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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Can a baby know God?
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
I say no. A newborn infant ‘knows’ nothing, by any sensible definition of the word. Hell, they don’t even know their own existence. Personhood emerges with knowledge of self, which in turn depends on such developmental processes as language and recollection of abstract thoughts, etc.
So, how can a baby know god?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Is a baby conscious of anything? If so, why would a baby be unable to be conscious of God? He or she of course would not be able to verbalise their consciousness of God, but then many adults can't, either.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
My babies looked incredibly spiritually aware and turned on and tuned in once their eyes could focus on mine. I thought they possessed the answers to life, the universe and everything.
(And it wasn't 42)
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Can a baby know God?
Can anyone?
Theosis - becoming like God (a pathetic and weak translation of the word) - is a process. It's primarily an act not of human effort, but of God. And it has to start somewhere.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
If you're trying to argue a case for atheism based on knowledge then you're going to fall into your own pit, aren't you?
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
There is an Akan (Ghana) proverb: "You don't need to teach a child about God." or: "No one points out God to a child."
It is atheism and agnosticism that have to be learnt.
Or you can have Voltaire: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
In my opinion belief in God is hardwired into human beings as surely as selfishness. If not the selfishness that ensured our evolutionary development would destroy the species. Of course, that does not prove God exists.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
What about the idea of pre-existence, expressed by Wordsworth in "Intimations of Immortality" - "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home..."? If we have immortal souls, would they not exist before we were born and is it inconceivable that babies may have memories of this although they can't express it? (I apologise if I'm taking the thread into Deceased Equine territory... I did check the guidelines and didn't think I was... )
Nen - wandering lonely as a cloud.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
There is an Akan (Ghana) proverb: "You don't need to teach a child about God." or: "No one points out God to a child."
Which would tend to put most Sunday School teachers out of a job.
Seriously though, if children all come pre-programmed to know all about God, why the intense amount of effort to provide them with religious education? Seems like an enormous waste of effort.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
There is an Akan (Ghana) proverb: "You don't need to teach a child about God." or: "No one points out God to a child."
Which would tend to put most Sunday School teachers out of a job.
Seriously though, if children all come pre-programmed to know all about God, why the intense amount of effort to provide them with religious education? Seems like an enormous waste of effort.
I have also heard that children who are young enough tend to know when they've had enough food (though some do comfort eat, obviously) and if so they are certainly ahead of many adults. Heck, I have seen my daughter leave plates of cake that she loved quite unfinished and that puts her generally ahead of me! Why is it more common at her age group than mine, because she hasn't been misprogrammed by society yet.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Thomas Traherne claimed to be able to remember things before he was born: quote:
Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith I was born are the best unto this day, wherein I can see the Universe. By the Gift of God they attended me into the world, and by His special favour I remember them till now.
(Centuries of Meditations, 3.1) Of course, we only have his say-so.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
Does the answer perhaps depend on what we mean by the word "know"?
That bit in the gospels where it says that Jesus grew in wisdom, stature and favour with god and people had to have started somewhere...
Surely a baby has all the bits(physical,intellectual,emotional/social and spiritual) that make up a human already there in infant form and so can begin to grow in them all,with the spiritual part containing the idea of "knowing" God as well as things like awe and wonder.
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
We can posit all kinds of infant knowledge. For instance, we could say that all babies are born as magnificent pastry chefs, but lose this knowledge as they grow and have to be re-trained in the art later in life. Like the idea that infants are all master theologians, this is technically impossible to prove or disprove, but doesn't seem terribly likely.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I feel that I had experiences of transcendence as a young child, but this is not exactly God. I think it makes the idea of God fairly straightforward though.
I would therefore separate the concept of God - which may be difficult for young children - from transcendent experience, which I don't think is.
By 'transcendence' I mean stuff like beyond-the-ego, non-dualist, numinous, and so on.
