(May 12, 2014 at 7:40 pm)Godschild Wrote: I say again would you want these children to be in hell because they were not fortunate enough to live a longer life.What I would want for them depends on the particular reality I would subscribe to. If I was a Christian who believed that heaven was the greatest possible experience that we could have, I would want those children to die as soon as possible; they would enjoy eternal bliss without risking hellfire and suffering. Skipping life in this world and being transported to the bosom of the creator would be the best possible option.
That is not the reality I subscribe to, of course. So what I would want for those children is that they not die at a young age, that they get he chance to live out a longer life with the hope that it is one marked by achievement and happiness.
But think about it, if this life is just a test for getting into heaven with the very real risk of suffering eternal torment, the best option really is to die as soon as possible. Jesus said that the path to salvation was long and narrow and few would find it, so it is not easy to gain heaven and many Christians believe that many other Christians will not make it because they are not doing it right. So the guaranteed path to heaven is to die as young as possible.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould