I think it would be useless to argue the nature of whether of not the spiritual is a made up concept because I think we both know our opinions on that aren’t gonna change. We can agree to disagree happily
Reading online suggests that between 10% and 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriages. Even if you bumped up that number to 30%, you’d still only end up adding roughly 50 billion extra babies in the new heavens and earth if you believed that every single fertilized egg is a human being. Regardless, one thing that is thought about which you’d probably remember from your days as a Chrstian is what the hypothetical resurrected body is after we die. Most Christians don’t assume that a 80yr old man stays old and frail, so I don’t believe it’s any more of a jump to say that a infant at death can receive an adult body at the Resurrection. The question of personal identity might be more interesting though to this discussion, and something my conversation with Mitchell in this thread is somewhat touching on.
Finally one point about heaven can’t, doesn’t work. If I believe in a God who created the observable universe with trillions of stars, more stars than any hypothetical number of babies and humans ever alive on this earth and billions of planets, why wouldn’t I believe that this God could create a new Earth that can sustain all that human life. Even speaking of whether of not that life needs to be sustained in the same way we do now (I don’t personally believe so). So I don’t think it’s any matter of impossibility; it’s a matter of me being unable to imagine its possibility. I think it’s much more imaginable when you consider the Source on the One who would sustain and create such a world. And if our observable universe is a product of His creative muscles, then I think that future Earth will be just fine for all those humans.
IIRC from my own researching, that number is a bit low - it’s more like 30-40%. Though it’s difficult to measure because most occur so early that they’re not obvious even to the mother.
And that number doesn’t fully take into consideration what the historical account might suggest, which probably could make the number even higher during some times in the past. It’s more a modern estimation in any case.
Yes I always reject the notions of sin which equates sin with mistakes, failures, or even disobedience. I think sin consists of self-destructive habits, like for example the habit of blaming others for your own mistakes rather than learning from them as we see in Adam and Eve. Mistakes and failures are how we learn. But self-destructive habits will only destroy us and it is quite clear that these are very difficult to overcome.
Impossible. There is no life without death. That is the most fundamental lesson of the natural world. Life is the struggle against death. Thus by its very nature, physical life is fragile and without guarantees – to be otherwise would frankly defeat the purpose. We learn and grow because failure is possible.
I am a scientist and a Christian, but I am a scientist first. I only ask whether Christianity and the Bible has any value on that foundation.
To be sure I understand that science founded on objective observation is utterly insufficient for life which requires subjective participation. But in making my subjective choices to participate in life, I have no interest in replacing reality with fantasy.
But what then is the meaning of what the Bible says regarding death? We are ultimately spiritual beings which have an eternal existence. And thus in that sense there is no death. Physical life is but a womb from which we pass into the greater world of God and spirit. However, sin changes that equation with spiritual death… consumed by habits which tear us down rather than building up – so with sin even if we continue, it is a lifeless continuation.
