The Christian Discussion thread IX: Pelagius Rising.

[Gim]

It doesn't and if it did the Christian faith would die.

Why would that make it die? I don't remember anywhere in the Bible it being stated that God only created life on this planet.

Where does it say he created life on another planet?

[Philjia]

Why would that make it die? I don't remember anywhere in the Bible it being stated that God only created life on this planet.

It is more to do with the logical ramification. Intelligent life can sin, there is no reason to assume that the Klaxl of Centauri being sapient would not also sin. Yet Christ's atonement has efficacy for man because he is mans unparalleled offering, the kinsman redeemer, but that wouldn't redeem the Klaxl, that would go against 2,000 years of thought on how Christ's atonement works - why would innocent human blood redeem alien blood? Who, even, might sin completely different to how we do. Therefore either other sapient species have the Logos clothed in their flesh at differing points throughout the universe and multiverse, which would be incredibly odd. More preferably the one I like: they simply don't exist, we have placed our eyes and ears to heaven and not seen nor heard anything. I think I'll stick to their non existence. Now of course, in 800 years time when we go to centauri and find an adorable jellyfish, that isn't a concern it is just a continuing marvel of God's creative hand across the universe, but not sapient life, it's just too strained.

The reason it will kill the logical aspect of the faith, not that Christianity will die; there are too many fools on the planet to see the obvious, is because it would be untenable for the characteristics of God to be stretched needlessly across the cosmos, indeed, all permissible realities, in such an untidy fashion. It is also one of the main reasons that the multiverse is also untenable. If aliens can't exist here, they can't exist in other dimensions and that would mean every other dimension would be a barren universe made purely of rock and gas, a needless waste of space, and again, hardly fitting.

Fortunately we have neither evidence of a multiverse or aliens so I suppose Christianity is 2 for 2. I think it has become quite an argument for the divine ordination of man in relation to the universe, we have not heard a single iota of anything out their that may even be conceived as intelligent. Indeed by 2030 we will have checked and identified half of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy for planets and whether those planets have life, and for now we're the only ones. So far.

We've found a whole bunch of planets that might have life. We just can't check if they have life because they're so far away. For example, Kepler-438b has several similar characteristics to Earth: it's similarly sized, has a similar equilibrium temperature, and a similar mass. It's much closer to the star it's orbiting than we are to the sun, but it's also a much smaller and cooler star. However, we cannot conduct any more detailed surveys because it's 470 light years away. Simply transmitting a radio signal to the planet would take 470 years, and in the event that there were some intelligent life on the planet who had radio transmitters, it would take another 470 years to send a message back. That's 940 years to mutually say hello. Sending matter across such distances is even more ludicrous. It's not unlikely that there is life on other planets, but it is incredibly unlikely that we will ever have any meaningful contact with them.

[Lower Nubia]

It is more to do with the logical ramification. Intelligent life can sin, there is no reason to assume that the Klaxl of Centauri being sapient would not also sin. Yet Christ's atonement has efficacy for man because he is mans unparalleled offering, the kinsman redeemer, but that wouldn't redeem the Klaxl, that would go against 2,000 years of thought on how Christ's atonement works - why would innocent human blood redeem alien blood? Who, even, might sin completely different to how we do. Therefore either other sapient species have the Logos clothed in their flesh at differing points throughout the universe and multiverse, which would be incredibly odd. More preferably the one I like: they simply don't exist, we have placed our eyes and ears to heaven and not seen nor heard anything. I think I'll stick to their non existence. Now of course, in 800 years time when we go to centauri and find an adorable jellyfish, that isn't a concern it is just a continuing marvel of God's creative hand across the universe, but not sapient life, it's just too strained.

The reason it will kill the logical aspect of the faith, not that Christianity will die; there are too many fools on the planet to see the obvious, is because it would be untenable for the characteristics of God to be stretched needlessly across the cosmos, indeed, all permissible realities, in such an untidy fashion. It is also one of the main reasons that the multiverse is also untenable. If aliens can't exist here, they can't exist in other dimensions and that would mean every other dimension would be a barren universe made purely of rock and gas, a needless waste of space, and again, hardly fitting.

Fortunately we have neither evidence of a multiverse or aliens so I suppose Christianity is 2 for 2. I think it has become quite an argument for the divine ordination of man in relation to the universe, we have not heard a single iota of anything out their that may even be conceived as intelligent. Indeed by 2030 we will have checked and identified half of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy for planets and whether those planets have life, and for now we're the only ones. So far.

We've found a whole bunch of planets that might have life. We just can't check if they have life because they're so far away. For example, Kepler-438b has several similar characteristics to Earth: it's similarly sized, has a similar equilibrium temperature, and a similar mass. It's much closer to the star it's orbiting than we are to the sun, but it's also a much smaller and cooler star. However, we cannot conduct any more detailed surveys because it's 470 light years away. Simply transmitting a radio signal to the planet would take 470 years, and in the event that there were some intelligent life on the planet who had radio transmitters, it would take another 470 years to send a message back. That's 940 years to mutually say hello. Sending matter across such distances is even more ludicrous. It's not unlikely that there is life on other planets, but it is incredibly unlikely that we will ever have any meaningful contact with them.

Not a single one of them has life, advanced infrared mass spectroscopy has searched these planets endlessly for the basic compounds produced by life and found non. You assume that simply because a planet has water, consistent temperature, similar gravity that it might have life? Currently we have no indication whatsoever that any planet currently explored has a single bacterium. Most certainly not any intelligent life.

Also the problem with your 470 years hypothesis is that species from across the galaxy should of been transmitting even if we didn't have time to respond and yet still nothing.

[Lost Memories]

What do you think about the possibility of intelligent life existing on other planets, and what it would mean for the Christian faith?

It doesn't and if it did the Christian faith would die.

The non-catholic faiths could die, the catholic faiths by definition are universalistic.

If intelligent life existed on other planets, catholic branches of Christianity would try their best to communicate, find common values, and in the end live peacefully or promoting co-existence.

It is more to do with the logical ramification.
Yet Christ's atonement has efficacy for man (only)

So it would either come to wait for an alien incarnation of Jesus to extent the promise with intelligent aliens? Or just an new messiah to bring a new pact to include more than humans?

What if the aliens had their own version of a messiah before the first contact? What if the alien messiah and its derived alien theology/culture was reconcilable with human theology/practices?

But agree on the pure logical level, can't be called christiantity if there are more messiah than Gesus.


On a praqctical level instead, I'm not sure dealing with aliens would soo much different from how the various churches have evangelized parts of the world on our planet earth.
Save the name change matter(given the need/recognition for a new messiah), and the obvious extra difficulty of dealing with a biological difference, than to deal only with a cultural difference like it was among humans.

[Albrenia]

As a small side note, radio waves do decay the further they travel, last I heard, and eventually will be impossible to tell from the normal background radiation 'noise'.

In any case, The Milky Way is but one of billions of galaxies, any one of which could be dead as a doornail or teeming with life.

[Lower Nubia]

It doesn't and if it did the Christian faith would die.

The non-catholic faiths could die, the catholic faiths by definition are universalistic.

If intelligent life existed on other planets, catholic branches of Christianity would try their best to communicate, find common values, and in the end live peacefully or promoting co-existence.

It is more to do with the logical ramification.
Yet Christ's atonement has efficacy for man (only)

So it would either come to wait for an alien incarnation of Jesus to extent the promise with intelligent aliens? Or just an new messiah to bring a new pact to include more than humans?

What if the aliens had their own version of a messiah before the first contact? What if the alien messiah and its derived alien theology/culture was reconcilable with human theology/practices?

But agree on the pure logical level, can't be called christiantity if there are more messiah than Gesus.


On a praqctical level instead, I'm not sure dealing with aliens would soo much different from how the various churches have evangelized parts of the world on our planet earth.
Save the name change matter(given the need/recognition for a new messiah), and the obvious extra difficulty of dealing with a biological difference, than to deal only with a cultural difference like it was among humans.

All of that was just nonsense. You're suggesting they have to come to Earth to receive a messianic incarnation? Current Christian thinking is not compatible with that, do you think the Catholic Church dogmatised Adam and Eve so that one day the very reason for that dogmatisation (i.e. that we inherited original sin from them) could be "meh, guess that was wrong" to accommodate aliens? No. The very nature of original sin means that Other sinful and non-human senitent life would need their own messiah, to account for their sins, but who is that? Jesus is already incarnated as man, are we to suggest that He's been going about the multiverse collecting the God-head equivalent of a harem? No doubt over the past 2,000 years he's had other species to save, so what is he a man or does he just put human skin on? Can the Church say he's a man if that was the case, because oh boy there goes the Church's proclamations for the past 2,000 years... 'perfect in Godhead, perfect in manh... dammit.'

