What is Original Sin?
The bible makes it clear that the "original sin" is the quest for knowledge.
Getting past the writings which claim that Eve was at fault for tempting Adam - when it was Adam, not Eve, who supposedly ate from the tree of knowledge, making it his fault if we accept the idea of personal responsibility - it's pretty clear that the quest for knowledge is what the bible describes as original sin.
The story claims that after Adam ate the apple, he and Eve recognized their nakedness, and were ashamed, and grabbed some fig leaves to cover themselves with. Therefore, many people think lust and sex are the original sins ( without which, the human race wouldn't exist - because if Adam and Eve hadn't realized their sexuality, they'd never had had children, so we'd have two people wandering around some garden for eternity, and no other humans would have existed).
The idea that Adam and Eve were innocent as animals is rather amusing, since all animals procreate. Even amoebas procreate - they are the closest to God, because they can reproduce without all that nasty genitalia stuff going on, and therefore they can remain virgins for life. Sex is not a sin. But for the men who put the bible together, knowledge was heresy, because the more illiterate the populace was, the more sheeplike they were.
The quest for knowledge is original sin.
Interesting thesis.
We all know another "origin of knowledge" story: Prometheus, the bringer of fire (symbol of knowledge and progress). It's interesting to compare the two stories; to compare their authors' methods.
Fire, it seems to me, is a much better stand-in for "knowledge". As you say, having sex doesn't require knowledge, but using fire certainly does.
So why did the Eden author write about sex? Wouldn't it be simpler, for us the readers, to assume that the author meant exactly what he said: that becoming aware of sex was the problem? As long as sex is just a physical act, with no social baggage, there's no problem. It is the social baggage that causes problems.
If we enlarge that idea, then it isn't "knowledge" that is sinful. It is loading that knowledge with extraneous baggage that is wrong.
Why would a perfect higher power create an imperfect object. Knowing humans would fall short and "miss the mark" makes the whole "creation" of them pointless and sending a "flood" to destroy them ridiculous.
For the answer to this statement you would have to ask the Mesopotamians since they are the ones who originated the flood story.
I'm reminded of something the late, great, Gene Roddenberry once said: "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”
I have no idea.
(And I don't know why you're addressing this question to me... I'll tell you my ruminations, but I do not pretend to know God very well. It has been a long time since She spoke to me...
)
I think this notion of "perfect" is... imperfect. An all-powerful god could perhaps create beings who never do anything wrong... but would they be "perfect"? Is "doing good" an accomplishment if it is impossible to do evil? Can a being without free will be considered "perfect"?
And of course... if there is free will, then there will be evil. Sometimes people choose to do stuff they know is wrong.
In what context are we operating? Are we eternal? Or is there nothing after this life? Why would a "perfect god" create such ephemeral creatures as we? And... if we are eternal, then it probably is impossible for us to evaluate our behavior over our three-score-and-ten as compared with eternity.
I don't think there are any one-line answers, here...
After my two days of vacation I'm thinking that original sin is whatever PH decides it is.
IMO "original sin" is a sin that nobody's thought of before.
Heh. Good one! Are there any left?
Catholics say that you get extra points if your sin is original.
How many points do you get for "mortal sins?"
I remember 2 things from grade school..........
and...
Well, maybe a few more, but the milk bottles and nuns were the scariest !
/s
Even worse than the flying monkeys in The Wizard of OZZ!!!!
And indulgence makes it a moot point.
Original sin is a guilt trip that most conservatives Christians readily accept because they would rather suffer than to think rationally.
Conservatives are outraged when the idea of black people are owed reparations because of the past actions of slave owners and those who oppose equal rights for blacks, but these same conservatives have no problem accepting original sin that we cannot prove ever happened and it is almost certainly a myth.
I would appreciate if you did not use a reply to my comment that did not disparage anyone in order to launch a dirty smear against a group of people.
I was not aware that there are groups of people whose opinions or beliefs cannot be criticized.
