The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The problem of uneven times and the life/death gap

Theology Soteriology
#1

I have always considered this a glaring problem of Christianity since I ever began looking into it. It’s so glaring that every passing day it threatens to pull me into atheism/deism/pantheism/w.e yet again. Strangely enough, I never see this issue brought up anywhere. Most Christians out there would eat me but I know you guys won’t (although you may decide not to reply to this). I’m also currently examining the Orthodox view on salvation, so my discussion is a bit slanted towards them, but I’m open to w/e ideas of salvation and what not that you follow.

The problem I’m talking about consists of two parts and the problem itself:

  1. Life on Earth is a thing.
  2. Life on Earth is varied in time/substance for every person.
  3. Salvation is related to this life/something useful is related to this life.

Pertaining to 1, I haven’t really ever met a decent explanation as to why people exist on Earth. Some may argue that existing on Earth is a gift but to someone who has been going through bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts that rings hollow. To those familiar with suffering that rings even more hollow. I have frequently wondered if humanity would be better off never existing in the first place. I know many enjoy life. I know many do not. Even if there was only one person on Earth in suffering and the rest were happy that alone would make me question the goodness of life. I’m curious what would happen if we turned our instinct of self-preservation suddenly off. Oh well, enough with my depressing thinking.

But, anyway, what IS our purpose here? I’ve heard some Christians say we live to get to a point where we get saved. Others said that we exist to bring God glory (?). Others believe life is good (obviously I’m not one of these). I would generally be inclined to say that life is a learning process, and I think that’s a view that works well with UR. The current Orthodox view I’m struggling with is one where you gradually work out your salvation and what you do in this life largely affects your state in the next life.

That brings me to 2. 2 is a nail in the coffin on the idea that we work to get saved or exist to achieve some purpose. Or, rather, the nail in the coffin is not 2, the nail is Hebrews 9:27 - “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,” the idea that we die once, and only once. Which is what makes 2 and 1 a problem. 2 limits the usefulness of 1. 2 makes 3 unfair. Here are the various observable conditions of humanity that manifest 2 which create the problem:

  • people who die very young, i.e., infants, aborted fetuses, “young children” (wherever any imaginary cutoff is);
  • people who die in between paradigm shifts (Muslims who could potentially become Christian, evil people who could potentially become good and vice versa);
  • people who die on the way to, or in the process of, any given salvation;
  • people who did not get to do much during their life (i.e., teenage soldier who died in some war);
  • people with various mental disabilities, including both things like Down’s Syndrome, schizophrenia, and sociopathy;
  • people of high influence vs people of low influence (i.e., the king vs the peasant. The king is involved in things on a totally different level from the peasant);
  • people who’s lives were largely distorted. I.e., victims of continual rape, abuse, torture, whatever. Very similar to the mental disability area really.

These groups of people will find the methods of salvation largely problematic, if not irrelevant to them. The dead kids never had a chance. Others just never really got there for other reasons. All these, were left behind. For all the rituals, sacraments, chantings, Bibles, discussions, all of that is useless to them. And there’s a lot of them. A lot of them.

The number of dead children alone is probably greater than the number of people who lived to the age of 30. The list that I mentioned contains a very large amount of humans out there. If we exclude everyone in that list, we are left with a rather comparatively small contingent of people who can successfully access Jesus, including hearing about him, reading the Bible, going to church, getting baptized, and repenting and trying to lead a life empty of sin. In light of reality, the group of people to whom this is properly available are difficult to call anything but the privileged. Further, they’re a minority that exists in idealized conditions. Christianity only has use under idealized conditions.

Now, consider, the behavior of the church, the attempt to banish all sin, ranging from lying to things like homosexuality, banishing condoms, banishing any premarital sex. The church, in all its force, is teaching idealism, assumes idealism, and banishes all that is not idealistic or is not fit for an idealized state. In such behavior, rather than generating anything positive in the world, the church is much more likely to grab the already privileged (already idealist) and, well, point out that they’re privileged? Make them a bit more privileged? I don’t know. But really, does the church make a difference?

But none of that makes sense.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit," - Wtf Jesus? What do you mean by poor in spirit? When I think of those poor in spirit, I often think of people pulled down to the void. Nobody to feel happy about. “Poor in Spirit means acknowledging God’s ownership of everything and that we are responsible to be good stewards of those things with which we have be blessed” (some random website) - is this what you meant, Jesus?

