Ethical question posed to Christians

[kal-el]

I seen something like this on another forum a while back, I don't remember. Anyway, I asked 3 people at my job this question today, and I was shocked at some of the answers I got. Ok, Christians, suppose you open your bathroom door, and lo and behold, God himself is sitting by the bathtub, cuddling a 3 month old infant. Now he tells you that this infant will grow up and be responsible for millions of deaths. He tells you to drown the baby in the bathtub. What would you do?

[reality101]

I seen something like this on another forum a while back, I don't remember. Anyway, I asked 3 people at my job this question today, and I was shocked at some of the answers I got. Ok, Christians, suppose you open your bathroom door, and lo and behold, God himself is sitting by the bathtub, cuddling a 3 month old infant. Now he tells you that this infant will grow up and be responsible for millions of deaths. He tells you to drown the baby in the bathtub. What would you do?

well for one God does not show himself to people until the time of death if you go to heaven hence the beatific vision

but in that scenario u don't drown the baby for a few reasons
1) it is not your rite to take a humans life
2) if you read the catechism of the catholic church it points out the fundamentals of morality on of which is "intent"
although the intent would be good it is still an evil act
and no good intent can turn an evil act into a good one but it can reduce the severity of that act
example if someone is trying to kill you u can use wutever means neccessary to stop that attack but you would still need to confess and repent for that sin but it would be more venial than mortal

Well, I supposed that wraps it all up in a nice little package for Catholics, but to me that's pure hypocrocy on the part of this religion, have you happened to see a settlement yesterday for all of the evil this religion has caused.
Nope that one just doesn't work for me.

I do believe however that there is a very good reason why we aren't allowed to view the future, maybe we just weren't meant to shoulder such a burden.
Blessings!

but you see its not hypocracy at all
God made us with a strong sense of self preservation
in the last paraghaph of the quote u used i said watever means neccessary
wut i meant by that was not that u can kill anyone who attacks you i meant the minimum amount of force needed to secure yourself and only if there is no possible alternative is it "ok" to murder and also even then it is still an act of evil but in te eyes of God it is deemed excuseable
now you are also required to avoid situations in which that would be neccessary

im assuming you read the last post i had after the one you quoted too

[methylatedghosts]

A few other questions we could ask:

Do we get new technology that will save billions of lives as a result of his weapon development system to aid his genocide?

What kind of people are we going to get that will stand up to him to bring him down, and would they come to power if this infant dies now?

What kind of world leaders would we miss out on?

Basically, even though a genocide is a bad thing, results from the conflict such as developing technology to help mankind and "the best world leader ever" (for example) could be more beneficial than not having the genocide happen. What if one of these new leaders only came to power because the dude before him got assasinated upon orders of this infant when gets all growed up? And what if this new leader was actually "the second coming of christ" or, for those not comfortable with that, lead the entire world to good things.

There are so many things that can result from conflict that it might not be the best thing to destroy this child. And I'd want to know the follow up from this kids destruction so I could actually decide which outweighs the other. So no. I wouldn't kill it. I'd say "lol good one God. No thanks, but nice try anyways. If it needs to die, I'm sure you have the power to do so. Oh, would you mind, I need to use the bathroom. Thanks"

[reality101]

A few other questions we could ask:

Do we get new technology that will save billions of lives as a result of his weapon development system to aid his genocide?

What kind of people are we going to get that will stand up to him to bring him down, and would they come to power if this infant dies now?

What kind of world leaders would we miss out on?

Basically, even though a genocide is a bad thing, results from the conflict such as developing technology to help mankind and "the best world leader ever" (for example) could be more beneficial than not having the genocide happen. What if one of these new leaders only came to power because the dude before him got assasinated upon orders of this infant when gets all growed up? And what if this new leader was actually "the second coming of christ" or, for those not comfortable with that, lead the entire world to good things.

There are so many things that can result from conflict that it might not be the best thing to destroy this child. And I'd want to know the follow up from this kids destruction so I could actually decide which outweighs the other. So no. I wouldn't kill it. I'd say "lol good one God. No thanks, but nice try anyways. If it needs to die, I'm sure you have the power to do so. Oh, would you mind, I need to use the bathroom. Thanks"

ya kno thats another really good point i didnt think of

[Determined1]

Very well put, this was what i was trying to say earlier, is evil at times necessary to force out the good.
Blessings!
Reality I just read your post and yes, that does make sense.

