Implications of Original Sin

[Puppycow]

The concept of original sin, as I understand it, is that all humans are born sinners because they are descended from Adam and Eve, who sinned.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin#The_Fall_of_Man):
Original sin is said to result from the Fall of Man, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of a particular tree in the Garden of Eden. (They were permitted to eat fruit from all other trees, making the rule particularly easy to follow but for the sins of pride and disobedience.)

This first sin ("the original sin") is traditionally understood to be the cause of "original sin" (the fallen state of humanity). In addition to Adam and Eve's disobedience in eating fruit from the tree, this overt action was preceded by their decision to not believe God. Whereas God had told them that they would die if they ate of the fruit of this particular tree, Satan in the form of a snake told them that what God had said was not true. Adam and Eve chose to believe Satan's version of the facts rather than believing in what God had said.

Within this paradigm (not that I believe it, but for the sake of argument) wouldn't one then be responsible not only for the sins of one's distant ancestors Adam and Eve, but also those of more immediate anscestors such as parents, grandparents and great-grandparents?

But while lots of faithful people seem to accept the idea of original sin, very few I would imagine think that children are responsible for the sins or crimes of their more immediate anscestors.

[Complexity]

Original Sin is a ludicrous and contemptible concept.

[Achán hiNidráne]

I still can't get over two things:
How could God expect his childish, amoral creations to obey him when they didn't know the difference between good and and evil until AFTER they ate of the tree of knowledge?
Why pass down "original sin" onto future generations who are in no way responsible for the original act?Of course, why are we even bothering analyzing a Bronze Age myth to begin with? Are we going to discuss the morality of Zeus' various dalliances with mortals, or the dysfunctional relationship between Osiris and Set?

Yeah, yeah, I know there are still people who believe in original sin and the Genesis story. Will this insanity ever end? If not, can anyone recommend any isolated tar paper shacks in American northwest where I can hide out while humanity slips back into the Dark Ages?

[Tricky]

It is one of the real moral problems with the bible, one that was prominently featured in the play/movie Inherit the Wind many years ago. But it is an Old Testament rule, and as such, many Christians believe that the laws of the OT have been superseded by a "new covenant." You won't get much mileage with this unless the Christians you are talking about are fundamentalists. Most are not.

[Puppycow]

It is one of the real moral problems with the bible, one that was prominently featured in the play/movie Inherit the Wind many years ago. But it is an Old Testament rule, and as such, many Christians believe that the laws of the OT have been superseded by a "new covenant." You won't get much mileage with this unless the Christians you are talking about are fundamentalists. Most are not.

But in the same article there is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin#Original_sin_in_the_New_Testament):
Original sin in the New Testament

The scriptural basis for the doctrine is found in two New Testament books by Paul the Apostle, Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, in which he identifies Adam as the one man through whom death came into the world.[2] [13]
Influence of the theology of Saint Augustine of Hippo

The Western tradition, both Catholic and Protestant, concerning original sin is largely based on writings by Augustine of Hippo. On Augustine's view (termed "Realism"), all of humanity was real-ly present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. For this reason, given Augustine's belief that the only definitive destinations of souls are heaven and hell, he concluded that unbaptized infants go to hell[5][6] because of original sin.
Original sin in mainstream Protestantism

The notion of original sin as interpreted by Augustine of Hippo was affirmed by the Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both Luther and Calvin agreed that humans inherit Adamic guilt and are in a state of sin from the moment of conception. This inherently sinful nature (the basis for the Calvinistic doctrine of "total depravity") results in a complete alienation from God and the total inability of humans to achieve reconciliation with God based on their own abilities. Not only do individuals inherit a sinful nature due to Adam's fall, but since he was the federal head and representative of the human race, all whom he represented inherit the guilt of his sin by imputation.

John Calvin defined original sin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion as follows:
“ Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19). And that is properly what Paul often calls sin. The works that come forth from it--such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, carousings--he accordingly calls "fruits of sin" (Gal 5:19-21), although they are also commonly called "sins" in Scripture, and even by Paul himself.[17] ”

The Methodist Church, founded by John Wesley, upholds Article VII in the Articles of Religion in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church:
“ Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.[18] ”

Because of this conundrum, Protestants believe that God the Father sent Jesus into the world. The personhood, life, ministry, suffering, and death of Jesus, as God incarnate in human flesh, is meant to be the atonement for original sin as well as actual sins; this atonement is according to some rendered fully effective by the Resurrection of Jesus.

[Tricky]

But in the same article there is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin#Original_sin_in_the_New_Testament):
Most modern Christians don't know doctrine from doodly. I know a lot of Christians and I've never heard any of them, even the more conservative of them, defend the concept of original sin. It is like Jesus saying you should give all your good away in order to follow him. If it doesn't fit with their lifestile, it is pretty much ignored.

All religions that stay popular exhibit this kind of flexibility.

[Nihilus]

Within this paradigm (not that I believe it, but for the sake of argument) wouldn't one then be responsible not only for the sins of one's distant ancestors Adam and Eve, but also those of more immediate anscestors such as parents, grandparents and great-grandparents?
It's befuddling to realize your asking us to rationalize mythology...but...

I'd guess that the reason we're responsible for the sins of Adam and Eve alone, and not all the subsequent generations, is that it was them who permanently tainted Earth/Eden from what would have been eternal innocence. I suppose from that point the damage had been done?

But...then, technically...the flood would have erased all lineages save for Noah's. I mean, that was essentially the point, right? To start with a clean slate via (as Eddie Izzard calls it) the Etch-a-Sketch end of the world?

And then, the whole Jesus dying thing makes the issue murkier...since we can be absolved of original sin, but only through Jesus (what did the poor bastards who lived before Jesus was born have to do...dance a jig?).

My brain hurts now...thanks. :boggled:

[Puppycow]

OK, so while I think there is an inconsistency there, that's par for the course for religious dogma. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

[Achán hiNidráne]

OK, so while I think there is an inconsistency there, that's par for the course for religious dogma. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Inconsistency... in THE BIBLE?!?! Say it ain't so!

[TheAntiLuddite]

What better way to sell a product that to create a perceived need among your potential buyers?

Need: You're tainted from birth and hellbound.
Product: The blood of Jebus (for a nominal seed-offering/love-gift/poor-tax)

Religion was and will be ever so.

[PAC]

Most modern Christians don't know doctrine from doodly. I know a lot of Christians and I've never heard any of them, even the more conservative of them, defend the concept of original sin. It is like Jesus saying you should give all your good away in order to follow him. If it doesn't fit with their lifestile, it is pretty much ignored.

All religions that stay popular exhibit this kind of flexibility.

My memory fades from the years of Catholic indoctrination. Correct me if I am wrong but, as I recall, the purpose of baptism for Catholics at a very young age was to cleanse them of original sin. Which also brought about limbo, etc for those young who died prior to baptism.

[bokonon]

(what did the poor bastards who lived before Jesus was born have to do...dance a jig?)
1. Slaughter a lamb.
2. Wash in the blood of it.

[Bikewer]

The thing about the Original Sin thing that bothers me is this:

God, the perfect being, gets cheesed when Adam and Eve do their thing. Condemns humanity in retribution.
Fast forward a few thousand years....God CHANGES HIS MIND and decided to have JC "atone" for that nasty original sin...

I suppose God can be fickle if he wants, but shouldn't he have made the right decision to begin with?

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Original Sin is a ludicrous and contemptible concept.

I tend to run from any thread that starts out by saying "According to Wikipedia:". I think this entry is particularly egregious(qv). :D

[Ethnikos]

I was going too far off-topic on another thread so I tryed to find one where this post seems to fit.
I came up with another of my earthshaking insights into the problem of Human nature and the original sin concept. This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately and this is my solution:
There was an actual use for the tree of knowledge of good and evil other than just being a trap.
Eating from the tree had an actual physical affect on Adam and Eve, just as eating from the tree of life would have had an actual physical affect on them.
The so-called curse on Eve was a mis-translation and all that was said was that the children she would have slowly had over eternity, she would have within a limited lifetime.
Though they were created to look like adult humans, they were psychologically immature and the affects of the fruit had a different affect on them than it would have if they had been several thousand years old. In this case they could not handle the experience and instead of so much knowledge about good and evil, they succumbed to the evil.
In another situation where their kind had begun branching off into other galaxies, and grandpa Adam would have to deal with a wayward human child, he could have been fortified with the knowledge of how to deal with the situation before it got too far out of hand.
As it was, the initiation of the event was based on a desire that was inappropriate, and the thought process was on a track based on doubt and disbelief. The fruit effects may have somehow set those bad principles irrevocably into their minds to the point that it could have eventually gone as far as activating their DNA to where their offspring would have inherited those traits.
Jesus was "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world" because God knew that there was the possibility of sin entering creation. Instead of God just destroying it and starting over, and repeating this over and over until it worked right, God had real, genuine love for the people He created and was willing to do whatever was necessary to fix it, instead of abandoning us.