If you post a list I will do my best to not mention them in a disparaging light.
Obviously, there are liberal Christians who believe differently than conservative Christians. If that wasn't true then we wouldn't have conservative and liberal Christians. They would all be the same. Conservatives seem to be more focused on sin, punishment, and judging while the liberal strain seems to be more focused on helping people and teaching tolerance and forgiveness.
You should ask them. I thought that the idea of original sin was silly, but I felt that most of the Bible were myth and parable instead of being fact. You can take that however you want because I'm just a wacky Humanist.
"Progressive Christianity is a "post-liberal movement" within Christianity "that seeks to reform the faith via the insights of post-modernism and a reclaiming of the truth beyond the verifiable historicity and factuality of the passages in the Bible by affirming the truths within the stories that may not have actually happened. Progressive Christianity represents a post-modern theological approach, and is not necessarily synonymous with progressive politics. It developed out of the Liberal Christianity of the modern-era, which was rooted in enlightenment thinking.
Progressive Christianity is characterized by a willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity, a strong emphasis on social justice and care for the poor and the oppressed, and environmental stewardship of the earth. Progressive Christians have a deep belief in the centrality of the instruction to "love one another" (John 15:17) within the teachings of Jesus Christ. This leads to a focus on promoting values such as compassion, justice, mercy, and tolerance, often through political activism."
I was raised in the ELCA and that's pretty much what they teach. I don't recall anyone fretting about idiotic notions like "original sin."
Your comment was not at all relevant to mine. You never had any trouble before making disparaging remarks about groups without attaching them to others' decent comments - when you attach your filthy comment to a comment where I made no criticism of anyone it makes me want to take a shower.
The Southern Baptists I've met are what I would consider to be Conservative Christians - whereas Episcopalians are liberal Christians. But there are so many sects within each, so that's probably an over-generalization.
I know of an LGBT friendly sect of the Catholic church, even if they are not officially recognized by Rome.
I think the story of the forbidden apple is allegorical for man's ascent in evolution to a state of self-consciousness.
Without self-consciousness there is no concept of hate, jealousy, intent to deceive, intentional cruelty, or vanity. Animals appear cruel or deceptive at times, but only to the human eye. Of course self-consciousness has it's benefits too, but I think 'the fall' represents self-regard.
... and many other things. One could (and people do) read all sorts of divine lessons from biblical allegories. That really is the problem. The Bible (and other holy books) can and does mean so many (and contradictory) things to so many people. Sans a consistent interpretation, none of the interpretations can logically be seen as truth. Yet, a human mind is capable of ignoring this obvious fact and holding that its personal interpretation is THE true one.
Or... there may be many truths.
Many contradictory truths? How does that logically work?
It would seem that of late, truth is in the eye of the beholder.
But is that valid reasoning? Truth is whatever an individual deems as such?
In fact, no. The truth is the truth, there is nothing else.
But having said that the fly in the ointment is how one chooses to interpret the truth.
Good point - I should have added "IMO" at the end of the article!
I'm just glad that we can blame women for the fall of man. Of course that also means that women are smarter than men.
Do you think that might be happening anytime soon?
According to Heinlein we are all god...Grok?
It would certainly make more sense that the "apple" was really some psilocybin mushrooms that awakened man from his animal mentality and allowed some early primates ancestors to evolve self-awareness. Without being self-aware you really can't know good and bad, just fear and safety, fight or flight, as most animals function on.
I think that "Original Sin" is making the assumption that you are the same as a god or, in the case of Christians, the same as Yahweh, you are the creation of the gods, not the god. It is like a car assuming that it is the same as the man who created it.
I read an interesting short story recently in Asimov's Robot Dreams about a robot who dreamed it was a man - and was terminated because of that.
God couldn't stand a little competition eh? Satan tries a hostile takeover and god loses his $#!t. Seems like god is the one with the pride problem.
