UNBAPTISED BABIES ARE DAMNED FOR ORIGINAL SIN
 
People when they hear that baptism makes the baptised person, usually a baby, born again usually think it is not as drastic as it sounds. It is not a repeat birth but the first birth in the eyes of God. You are a literal creation there and then. He cannot tolerate you as you are so you are just born - it's not "another" birth. This implies a very severe rejection of how we are humans with original sin. To the atheist it is a rejection of human nature.

Original sin is the sin that Adam and Eve committed at the beginning of the human race according to the Bible and Christian theology. Adam represented the human race and so when he sinned the entire human race was sinful at the first moment of their existence in the womb for he sinned for the whole race. He made the decision that we would all be born in original sin and so it happened. This sin is original sin both because it is the first or original sin ever committed by a man and also because we have it when we begin to exist. Roman Catholicism teaches that baptism is necessary for forgiveness for original sin. If the sin is not forgiven, God will not let the person into Heaven.

Killing a baby to send it to heaven supposedly violates the rule, “the end does not justify the means.”  Christians argue that such babies nevertheless are guaranteed Heaven. Some cults such as Catholicism say that is only true of baptised babies.  Tradition is clear that unbaptised babies cannot go to Heaven.  It is clear that they have the type of sin that rejects God completely.  There is disagreement on whether a baby that is barred from Heaven goes to Hell to be tormented forever or suffers a better fate.

Now you don't want to be saying that killing the baby is wrong but understandable.  But you are calling it understandable if you hold that the baby could grow up to lose any chance of Heaven.  At least if it is murdered its Heaven is guaranteed.  With such a doctrine, the teaching of the faith that the end does not justify the means does not get it off the hook.  Making evil understandable while knowing human nature usually does act as if the end justifies the means is to be to blame for the murder of the babies albeit indirectly.

The end justifies the means kind of thinking is interesting because the more well-meaning the means the more people are drawn to it and to being soft on it.  Not all violations of the "end does not justify the means"  are on the same level.  We would not see a person who truly intended to guarantee a baby going to Heaven and killing it after baptising it as being on the same level as a person who forges a vulnerable relative's will in order to live the high life.

Furthermore,
 
The Roman Catholic, Baltimore Catechism says,
48. Q. Why is this sin called original?
A. This sin is called original because it comes down to us from our first parents, and we are brought into the world with its guilt on our soul.
 
49. or Question 267, Q. Does this corruption of our nature remain in us after original sin is forgiven?
A. This corruption of our nature and other punishments remain in us after original sin is forgiven.
 
Q. 257. Is it not unjust to punish us for the sin of our first parents?
A. It is not unjust to punish us for the sin of our first parents, because their punishment consisted in being deprived of a free gift of God; that is, of the gift of original justice to which they had no strict right and which they willfully forfeited by their act of disobedience.
 
Q. 258. But how did the loss of the gift of original justice leave our first parents and us in mortal sin?
A. The loss of the gift of original justice left our first parents and us in mortal sin because it deprived them of the Grace of God, and to be without this gift of Grace which they should have had was to be in mortal sin. As all their children are deprived of the same gift, they, too, come into the world in a state of mortal sin.
 
Clearly original sin is seen as being the same in effect as a sin you commit yourself though it is not. It is even punished by an attraction to sin and self-destruction. If a sin deserves the punishment of you developing a bigger attraction to sin then clearly that sin must be your own fault. So in some mysterious way original sin is your fault. No system of retribution or justice or punishment goes as far as wanting to see people corrupted by their crime sin or anybody else's. Justice is about taking a stand against evil and the evil person not encouraging the evil. The catechism should not even use the word punish in the original sin context. It is revenge pure and simple.

Even if punishment just means not that God attacks you for a sin but lets the sin bring bad things to you that is still punishment.  Punishment is punishment regardless of the method.  So if punishment is even, as liberals say, a metaphor for how sin brings bad things to you naturally, it is still punishment.  And babies suffer a bad reaction to having Adam represent them so that is punishment.
 
This doctrine needs to be seen as absolutely heinous in three ways. It is absolutely heinous to call babies guilty of sin. It is absolutely heinous to say they deserve the corruption and the consequences. It is absolutely heinous to make out that the sin they carry is no small matter but a mortal sin. One of these is enough to condemn a religion but three?
 
What is the motive for this evil teaching?

It is exactly the kind of doctrine a religion that wanted to target children would invent.  It is about gaining power and influence.  Remember baptism is supposed to make you a member of the Church!