[Ethnikos]

Since I decided to put a post on this thread, I guess I should respond to something on it. Here is my response to the Wikipedia article above:
The Western tradition, both Catholic and Protestant, concerning original sin is largely based on writings by Augustine of Hippo. On Augustine's view (termed "Realism"), all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. This is generally close to being right but fails in the specifics. The inherent quality of being inclined to sin originates with Adam, but we are not so much just automatically guilty of sin before we actually do sin.
Original sin in mainstream Protestantism
The notion of original sin as interpreted by Augustine of Hippo was affirmed by the Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both Luther and Calvin agreed that humans inherit Adamic guilt and are in a state of sin from the moment of conception. This inherently sinful nature (the basis for the Calvinistic doctrine of "total depravity") results in a complete alienation from God and the total inability of humans to achieve reconciliation with God based on their own abilities. Not only do individuals inherit a sinful nature due to Adam's fall, but since he was the federal head and representative of the human race, all whom he represented inherit the guilt of his sin by imputation.
This would be convenient if it was true because of the concept of imputed righteousness that is a hallmark of the Reformation doctrine of salvation. Jesus has a representative righteousness that is imputed to the believer, which allows him to have the judgment of God declare the person, who would otherwise be condemned, righteous. Apparently, to these greats of the Reformation, you can reverse the concept to where Adam's sin can be imputed to all of his descendants. Truths, by virtue of being true, do not somehow make them true in reverse.John Calvin defined original sin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion as follows:
“ Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19). And that is properly what Paul often calls sin. The works that come forth from it--such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, carousings--he accordingly calls "fruits of sin" (Gal 5:19-21), although they are also commonly called "sins" in Scripture, and even by Paul himself.[17] ”Calvin brings up being of a nature to be "liable to God's wrath". Paul mentions being the "children of wrath" but it is something that comes about by walking in the ways of the world ruled by Satan. Calvin says that people already have sin and the works caused by that sin being in us is the "fruits of sin". Again, Paul says "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us. . ." Not exactly something we could possibly do if we had sin in us that produces only fruits of sin. Calvin seems to redefine sin, from being a work to something inside us that produces works. Paul calls that the flesh, which is more accurate.
The Methodist Church, founded by John Wesley, upholds Article VII in the Articles of Religion in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church:
“ Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.[18] ”Again close to right in the general but off in the specific. There are varying degrees of personal righteousness that fail in comparison to God, perhaps. Adam showed more righteousness after he fell than he did before. He grew up to be a good and obedient follower of the ways of God.
Because of this conundrum, Protestants believe that God the Father sent Jesus into the world. The personhood, life, ministry, suffering, and death of Jesus, as God incarnate in human flesh, is meant to be the atonement for original sin as well as actual sins; this atonement is according to some rendered fully effective by the Resurrection of Jesus.How is the original sin different than an actual sin? It apparently is this magical thing that makes you guilty before you even do anything wrong. If that is what it is, then I do not believe in it. There is something that was a result of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that made people inclined to selfishness and doubt but it is not sin in itself.

[Ethnikos]