I’m missing something here.

Let’s move on to 3. Here are the options I’m aware of, and my problems with them.

All life-bound methods of salvation are invalid for dead children. Children also gain no experience since they didn’t experience anything. Dead children have a range of options:

  • they go to “Hell” (i.e., bad place). I do not need to explain why this is an issue;
  • they go to “Limbo”. Err… that’s a lot of souls in limbo, man. Here, I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad. If the projected life would have sucked, and you would perhaps end up in a bad place later, Limbo seems like a free pass away from all the various issues. If the projected life and afterlife are good, the kid in Limbo got shortchanged. Overall, seems weird.
  • they go to “Heaven”. Free pass. Then why does everyone else live? If we can just go straight to Heaven without going through this mess on here, why not do just that? (this also raises the issue of “if children are good why let them grow up”)
  • they go get purified. Same problem as above.
  • they get recycled (reincarnated) into some other humans - unbliblical due to Hebrews 9:27;
  • they get destroyed. Ironically, this seems to be everyone’s unofficial position, even though it never appears to have been the official position. This one I actually do not have a problem with, but it appears to have never been suggested or supported throughout Christianity. I generally believe nonexistence and early destruction (prior to development) are equivalent, so I do not even find this bad, but I am alone in that view.

The list can be pretty effectively repeated similarly for people with mental disabilities, but destruction doesn’t work anymore. So either these get a free pass to Heaven, a free pass to Hell, or limbo again. Or maybe all such people are indeed written off. Still seems kinda screwy. I even heard a version where people retain their disabilities in Heaven…

Then there are the bouncers. If this life is about accepting Jesus, that seems weird. We only need to accept Jesus because we lived this life to begin with. And why does accepting Jesus arbitrarily stop at death?

If this life is to work out salvation, what of those whose lives were too short to do so? With this system, you’ll end up with a range of people who are all at different stages of communion with God. Eh.

If we all get purified, what point is life?

So, really, why on Earth do we exist on Earth?

#2

Hello, Bird

It’s a long question, and I’m sure I don’t know the whole answer, but maybe I can speculate along with you a bit. For me, basically, UR solves the whole problem except for your very last point, to whit, why do we get sent here in the first place?

My speculation is partly based on my understanding of the word “glory.” Apparently, from what I’ve read, “glory” referred to the true story about anyone. It could be a good or an embarrassing story, though of course in God’s case, it would always be a good story. I’m not saying that “glory” always means that, but I see many, many places where this definition works very well. So essentially, when we say God wants the glory, it isn’t as self-serving as that always sounded to me. God wants to be known in the world. He wants to be made manifest. And as for us humans, we NEED to know Him. So His desire is our need. And we humans are the MEANS by which He can be known BY us.

In Genesis, we see that God created man in His image. But is a single, isolated, finite human being capable of carrying the entire image of the infinite God? And can we afford to lose even one, if each of us has a part but not the whole? Paul told the Colossians, “I have become her servant (the church’s) by God’s administration given to me for you, to complete the message fully known, the mystery hidden from the ages and the generations but now made manifest to His saints, to whom God wills to make known what are the glorious riches of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ among you, the hope of glory.” (That’s towards the end of Colossians 1.)

The glory (revelation) of God is Christ among us (us being the ekklesia – the gathering of the called out ones). So when we are gathered together as a body – the body of Christ, we are supposed to be manifesting the glory of God, which is Christ among us. The more of us there are (and I’m not necessarily talking about larger groups, but more of them), the more complete an image of God can be manifested (shown) to the world. And of course, the more completely Christ is manifested in our lives, the more perfect that image will be.

So . . . all that to say this: We are each as individual as the shells of the seashore. Yes, there may be two shells similar, but never two precisely the same. Therefore we each have a slightly different growth and development process. I’m an artist/potter, and to me this hearkens back to my own creative process. Some pots may need several firings, and others may only need one. It all depends on what I mean to do with them – what their function will be.

Some are complete off the wheel and others will need many modifications. Some I make from slabs, some from extrusions, and others may be completely hand built. There are thousands of different ways to make and decorate a piece of pottery and thousands of different kinds of pottery. If I were to express myself completely in my pottery, it would take a bigger room than I can imagine to hold all the pieces, and I’m just a finite human being.