If sentient aliens existed Christianity would be proven objectively wrong because they cannot be effectively accommodated into the Church's dogmas and narrative. Evangelising different groups of humans is one thing; all men, neither Jew nor Greek, but not Lrr from Omicron Persei 8. Lrr hasn't inherited original sin from Adam & Eve so he must either be perfect or have his own inherited sin, it wouldn't be fair for Lrr to have inherited the collapse of creation from humanities actions. He can't be perfect, because the universe has quasars, black holes, gamma bursts and exploding stars which could obliterate such a perfect species instantly, yet ultimately the star, which the planet of the innocent species orbits, must one day explode and so the sinless die. Damn. That's a problem, so they must be sinners, if they're sinners they need a messiah, yet who fulfills that role? Christ's a man. If the church won't elect women for the theological reason that men can only be the likeness of Christ for mass, what good is the Eucharist to a bloody 6 armed slug? I mean, how many more of these little tidbits of inconsistent proclamations exist that could be picked up on?

And we haven't even discussed Satan. Does he teleport around or are there loads of Satan's to accommodate all sapient species?

There are way too many problems with such thinking.

[Philjia]

We've found a whole bunch of planets that might have life. We just can't check if they have life because they're so far away. For example, Kepler-438b has several similar characteristics to Earth: it's similarly sized, has a similar equilibrium temperature, and a similar mass. It's much closer to the star it's orbiting than we are to the sun, but it's also a much smaller and cooler star. However, we cannot conduct any more detailed surveys because it's 470 light years away. Simply transmitting a radio signal to the planet would take 470 years, and in the event that there were some intelligent life on the planet who had radio transmitters, it would take another 470 years to send a message back. That's 940 years to mutually say hello. Sending matter across such distances is even more ludicrous. It's not unlikely that there is life on other planets, but it is incredibly unlikely that we will ever have any meaningful contact with them.

Not a single one of them has life, advanced infrared mass spectroscopy has searched these planets endlessly for the basic compounds produced by life and found non.

This is untrue. Who told you that bollocks?

Also the problem with your 470 years hypothesis is that species from across the galaxy should of been transmitting even if we didn't have time to respond and yet still nothing.

Marconi only developed radio technology 122 years ago.

[Huntpublic]

Marconi only developed radio technology 122 years ago.

My nations flag has gotten to my head, instead of reading Marconi, I read Macaroni. It was a weird sentence in my head. "Macaroni only developed radio technology"

[Lost Memories]

@Lower Nubia
It's all an hypothetical talk anyway, got to at least try to dance with it.

I'm trying to find the cases where it could work, while you're trying to find all the cases where it wouldn't.
That's playing different games. Good to point out the problems, but short sighted to stop at the problem.

do you think the Catholic Church dogmatised Adam and Eve so that one day the very reason for that dogmatisation (i.e. that we inherited original sin from them) could be "meh, guess that was wrong" to accommodate aliens? No.

What do you think to be more important: a dogma, or the message at its origin?
I think the latter. If it's necessary, dogmas can be changed or updated, or re-established. Though that's no easy matter anyway, and in the past there have been councils to deal with that. And if anything, a change should happen by inclusion, rather than exclusion or drop-off as you suggested.

The very nature of original sin means that Other sinful and non-human senitent life would need their own messiah, to account for their sins, but who is that? Jesus is already incarnated as man, are we to suggest that He's been going about the multiverse collecting the God-head equivalent of a harem? No doubt over the past 2,000 years he's had other species to save, so what is he a man or does he just put human skin on? Can the Church say he's a man if that was the case, because oh boy there goes the Church's proclamations for the past 2,000 years... 'perfect in Godhead, perfect in manh... dammit.'

That's my point, and I really like this hypothetical.

What does it mean for Jesus to be human?
Depending on how you answer that question, you can either have problems with accepting aliens, or having no issue with them, as them being also part of creation and sharing the same bond with God that humans shared thanks to Jesus.


All in all, wouldn't the eventuality of intelligent alien life, and the need to spread the faith to them, be very loosely comparable to how the leap from Judaism to Christianity happened, by allowing also persons not of judaic nationality to receive the faith?
(the Jews were/are also convinced that God favors them only)
The order of leap is clearly different, not just going past nationalities, but also past biology (assuming we're still talking about intelligent beings)

I mean, how many more of these little tidbits of inconsistent proclamations exist that could be picked up on?