Most modern Christians don't know doctrine from doodly. I know a lot of Christians and I've never heard any of them, even the more conservative of them, defend the concept of original sin. It is like Jesus saying you should give all your good away in order to follow him. If it doesn't fit with their lifestile, it is pretty much ignored. This is an old post but the poster seems to be a current user on the forum. Since I revived, kind of, this thread, I suppose I could address at least one of the posts on it.
Catholics have original sin as one of the fundamental precepts in their quiver of justifications for their various rituals. A child is thought to be born with a guilt already on their head because of what Adam and Eve did. Baptism, performed by a priest saying certain words and sprinkling holy water on the head of the child magically resolves him or her of the guilt. This has a restorative affect and he or she is thought to now be a new person free of sin and can start out in a new life in the condition that Adam and Eve were in before their fall.
An interesting side effect of this restoration of sinlessness is that the subject of this miraculous process now has free will. This infant has to now deal with a world that has progressively degraded for thousands of years. He or she is, from this moment on, responsible for his or her actions. If he or she, after this really great gift, still goes ahead and takes the same course as Adam and Eve did, then this is horrible and is an indication that there is something seriously wrong with this person.
Of course I do not agree with any of this and feel that this whole system is maintained as a way of keeping the loyal membership of it dependent on it. Now they are inducted into a religion that bases salvation on the individual's works. When the works do not come out as expected, the person is unquestionably the cause of those bad works. Then he or she must come back to the priest for the forgiveness of each sin, which you admit to being responsible for.
All this bypasses the obvious, behind a screen of the mysterious. Human beings, no matter what, are not in this life going to become anything other than what they are born as. We do not get a free will handed to us. Our natures are always striving against the Spirit of God Who works within us to become better persons. We are constantly in a sinful state that results from our nature that was infected with a sin-causing disposition that goes to the very core substance of our beings.
We have been blessed, despite our not exactly being deserving of it, with Grace. We can be in a state of Grace, despite our other state we are in. This is not a condition we go in and out of, depending on if we had just committed a sin that we have not been forgiven for yet. It is a grace that is intact as long as we believe in it and have the spiritual connection with God that gives us the faith to start with.
The gift that allows for grace is the salvation in Jesus Christ which is something done outside of us and without our help and before we ever knew Jesus. He died and rose again, justified and approved by God and as proof of his acceptance, God has given him the power to send to us the Holy Spirit.
Repenting of what we have done that is spiritually negative, and caused by following the natural path in a world perverted by a long history of sinful activities, is how we come to grace. Repentance brings us to baptism, as in the Baptism of John, to signify our need of being cleansed. Now it also is the baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus and our readiness for the baptism of the Spirit.

[TimCallahan]

Our natures are always striving against the Spirit of God Who works within us to become better persons. We are constantly in a sinful state that results from our nature that was infected with a sin-causing disposition that goes to the very core substance of our beings.



Ethnikos, whether or not you accept the specifics ofthe doctrine of original sin as laid out by Augustine, your assumption that our natures are always oriented toward sin amounts to a de facto belief in it.

If we are "constantly in a sinful state that results from our nature . . ." then we must be inherantly evil, hence in need of salvation. Thus, we see that Christianity isn't compatable with an asumption of human beings as either basically good or even ethically neutral.

This, in turn, sets up a conundrum: If God is good, then his creations must also be good. Yet, humans must be evil for Christianity, or religion in general, to work. The rationalization that we can be evil because God gave us free will doesn't reallly resolve the conundrum, because, if we are basically good (as Genesis 1 says all creation was) then our free-willl choice would have been good over evil. Hence, there never would have been a fall.

Of course, as long as believers are stuck with wrestling with the internal inconsistency of the concept of human beings as basically orented toward sin while being the creations of an all-good God, they are tied up in emotional knots, focused on their own sinful nature and less likely to question the inherant absurdity of the doctrine, thus less likely to overthrow the power structure it helps maintain. Once we accept that we are basically a fairly decent, yet imperfect, lot and the product of evolution, we can dump all this crazy-making baggage.

[I Ratant]

Yes. What Tim says.
One must accept the inconsistencies of Original Sin and its consequences and the Redemption which relieved none of those consequences, and carry the burden of sinful humanity as a given.
Some people are no damn good, but not all of them.
As Xtianity has never been known to most of the people who have lived and died, and will remain unknown to most of the people who will live, as a "universal message" of "salvation", it purely sucks!

[Werdum]

Original sin is not a sin as such it is more of a curse. God created Adam and Eve from the word and in perfection, after the fall all people were created from the flesh as opposed to from the word, because of this we are born with a sinful nature and must look to God for guidance to live a life without sin.

[I Ratant]

The glop about the Garden was cribbed from Zoroastroianism during the Captivity in Babylon.
One bunch of soothsayers/liars convinced another bunch of soothsayers/liars that it made sense.
Later, Augustine on a massive guilt trip firmed up Original Sin in a manner to make it everyone's guilt trip.
And it pretty much ensorcells an appalling number of otherwise rational people.