[Ncik666]

The end can justify the means. Methylatedghosts has a good point here. I would need more information before i could kill the child of course, I would want more than "this kid is gonna kill lotso peoples, put him in the water till the bubbles stop" as horrible as that sounds, supposing that the death would have nothing but good effects for the majority of the world I couldn't find a reason not to.

[reality101]

The end can justify the means. Methylatedghosts has a good point here. I would need more information before i could kill the child of course, I would want more than "this kid is gonna kill lotso peoples, put him in the water till the bubbles stop" as horrible as that sounds, supposing that the death would have nothing but good effects for the majority of the world I couldn't find a reason not to.

the reason not to is very simple
1)he asnt done anything wrong yet
i mean would u want me to kill you because in the future u would kill 10 other people although u thought they deserved to die
2)it is not your responsibility to take that childs life i mean then how is your act of murder any different from that of the childs
god said "whatever you do to the least of my people you do unto me" to the LEAST of my people that would be murders rapists etc everyone is made in the image and likeness of God and wen you do evil against someone you do it against God because God is in all creation

[methylatedghosts]

There's also a whole bunch of good stuff this kid could do before he goes on his rampage

[Ncik666]

The end can justify the means. Methylatedghosts has a good point here. I would need more information before i could kill the child of course, I would want more than "this kid is gonna kill lotso peoples, put him in the water till the bubbles stop" as horrible as that sounds, supposing that the death would have nothing but good effects for the majority of the world I couldn't find a reason not to.

the reason not to is very simple
1)he asnt done anything wrong yet
i mean would u want me to kill you because in the future u would kill 10 other people although u thought they deserved to die
2)it is not your responsibility to take that childs life i mean then how is your act of murder any different from that of the childs
god said "whatever you do to the least of my people you do unto me" to the LEAST of my people that would be murders rapists etc everyone is made in the image and likeness of God and wen you do evil against someone you do it against God because God is in all creation

Firstly: don't believe in God so that argument has no effect on me.
Secondly: It is quite likely that I would be caught and placed in jail, death sentence or whatever the court would decide. I would plead guilty, and give my reasons but would have no qualms if they decided to give me an ultimate punishment. I did kill this child and I would not want this act to go unpunished just because there were good intentions. That would be my ultimate goal for that situation, I cannot say that it would go well or I would follow through with this if I was actually put in the situation, but those are my feelings.

[reality101]

The end can justify the means. Methylatedghosts has a good point here. I would need more information before i could kill the child of course, I would want more than "this kid is gonna kill lotso peoples, put him in the water till the bubbles stop" as horrible as that sounds, supposing that the death would have nothing but good effects for the majority of the world I couldn't find a reason not to.

the reason not to is very simple
1)he asnt done anything wrong yet
i mean would u want me to kill you because in the future u would kill 10 other people although u thought they deserved to die
2)it is not your responsibility to take that childs life i mean then how is your act of murder any different from that of the childs
god said "whatever you do to the least of my people you do unto me" to the LEAST of my people that would be murders rapists etc everyone is made in the image and likeness of God and wen you do evil against someone you do it against God because God is in all creation

Firstly: don't believe in God so that argument has no effect on me.
Secondly: It is quite likely that I would be caught and placed in jail, death sentence or whatever the court would decide. I would plead guilty, and give my reasons but would have no qualms if they decided to give me an ultimate punishment. I did kill this child and I would not want this act to go unpunished just because there were good intentions. That would be my ultimate goal for that situation, I cannot say that it would go well or I would follow through with this if I was actually put in the situation, but those are my feelings.

first: I dont understand how anyone could logically rationalize athiesm so if you could id appreciate that
second: How would you kno that that child didnt kill those people for the same reason you are killing him how do you kno that child isnt going to invent a cure for cancer or aids or somthin before he kills those people it would be a very rash judgment top assume that the kid is just killin for the fun of it

[k-nug]

Even if we assume that this kind of scenario could happen, the answer to the question is NO -- as this 'God' would be a demonic spirit of some sort masquerading as God.

God would never ask of anyone to commit murder and break one of the commandments.

What about Abraham?? Didn't God command Abraham to slay his own son? Didn't he let him get as far as the knife is hand ready to murder his own son before sending an angel?

Even though he ended up not doing it, he probably had already resigned himself to the fact he would be killing his own son, therefore he had already committed the sin in his heart, also a sin, correct?

If God was all-knowing surely he would not have to go through this silly experiment to prove Abraham's loyalty. Was he just messing with Abraham? Sick...