A guide to Hell for small children

[Rachel333]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... -depraved/

Because you've got to instill that fear of Hell early, right? This tells children that even "little children are not too little to go hell."

I absolutely think that this is a form of child abuse, but it is unfortunately an effective way of keeping people too terrified to leave their religion.

[ILoveJellybeans]

These people are sick and evil. Way to terrify your poor children. What can a poor little child do to go to hell :(

[FundieWatcher]

I know there are hundreds of Christians doctrines, but I thought it was generally accepted children don't go to hell.

[Rachel333]

I know there are hundreds of Christians doctrines, but I thought it was generally accepted children don't go to hell.

I knew a reformed* guy who was very adamant that even babies go to Hell. He used the fact that babies have been observed masturbating in utero to support the idea that even babies sin.

I was taught that babies go to Heaven but sometime in childhood you become responsible for your beliefs. It's not a set age like some traditions have; it can be different for everyone but happens pretty early, so children could definitely go to Hell.

In some ways I think it makes more sense to say that babies go to Hell (I'm saying this as someone who doesn't believe in Hell at all), but people don't like that idea. If babies go to Heaven, though, wouldn't the kindest thing be to kill all babies and send them to Heaven before they reach the age of accountability? Why be upset about abortion if it's sending souls to Heaven who might have otherwise been born to non-Christians and gone to Hell?

*Is it just me or do reformed people seem to take extra pleasure in talking about people going to Hell? I don't have a very high opinion of reformed theology, though.

[FundieWatcher]

I've heard the age of accountability thing before. I always wondered what they thought happened to a person with severe down syndrome or any that rendered a person incapable of understanding theology.

[J'Lurker]

I've heard the age of accountability thing before. I always wondered what they thought happened to a person with severe down syndrome or any that rendered a person incapable of understanding theology.

Fire and brimstone. Not crafted in God's perfect image, must have let in the devil. And you're going to hell for applying critical thought. And I'm going to hell for not capitalizing it.

The answer is always hell.

[Rachel333]

I've heard the age of accountability thing before. I always wondered what they thought happened to a person with severe down syndrome or any that rendered a person incapable of understanding theology.

According to what I was taught, people like that also go to Heaven automatically. I know not everyone agrees, though.

[TenderloinTrash]

I knew a reformed* guy who was very adamant that even babies go to Hell. He used the fact that babies have been observed masturbating in utero to support the idea that even babies sin.

Well I learned something new today.

[FloraKitty35]

That is extremely fucked up.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

A lot of reformed people do believe babies and kids go to hell. Although, I must say, I asked Michael Seewald about this in his blog and he said he did not believe babies go to hell. He did not comment on kids going to hell. And he's pretty reformed. He probably believes if any babies die they were elect. People like to just make up their own rules...

[Burris]

Translation: "If you don't obey your parents, and without question, God will torture you for eternity. If you obey unjust orders when you're older, however, God will still torture you for eternity.'

'If you repent of child molestation, God will forgive you. If you have adopted the wrong doctrine, however, then God will torture you for eternity.'

'What a fortunate coincidence that our god has all the same unhinged prejudices we do.'

[FundieFarmer]

I come from a very reformed background and I've never heard that children or babies go to hell. We were considered responsible for our faith at the time we became members of the church through confirmation, which was at 11 in my church unless you chose otherwise. Though retrospectively, I probably only did it because everybody else was. I definitely had no clue what that meant or even if that church still has me as a member, since I don't go there.

ETA: I do find this to fall somewhere on the abusive spectrum and wish it could fall under some sort of oversight. I've long believed that religion should t be an excuse for anything despite freedom of religion in the U.S. Practice what you want, but there should be boundaries when it comes to the rights of others, and I frankly think we do a piss poor job of addressing that. Case in point: fundie children.

ETA 2: Some of the more legalistic churches may think kids go to hell based on the principle of Original Sin. Crock of shit regarding salvation before comprehension, I say.

[GenerationCedarchip]

Yikes!

