reiii

Here are the assumptions about Catholic dogma I am operating under, without them the argument makes no sense and can be dismissed by simply correcting my misstatement(s):

1. Life begins at conception, specifically when the sperm fertilizes the egg
2. In order to enter heaven, a soul must be cleansed via baptism, mass and last rites etc.

Here are some scientific assumptions (these I'm more sure of):

1. Not all fertilizations result in a full term (or remotely close to full term) pregnancy. A significant number of fertilized eggs even fail to implant in the wall of the uterus
2. Fertilized embryos that do not implant cease developing and are spontaneously aborted
3. Spontaneous abortions are fairly common before any pregnancy is detected

Well I think you see where this is going:

What happens to all the souls of all the embryos? I think purgatory would be pretty crowded if all those little two celled tykes cant get past St. Peter.

Edit: found a good site that defines catholic conception. It seems pretty consistent with my point.
http://www.catholicmatch.com/pl/page...tml?ra=1;id=89

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planets

i'm nay a well versed anything, but i guess we should leave the humanistic problems of overcrowding out of God's realm? He created everything outta nothing, and that's evidence enough that physics or numerical counting methods do not apply. In fact, if He had infinity in his pocket, that'd be one pocket too big for the embryos and fully grown fatties of the world ever to have existed and will ever exist to fill.

SecretMethod70

The second assumption is incorrect. I don't have the time nor inclination to look it up at the moment, but in Vatican II the Catholic Church stated that one need not necessarily be baptised, nor even Christian to find salvation.

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reiii

admittedly I'm way over my catholic dogmatic (is that even a word) head....But, if my research is telling me anything, it sounds like you are referring to 'salvation by grace alone'. Which sounds like it was a controversial concept from the start.


Here is a page addressing the issue at Vatican II

http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/howrome.htm


"... [Christ] also willed that the work of salvation which they preached should be set in train through the sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire liturgical [ritualistic] life revolves. Thus by Baptism men are grafted into the paschal mystery of Christ. ... They receive the spirit of adoption as sons" (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Chap. 1, I, 5,6, pp. 23-24).

Non baptized and non Christians are given a chance for salvation through faith and 'grace', is a two cell embryo capable of faith in a God he has no knowledge of?

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daking

QED Catholicism Dogma is bolloks.

SecretMethod70

Thank you for adding great value to the discussion

reiii, that's not really what I'm referring to. Salvation by grace alone is a protestant belief that Catholics do not share. Salvation by grace alone, in fact, would be an argument that baptism is necessary since it is through baptism that one purportedly receives grace.

Vatican II states that all salvation is found through Christ, but it also states that those who are non-Christian may still find salvation, however it is likely more difficult. It states this by recognizing that while the fullness of Truth subsists in the Catholic Church, real truth exists in other religions. Thus, it is reasonable to think it possible that Ghandi, while not Catholic or Christian for that matter, found salvation through Jesus. In short, the Catholic Church does not believe that God faults people for what they do not know. For example, a person born Jewish is not generally exposed to the idea of becoming Catholic and, really, is socialized against the idea. Most people in that circumstance never come to the belief that the Catholic Church is the one true Church and, thus, never reject what they know to be true. So, if a person is raised in such a manner preventing them from seeing the fullness of Truth in the Catholic Church, essentially preventing them from accepting *OR* rejecting it, and that person leads a life that is good, it is possible that that person may find salvation, despite not being baptized and not believing in Jesus.

It follows, then, that if a non-Christian who has lived and had the opportunity to act in ways which he or she knows are wrong may still find salvation through Jesus, that an infant who has simply not been baptized may also do so. In fact, it seems only logical then that those infants do find salvation since they have done nothing which they know is morally wrong and are unaware of any religion.

EDIT: Furthermore, on a personal level, I tend to identify with the philosophy by some Catholic theologians, such as Fr. Andrew Greeley, that the sacrament of baptism is largely symbolic rather than some mystical and instant cleansing. Fr. Greeley wrote an excellent and concise chapter (7 pgs) regarding this in his book, The Great Mysteries.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

reiii

thanks, now I know a little more about Catholicism (from zero to .0001 maybe)

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josobot

There are some, like me, that think that Jesus added a Buddhist antedote to a problematic Judaism.

martinguerre

" think purgatory would be pretty crowded"

Which is really the absurd part. The rest is...a fun mind game, but to state that a metaphysical plane of reality created by God to purify souls...would be "crowded" is beyond absurdity. Purgatory is the stepping stone to Heaven...and for a soul that didn't get any time to do any sinning...i'd assume the time spent there was short.

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abraxas

As has been stated before your 2nd assumption is far off base. Catholic dogma does not insist that for a soul to enter heaven one must be baptised. Baptism (along with the other sacraments) is an outward sign of an inward faith. An embryo has committed no sin and one can only assume that the soul belonging to this embryo will not be placed in purgatory for eternity.

That being said your concept of "overcrowding" is absurd. You do not physically enter purgatory or heaven. They are not physical spaces; rather they are metaphysical - beyond terms of volume and space. A being's soul is not representative of that being's outward appearance. Again the soul must transend physical characteristics in order to be able to enter the space which we have defined as "purgatory" and "heaven". Being above physical dimensions an infinite number of souls can fit in the infinite "space" of the afterlife.

reiii

I was being facetious, thinking along the lines of Milton, Dante or the movie 'toothless', with afterlife destinations represented physically.

Toothless: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127322/


but point taken?

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MSD

If I recall the indoctrination of my youth, unbaptized children who die remain in limbo and don't even notice that any time passes between their death and the second coming, when Christ will rise again to bring us salvation. On the day of judgement, their original sin will be forgiven, and their pure souls will pass into heaven.