As to babies - I don't know. Presumably, they exist in a pre-ego state, but this may not be trans-ego.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
Babies can swim. However most forget and have to be retrained.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
A newborn infant ‘knows’ nothing, by any sensible definition of the word. Hell, they don’t even know their own existence. Personhood emerges with knowledge of self, which in turn depends on such developmental processes as language and recollection of abstract thoughts, etc.
But babies have far greater consciousness than we give them credit for. Being pre-verbal, and pre-rational thought in the case of very young babies, doesn't mean they don't 'know' or don't have at least a very primal sense of their own self. Young babies can feel the anguish of separation and abandonment, and these painful experiences imprint on the subconscious. The late Frank Lake touched on this stuff in his seminal work Clinical Theology. 'The child is father to the man' indeed (Wordsworth).
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
What about the idea of pre-existence, expressed by Wordsworth in "Intimations of Immortality" - "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home..."? If we have immortal souls, would they not exist before we were born and is it inconceivable that babies may have memories of this although they can't express it?
I like. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) And agree.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I feel that I had experiences of transcendence as a young child, but this is not exactly God. I think it makes the idea of God fairly straightforward though.
I agree. (I had similar experiences as a very young child).
quote:
I would therefore separate the concept of God - which may be difficult for young children - from transcendent experience, which I don't think is.
Fair enough.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Jung is useful here, as you could argue that infants are in touch with the Self, but not the self. That is, they have to develop that separation from reality which provides boundaries and a sense of personal identity. This is self as ego; whereas Self is a kind of universal and all-embracing identity, which is probably a fairly common experience, but probably also often dismissed as just a brain blip, or whatever.
I think it used to be said that babies lacked ego entirely, but I have a vague memory that this has been discredited, and it might be said that they immediately begin to work out ideas about separation and attachment, and so on, which lead to a formulation of the ego-concept, with its consequent sense of boundaries, alienation and loneliness.
It's often said therefore, that it's at this stage of life that we develop that sense of yearning for wholeness, which can be termed paradise, from which we fell, at an early age, into selfhood, oh felix culpa!
It's astonishing how many religions contain some idea of non-dualism, or beyond-the-ego experience, often termed the 'I am' or the Great Self, which contains all.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Indifferently
Shipmate
# 17517
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Posted
Yes of course it can "know" God. A baby can know anything God wills it to know. A baby could play ten Scriabin sonatas backwards if that was God's will. God indwells in the child in some sense from the very first. Knowing God is not just intellectual belief in the Nicene Creed, it is being moved by grace in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Posts: 288 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jan 2013
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Can a baby know God?
Can anyone?
Theosis - becoming like God (a pathetic and weak translation of the word) - is a process. It's primarily an act not of human effort, but of God. And it has to start somewhere.
Top marks for this post. Agree 100%. Well said.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
There is an Akan (Ghana) proverb: "You don't need to teach a child about God." or: "No one points out God to a child."
Which would tend to put most Sunday School teachers out of a job.
Seriously though, if children all come pre-programmed to know all about God, why the intense amount of effort to provide them with religious education? Seems like an enormous waste of effort.
The purpose of Sunday School is to teach them what WE believe about God, as opposed to what they might come up with on their own. (Sounds harsh, but there you are.)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Can we have a definition of know please?
Does a baby know its mother for instance? I suspect we can't answer that one either because it depends what we mean by know.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Can a baby know God? No.
I'm with Yorick and Croesos on this one.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Can we have a definition of know please?
Does a baby know its mother for instance? I suspect we can't answer that one either because it depends what we mean by know.
Jengie
When we kicked this off on the Young Atheists thread I was thinking on the lines of an abiding knowledge similar to that that may be experienced through prayer etc. where one might say they are dwelling in the presence of the Spirit. It would be a primal or instinctive knowledge, something felt rather than thought.
I think a conscious belief/ disbelief is learned knowledge.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
Two things have made me think about this:
Wordsworth's poem about intimations of immortality in early childhood, which suggests that babies come from heaven but gradually unlearn their memory of it.