Obviously, christian theology as it is now wouldn't be equipped for the task. But that's a problem for the theologians who will be alive during an hypothetical first encouter.

My general point was different though(about catholic christianity living on past aliens)
Would an upgraded and expanded version of christianity, as to include also aliens, still be counted as abrahamic? Or still be considered as a succession from its previous form/s?

Because if there was a sense of continuity, then the christianity-alien-version could have the same grade of closeness to human-christianity, as christianity has with Judaism.

[Tarsonis]

Why would that make it die? I don't remember anywhere in the Bible it being stated that God only created life on this planet.

Where does it say he created life on another planet?

Right next to where it says He didn't.

[Lower Nubia]

Not a single one of them has life, advanced infrared mass spectroscopy has searched these planets endlessly for the basic compounds produced by life and found non.

This is untrue. Who told you that bollocks?

Also the problem with your 470 years hypothesis is that species from across the galaxy should of been transmitting even if we didn't have time to respond and yet still nothing.

Marconi only developed radio technology 122 years ago.

What do you mean? We have spectral analysis for the atmospheric qualities of planets, it's not difficult, even from this distance we can tell what is in Keplar's atmosphere through mass spectrometry. How do you think we knew it had an atmosphere? Living particulates can be detected in the infrared spectra, how do you think we knew Titan has a methane atmosphere? Therefore if life or intelligent life existed on these planets the spectra would come back indicating certain factors, such as manufactured products or molecules conducive to cellular development.

Not us, everyone one else in the galaxy, it's not like every species in the universe discovered radio 122 years ago, the discovery would be staggered no doubt, logically speaking, that many species would of had the technology millennia ago. Therefore the point stands, where are the phone calls?

[Philjia]

This is untrue. Who told you that bollocks?

Marconi only developed radio technology 122 years ago.

What do you mean? We have spectral analysis for the atmospheric qualities of planets, it's not difficult, even from this distance we can tell what is in Keplar's atmosphere through mass spectrometry. How do you think we knew it had an atmosphere? Living particulates can be detected in the infrared spectra, how do you think we knew Titan has a methane atmosphere? Therefore if life or intelligent life existed on these planets the spectra would come back indicating certain factors, such as manufactured products or molecules conducive to cellular development.

Not us, everyone one else in the galaxy, it's not like every species in the universe discovered radio 122 years ago, the discovery would be staggered no doubt, logically speaking, that many species would of had the technology millennia ago. Therefore the point stands, where are the phone calls?

Maybe they arrived in 1448. Maybe they're going to arrive in 3049. Maybe they're coming tomorrow. The radio telescope, which is what will enable us to receive such signals, has existed for less than 100 years, and the likelihood of intelligent life developing in this galaxy is very low. There are a fuckton of possible answers to the Fermi Paradox; take your pick.

[Lower Nubia]

What do you mean? We have spectral analysis for the atmospheric qualities of planets, it's not difficult, even from this distance we can tell what is in Keplar's atmosphere through mass spectrometry. How do you think we knew it had an atmosphere? Living particulates can be detected in the infrared spectra, how do you think we knew Titan has a methane atmosphere? Therefore if life or intelligent life existed on these planets the spectra would come back indicating certain factors, such as manufactured products or molecules conducive to cellular development.

Not us, everyone one else in the galaxy, it's not like every species in the universe discovered radio 122 years ago, the discovery would be staggered no doubt, logically speaking, that many species would of had the technology millennia ago. Therefore the point stands, where are the phone calls?

Maybe they arrived in 1448. Maybe they're going to arrive in 3049. Maybe they're coming tomorrow. The radio telescope, which is what will enable us to receive such signals, has existed for less than 100 years, and the likelihood of intelligent life developing in this galaxy is very low. There are a fuckton of possible answers to the Fermi Paradox; take your pick.

Except there aren't, they're all special pleading for a situation which shouldn't logically exist:

• The Great Filter is stupid, the universe hasn't got a grudge on species advancement.
• The Dark Forest is something little Red Riding hood would spook over - even then a silent deer gives off some form of energy that is detectable, there's no such thing as silent running in a universe with the laws of thermodynamics. Not to mention this apprently universal quality has been completely missed by humanity, who continue to scream loudly into the void.
• The Gaia Bottleneck is practically pantheistic.
• The Great Silence, ignores the very laws of physics - advanced species that purposefully ignoring us would still continue to produce transmissions, and why they'd all be super advanced rather than having staggered technological developments is not explained.
• Life, but not as we know it, is again, against the laws of physics - even if they were robots they'd produce signatures of their existence.
• The Great Technological Gap, doesn't explain why we can't hear them. It explains why we couldn't answer back.