Something made up so preachers could tell people they were born guilty
Irish Catholic ( until as one said, I reached the age of reason), if we were not born guilty then the Nuns did a fine job of making us so.
Not in the Baptist Church.
It was in the Freewill Baptist church I grew up in.
The only way to avoid going to Hell was to repent your sins, and you were sinful from the time you were born. Period. You might not be held accountable for those sins until you were considered old enough to understand them, but you were sinful, whether you knew it or not. That church taught that Jesus didn't cry, because a baby's crying was sinful.
I know they're not all like this but I think one of the churches which recently decided not to perform a wedding for a mixed-race couple was a Free Will Baptist.
To me that would qualify as "original sin."
That wouldn't surprise me.
Most of the churches Mom took me to as a child were Baptist of some sort, or nondenominational with Baptist leanings. And they were all the hellfire-and-brimstone sort, where even if you'd committed no outward sin, you surely must have had sinful thoughts, and therefore deserved to roast. And avoiding outward sin was damn near impossible. You could be the "goodyest" goody-two-shoes that ever was, but you were still going to Hell, because you were born evil.
It was that way in every Protestant church I ever went to. That's the basis for Christianity, otherwise, what was the point in Jesus sacrificing himself for mankind?
As if I couldn't feel guilty on my own.
"Getting past the writings which claim that Eve was at fault for tempting Adam - when it was Adam, not Eve, who supposedly ate from the tree of knowledge, making it his fault if we accept the idea of personal responsibility"
"4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." - Genesis 3:4-6
So first, Eve supposedly did eat of the fruit first.
"12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Genesis 3:12
I find it interesting that Adam, having apparently just learned how to sin, is already blaming God for his sin by saying "It was the woman YOU GAVE ME".
So the original sin, according to the bible, was disobeying God as he gave them only two things they were not supposed to do, eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad or eat of the tree of life. If they had eaten of the tree of life, according to the bible, they would have become immortal.
"After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." Genesis 3:24
Now supposedly, because both Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, all their children inherited their "original sin" and thus mankind was born into sin and thus all humans (until Christ was born without a human father) inherited this sin and thus had a need for the redemption sacrifice Christ would make washing our sin away with his blood.
The primary problem I find in this premise, especially for Catholics who baptize their babies as quick as they can so that if the baby dies it will have its inherited sin washed away and be able to go to heaven, is that it conflicts with evolution and the theory that Genesis is an allegory. If Adam and Eve were not the very first humans directly created as is by God, and as our DNA shows the human race never got below several thousand during our evolution, then sin would not be inherited to all men since many would be descended from other ancestors, not just the two who sinned. That means there is no inherited sin for all and Christ's ransom sacrifice is unnecessary and pointless.
Or it's just so diluted that it's minuscule and doesn't even matter
I suppose one could imagine that perhaps the Neanderthals were Adams offspring and most humans have between .5% to 4% Neanderthal DNA. So those who believe that can go get their DNA checked and find out how much sin they inherited.
I've always wanted to write a fictional alternate based on the Genesis account, the "what if?" account of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of life instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. We'd have some immortal humans who would have no clue what was right or wrong. The end objective of course would be eventually gaining the fruit from the tree of knowledge and having their eyes opened, truly becoming Gods in their own right, immortal and being able to choose good or bad.
One might wonder at Gods supposed wisdom of placing those two trees within humans reach, it seems pretty irresponsible to me.
It was a test. Gods are always testing humans
"Teste teste, one two..."
Speaking of which, Genesis claims that Adam was created first and was alone for a time before Eve was created from Adams rib because Adam was lonely and saw the other animals with their mates and wanted a mate of his own. So my question is, when did Adam receive his genitals? If Eve was an afterthought, what need would Adam have had for genitals with no Eve? That would be like creating a lamp with an electrical plug before inventing the electrical wall socket.
So either Adam was created as a eunuch and God added the hardware while he took Adams rib, or we're supposed to believe that Adam was created with a vestigial organ.
... and why did the other animals have mates and not man?