[Praktik]

But while lots of faithful people seem to accept the idea of original sin, very few I would imagine think that children are responsible for the sins or crimes of their more immediate anscestors.

Well think of the time the Bible was written. Hereditary rule was all over the place and much time and thought was spent tracing bloodlines and heritage, questioning whether one was "bastard born" or "trueborn", with a lot of stigma associated with being born a bastard.

So in a sense, I think that there was a time when many would feel that children - while maybe not directly responsible for the sins of their immediate ancestors, were fruits that were falling "not far from the tree".

This is why bastards were thought to be more prone to moral failings, and why the "trueborn" of nobility were thought to possess more and fairer qualities.

I think noawadays with the age of Royalty largely behind us that many no longer think this way, and that many who believe in original sin wouldn't think a baby responsible for the sins of the father.

But I wonder if some of this thought hasn't just mutated into racism: after all there's still plenty of people around that think if you're from a certain race, you're more prone to sin.

[shadron]

My memory fades from the years of Catholic indoctrination. Correct me if I am wrong but, as I recall, the purpose of baptism for Catholics at a very young age was to cleanse them of original sin. Which also brought about limbo, etc for those young who died prior to baptism.

Yup, but as was pointed out to me by a young lady in another thread, Pope Ben administratively did away with limbo a couple of years ago:

the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis"

In other words, if you like it, use it, but you didn't hear it from us, at least in the last 30 years, and forget what you heard before that, cause we have plausible deniability. If you don't like limbo as a theological concept, then you are free to believe, as do most protestants who think in theological terms, that those who die unbaptized go to hell. Sorry, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. RCs give a little wiggle room - baptism of blood (ie, martyrdom) and baptism of desire (only your lord will know for sure), but if you cannot form an act of will yet and typhus got you, then it doesn't look good for little Angelica.

Like I Ratant says, it is a witch's curse. It makes you needful, from the very start, of whatever it is that religion is selling (gotta be careful to be born with the right brand, though), like a slow poison with a withheld antidote, and it simultaneously explains why god's perfect creation can consciously sin, while His hands stay lilly white - or whatever our Father's skin color is. I wouldn't think any poor Bedouin priesthood could have come up with that, and perhaps they didn't - it required a later theology to draw out the true viciousness of the concept.

[Ethnikos]

Of course, as long as believers are stuck with wrestling with the internal inconsistency of the concept of human beings as basically orented toward sin while being the creations of an all-good God, they are tied up in emotional knots, focused on their own sinful nature and less likely to question the inherant absurdity of the doctrine, thus less likely to overthrow the power structure it helps maintain. Once we accept that we are basically a fairly decent, yet imperfect, lot and the product of evolution, we can dump all this crazy-making baggage.So, do you think religion is a human invention designed to put us into constant confusion, to enslave us? If so, I would have to agree. It always turns out that way when you make religion an institution. I am against the idea of corporations existing to support a hierarchy. This was never God's plan but always the plans of men. In the Old Testament, there was a patriarical system where the head of the family was God's representative or priest and the person who understood God. It was built into the family structure. In the new testament you get more into the idea of a community of God, that superseded the family as your bases for religious worship. The idea was to be with like-minded people to share in the blessings of the Holy Spirit. That system was immediately under attack of those who would use it for purposes of manipulation. A few hundred years later something new comes on the scene and it is the individual as believer and priest and prophet. Of course some people are not adequately capable of doing everything for themselves and then you see it slipping back into the community and then into the overrunning of it by those seeking to use it for personal gain, whether it is of power or money or fame.
Even the old patriarical system had to have a break-out and that was Abraham who left the city he was in and jumped past his more recent ancestors and went back to his oldest. This was when he met Melchizedek, who is really Shem who because of the long lives of the antediluvians, was still alive and an individual. So you always have to go back to being an individual and then selectively being a part of a community.
The normal form of a religious community, otherwise known as a church, are most likely to be of the degenerated form of community where you have a paid hierarchy. This is nothing I am a big fan of and luckily I have family members of the extended sort that I can be with besides a church that really needs to be evangelized from the outside.