I've saved the best for last, we're the early risers of the universe, but this is untenable the very question of extraterrestrials rests on the basic premise that we're average, to assume we're the first or amongst the first continues to place us in a unique position. It fails to understand the ridiculous nature of that statement, we're the early ones. Wait, what? How many galaxies exist within 200 million light years? A lot, that gives plenty of time for sentient species to develop along similar evolutionary times as ourselves while being within the last 4-6 billion year mark for proper solar system development and yet there is nothing. There is no reason to assume that all species started when we did but would of had a staggered evolution across the last 1/4 billion years and that should still be a vast portion of the universe through which life should develop.

Then there is little evidence to believe that those species would randomly die off but would continue for millennia and millennia. Man currently has never been in a better position, we have enough food to support the world over, medical technology has never been better, sustainable energy is going to be a quality of every country easily in the next 100 years and the chances of us as a species dying off randomly is exceedingly unlikely.

The problem with your thinking is you are looking at this in such an insular fashion, that things only occur while we've been able to listen. Yet that is foolish; when our eyes are closed, light is still reflected off of objects, the busy universe still continues. Yet when you open your eyes you see all of that interaction. So too with our position in the cosmos, the universe should be a loud place, continually, as long as that species lives it will send signals out into the universe - not for a brief blip, but for as long as it can, sending messages across millions and millions of years of ancient civilisations that sent out these long messages in hopes of contacting other across the stars regardless of whether that someone is listening or not, yet when we went to listen to the universal symphony, nothing. All evidence points to a single conclusion, there are no aliens.

[Lord Dominator]

Aside from the fact that this doesn't really in this thread, you're making several erroneous assumptions:

1) We don't need to be the first species in the universe to arise, only the first in this galaxy. Barring FTL (which is currently not really believed to be theoretically possible in the traditional manner), other galaxies don't matter squat in these things, given the truly massive distances and thus time required to cross, which we can't do, much less coherent radio waves.
2) Radio and TV stuff being broadcast into space is inherently unprofitable (aliens don't buy the stuff in the ads), we've been shutting down the towers most able to do that, and radio waves fade to incomprehensibility within a couple light-years. See this What If? article from xkcd for more details, written by someone with far more experience in the subject than I.
3) Assuming that aliens take any similar track on tech to us, the relevant stuff to be able to hear us or we hear them would be open for a couple centuries at most. Despite all the hype around SETI, it only looks at minuscule fractions of the sky at a time, because frankly, looking for aliens (heck, manned space travel in general) isn't all that profitable.
4) I'd love to look at some of your (pessimistic) assumptions regarding the various 'solutions' of the Fermi paradox, but I don't feel like re-reading all that stuff right now, but I can.
5) Before you say anything, else I do agree with you that the current evidence is that there are no aliens.

But again, any continuance of just this topic probably should go in a different thread

[Luminesa]

Maybe they arrived in 1448. Maybe they're going to arrive in 3049. Maybe they're coming tomorrow. The radio telescope, which is what will enable us to receive such signals, has existed for less than 100 years, and the likelihood of intelligent life developing in this galaxy is very low. There are a fuckton of possible answers to the Fermi Paradox; take your pick.

Except there aren't, they're all special pleading for a situation which shouldn't logically exist:

• The Great Filter is stupid, the universe hasn't got a grudge on species advancement.
• The Dark Forest is something little Red Riding hood would spook over - even then a silent deer gives off some form of energy that is detectable, there's no such thing as silent running in a universe with the laws of thermodynamics. Not to mention this apprently universal quality has been completely missed by humanity, who continue to scream loudly into the void.
• The Gaia Bottleneck is practically pantheistic.
• The Great Silence, ignores the very laws of physics - advanced species that purposefully ignoring us would still continue to produce transmissions, and why they'd all be super advanced rather than having staggered technological developments is not explained.
• Life, but not as we know it, is again, against the laws of physics - even if they were robots they'd produce signatures of their existence.
• The Great Technological Gap, doesn't explain why we can't hear them. It explains why we couldn't answer back.

