God: Pick one of your\u00a0girls to go to hell.<\/p>\n
Me: NO!<\/p>\n
God: Okay. Pick two of your\u00a0girls to come to heaven.<\/p>\n
Me: What about the third?<\/p>\n
God: Don’t worry about her.<\/p>\n
Me: Ummm…I don’t like the sound of that. If I choose two, what will happen to the one I don’t pick?<\/p>\n
God: Well, since I cannot lie, the truth is that she will go to hell. But it’s not because you chose her to go to hell, you simply chose the other two to go to heaven.<\/p>\n
Me: Pardon me for saying so, God, but that is pure nonsense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have heard some Christians use the logic presented by “God” above. They say He didn’t actually choose anyone to go to hell, He just chose some to go to heaven, and “passed over” the rest. Generally, however, when Christians talk about this, they\u00a0try to make it more palatable. Instead of using parents choosing which child should go to hell and which child should go to heaven, they talk about some inanimate object, like a bushel of apples. They say that if you have a basket of apples, and you choose some to take home to eat, you didn’t condemn the others, you simply didn’t choose them.<\/p>\n
Frankly, I think humans are\u00a0a bit more valuable than a bushel of apples. We are not inanimate, unthinking, temporal, clods. Well, maybe some of us are, but that’s besides the point.<\/p>\n
God cares for us\u00a0way more than\u00a0we care for our children–even those of us who are clods.\u00a0If we could not treat our children in the way described in the dialogue\u00a0above, what makes us think God can?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you heard of “Sophie’s Choice”? The story is told of a Jewish woman during WWII who had two children, a boy and a girl. She is told by a Nazi soldier to pick one child to live and one to die. The woman was unable to pick, and so the Nazi soldier grabbed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"tag-theology-general","7":"tag-theology-salvation","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n
Sophie's Choice Remix<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n