Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

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> Author is unfamiliar with actual Christianity (ie. dogmatic Catholicism). Unbaptized children go to a part of Hell where there is no fire (The Limbo of the Children); they are denied the beatific vision

You are presenting the "Limbo of the Children" as "dogmatic". The International Theological Commission (a body of expert professional theologians whose members are appointed by the Pope) has a rather different view on that Limbo [0] than you do (my emphasis): "This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis". [1]

[0] I say "that Limbo", there is also much talk of "the Limbo of the Fathers"; and more rarely and controversially the "Limbo of Virtuous Pagans"

[1] https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_...

You are again totally incorrect.

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Session 11, Feb. 4, 1442, ex cathedra: “Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil [original sin] and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that holy baptism ought not be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people…”72

As the Holy Office said in their 1949 letter:

> However, this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church.

Catholic teaching is that you need to interpret the text you cite "in that sense in which the Church herself understands it", not according to your own private judgement.

Correct. There are certain dogmatic truths (baptism is required for the beatific vision, God is good, God is merciful, etc) but beyond that there’s just speculation. Other suggestions have included baptism by blood and God breaking his rules (which only he is allowed to do, no fair!). Nobody actually knows.

We can’t know what heaven is like at all so it’s likely that whatever we think of as heaven is actually much more applicable to some kind of hell.

> We can’t know what heaven is like at all so it’s likely that whatever we think of as heaven is actually much more applicable to some kind of hell.

Your comment reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode "A Nice Place to Visit". Henry Valentine's eternal punishment is to always get what he wants. At first he thinks he's gone to heaven, it takes him a month of always getting everything he wants to realise he's actually been damned to hell.

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