[Ethnikos]

Yes. What Tim says.
One must accept the inconsistencies of Original Sin and its consequences and the Redemption which relieved none of those consequences, and carry the burden of sinful humanity as a given.
Some people are no damn good, but not all of them.
As Xtianity has never been known to most of the people who have lived and died, and will remain unknown to most of the people who will live, as a "universal message" of "salvation", it purely sucks!There is at least a partial remedy for sin, in this world, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is something that can be given to all believers of Christ, and can only be so freely dispersed because of what Jesus did for our redemption. That gift is that He (the Spirit) will dwell in us to work with us to be better people and more like Jesus.
Xtianity is spreading despite the work of Satan to impede it. It seems to be crossing barriers and when it goes to enough people in order to make a fair judgement against the world for hearing and not believing, the world will come to an abrupt end.

[Ethnikos]

Original sin is not a sin as such it is more of a curse. God created Adam and Eve from the word and in perfection, after the fall all people were created from the flesh as opposed to from the word, because of this we are born with a sinful nature and must look to God for guidance to live a life without sin.
It would be a curse if you would consider being born into a family with a certain genetic mutation that causes everyone having it passed down to them to have some sort of negative affect from it.
You are right that everyone was born from people who had already sinned.

[kedo1981]

No Ethnikos you and your beliefs are wrong, the whole “fall from grace” is a myth invented by nomadic barbarians who didn’t realize it was a good idea to wipe their arse’s.

[I Ratant]

"In the Old Testament, there was a patriarchal system where the head of the family was God's representative or priest and the person who understood God. It was built into the family structure."
.
And you knew this because the old geezer told you so.
Defy him at your peril.
Banishment if you were lucky, death if you weren't.
Of the three choices... accept, leave or die, which was most palatable?
The OT is a collection of "I say this is so, therefore it is so!" stories written by old geezers.

[Ethnikos]

And you knew this because the old geezer told you so.
Defy him at your peril.
Banishment if you were lucky, death if you weren't.
Of the three choices... accept, leave or die, which was most palatable?
The OT is a collection of "I say this is so, therefore it is so!" stories written by old geezers.The churches have become political entities within themselves. This was not the way things have always been in the past. This is why I brought up the old system, because it was something that worked inside an existing system, without having financial support for a class of people who come in from the outside, that you pay to tell you what to do.
What you have today are 501c3 churches who have signed contracts with the government to trade tax breaks for a certain amount of government controls. Only people dealing with a large amount of donations would make a deal like that. They are compromised organizations. Why do you think the government is so corrupt? It is that the churches agree not to get involved with "politics" which the government interprets to mean you can not criticize criminal politicians.

[I Ratant]

The old geezers, such as Abraham, Samuel, Mohammed, etc. were insane, listening to noises in their heads.
Having the force of position, they could make you believe thru fear or just plain "Ok, Ok, I believe, just leave me alone, here's 5 shekels. Go away and leave me alone", or kill anyone that laughed at them for being the loony-tunes they demonstrable were (when anyone reads the Books without the film of blind adoration covering their eyes and intellect).
Their sycophants could see and appreciate the power that kissing up to these guys would give them.
And that's been the story of religions thru time.
Say a few nice words, and live off the sweat and toil of everyone else.

[Marduk]

Original Sin is a ludicrous and contemptible concept.

not at all, it serves a purpose, the only way to avoid original sin is the way the shakers did it, by never being intimate with a woman, all you fundies take note, this is the only method that will save your soul, best you start practicing it before you impregnate anyone or you'll really be damned
:p

[Marduk]

Xtianity is spreading despite the work of Satan to impede it.

I hear Buddhism is spreading faster, must only be because it has no one impeding it
:D

[HansMustermann]

The churches have become political entities within themselves. This was not the way things have always been in the past. This is why I brought up the old system, because it was something that worked inside an existing system, without having financial support for a class of people who come in from the outside, that you pay to tell you what to do.
What you have today are 501c3 churches who have signed contracts with the government to trade tax breaks for a certain amount of government controls. Only people dealing with a large amount of donations would make a deal like that. They are compromised organizations. Why do you think the government is so corrupt? It is that the churches agree not to get involved with "politics" which the government interprets to mean you can not criticize criminal politicians.