I came from a reformed background and as an adult, I definitely heard some discussion of the possibility that children could go to Hell. However, they certainly weren't teaching that to us as 5 and 6 year olds. And with babies, the most I ever heard anyone say in my church (at least anyone in authority) was that we as humans don't know all that goes on in a baby's mind and heart because they can't communicate it all to us. So, we were taught that babies born into covenant families are presumed to be saved and for the others, since we cannot know what is in their hearts, they may well be saved as well but that it's one of those mysteries we won't be able to fully know and understand while we're here on earth.

I can't imagine being given that children's book on hell, though. I would have had some major nightmares in I'd had to read that.

[apandaaries]

James Joyce's A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man has an extensive chapter about his Catholic upbringing and its impact on his formative years. He describes in detail what he imagined about hell based on the priests who educated him at school and led sermons on Sundays. There was that saying (maybe Jesuit?) along the lines, "Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man." He was terrified of hell and in his religion, unbaptized babies would wind up in limbo, while other sinners suffered other punishments. These thoughts completely overwhelmed him as a child; for awhile, he planned on a career in the priesthood.

I've always found it a vivid and apt description of how overwhelming such indoctrination can be to a young child's mind. Most older religions have some kind of clear delineation between childhood and adulthood (bar/bat mitzvahs, quinceaneras, etc., which also celebrate the responsibility that accompanies maturity), but fundies don't seem to have adopted any kind of rite of passage. It reminds me of how fundies also shun higher education. It makes them seem like a terribly young, immature branch of religion which isn't prepared for long term success.

[homeslice]

Age of Accountability is a Mormon thing. It's why they don't baptize until kids are 8.

[salex]

These kinds of discussions (babies in hell) always just point out how weird people are and how willing to pretzel their beliefs to make them sound better.

First, my understanding as a christian is that until or unless a person is competent to know and understand right from wrong, and choose how to act, they are not accountable, thus people with diminished capacity and children (and babies) are not at risk of Hell.

Secondly, the person who reported on the belief that any babies who die are part of the elite, and thus are in heaven--well, my understanding of the elect is that one either is or isn't from before birth, and nothing can be done to become part of the elect so it really makes no sense to assume that God would only take babies from the elect pool. Dying at 4 days or 100 years would not make a difference if a person were really in the elect group, would it? It isn't as though a person can choose to be i the elect.

Thirdly, I have heard that babies who miscarry or die as infants go to heaven or hell based on if their parents were christians who would have led them to christ. (I don't buy that, and was amazed anyone would think it.)

I know a woman who baptised her grandbaby as a Roman Catholic without telling her daughter, who is currently a Unitarian. Apparently this was to keep the child from hell in case anything happened to it. I am unsure if a priest did this of if she did it as a layperson. I didn't go into it, really. It made me wonder, however, how baptising a baby as a RC would magically protect that child/person from hell even if they never attended or acted as a RC.

[Firiel]

Age of Accountability is a Mormon thing. It's why they don't baptize until kids are 8.

It's also an evangelical thing-- although they generally don't lay out a specific age. The "age of accountability" concept is also why most non-Calvinist evangelical denominations believe that people with severe mental disabilities will not go to hell.

When I was in sixth grade, I asked a Reformed (Calvinist denomination) pastor about what happens when babies die. His solution? Babies born to Christians go to heaven. Babies born to non-Christians go to hell.

How convenient. :roll:

[Four is Enough]

OK, RC here. A RC priest will NOT baptize a baby unless its parents request baptism. If the priest feels both parents are not on board with raising the child in the Catholic faith, he might ask them to reconsider. This happens in parishes where there are a lot of "We show up for Christmas and Easter and sacraments but don't bother to come to church otherwise" parishoners. The Catholic Church wants people to be REAL Catholics, not just pretend ones. They will likewise not allow a person to stand as godparent who is not confirmed as a Catholic. You can be an honorary godparent or sponsor, just not godparent.

Some grandmothers, back in the day, believed that unless the baby was baptized Catholic, they would not enter Heaven. Limbo was that place for babies who didn't get baptized. Limbo is no longer part of the Catholic teachings, BTW. I, myself, was baptized in the hospital nursery by my aunt, because she was afraid I'd die before I was able to be baptized by a priest. Dunno why. She'd baptized my older brother, who was a puny, premature baby. Makes sense. But I was a completely normal, on time baby, and so was my sister, but she baptized all of us.