Because we each carry a particular aspect of the expression of God within ourselves, we will each follow a different developmental process. Some of us require this path and others that one. Some presumably need no more than the meeting of a sperm and an egg (first the physical and then the spiritual, so this is a necessary step in God’s creation paradigm, apparently) and they are ready for the age to come (and presumably further refining). Some may suffer here through the fires of mental illness and make our progress whether toward or away from God, and in the age to come, continue our progress (I’m guessing with better faculties in the spiritual world). We each have our own path to walk in this world, and I see no reason to suppose that we will automatically enter the next world completed.

Perhaps some of us will reach maturity in this world. Paul says (in the Colossians 1 chapter quoted above) “We proclaim Him, admonishing every person and teaching every person in all wisdom so that we may present every person mature in Christ Jesus.” Perhaps once we are mature it will be our lot to strengthen our brothers and sisters who are still journeying toward the Son (or away from Him in some cases, I suppose).

At the conclusion of all the ages (or those we know about), Jesus will, having put all His enemies under His feet, turn the kingdom over to the Father that God may be all in all. Each of us will have then been perfected along which ever path God deemed the best for us, and we will together display and manifest and glorify God in completeness and maturity.

So that’s my current theory. Parts of it are upheld by scripture and other parts I’ve supplied from what seems reasonable to me. It isn’t all holy writ, but as I said, I’m speculating along with you. I do really believe that God wants to express Himself fully through His people (all people) and His creation, and that in the end, He’ll attain that goal to His glory and our joy.

I hope this helps – I struggle with depression too, Egg, but I have to believe that all suffering has meaning and helps us in our journey into the Son.

Blessings, Cindy

#3

That’s certainly a very interesting view on it. I actually had a similar (ish) view when I was a deist/pantheist. I would generally find it clash with mainstream Christianity, though. For one, I generally did not view man’s imperfection as a fundamentally negative thing, but that also seems to go against Christianity with the whole God-hates-sin idea.

It definitely only works with UR, though…

#4

This was a reply on another post but I think it applies here as well. We were all adopted into the trinitarian relationship that has existed for eternity.

#5

That doesn’t really answer the question of what for or why or w/e.

#6

Hi, Egg

Thanks for your reply. I agree with you that my musings clash with mainstream Christianity – but then I clash with MS Christianity in a good many other things as well. I don’t clash for rebellion’s sake, but rather because I think my views are more in the right (obviously – otherwise I’d change them!) :wink: And if/when I do see things that are wrong, I do/will change them as God gives me truer revelation.

I’m curious, though, as to what in particular YOU see in what I’ve said that clashes? It clashes in many ways, but I’d be most interested in knowing how you see it, and also in what ways it approaches agreement with your former deist/pantheist views.

I want to clarify that I do view sin and imperfection negatively. The simplest definition of sin, and the most accurate (as I’ve been given to believe), is “missing the mark,” as in a badly aimed arrow. The mark, it seems to me, is God’s kind of love. If we aren’t hitting that mark, we’re missing it; we’re sinning. God wants to see us succeed in hitting the bulls-eye and I believe He will keep working with us until we are able to tag it every time.

And yes – it only works with UR!

Blessings, Cindy

#7

I generally believe the reality is less “artistic”. Not that there’s anything wrong with things artistic, but I don’t think that is the case here. I mean, it is definitely IS a story, and IS reflective of God. But is that the sole purpose? I don’t think so. It’s non positive. It only becomes positive in the final cause, but the process itself is negative. I still stick to my original idea that this is a learning experience. Man wanted to become God, so he was allowed to become a god, but not for free. The definition of what God is, is presented in Jesus, and I’ll steal something from what Paidon wrote just now: Jesus was faced with all the same choices but was always able to choose right. That is the difference between us and God. God does not magically make the correct choices, nor does he do them forcefully: he does so because that is his character, essence, and attunement. We, humans, when faced with the same choices, do not always choose right, so sin is born, and then the law is born to show us what we… can’t even see.

My view, free of limitations by certain traditions (i.e., when I do not have a priest or a Christian hanging over my head accusing me of heresy) is actually quite bizarre. It’s rather syncretic (mixing of religious ideas), where Christianity is taken as primary and other religions as mal expressions of the Christian God, including Christianity itself (i.e., present day Christianity is mostly false, but has the terms right - Jesus WAS the Son of God, but various details, such as why he died, what God thinks of us, etc., are incorrect, rendering Christianity about the same as Islam or Hinduism really [the Orthodox/Catholic would even agree with this, although I think they’re in the mix they think they’re not]). The difference between devoted Christian and devoted Hindu are negligible. The differences between a devoted and non-devoted (not to be confused with atheism, some atheists are devoted, just not in anything we’d call “religion”) are enormous.