I'm curious at what point in the past do you think churches were _not_ political entities?

In Ancient Egypt at least as early as 3000 BC or so, the church _was_ the government. The Pharaoh's right to rule, was because he was supposedly the living Horus. The guy was actually worshipped as a god.

In Mesopotamia we have priest-kings all over the place, or situations like the king of Uruk (or any emperor wanting to claim that title too) being in a sacred marriage with Inanna, the city's patron goddess. I mean the guy was depicted in wedding scenes with the goddess, and at least at times even had to screw the high-priestess of Inanna each year.

If you go look at even the most primitive tribes, the shaman is a political power. He's not just the guy who does the sunday mass and says a prayer over the dead, he's the guy who tells the tribe what to _do_. Because the spirits told him so.

So if you can think of any period where the churches weren't about politics (even local, if not at the level of a country), I'm very curious when was that.

[arthwollipot]

not at all, it serves a purpose, the only way to avoid original sin is the way the shakers did it, by never being intimate with a woman, all you fundies take note, this is the only method that will save your soul, best you start practicing it before you impregnate anyone or you'll really be damnedOriginal sin is pride, not sex. In fact, God commands people to have sex when he said "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 9:1). It's more of a sin not to reproduce, as Onan found out to his detriment. These days a lot of non-reproductive sex is considered "sinful" (see 1 Cor 6:9), but it's still not original sin.

The whole point of original sin, as someone has already pointed out, is to artificially manufacture an ailment that Christianity has the only remedy for. Hence the story of the Fall, so as to make all of humanity guilty by fiat.

Now, I'm not going to speculate whether this was intentional by the author of Genesis - it is derived from oral traditions going back much further in history anyway - as that would be a little cynical. But it's clear that original sin exists as a mechanism for the control and manipulation of people by first making them feel guilty and insecure, then giving them a "lifeline", as it were - the only available cure.

This is exactly the same method used by Scientology. First, they tell you that you have engrams. Then they offer you the solution to your engrams. If you don't buy the idea that you have something wrong with you to start with, then there's no reason to buy (in this case literally) the solution to an imaginary problem.

Same with original sin. If you don't buy into original sin, there's no need for salvation.

Any questions?

[Marduk]

Any questions?

yup, do you have a sense of humour ?
:p

[arthwollipot]

yup, do you have a sense of humour ?
:pI do (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=125897), but it's quite dry and hard to detect sometimes. I also usually don't find misrepresentations of facts to be all that funny.

Ha! Get it? I slay me.

[shadron]

yup, do you have a sense of humour ?
:p

Sometimes humor works, and sometimes it doesn't. Your last jest rated a 1.5 out of 5, mainly for hitting your target with a toilet plunger rather than an arrow. Remember, a smilie at the end doesn't excuse lame.

(Spoken as one who often shops plumbing stores for arrows.)

[Beerina]

Implications of Original Sin


That Yahweh, mountain god of the Israelites, is a complete ass, and we've all drawn a very short straw to end up in a reality lorded over by this insane, psychotic, sexually repressed godchild?

[Beerina]

"I wish that Yahweh wasn't god of our reality, but Mary Poppins was. I wish that Yahweh wasn't god of our reality, but Mary Poppins was. I wish that Yahweh wasn't god of our reality, but Mary Poppins was."

Or, hell, a computer that threw only a random 50% into Hell, for that matter.

[I Ratant]

...
If you go look at even the most primitive tribes, the shaman (Imam, Mullah)is a political power. He's not just the guy who does the sunday mass and says a prayer over the dead, he's the guy who tells the tribe what to _do_. Because the spirits told him so.

So if you can think of any period where the churches weren't about politics (even local, if not at the level of a country), I'm very curious when was that.
.
Still is, in Iran.

[HansMustermann]

.
Still is, in Iran.

Well, I was aiming to make a point about how the religion has been a political thing since the dawn of time, not that it is still so today. I mean, the latter ought to be obvious enough anyway.

Though, if you really want to talk about Iran, it's not really a good example of what that _whole_ paragraph was all about. Yes, the mullahs still have real power, but not by receiving messages from the Spirits (or God) like a shaman would. Muhammad was the last prophet in that religion, so, that's it, nobody else after him can claim divine messages.

Want something closer to that mark?