I remember thinking that Hell was a pretty awful place as a child, and I feared going there, but I didn't fear going there as a CHILD.. we were pretty much insulated by that "age of reason" thing. We didn't make our first Confession (called Reconciliation now) until our second grade year, when it was assumed we were old enough to begin to know right from wrong, and to do penance for wrongs done. By the time my kids were in school, they'd hiked the age to nearly 10. And even then, the priest talked to us about repentance AND restoration. Give back the toy. Ask the wronged person for forgiveness. Make it right with the person. Not just 5 Hail Marys, although we got plenty of those!

And I still kind of like the Purgatory deal. People die with sin on their souls, but if they have people who pray for the repose of their soul, they can get to heaven even after they die. It was very comforting for me to be able to pray for loved ones who'd died, years afterwards.

ETA: It's also comforting that the RCC doesn't believe that all sin is equal. All sin takes us away from God, but there are worse degrees of sin, so the life is to be led so as to avoid mortal sins or to confess them as soon as they're committed, and to attempt to live so as to sin like that no more. There is forgiveness, but the transgressor must make atonement to God, Man, and strive to sin no more.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

It's also an evangelical thing-- although they generally don't lay out a specific age. The "age of accountability" concept is also why most non-Calvinist evangelical denominations believe that people with severe mental disabilities will not go to hell.

When I was in sixth grade, I asked a Reformed (Calvinist denomination) pastor about what happens when babies die. His solution? Babies born to Christians go to heaven. Babies born to non-Christians go to hell.

How convenient. :roll:

In the bible, every Christian was a convert! Jesus never said anything about bring saved through Christian parents. Calvinists baffle me.

[SamE]

..... They will likewise not allow a person to stand as godparent who is not confirmed as a Catholic. You can be an honorary godparent or sponsor, just not godparent.

Just saying...I am my neice's godmother. I am very Catholic, but not confirmed. Her godfather isn't confirmed either. Confirmation just wasn't important to either of us when we were in 8th grade.

[Walking Cat Bed]

It's also an evangelical thing-- although they generally don't lay out a specific age. The "age of accountability" concept is also why most non-Calvinist evangelical denominations believe that people with severe mental disabilities will not go to hell.

When I was in sixth grade, I asked a Reformed (Calvinist denomination) pastor about what happens when babies die. His solution? Babies born to Christians go to heaven. Babies born to non-Christians go to hell.

How convenient. :roll:

Maybe it's my current stance as a heathen universalist, but I'm much more comfortable with the idea that heaven is for most and hell is punishment (if either exist) than the idea that heaven is for the Special and hell is for everyone else. Of course, that makes me a heretic to most varieties of religion...

[Firiel]

In the bible, every Christian was a convert! Jesus never said anything about bring saved through Christian parents. Calvinists baffle me.

I suspect that particular theology developed as a way to comfort parents whose babies had died. If I were a hard-core Calvinist who had just lost a child, I would live in fear that my child was in hell. A more consistent (though not less horrific) theology (though not less horrific) would be that ALL babies who die go to hell or that there was no way of knowing if a dead child was in heaven or hell, but that's pretty horrifying, so they gave Christian parents an out.

[2xx1xy1JD]

According to what I was taught, people like that also go to Heaven automatically. I know not everyone agrees, though.

The concepts are a bit different, but I've heard Jewish beliefs similar to this. The reasoning is that you can only sin if you are capable of realizing that something is a sin, so children and those with severe enough mental disabilities cannot sin.

[Mary C Doates]

For a minute I thought this was another Maxwell thread: "HELL With the Moodys". I'm sure Stevehovah has thought about it.

PS Hi Steve :penguin-no:

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I suspect that particular theology developed as a way to comfort parents whose babies had died. If I were a hard-core Calvinist who had just lost a child, I would live in fear that my child was in hell. A more consistent (though not less horrific) theology (though not less horrific) would be that ALL babies who die go to hell or that there was no way of knowing if a dead child was in heaven or hell, but that's pretty horrifying, so they gave Christian parents an out.

Makes sense. There is that one calvinist pastor who preaches that all babies in fact DO go to hell. We talked about home few months ago, I'll have to look him up.