What seems to be standard catholic teaching - that Jesus experienced the beatific vision wile still in the womb - the first time i heard this made me laugh out loud but I have pondered this and still wonder.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
I think a newborn baby "knows" discomfort/comfort. And I think there is some tests that show a fear of falling is innate. But the baby's brain is almost smooth, without the learning "wrinkles". So anything outside of those basics has to be learned by experience. The mother is probably the closest surrogate for a god a baby knows.
Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Firstly, there are people who claim to have retained more than usual awareness of their early childhood and who claim that they were then aware of God. Traherne and Wordsworth have both been cited. (I think it's probably that Wordsworth is consciously finding a symbolic correlate for his early experience rather than directly expressing it; but Traherne is being direct.)
Secondly, even assuming babies don't have any awareness of God that doesn't mean it is applicable to call them atheists. Black is the absence of colour, but electrons are not therefore black. The concept of an absence only applies where the concept of a presence applies. Electrons are too small to have colour; therefore they are also too small to be black. Babies can only be atheists if they are capable of believing in God.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
It's hard to answer this, as surely most of us don't remember being a newborn baby. I remember having a sort of instinctive awareness of God as a child, but my memories only go back as far as when I was 18 months old - which is when I was using language and starting to reason. Even though the awareness of God was instinctive, and outside of reason and language, it took some sort of reason and language for me to recognise that I had this awareness, and to remember this now as an adult. And my memories of awareness of God start when I was three years old - my 18 month old memories are about the garden and the grass. And my two year old memories are of my little sister being in a yellow bath and having what I thought was a black belly button, and the patterns on the wallpaper.
I assume my having a concept of God was shaped by what I learnt from my mother and from Sunday School - otherwise I wouldn't even have known the word 'God' - but my actual understanding of God was very different from what I was taught. And at a deep level. The memory fades a little with time.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Black is the absence of colour, but electrons are not therefore black.
Not to get all sidetracked, but black is a color, not an absence of color. (Wouldn't the absence of color be "transparent"?)
As far as electrons go, if a black surface is one that absorbs all photons, then given that definition an unbound electron is black. An electron bound to an atomic nucleus, on the other hand, will only absorb photons of a certain wavelength, and could thus be color classified accordingly.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Codepoet
Best Bear On Board
# 5964
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Posted
Yorick. Could you please define what you mean by "God", and then we can perhaps sensibly consider how that might relate to the experience of being an infant.
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It's more important to be kind than to be right.
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
Does anyone else like the novel Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh, which tells of an attempt to find out whether knowledge of God is innate or learned ? In the story trying to find out doesn't turn out to be such a good idea, though that doesn't mean we shouldn't of course.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
As far as electrons go, if a black surface is one that absorbs all photons, then given that definition an unbound electron is black.
Free electrons scatter visible light photons elastically (Thompson scattering). This is independent of photon frequency, so free electrons are white.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
My first memory is when I was about 3½ years old. I didn't know how not to pee my pants or when I needed to poo. I didn't even know about the neighbours or my grandparents, let alone some vapourous being with a beard leaning over his computer with his finger on the mouse's smite button.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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iamchristianhearmeroar
Shipmate
# 15483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos:
As far as electrons go, if a black surface is one that absorbs all photons, then given that definition an unbound electron is black. An electron bound to an atomic nucleus, on the other hand, will only absorb photons of a certain wavelength, and could thus be color classified accordingly.
I'm not convinced that's how it works! The electon itself does not give a coloured substance colour, but rather the underlying structure of energy levels within which the electrons can transition and absorb energy. I don't think there's that dichotomy between bound/unbound electrons either.
But this is all a bit of a digression from the baby point. My answer to that is "I don't know".
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My blog: http://alastairnewman.wordpress.com/
Posts: 642 | From: London, UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
My first memory is when I was about 3½ years old. I didn't know how not to pee my pants or when I needed to poo. I didn't even know about the neighbours or my grandparents, let alone some vapourous being with a beard leaning over his computer with his finger on the mouse's smite button.