For one, I threw a curious look at another of Origen’s illegal theories - the idea of the preexistence of souls. Except, in my case, it’s more akin to existence in the Garden of Eden, Genesis. The teaching of God was rejected in favor of raw experience (sort of like the kid that does not believe his parents and wants to see for himself). It is there that humanity decided it was not satisfied with its existing state, ate the apple, and started the machine.

The problem of my beliefs lies in the fact that it’s reliant on reincarnation (I lean to random and human-to-human vs karma-based and human<->animal; btw, reincarnation is a quasi valid view in modern Judaism). Humanity was predefined in Genesis and nothing really was created afterwards. Humanity is just sort of reliving over and over again until it gets somewhere. It’s not people being hurt for the mistakes of others, but their own mistakes that hurt them in present time. With each generation we are to improve, both individually and collectively. Upon death, all are judged. Those who succeed, perhaps may actually escape Earth and go to God. Or maybe they return to Earth as useful agents, but are under God’s watch continually. Those who are classified as “unfit” go to Hell, i.e., Earth (here I can agree with Carlton Pearson). I was generally very strongly inclined to view both Heaven and Hell as Earth conditions. And I believe Earth is what it is as far as humans enable it. While humans do poorly Earth is Hell. And they see it with every horrid event like a massacre, a war, the Holocaust. Hence the continual warning, because humans themselves generate a Hell with their actions, for future or current generations, and they indeed send themselves there, just like foolish generals send themselves into wars. And some places are Hell more than others. And this Hell is definitely something to fear. When humans are done, Earth will become the Heaven. The Kingdom is already here, but it is fractured and distributed, and when we enable it we can generate great societies, or at least better ones than were before.

God can be accused of setting the mechanism but he’s not the one sitting behind the torture device.

The collective (new humans ARE created) can also function, but I am unable to resolve the this life - that life dichotomy, the purpose of judgment, the manner of punishment after judgment, the purpose of existence, with the idea of a collective. It’s not that I don’t believe God cannot purify in the afterlife or that there’s no biblical evidence for it, I just don’t see why one would live life on Earth if God could simply purify you after Earth. Earth has a distinct purpose. And, as I’ve said before, the collective learns very little, and in a very disbalanced manner. Most people will learn 1% of reality and that really does not accomplish much. It is indeed akin to a collective of ants, none of which is particularly important or significant except the high rollers. Whereas, a multitude of those who have experienced the life of every kind, of good and bad, and poor and rich, male and female. The death of millions of infants does not teach them in that moment but it teaches us and they then get their own moment.

Because Paul/Jesus(Isaiah[etc.]) accuses all generations at the same time. Both that have been that are and will be. How can accuse those who are not yet born? How can you accuse me of something I did not do? Unless I did do it / would have done it. Our generation is the same generation that crucified Christ, or would have crucified Christ, if the conditions and the time were the same and Christ has not yet come.

Of course, one question raised is if people forget what are they really learning. But my theory here is that the learning process is not on a body level but more on a spirit/soul/something level, where a person becomes more attuned to God, and is guided by God better even without any memory or intelligence. Sort of like a more advanced conscience, as we can note that people seem to be a bit different from birth in strange ways. Society, I believe, is improving, even if the manner is often unbalanced, and in some cases we may perhaps even degrade, but overall, both with the direct help of God via Judaism and Christianity, and by the development of conscience, we go from more primitive and barbaric states to more advanced, positive, humanistic states. That being said, I believed in reincarnation for a very long time. It seemed pretty much obvious to me, because it didn’t make sense for me to exist now vs 2k years ago or 6k years in the future. And one’s consciousness was my proof of God.

