In fact, since I am allergic to boredom, it sounds like heaven is hell to me.

to bad I can’t fool anyone in believing the opposite is true as well….

If an infant dies and goes to heaven to do believe they will spend eternity as an infant?

I agree that the concept of a heaven is dumb but for some reason I do not think that is what you were aiming at.

And last a quote just for you Boris…
“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs — jolted by every pebble in the road.”
— Henry Ward Beecher

this is dumb. seriously. ask your parents to get you some medication…

If you give me 1 hour and tell me not to do anything, ill be bored to tears after 3 minutes. So of to heaven we go. We are now to spend an eternity here?? WTF, after 100.000 years there are no jokes left to be heard, we also know all the stories/history, no knowledge is unfamiliar to us, basicly after 100.000 years we more or less know all there is to know. Whopido, only 1000000000000000000000000000000000000 millions years plus an eternity left to go.

…….Oh God I really hope there is no such thing as an afterlife……..

However, I do have a few questions regarding what you said.

* very few Christians believe this

Perhaps very few Catholics claim knowledge of who will or will not go to heaven, but my experience suggests that evangelical/pentecostal Christians often claim to have such knowledge. Specifically, they claim that if you accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal savior… yadda yadda… then when you die you WILL be flying up to heaven.

* the aforementioned commandment

And yet, in the Bible, God repeatedly encourages and rewards genocidal slaughter, so the commandment seems rather… ummm… flexible.

* is to take away their life

Actually, heaven or hell, it does not seem to take away their life, but merely to transition it to some unearthly plane.

* murder… risks your salvation

For many Christians, repenting your sins and accepting Jesus seems to be quite sufficient to overcome a few measly little murders.

* I doubt whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, or anyone murders at a higher rate than another group

This one is trickier, but I think that it’s safe to say that their are some fair number of religious folk who do, in fact, kill others on the basis of religion. On the other hand, I don’t of any atheists who engage in similar behavior.

Of course, there are additional reasons for a Christian not to kill: the aforementioned commandment, the fact that to murder another is to take away their life (which was given to them by god), the fact that to murder another person places you in a state of sin and risks your salvation, the fact that most churches teach that one should obey just laws, and so on. Really, I doubt whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, or anyone murders at a higher rate than another group. It seems to me this mother’s problem was mental illness, not belief in god.

A) Heaven is real and it is a beautiful, wonderful paradise, infinitely better than life on Earth.

B) If a child, raised Christian, were to die, that child would go to heaven (see A).

If, arguendo, we accept A and B, then why is killing such a child morally different from, say, throwing them a surprise party and serving them their favorite food?

Andrew argues that part of the problem is that “sending someone to heaven” (i.e., killing them) affects other people — presumably, those whom are left behind on Earth. An interesting point, but I don’t see it as being persuasive, since many actions that affect others (even ones that prevent a missionary from “saving” others) are not considered morally wrong. This should be no different.

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Also, it can be argued that “Thou shalt not kill” was only intended to apply to Jews not killing other Jews.