It does not take much logical probing to find reasons to question the divinity of the Bible (and other holy books).
Not to mention, if man was created in god's image, then does god have an umbilicus? An appendix? Genitals himself? Ect.
Good question
Maybe the Neanderthals were the people in the land of Nod? But then, where does that leave the Denovesians (sp?)?
Could be the Denisovans might have been the descendants of Adam while the Neanderthals were the children of the Nephilim. The bible claims they were all wiped out in a global flood but there is no geological evidence of a global flood in the last 175,000 years so at best it was likely a regional flood. Of course, if Neanderthals are the descendants of the Nephilim, that means most humans have a small amount of alien DNA. There's nothing more alien than a demon coming to earth and mating with the daughters of man. Technically the bible is claiming alien creatures came from the sky and probed humans long before the National Enquirer could report on it...
Perhaps that is the result of Emperor Xenu bringing billions of his people to Earth from the Galactic Confederacy.
That's just as likely as demons mating with humans making half-breed demigods. There are other cultures and religions that made similar claims, I mean, what was Hercules if not a Nephilim?
The genitalia are for his buddy Steve to enjoy.
Or the traditional 7th Day Adventist claim that black folks are the product of sex between humans and other animals, an "amalgamation."
Someone actually told me once (and they were completely serious too) that demons mating with humans is the reason why sin exists in humans. I swear I am not making that up.
I usually get told I'm disgusting when I bring that up - but if god is a "he" then he would have a penis, one would think. Just as Jesus would most likely have been married and had sex - and why would that matter? Some people act like they couldn't worship him if he had had sex.
Weren't black people the punishment against white people who failed or refused cleanliness? Because of their refusal, God "cursed" them to "look dirty" forever? I do not remember which denomination held that particular view. That's about as wacky a religious view as demons mating with humans is.
Don't you know, that's because sex is sinful and dirty. Since Jesus was pure and without sin, he couldn't have sex. Right?
I think the most common religious belief about black people was that they were somehow the "Sons of Cain" who had murdered Able his brother and was "cursed by God" to wander the wilderness that they assume was Africa. There are some religious groups who still hold to that belief. It helps them cope with pretending to be caring, loving Christians while also being monumental racists.
Well, that is as absurd a belief as any other.
"Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His chest at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray You?” John 21:20
The only thing worse to most Christians than implying Christ may have been married is pointing out he wandered around for several years with a small group of men who he was apparently very friendly with...
"At some point after the start of the slave trade in the United States , many Protestant denominations began teaching the belief that the mark of Cain was a dark skin tone, although early descriptions of Romani as "descendants of Cain" written by Franciscan monk Symon Semeonis suggest that this belief had existed for some time. Protestant preachers wrote exegetical analyses of the curse, with the assumption that it was dark skin."
"The Curse of Cain was often conflated with the Curse of Ham . According to the Bible, Ham discovered his father Noah drunk and naked in his tent, but instead of honoring his father by covering his nakedness, he ran and told his brothers about it. Because of this, Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan by saying that he was to be "a servant of servants". ( Genesis 9:20-27 ) One interpretation of this passage states that Ham married a descendant of Cain, who was black, so that the descendants of Canaan were both marked with black skin and cursed to be servants of servants. While there is no indication in the Bible of Ham's wife descending from Cain, this interpretation was used to justify slavery and it was particularly popular in America during the Atlantic slave trade "
That's seriously ignorant stuff some Christians have believed to justify their own evil.
I was told on the Vine that that's how diseases were introduced to humanity - we originally had "perfect" DNA, whatever the hell that is, and therefore had no diseases (cuz all diseases are genetic, ya know) and long life spans.
Or they bear the "mark of Cain".
Couldn't be. Faith is a gift, remember?
"Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His chest at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray You?” John 21:20
I find I am often misquoted in the Bible and beyond.
