Why do babies get to go straight to heaven while the rest of us have to go through some sort of character building here on earth? Why can’t we get a free pass too?
That depends on your beliefs.
Some universalists teach that everyone goes to heaven.
With most religions you’re just supposed to have faith in things like this. God has His reasons. Amen.
Really, can you imagine true believers sitting down and actually thinking through some of the mind-boggling things they are asked to believe about God?!
Though, sure, scoff at them. But that doesn’t make their access to objective morality any less real “in their heads” on this side of the grave…or their access to immortality and salvation “in their heads” any less real over on the other side of it.
There’s just no way that atheists can win here.
Or, rather, none that I have come across.
My guess is just that babies haven’t had a chance to be corrupted by misguided presumptions - “sins”.
Heaven is supposed to be about a haven for the innocent of malicious intent. Babies, being ignorant of malice vs virtue, lacking conscience, fall into the category of “innocent of malicious intent”.
Similarly with adults who do something harmful to others quite by accident. There was no malicious intent despite the outcome of their actions. And that means that they are capable of being civil and harmonious once slight correction is made.
I think it is simply an issue of being in harmony with a heavenly environment or not. Adults are needed to provide the environment so it couldn’t be allowed to just kill off all people at birth (despite CCP and new US policies). So adults have to prove themselves of being willing and capable of sustaining a heavenly environment while unfortunate infants merely get relegated to it.
Would it make more sense for them to go to Hell?
No. What I mean is. I feel like babies that died had the best path. It seems unfair that I have to stay here on earth to pass some tests and they didn’t have to. They got a free pass. Why don’t we get a free pass?
I thought I gave explanation to that (but remember I am just guessing about these religious things).
Adults are needed - thus more appreciated.
It’s about parents whose baby just died, which really means it doesn’t exist anymore.
I don’t know what you mean.
The parents are just animals whose attempt at procreation has fizzled. In order to comfort them, we tell them their fruit still exists, that it has an immortal soul which is now in the best place, forever.
It’s a theological question for a believer.
If they didn’t ask Jesus to forgive them and all that I’m not sure they do.
…too many judges and juries but not enough executioners, is why.
That teaching tells you that you are not a child. Unlike the small child you have reached the age of reason. You know the difference between right and wrong and therefore are responsible for what you do. And, if your conscience tells you that you are guilty of wrongdoing, then you realize you need to be saved.
You’re all mostly children anyways.
Catholics believe the heaven for babies is purgatory… that they still grow up there.
You know… there’s a lot of wacky ideas out there, but ultimately it’s just about whether it’s logically consistent and meaningful and then it gets implemented.
What does it mean for children to go to hell?
You are children, think about that.
For those believing in the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, sin, and the afterlife in terms of Heaven and Hell, in Fundamentalist Christianity it’s really a matter of luck of the draw. One either luckily dies a baby, or one enters the Gladiatorial Arena of Appeasement: either one fails to appease God due to the “just so” nature of one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions and because of the uncontrollable nature of how one “is” one winds up in Hell, or one luckily is born with and conditionally acquires the psychology to appease God (overall) and winds up in Heaven.
If one fails to die a baby, one is forced to participate in a cosmic Darwinism in which one’s uncontrollable and arbitrarily existing psychology leads one either to Hell or Heaven.
The latter occurring only if one becomes Christian.