(March 24, 2015 at 1:47 am)urlawyer Wrote: If that's the case then what I want to propose is this: Should we kill our babies before they have a chance to understand having a choice?I assume you're putting this forward to those who believe that a dead child will automatically go to heaven. The reply from such a person would likely be to point out that their god also forbids murder, and that therefore they do not have the freedom to slaughter every child in order to save it. It does create the opportunity for the ultimate sacrifice: a parent who condemns himself or herself to eternal hell in order to guarantee that their children enjoy eternal heaven. It makes you wonder, though: could god really deny such a person from spending eternity in heaven? His own sacrifice (a relative blink of an eye of suffering and 'death') pales in comparison, especially since his would not guarantee salvation the way this parent's sacrifice would.
Since the believer can interpret his holy text however he needs to in order to paper over such loopholes, I am sure that there is a ready explanation that prevents such a plan from working. As a bonus, it would probably be a very entertaining discussion.
"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