If we're thinking of the same person the last weirdness I saw from him was that disease was the result of Earths sins (whatever that means)
yes, somehow the "Earth" had sinned and we got diseases as a result, but he never answered my question on how a planet (non-sentient as far as we know) could sin.
I remember hearing that too. I couldn't believe (no pun intended) that someone would actually believe that nonsense.
This was a woman, but yeah, I believe the person you're probably thinking of said something similar.
Adam and Eve were both created without genitals. Don't even get me started on where their kids and grandkids came from.
Plug and play option.
Ok....stop.
God cursed Eve and said she would bring forth children in pain and sorrow (or something like that).
He must have crafted genitals after they were thrown out of the Garden of Evil, otherwise, Eve wouldn't have suffered in childbirth, correct?
So many questions.....
I still find the concept of sex with one's own transgender clone a bit disturbing, even if it meant one only lost a rib rather than a critical part of the body like a foreskin or something.
Anatomy is disgusting?
Maybe it's because some folks think the umbilicus (belly button) is something else?
Lol I know, but generally he doesn't answer a lot of questions so no surprise.
I like this part of the story, it comes BEFORE the creation of Adam.
Oooops.
OK guys this original sin thing, you do realize is specific to Christianity?
Jews do not believe in original sin. They believe that people are born sinless.
Now what? Do you go back to the bible and rethink things?
Please!! If there is a God I am convinced that genuine, serious critical analysis of the Bible will reveal that God is definitely not described therein. The God as described by the Bible is a logical contradiction and thus logically does not exist. IMO it would be better to believe in a God who is entirely unknown (and likely unknowable) than to worship (and abide by the rules of) the invention of ancient men with pens.
Boo!. Bad fish changes TiG quote to make joke.
Fresh out of excuses at the moment.
I don't actually believe in the concept of sin - to me, it's a religious construct which implies doing something that pisses off the Abrahamic god.
I recently read a book about medieval times and it discussed how the spread of literacy was so challenging to the church, which is what made me think of this.
Made a pot of chili the other day just chock full of apples. Sinfully good!
ok is this a sprinkler , or a dunker type baptism?
There is no such thing as 'sin.'
But I am pretty sure there is such a thing as 'shit happening'.
One of the reasons that I am no longer a believer is the absurdity of the Adam and Eve story. It is the antithesis of any logical thought about a god. God made man in his own image, then decided that he screwed up, then allowed a major screw up {which may actually have been a blessing} and banished both man and woman from the garden of eden. He then made them mortal and allowed the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to procreate. You would have thought that any god would have been smart enough to perfect his creation without such a major revision or would have figured out what would happen earlier on. The other part of that would be, if he made man in his own image, he would have made him with knowing that he would seek knowledge. Nothing in this story makes any sense and is never explained adequately by clergy.
it just does not fit together
That pretty much applies to most biblical stories. The Great Flood is another illogical absurdity.
I'm curious, why do you think most biblical stories are illogical absurdities?
That might be too general of a question. You might need to pick something specific and ask: 'why do you consider this absurd?' to have a meaningful discussion.
Because they're myths (some of which are borrowed from older myths) which lack any evidence or logic, or can otherwise be picked apart. The Adam & Eve story is one such story, as DocPhil pointed out above. Not to mention Adam & Eve as biblically depicted is completely discredited by what we know about evolution, including the evolution of homo sapiens.
Thank you, point taken.
Thank you for your reply. As TIG suggested, I should be more specific. Do you interpret the verses literally?
You're welcome.
No. That would be completely irrational and illogical.
I'm sure that the great flood happened. Geological records show evidence of many 'great floods' throughout time.
Problem being that there is only a finite amount of water on this rock floating through space.
The biblical 'great flood' never happened except locally.
I guess it can't be called a "great Flood" then. Perhaps Noah's "ark" was more like "Noah's canoe?" LOL
Should I explain why the great flood could not happen because it ignores the laws of physics?
Where did the water possibly drain when the earth is covered with 40' of water. Water drains downhill and the atmosphere was obviously already saturated.