I've saved the best for last, we're the early risers of the universe, but this is untenable the very question of extraterrestrials rests on the basic premise that we're average, to assume we're the first or amongst the first continues to place us in a unique position. It fails to understand the ridiculous nature of that statement, we're the early ones. Wait, what? How many galaxies exist within 200 million light years? A lot, that gives plenty of time for sentient species to develop along similar evolutionary times as ourselves while being within the last 4-6 billion year mark for proper solar system development and yet there is nothing. There is no reason to assume that all species started when we did but would of had a staggered evolution across the last 1/4 billion years and that should still be a vast portion of the universe through which life should develop.

Then there is little evidence to believe that those species would randomly die off but would continue for millennia and millennia. Man currently has never been in a better position, we have enough food to support the world over, medical technology has never been better, sustainable energy is going to be a quality of every country easily in the next 100 years and the chances of us as a species dying off randomly is exceedingly unlikely.

The problem with your thinking is you are looking at this in such an insular fashion, that things only occur while we've been able to listen. Yet that is foolish; when our eyes are closed, light is still reflected off of objects, the busy universe still continues. Yet when you open your eyes you see all of that interaction. So too with our position in the cosmos, the universe should be a loud place, continually, as long as that species lives it will send signals out into the universe - not for a brief blip, but for as long as it can, sending messages across millions and millions of years of ancient civilisations that sent out these long messages in hopes of contacting other across the stars regardless of whether that someone is listening or not, yet when we went to listen to the universal symphony, nothing. All evidence points to a single conclusion, there are no aliens.

It’s interesting how recent our existence in history is as well. There’s a chart in the geosciences building on my campus, and it stretches basically every major period in earth’s history out on a map. Then there’s the tiny sliver that is the period of the emergence of humans. I wish I had a picture, it’s so cool upclose. But it’s really amazing to imagine that even before we existed, the world just...existed. Beautiful, and strange, and foreign beyond our imagination. All these things we’ve never seen, but that we explore today.

...I’m not sure if this is tangently related to what you’re talking about, but it’s what I thought about when I read your (once again well-written) post.

[Geneviev]

I have a bit of a random question about a certain Bible verse. Please forgive me if this is not the right place for such a question, and if it seems a bit long.

Imagine a hypothetical Christian woman who is kidnapped by terrorists together with a group of other Christian women. These terrorists tell her and the rest of the group that unless they convert to the terrorist's religion, they will be stoned to death. This hypothetical Christian woman watches the first woman get stoned for refusing to convert. She converts to the terrorist's religion immediately. She continues to follow the religion outwardly and stops praying to the Christian God for her own safety, although she still secretly believes in Jesus as God. Matthew 10:33 says that "But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." (ESV). Does this mean that this hypothetical Christian woman is condemned to hell for denying Christianity? This sin would be considered blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, after all. If, hypothetically, she would be allowed into Europe as a refugee after being freed, and returned to a church, would that change the answer?

[Northern Davincia]

I have a bit of a random question about a certain Bible verse. Please forgive me if this is not the right place for such a question, and if it seems a bit long.

Imagine a hypothetical Christian woman who is kidnapped by terrorists together with a group of other Christian women. These terrorists tell her and the rest of the group that unless they convert to the terrorist's religion, they will be stoned to death. This hypothetical Christian woman watches the first woman get stoned for refusing to convert. She converts to the terrorist's religion immediately. She continues to follow the religion outwardly and stops praying to the Christian God for her own safety, although she still secretly believes in Jesus as God. Matthew 10:33 says that "But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." (ESV). Does this mean that this hypothetical Christian woman is condemned to hell for denying Christianity? This sin would be considered blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, after all. If, hypothetically, she would be allowed into Europe as a refugee after being freed, and returned to a church, would that change the answer?

If the woman were to repent at any given time (likely when she is safe), I have no doubt that her apostasy would be forgiven, so long as she retains her beliefs inwardly during captivity. Otherwise, death is preferable.

[Geneviev]

I have a bit of a random question about a certain Bible verse. Please forgive me if this is not the right place for such a question, and if it seems a bit long.