The idea that original sin is a rejection of God makes it the same as a mortal sin so logically it is possible that if original sin exists then you face eternal damnation unless it is cleansed.  It also would be contradictory to say that original sin is abhorrence of God and is not going to necessarily put you in Hell.  The Church sees original sin as something that makes you want to be away from God. When a seven year old boy can sin so as to go to Hell forever, it is not too hard to suppose that happens to babies who are not baptised as well. The Church can teach that unbaptised babies go to Hell for they are drawn to it by their sinful nature. It is almost the place of choice for them.

Christian tradition supports the traditional view that babies that are not baptised will be punished for all eternity.  If you want to deny that babies are in need of forgiveness you are called accursed or anathema for your kindness.
 
Roman Catholic “Infallible” Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin, 1546: “2. If any one asserts that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone and not his posterity, and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he being defiled by the sin of disobedience has only transfused death ‘and pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul,’ let him be anathema, whereas he contradicts the apostle who says: ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.’ (Rom. 5:12)”

 “4. If any one denies that infants newly born from their mothers’ wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining of life everlasting,—whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false,—let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
“Infallible” Council of Carthage 418 AD:
 
Pope St. Zosimus, Council of Carthage XVI, Original Sin and Grace, 418: “Canon 3. It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’ [John 14:2]: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere else where blessed [beati] infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is life eternal, let him be anathema. For when the Lord says: ‘Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God’ (Jn. 3:5), what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run to the left.” (Denzinger [hereafter D.] 102, footnote 2.)
 
Pope Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, 1794: “26.Condemned: The doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name of the limbo of the children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, exclusive of the punishment of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk – Condemned as false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools.” (D. 1526)
 
Catholic teaching implies that since God allowed such awful results to come from the sin of Adam and Eve that is passed on to us and considered it the most serious sin of all time that original sin is the worst form of sin and that a person who isn’t baptised to get rid of it is pure evil no matter how good they seem to be. They could insist that Adam and Eve didn’t seem bad but they were. St Augustine the top theologian in the early Church and a source of infallible Catholic tradition that they add to the word of God taught. ‘Si autem non eruitur a potestate tenebrarum, et illic remanet parvulus; quid mireris in igne aeterno cum diabolo futurum qui in Dei regnum intrare non sinitur? For him unbaptised babies that die suffer the pain of everlasting fire. Pope St Gregory the Great taught the same doctrine.
 
St Fulgentius quoted St. Augustine as saying, “The quality of an evil life begins with lack of faith, which takes its beginnings from the guilt of original sin. In it, each one begins to live in such a way that, before he ends his life, which is ended when freed from its bonds, if that soul has lived in the body for the space of one day or one hour, it is necessary that it suffer with that same body the endless punishments of hell, where the devil with his angels will burn forever. …Hold most firmly and never doubt that not only adults with the use of reason but also children who either begin to live in the womb of their mothers and who die there or, already born from their mothers, pass from this world without the sacrament of holy baptism must be punished with the endless penalty of eternal fire. Even if they have no sin from their actions, still, by their carnal conception and birth, they have contracted the damnation of original sin.”

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441: “The Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that none of those outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but neither Jews, nor heretics and schismatics, can become participants in eternal life, but will depart ‘into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ [Matt. 25:41], unless before death they have been added to the Church.”

The Council of Florence which claimed to be infallible decreed that unforgiven original sin will make one go down to Hell forever even if there is no other sin (page 25, Objections to Roman Catholicism). This accords with the claim that Limbo is on the borders of Hell being the mildest Hell there is.

The Council of Trent infallibly decreed that the babies which are not baptised whether they be the children of Catholics or pagans are born to everlasting torment and everlasting perdition (page 146, The Crisis of Moral Authority, Don Cupitt).

We are told that St Augustine did not actually say that unbaptised babies would go to eternal fire but he did say they would have to pay an everlasting penalty but are still better off for being born (Radio Replies Volume 3, Question 809). He was sure about there being some kind of penalty for them in Hell but he admitted that he did not know how great the penalty would be. The fact of the matter is that Augustine did not deny that they would go to eternal fire and be damned. Because Augustine is a prime source of unerring Catholic tradition which is meant to supplement and explain the Bible the Church pretends that when he said babies are condemned to everlasting punishment he did not mean to eternal damnation. If he had he would have been clear about that. The interpretation made by others that the God of Augustine sentences babies to Hell forever and curses them is correct (page 460, Vicars of Christ).

The theological expert, St Robert Bellarmine stated that the Catholic Faith was positive that Christ damns children who die without baptism forever so he considered Limbo to be a part of Hell (page 65, But The Bible Does Not Say So). Through most of the history of the Church this terrible doctrine was accepted as orthodox (page 452, 461, 473, Vicars of Christ).

The Catholic Church may whitewash about what happens to unbaptised babies but the fact remains that you can be a good Catholic, in good standing, and believe that babies rightly should suffer in Hell forever if not baptised.  This permission is disgraceful and morally abhorrent.