What about a paramecium? It's the same size, and of similar complexity. Is it Christian, too?

I argue that, until a child is capable of making decisions, and decides to be Christian, he is not Christian. He is a blank slate waiting for someone with a marker.

You cannot have faith until you can choose to have faith. Infants are not Christians any more than they are atheists any more than they are engineers.

- Warren

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chroot
[B]JonBoy,

We all understand that sometimes you must hurt something in the process of saving it.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chroot
[B]

If God wanted people to know about him, he wouldn't muck about with human witnesses.

 

I agree completely. This reminds me of a Doonesbury comic strip when Jerry Brown was running for president:

A press conference:

Question: Governor Brown, when Proposition 13 was being considered in the legislature you were adamantly opposed to it, but now that is has become law you are an ardent supporter. How do you explain this change of position?

Brown: Then was then and now is now.

Rick Redfern: Governor Brown, Rick Redfern here, Washington Post. Where I come from that would be considered a cynical and fatuous answer. Would you care to elaborate on it?

Brown: Certainly. East is East and West is West.

Redfern: Thank you.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chroot
[B]

So back to my burning infant....

Is this infant a Christian?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chroot
[B]Your question brings up the central philosophical question of modern physics: much of our experiments are intended to measure effects predicted by the mathematical models we construct of varying interactions.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chroot
[B]
You cannot have faith until you can choose to have faith.

 

How..... contrived. You must admit that if anyone else tried to pull this trick on you, you wouldn't believe it for a moment. But somehow, probably because you've been duped from birth, you simply accept it as a fact as much as the sky is blue.

But boy... doesn't that just happen to work out nicely....

- Warren