Imagine a hypothetical Christian woman who is kidnapped by terrorists together with a group of other Christian women. These terrorists tell her and the rest of the group that unless they convert to the terrorist's religion, they will be stoned to death. This hypothetical Christian woman watches the first woman get stoned for refusing to convert. She converts to the terrorist's religion immediately. She continues to follow the religion outwardly and stops praying to the Christian God for her own safety, although she still secretly believes in Jesus as God. Matthew 10:33 says that "But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." (ESV). Does this mean that this hypothetical Christian woman is condemned to hell for denying Christianity? This sin would be considered blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, after all. If, hypothetically, she would be allowed into Europe as a refugee after being freed, and returned to a church, would that change the answer?

If the woman were to repent at any given time (likely when she is safe), I have no doubt that her apostasy would be forgiven, so long as she retains her beliefs inwardly during captivity. Otherwise, death is preferable.

This woman (hypothetically) would be terrified for her life. Would God allow her to enter heaven if she is not freed and is still forced to pretend to have converted to the terrorist's religion?

[Northern Davincia]

If the woman were to repent at any given time (likely when she is safe), I have no doubt that her apostasy would be forgiven, so long as she retains her beliefs inwardly during captivity. Otherwise, death is preferable.

This woman (hypothetically) would be terrified for her life. Would God allow her to enter heaven if she is not freed and is still forced to pretend to have converted to the terrorist's religion?

In theory, she could continue to pray to God in private and ask for forgiveness even while captive. It would not have to be a verbal prayer. Martyrdom is still the best option here.

[Geneviev]

This woman (hypothetically) would be terrified for her life. Would God allow her to enter heaven if she is not freed and is still forced to pretend to have converted to the terrorist's religion?

In theory, she could continue to pray to God in private and ask for forgiveness even while captive. It would not have to be a verbal prayer. Martyrdom is still the best option here.

If I were to suggest that this hypothetical woman did not want to choose martyrdom due to pregnancy (and is purely hypothetical, of course), would that be more a sin or more of a noble act?

What I mean to say is, she could not pray for forgiveness. She was (hypothetically) watched constantly and was afraid for her life. Hypothetically.

[Saint Ryvern]

In theory, she could continue to pray to God in private and ask for forgiveness even while captive. It would not have to be a verbal prayer. Martyrdom is still the best option here.

If I were to suggest that this hypothetical woman did not want to choose martyrdom due to pregnancy (and is purely hypothetical, of course), would that be more a sin or more of a noble act?

What I mean to say is, she could not pray for forgiveness. She was (hypothetically) watched constantly and was afraid for her life. Hypothetically.

Prayer doesn’t need to be outward. You can do it in your head at any time. Unless they’re monitoring her thoughts, somehow.

[Geneviev]

If I were to suggest that this hypothetical woman did not want to choose martyrdom due to pregnancy (and is purely hypothetical, of course), would that be more a sin or more of a noble act?

What I mean to say is, she could not pray for forgiveness. She was (hypothetically) watched constantly and was afraid for her life. Hypothetically.

Prayer doesn’t need to be outward. You can do it in your head at any time. Unless they’re monitoring her thoughts, somehow.

I would not be surprised if they had the hypothetical ability to do that...

Anyways, so you think this hypothetical Christian woman would be denied access to heaven?

[Northern Davincia]

In theory, she could continue to pray to God in private and ask for forgiveness even while captive. It would not have to be a verbal prayer. Martyrdom is still the best option here.

If I were to suggest that this hypothetical woman did not want to choose martyrdom due to pregnancy (and is purely hypothetical, of course), would that be more a sin or more of a noble act?

An interesting dilemma. If she somehow managed to raise the child as a secret Christian, I would say the effort makes her choice noble.
Now, I can't think of a reason why an (unrepentant) apostate should be allowed into Heaven, even under duress, but the judgement is ultimately in God's hands.

[Geneviev]

If I were to suggest that this hypothetical woman did not want to choose martyrdom due to pregnancy (and is purely hypothetical, of course), would that be more a sin or more of a noble act?

An interesting dilemma. If she somehow managed to raise the child as a secret Christian, I would say the effort makes her choice noble.

That I understand.

[Saint Ryvern]

Prayer doesn’t need to be outward. You can do it in your head at any time. Unless they’re monitoring her thoughts, somehow.

I would not be surprised if they had the hypothetical ability to do that...

Anyways, so you think this hypothetical Christian woman would be denied access to heaven?

Hypothetically, I agree with Davincia. Martyrdom is the best option unless the hypothetical qualifiers you’ve added are present. In which case I still agree with Davincia.