How did terrestrial aminals from the Americas, such as a sloth, and Australia get to the middle east to get a place on the ark?
This was before the age of flight so they didn't take a non-stop El-Al flight.
As cjcold pointed out it was a local event that got embellished over time, look at Mt. Ararat from the satellite view, travel west to the Black Sea, the Black Sea is shaped like a funnel to the east and on the west there appears to be remnants of a landslide below the surface. A tsunami from that large of a landslide would be quite devastating and everything would wash up somewhere around Mt. Ararat. Now as told, Noah built the ark on dry land anticipating a flood and got quite a bit of ridicule for doing it and when the flood did happen he saved all local animals 2 x 2 and his family, but that was actually ancillary to the more amazing thing, How Did He Know?
The idea of a great flood can be traced back to before the Abrahamic religions. It is first mentioned in the poem Gilgamesh. My guess is that there was a period of great rain and flooding in the Tigris and Euphrates valley between Baghdad and Basra.
I suppose if you want to, then by all means go ahead. However I did, as suggested, narrow my question and received an answer. One which I agree with, that to interpret the Bible literally is irrational and illogical.
Genesis was written by Moses after freeing the Israelites from Egypt. The entire account of Adam, Eve, Cain, Able, Noah, Abraham, all of it up until long after the Israelites had been supposedly enslaved, was written by Moses. He claimed he was getting the details directly from God by divine inspiration, how else could he have known so many details and the lineage names linking Adam to Abraham. So supposedly God told Moses this:
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. [ e ] [ f ] 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. " - Genesis 6:17-23
So if the tale told by Moses was divinely inspired as most Christians want to believe, then why did God make such a claim when it can now be proven demonstrably untrue as there is no evidence that a global flood has occurred and as most geologists and earth scientists caccept, would not be possible with our current understanding of physics.
Now, Moses was apparently taught Egyptian mythology, since he was raised as a prince of Egypt. The Egyptian mythologies claimed that man was born from the first God to rise from the lifeless waters of chaos called Nu where a pyramid shaped mound appeared and this first man-God was called "Atum" from whom all humans were to be created. His grandson Set fought with his brother Osiris over their fathers affection and the throne given Osiris driving Set to murder his brother. Sound familiar? Now obviously there are many differences, but to ignore the many similarities seems intentionally ignorant.
It would seem more likely that Moses borrowed pieces of Egyptian mythology to create a fictional tale that would tie the Israelites together and give them a direct line back to the first human giving them a sense of purpose and belonging that would keep the several hundred thousand member group together instead of splintering over the 40 years they spent wandering the wilderness. But that shatters the possibility that Genesis was divinely inspired meaning Adam and Eve didn't exist, there was no original sin, and thus no need for a ransom sacrifice.
Most ancient cultures do have a tale of regional flooding so your comment about that region experiencing a great flood is likely accurate, and it probably wiped out many of the first major homo sapiens cities shrinking the population down to a few thousand which our DNA actually bears out. It also makes sense that the homo sapiens who survived moved north and bred with Neanderthals who were moving south to escape the intensifying mini-ice age called the "Last Glacial Maximum" which started about 22,000 years ago.
Interpreting the Bible literally demonstrably yields contradictions and other clear flaws. However, literal interpretation IS logically consistent with the notion of divinity. That is, if one is to hold the Bible as the Word of a perfect God then on what grounds does one take poetic license?
Further, when one takes poetic license how can one know their interpretation is correct? Given the undeniable plethora of inconsistent and often contradictory interpretations - all of which are considered to be truth - at what point does common sense kick in? When do people realize that since there is no single interpretation that nobody really knows what they are talking about?
God
God
Lol see how easy that was
"When do people realize that since there is no single interpretation that nobody really knows what they are talking about?"
Doesn't that thought apply to all human thought?
Bodies of worldwide knowledge exist that, even though human in origin and requiring translation into many natural languages, are interpreted with great consistency.