It’s funny, I went from this, to the evangelical “Earth doesn’t matter we’re just ambassadors here we’re all running off to the Kingdom of Heaven and the Earth will get destroyed sometime later”. >>

#8

i haven’t quite finished reading yet, but i agree that this is not a simple question to answer, and indeed is something about which i have wondered.

i have sort of reconciled some of this question in my head with the idea that we (humanity) need to know life apart from God in order to truly value life WITH God. so God creates this stage, or perhaps we could even call it a Matrix, in which we can live. He gives us a bright shiny red button and says do not press it. naturally, we do. now, i think God may’ve put it there for a reason, and a time may’ve come when we would have pushed that button with Him, and all would have been ok, but we jumped the gun.

actually i don’t think that, because it smells of entrapment or lack of understanding of human nature by God, which is impossible. it may be approaching the truth, however, as common thought (or lack thereof) seems to just accept the tree being there and blames us wholly for the transgression. i don’t know if reality is quite that black and white, but humanity, being a baby at the time the story was given to us, needed an infant’s story to convey a truth. hopefully we have grown up a bit since then as a species.

however, the continued birth of people into this reality which we have corrupted, the shortness of life for some and the prolonged suffering of others, are still confusing to me. my virtual reality matrix analogy works (again) for ideal situations.
not everyone (hardly anyone in fact) has an ideal situation, with good and evil equally balanced as options.

for unborn children, we could dance around this a bit as we don’t for sure know when a foetus becomes a sentient being. some believe it’s right from the word go, and some believe it’s a few months before being born. some even think that first gulp of atmosphere is the start of life! if a baby is stillborn, or miscarried, we could just assume they weren’t really alive, and therefore nothing goes anywhere…no limbo needed, or whatever.
but of course no one can dance around the plight of babies born with disorders that take their lives not long after being born.
that to me is horribly unfair, and only their restoration to their parents one day, and the childhood stolen from them returned, could make up for that.
in short, the Good that we are promised in the afterlife needs to not only overwhelm the bad we experienced in life, it needs to redress wrongs, restore broken relationships, heal wounds, undo everything wrong as if it never occured.

now we have some hint that this is indeed the Good that God promises us. the Justification offered us by Christ makes it as if we’d never sinned. we are told we’ll be washed clean, that our hearts of stone will be replaced by hearts of flesh. that the dead will live again, that tears will be whiped from our eyes.

that’s as close as i’ve gotten, but it doesn’t explain everything, so i am adding mutual speculation to what’s been said already.

i’m pretty far from mainstream Christianity, but i feel that’s because mainstream Christianity is pretty bloody far from Christ.

Cindy, you said in another thread about the Eloi from The Time Machine. i agree with that. if we were kept in ignorance and perpetual ease of life, we’d be no better than them. i can’t imagine God wants to spend eternity with such an uninteresting bride. that isn’t a relationship. we’d have nothing to offer Him. we’d be sponges. praising because we knew nothing else.

also Cindy, you mention an interpretation of Glory which makes sense to me. for years i’ve wondered what it meant for God to always be glorified, and do everything to His glory. what you’ve said offers an explanation i can work with at last! thank you!

#9

following on from what you say, Bird, about reincarnation. i wonder, do we have any other verses besides Hebrews 9:27 that appear to deal with this? basing a doctrine on one scripture is dangerous. 3 cross referenced throughout the Bible is a much stronger foundation for a belief. if nothing comes up, we may still resort to the Hebraic view of the life after death (ie nothing in Sheol) as a cultural background which is never contradicted. in either case, we should be cautious about consigning a possibility to the dustbin without fully reasoning it through.

one obvious issue with reincarnation is that some new souls must come to be, as i don’t think the numbers add up very well comparing all who have ever lived with all who have died + all who currently live. though i confess to ignorance about which way that balance swings (either far too many souls have died, or far too many live now). it’s probably obvious but i am still working on my first coffee of the day.

reincarnation, on first glance, would solve a number of issues.

i’d be happy even if deaths that occured either very young in childhood or before birth were recycled, but the rest not. or perhaps including the disabled, or anyone that had an incomplete existence. it could also be a means of judgement, for example maybe Hitler could be reincarnated as a persecuted person somewhere. but that raises issues as well, as we might be tempted to judge a person’s current state on their previous life, without any proof, and might thus be less compassionate than we ought. but that fault would lie with us, not with God or the nature of reality. so that may be possible.

i like Origen more and more. i must read more on him. i feel that he may have been struggling with some of the same stuff we are now, which makes him a father to those unafraid to think, but who are judged for doing so. though he was lately pronounced a great man by the current pope.