But you're saying "know about" God not "know God." My son knows me in a sense, but at 1yo, I doubt he thinks enough to know about me. If babies experience God in any sense, I would say they know Her even if they don't have any theological knowledge at all.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
My first memory is when I was about 3½ years old. I didn't know how not to pee my pants or when I needed to poo. I didn't even know about the neighbours or my grandparents, let alone some vapourous being with a beard leaning over his computer with his finger on the mouse's smite button.
I think knowing how not to pee one's pants is a different sort of knowledge - I didn't master that until I was 10. But I had an instinctive awareness of God for many years before that - not what you describe though, about a vapourous being with a beard. It wasn't a complicated knowledge, and didn't involve any form of visualisation. And it wasn't like knowing about the neighbours - whom I didn't know about, as far as I remember, although if they'd visited, then I'd have known them, just as I knew my grandparents, because they visited.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
I'm not convinced that's how it works! The electon itself does not give a coloured substance colour, but rather the underlying structure of energy levels within which the electrons can transition and absorb energy. I don't think there's that dichotomy between bound/unbound electrons either.
If we say that color is the selective absorption of light according to wavelength (and most of us do) then an electron absorbing a photon (or emitting a photon) to move from one electron shell of an atom to another has color. The energy levels are dictated by the type of atom and photons of the wrong wavelength will not be absorbed, hence spectral lines. None of this applies to free electrons which, since they're not associated with a specific atomic nucleus can absorb or emit light at any wavelength.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Codepoet:
Yorick. Could you please define what you mean by "God", and then we can perhaps sensibly consider how that might relate to the experience of being an infant.
Is that the only word in the question that is bothering you? I have problems with all of them, to wit:
"Can": Not "does" but "can". What is meant by that in this context? If it just means "is capable of" then there are further questions. For example, "can" I speak Welsh? Well, I have vocal chords and a reasonably nimble tongue, so I believe that I am physically capable of speaking Welsh. But I don't, because I don't know Welsh. I believe that I am capable of knowing Welsh (I "can" know Welsh) but I don't. So, in one sense, I "can" speak Welsh (theoretically) but I "can't" speak Welsh (because I don't know it). So "can" is a problematic word in this question.
"a baby": What is meant by this? What age range are we including under the term? And is the implication "a baby while still a baby"? For example, I can learn Welsh, but it would take quite some time and I would be considerably older. If I were a baby, I could learn Welsh but I might not be a "baby" by the time that I did.
"know": Adeodatus already touched on this when asking whether anybody can "know" God. What is meant by "know" in this context? What constitutes "knowledge" for the purposes of this question? Also, to use the Welsh example, again, how much Welsh does one need to "know" to qualify as "knowing" Welsh. If I know one word (even if I can't pronounce it properly) do I "know" Welsh? I suppose, in a strict sense, I do (I "know" one word of Welsh) but most would not consider it as "knowing" Welsh. In the same way, to the extent that anybody can "know" God, and assuming that we can agree on what constitutes "knowledge" for this purpose, how much knowledge is needed to make the claim of "knowing" God?
"God": well, that is Codepoet's comment, above.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Black is the absence of colour, but electrons are not therefore black.
Not to get all sidetracked, but black is a color, not an absence of color. (Wouldn't the absence of color be "transparent"?)
It depends if you're thinking of colour as additive or subtractive. If additive, which is I think more intuitive, then the absence of any coloured light is black. If subtractive then white. Transparent is not the absence of colour: copper sulphate solution is transparent and blue.
quote:
As far as electrons go, if a black surface is one that absorbs all photons, then given that definition an unbound electron is black. An electron bound to an atomic nucleus, on the other hand, will only absorb photons of a certain wavelength, and could thus be color classified accordingly.
Perhaps a poor example then. Please substitute for 'electron' any particle that doesn't significantly interact with photons. Neutrinos? Otherwise, some abstract entity would make my point.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sarah G
Shipmate
# 11669
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Posted
It would appear that humans are hard-wired for religious belief, and there is an ongoing debate within evolutionary circles (and often atheists) about why this might be so (by-product vs. inherent advantage).