For example, consider the architecture, engineering and subsequent construction of high-rise buildings, ocean vessels, etc.
One can pick from a large set of examples where human beings are able to consistently communicate (interpretation) with great precision and detail evidenced by the production of working complexity.
Compare that level of consistent, detailed precision with the fuzzy, general content of the Bible and the abundance of conflicting biblical interpretations on rather basic concepts (relatively speaking).
Indeed. That answer was so easy, I didn't even have to think. It's like the La-Z-Boy recliner of thought.
If there was a god, I'm pretty sure that we would go punch city. Nobody treats my friends like that!
When I questioned a priest, I was told that these are "mysteries".
If you have faith, you have no need to question beyond the mere existence of these so-called mysteries. Faith does not need to be explained or proven, it just is.
This is why I am a recovering Catholic.
Welcome back! None of us were born theocrats.
Once you begin to ask questions instead of believing it is all downhill from there for pew occupants.
So many questions. Here is a starter question. God is omniscient and omnipotent so He knew all along that his creations (He made them what they were) Adam & Eve would eat the forbidden fruit. Yet He was surprised and disappointed that they disobeyed Him and, accordingly, imposed punishment on them and all of their descendants for all of time. How is an omniscient entity -knows everything- surprised by the behavior of that which He (an omnipotent entity -can do anything-) created?
Original Sin = The Divine Setup
About as cruel as punishing an infant for soiling itself.
You're not supposed to think that through. We are told that he is a loving God, but he also demands complete obedience and for his creations to praise and worship him. Why does a deity want or need imperfect beings to worship him?
I'm seeing many sociopathic tendencies in the supposed actions of god. I continue to come back to the idea that the actions of religious believers are evidence of the Stockholm syndrome. Theistic religious belief is not mentally healthy.
For some, studying the Bible (actually studying ... not 'Bible study') convinces them that it is not divine - merely the work of ancient men with pens. For other, however, they read the words and then substitute at times extraordinary interpretations that contradict what is written. It is as though they refuse to accept anything that violates the fundamentals of their belief - even if that something is written in the Bible itself.
The idea that Adam and Eve were innocent as animals
Like the bonobo monkeys?
And how about better male courtship rituals? Why did Yahweh go to such lengths to give female birds the right to choose the mates that worked to impress them the most and then make female humans the property of male humans?
Hummingbirds do a "dance" during mating season. You've probably seen this at hummingbird feeders. They do a "swoop" underneath the female
If there was original sin was there original good as well?
"The bible makes it clear that the "original sin" is the quest for knowledge. "
Weird....I haven't seen or read that part....how Adam and Eve Knew that's what they should do !
They were watching all the other animals.
OFF Topic {SP}
SP: The title of the article is "What Is Original Sin" I give my opinion ( Which was satire) and you say it's off topic. I guess you its off topic in your opinion because you didn't like it.
I've seen you delete many comments made by conservatives as off topic only because you personally didn't like them. Someone as far left as you are has no business being a monitor.
The only person who can flag off topic is the seeder, which happened in this case. The we look at the content of the comment and see if it has merit and if it does, we remove it. In this case it does, since the author wants serious discussion ( I surmise).
I review all moderation and SP has equally moderated liberals and conservatives, even suspending a liberal today. Just FYI.
Human beings creating the idea of divine being such as some sort of a God is the Original Sin. It has caused more death and war and torture and sicking atrocity then any other sin and has caused more destruction and disease or any other form of hate or disagreement or mass murder in the history of the world. It is the leading cause of death in the history of mankind. The concept of a god has been the greatest plague on humankind of all. Nothing in the history of mankind has harmed and held back the advancement of mankind then the concept of a god.
The Apple is a symbol of education, a computer company and of original sin and is a healthy fruit, this is interesting. 3 good things and the original bad thing.
It's funny (and a little sad) how some religious minded individuals equate knowledge (or the pursuit of it) with sin.
More than a little sad.
Indeed.