Responding to Sam Burke's Argument That Christianity Entails Anti-Natalism

"Responding to Sam Burke's Argument that Christianity Entails Anti-Natalism" is an entry written by Evan Minton on his blog Cerebral Faith and reposted on Frank Turek's website CrossExamined.org, attempting to argue that the doctrine of Hell does not make procreation immoral.

The following is a side-by-side rebuttal.

Final observations
In defending an extreme doctrine that involves the concept of infinity while denying and side-stepping the logical implications of that doctrine for the Hell-believer, Minton is trying to have his cake and eat it too. The combination of his first and second arguments here amounts to the Hell-believing parent saying to their child: "Yes, in bringing you into the world I created the infinite risk that you might suffer for ever and ever, but I think I've made it up to you adequately by doing my best to minimise that risk that I created. It doesn't matter that I was the one who set you up to fail in the first place; if you fail it's entirely your own fault." The position that belief or disbelief is entirely a choice flies in the face of the real-life situations and psychology of those who de-convert due to no longer feeling convinced by the tenets of or evidence for Christianity — often not through their own choice, but through a complex plethora of information, experiences, and other factors that lead them to have a change of heart.

All this aside, the arguments presented by Minton here do not change the fact that, based on a belief in Hell, to procreate is to create the risk of infinite suffering for a new soul. Because anything infinite necessarily dwarfs anything finite, the moral imperative on the shoulders of anyone who truly believes in eternal Hell is to practice and promote antinatalism — even, if possible, to the extent of attempting to bring about the end of all procreation on earth so that the human race dies out, if this will save even one future person (let alone thousands, millions or billions) from incurring the risk of eternal suffering.