#10

Thanks to all for this thread. I think your questions are valid and I have given them some thought.
Firstly, I would like to comment on the Hebrew 9 text which is often wrongly used as a trump card for ‘we only come here once and our eternal destiny is decided upon this life’.
I do not think the text is saying that at all. If we look at the context of the text, it is emphasising that there is no need for countless death sacrifices for ONE life. I.e. it is saying, for ONE life, christ’s ONE death is sufficient. I do not believe it is ruling out that the judgement may be that we come around (to an earthly life) for a second/third time.
I have an open mind on the possibility of human to human reincarnation and I believe there are texts which support this view. It seems to have been the widely held belief amongst Jesus’ contemporaries and He didn’t say anything to ‘correct’ their view.
Off the top of my head:

  1. Who has sinned THIS MAN or his father that he was BORN blind? clearly the disciples believed it was possible that the man could have sinned in a previous life (ie before he was born) and whilst Christ corrected their judgemental approach to this illness, he seemed happy with their pre-birth concept.
  2. Some say thou are Elias or Moses - obviously it was a common concept that people can ‘come around’ more than once.

All the best.

#11

Definitely a less problematic solution than destruction or Limbo. Also gives a very different perspective on Israelis killing children in the most evil nations.

This is mostly definitely a concern. But I wondered, in the Bible there was a certain duality of things. On one, God said he will not punish children for the sins of their parents. On another, he said their sins will haunt them to the 3rd and 4th generation (or something). Generally, generations have suffered due to previous generations quite a bit. On one side, a renewed person gets a fresh start of sorts, even if their previous manifestation was horrid. On the other, the very persecutions they suffer from are caused by others or even themselves.

There’s also the whole Elijah-John the Baptist thing. :laughing: I’ve heard some strange explanations as to whether John is Elijah, is not Elijah, and how. John doesn’t think he’s Elijah, but Jesus calls him Elijah. This is a standard “atheist” contradiction. If John is a reincarnation of Elijah, he wouldn’t remember and be like “what are you smoking people?”. I’ve actually read some extensive arguments about how John the Baptist is definitely not reincarnation because reincarnation is not recognized by the Bible. The arguments were not convincing. If a previous conscience enters a new body, that’s reincarnation.

Although, reincarnation is just a word, and this is just a simplified method. Who knows. I am definitely not sold on the idea that every consciousness only dies once and then just sits somewhere, I’m not so sure. Maybe we are not supposed to know this, and for good reason (the issue you raised, and some other issues concerning infants, etc.). It obviously would be a very extended system that the Bible does not actually describe. There was a thing recorded by Josephus, though.

My point here, when speaking to other Christians, would not be that we definitely reincarnate or w/e (for who can claim that?) but that Christian concepts of Heaven on Earth, and Hell, and judgment, etc., may not be as simple as we try to make them to be. The may be analogies and metaphors of something else. There may be a lot more to it, and Jesus merely wants to stress the point that living in sin is a negative existence with consequences in the afterlife, whatever those consequence may be (this is what I got from what he said, anyway). This does not imply that there must be a 9 circle Hell, eternal torture, static unchanging afterlife, any failed cases, purgatory, w/e. All of those, really, are systems not significantly better than my example, and based most of the time on nothing.

From what I understand Origen is a recognized saint in both churches. They just consider him wacky.

You’ll find trouble reading Origen, though. Little was left of him. Some believe Origen generated universalists but wasn’t one himself. He certainly seemed like one of a kind guy, and one of the earlier ones. Despite his strange views, he’s quite vital to the history of the earth Christianity, confirmation of the New Testament as we know it, etc.

#12

I’ve read conflicting opinions. scientificamerican.com/artic … umber-dead

Of course, if we begin space exploration and colonize everything everywhere we’re gonna have a problem. :laughing:

Either way, the original number may be in reserve for a while.

This has certainly bothered me. I definitely take issue with trying to grab one verse and use it to prove something when it’s rather obscure, used for some other purpose, and has insane implications for being just one verse.

Yeah, you can’t easily get around that. Whenever I read that I always thought that maybe I’m misreading something. I generally read it as him sinning sometime this life, but if he’s born with that condition that makes no sense, unless he’s being retroactively cursed in present time. While Jesus corrected the assumption in this particular case, he didn’t really seem to imply the notion itself is incorrect… I’m pretty sure I read something of this nature before. I definitely got the impression that Jews, both ancient and contemporary, were open to the idea.

And, of course, Jesus spends a lot of time teaching us we can’t treat people like crap, and Paul says there’s no partiality. Consider the accusations:

10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

That’s a lot of stuff. I can find people who really do not fit this list here very well at all. And how can you say no one is righteous when some are yet to be born? But if we all had our serial killer streak, there’s indeed no partiality.