Three Way News

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Monday, April 23, 2007

Pins, angels, and Adam's bellybutton

I know I'm going to get criticism for this post, but this really is the sort of thing that just makes us non-believers shake our heads:

The Vatican announced on Friday the results of a papal investigation of the concept of limbo. Church doctrine now states that unbaptized babies can go to Heaven instead of getting stuck somewhere between heaven and hell. If limbo doesn't exist, what happened to everyone who was supposed to have been there already?
They've probably been in heaven all this time, but no one knows for sure. Until the recent announcement, the limbo crowd was thought to include anyone who hadn't been baptized but would otherwise deserve to go to heaven—like infants (including aborted fetuses), virtuous pagans, and pre-Christian Jews. Those who had been baptized, on the other hand, either joined God in heaven, made up for their sins in purgatory, or suffered forever in hell.
If limbo never existed in the first place, you might assume that these souls passed straight through St. Peter's gates. But the carefully worded document from the Vatican's International Theological Commission stops short of certainty in this regard, arguing only that there are "serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope," rather than "sure knowledge."

I guess I'd kind of like to think of myself as a virtuous pagan (tho I'm no more a pagan than I am a Christian or a Jew) who could expect to spend his eternity in a pleasant, if nondescript, realm that, while not punishing, falls just a little short of what could have been had I made some different choices. Kind of like if I moved to St. Paul.

But of course none of that is in the cards and it blows my mind that people who can claim evolution is just crazy talk will take seriously a debate about where all the unborn babies go. And that for a thousand years they can convince themselves of some magical land of limbo where, I don't know, polite primitives carry around fetuses in jars, only to suddenly say "oh, just forget we said anything" with the ease of Bobby Ewing stepping out of a shower.

update

Turns out that the Rude Pundit is, well, ruder, on this topic than I am. His take on it reminded of a story from the Mrs. about going into surgery as a scared 12 year old and being given last rights by a priest moments before entering the OR, you know, just in case. She told him to fuck off. Literally. Which is extra shocking to those who actually know her. I've always said "good for her."

Labels: mythology, religion