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The Paradox of Life & Death in Religion

Christianity teaches us to believe that, as soon as we are conceived, we are vested with an eternal soul, one way or another. The Catholic Church used to believe that unbaptized infants that died suddenly would end up roasting forever in hell as a result.


Now, a kinder gentler Church now only believes those infants roast forever in hell only if they managed to commit a mortal sin before they exit this earthly life, stage left.  If they manage to escape existence without eternally offending the God who gave them the "gift of life" in the first place, their brief stay on Earth is quickly followed by an eternity in Heaven. Talk about a winning lottery ticket!


But in either case, just being conceived (whether you ask to be or not) means you're now stuck with having to live forever and ever, in either heaven or hell, and you can never escape from either one. And since "eternity" itself can be an experience that feels like hell, no matter where one is forced to spend that eternity, it is easier to consider "life" to be more of a curse than a "gift."


And since any sane person would rather opted to skip the troubles of this life completely -  along with all of the suffering, pain, death, and the ever present possibility that we may ultimately end up in hell for all of eternity anyway (which is why the Bible tells us we must "work out our salvation with fear and trembling")  - if it meant landing in an infinitely better place to begin with, who then would NOT prefer that their mother had aborted them?


It's not like a fetus would remember the event (how many children remember being circumcised, for example?).


In fact, from that perspective, life itself is an eternal death sentence no matter where we end up in the afterlife, so why would anyone ever think of a "god" who was responsible for creating beings that are forced to suffer the eternal fate of either heaven or hell, as "good'?


And if Christians really believed that life in Heaven was infinitely better than this one, than why aren't they all crowding toward and open grave like movie attendees rushing for the exit after being told the theater was on fire?






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