For example.
This is not functionally equivalent to a baby being born knowing God, but the DNA makes it tend to believe in God as it gets older.
Just as it would be odd to buy an expensive TV if there's no signal to receive, it seems odd that evolution has given this hard-wiring if there's no God to be perceived.
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Does anyone else like the novel Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh, which tells of an attempt to find out whether knowledge of God is innate or learned ? In the story trying to find out doesn't turn out to be such a good idea, though that doesn't mean we shouldn't of course.
I've read the novel, but I don't particularly like it. It's too much a novel with a programme, and Paton Walsh uses her considerable powers to get you to condemn the religious authorities in the book. And, of course, the book's preferred answer is that babies have no innate knowledge of God, and she uses what she portrays as the betrayal of this innate innocence to stage a highly manipulative account of an auto da fe, designed to make the reader feel revulsion from organised religion.
I liked her earlier novel, The Serpentine Cave, though.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
Shipmate
# 17687
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Posted
Yes. Absolutely!
Let me share with you a memory I have of my infancy. Why do I remember? Because it was both a miracle and a trial.
I was born a MONTH LATE, blue and not-breathing. They had to resuscitate me, and I was being given up for adoption because neither parent wanted to take responsibility for my existence.
Being a month late, I could SEE. Being an illegit kid of a charity case, I was relegated to the common nursery of a Catholic charity hospital run by nuns, who prayed over me.
That's the only reason I made it, because they prayed over this child who was so abandoned and disadvantaged.
I remember, lying on a surface, with curtains hanging between me and everything else, except that there was a clock abov e the door wshere people came in and out. And I remember I was expecting that something OUGHT TO HAPPEN.
But it didn't. People came and they went, and they ignored me because I had nobody here, to bond with me. so, I got to the point where I internally couldn't stand waiting anymore, and without words, I began scream, "What is going on here? Why am I just waiting here?"
And God heard me, and I felt HIM. And HE comforted me ... nobody else ... just God. And I bonded to and with HIM on that day, and I have never left His side til now.
On my honor, that is my truth, and I was fewer than five days old when this occurred.
Emily
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I say no. A newborn infant ‘knows’ nothing, by any sensible definition of the word. Hell, they don’t even know their own existence. Personhood emerges with knowledge of self, which in turn depends on such developmental processes as language and recollection of abstract thoughts, etc.
So, how can a baby know god?
Posts: 326 | From: California | Registered: May 2013
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
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Posted
The neurology of infant development would not be consistent with your memory. Thus, you are a miracle. All the neonatally deceased infants in heaven are either singing praises about it, or filing complaints with the Miracles Department, which has been rather extensively downsized.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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Posted
LoL!
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
The neurology of infant development would not be consistent with your memory. Thus, you are a miracle. All the neonatally deceased infants in heaven are either singing praises about it, or filing complaints with the Miracles Department, which has been rather extensively downsized.
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Zach82
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Babies don't know God, and neither does anyone else, I reckon.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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Posted
Speak for yourself, okay?
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Babies don't know God, and neither does anyone else, I reckon.
Posts: 326 | From: California | Registered: May 2013
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bib
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I contend that babies are closer to God than most adults. The problem with adults is that we move away from God and do our own thing.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
I contend that babies are closer to God than most adults. The problem with adults is that we move away from God and do our own thing.
That's what makes sense to me, too.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
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Babies know God, I reckon, in the same way as they know their mothers. That is, they live in and by and through him, and have an experience probably almost wholly sensory-mediated of him--but I wouldn't expect that they can distinguish him very clearly from themselves, or even that they are aware of themselves as persons yet.
You don't have to know what the sun is to enjoy its warmth. Noticing the warmth is a form of knowledge, however primitive, and enjoying it--or not--is a response to that knowledge.
I'd argue furthermore that most adults aren't that far ahead of babies in their knowledge of God, so ...
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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With the heart one understands rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
"The Little Prince"
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