Well, the Pope receives messages from the Holy Spirit. Last I checked the largest christian sect, _far_ more populous than Iran or probably than all the islamic fundies combined, stil has it as an official doctrine that a Pope can make infallible pronouncements because the Holy Spirit tells him to.

In Tibet, the right to rule of the Dalai Lama was pretty much just that he's the head of the local theocracy. And the same supremely-enlightened dude that's been living for hundreds of years, and just reincarnating in different bodies. And he's so fit to rule because he's one with the unverse, achieved supreme enlightenment, and is therefore the dude to listen to. How's that for woo?

[Ethnikos]

So if you can think of any period where the churches weren't about politics (even local, if not at the level of a country), I'm very curious when was that.Being free and independent is not easy or safe. Abraham journeyed across the wilderness and came to Canaan. He lived as a nomad and avoided politics when possible. Moses had to bring the people out of Egypt in order to practice their religion. These groups that were formed did not lack in volunteers to join up. It was not some cult where they had to keep the members from running away.
In more modern times, it is difficult to find these groups that you can point to as examples of independent believers because they were systematically murdered by the bigger institutional religion. One good example is the Waldenses, who were before the main Protestant Reformation but held similar views as the protestants. They were hunted down like animals.
The point I was trying to make was that there needs to be periodic break-outs from the old thinking, that you have to go to the witches for your medicine, to cure you from original sin. We can get spiritual medicine directly from God. The only final solution to sin is the making of everything new. I want everyone to be there, and not caught in the spell of the sellers of charms and incantations and candles and incense and holy water.

[I Ratant]

Being free and independent is not easy or safe. Abraham journeyed across the wilderness and came to Canaan. He lived as a nomad and avoided politics when possible. Moses had to bring the people out of Egypt in order to practice their religion.
.
Fiction.
.
I want everyone to be there, and not caught in the spell of the sellers of charms and incantations and candles and incense and holy water.
.
All religions need to have the believers buy the charms, pay for the incantations, candles, incense and holy water.
That's all any of them have.
For a person educated in the histories of religions to accept any one of them as "The religion" is to emit a mind-fart of egregious odor!

[Ethnikos]

All religions need to have the believers buy the charms, pay for the incantations, candles, incense and holy water.
That's all any of them have.
For a person educated in the histories of religions to accept any one of them as "The religion" is to emit a mind-fart of egregious odor!I meant that literally. Maybe you think that you can apply that to every religion, figuratively. In the wilderness, there is no cathedrals and men in fine robes and hats. God speaks to man and can walk together in the spirit.

[I Ratant]

"in the wilderness... god speaks to man.."
It helps if the man has submitted himself to physical and sensory deprivations, with say the aid of the local hallucinogens.. and takes some time to make the connection to god... 15 days for Mohammed, for instance, 40 for most every one else.
Then the ineffable truth is "revealed".
It is amazing that that ****** "truth" is never the same, but totally dependent on the personality and culture of the revelant.
Were there truly one overarching mentality striving to connect to humanity, the "truth" really oughta be the same, no matter what the time or culture.
There is one truth which does permeate all cultures, and it's really the most basic, that too many people ignore.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
One can lead a full satisfying life following that precept.
All moral behavior comes from it.

[TimCallahan]

It would be a curse if you would consider being born into a family with a certain genetic mutation that causes everyone having it passed down to them to have some sort of negative affect from it.
You are right that everyone was born from people who had already sinned.

Ethnikos, what you're espousing here, that we are born into a state of estrangement from God, regardless of whether we have sinned or not, is essentially the idea put forth by Pelagius. This was opposed by Augustine, who said that we ourselves are specifically evil. Pelagius argued that, even in our estranged state, we have the free will to either accept or reject God's offer of salvation. Augustine argued that we are so corrupted by sin, passed down to us by the very act of sexual intercourse by which we are conceived, that we are unable to even choose good over evil. Thus, our salvation is entirely an act of grace on the part of God. Conversely, we would have to assume that those not saved are arbitrarily condemned by God, as per Paul's "vessels of wrath" rant in Romans 9.

While the Pelagian view makes a great deal more sense, it was judged heretical and remains so to this day. So, are you a Pelagian or an Augustinian?

[HansMustermann]

You know, that's an interesting can of worms by itself. I noticed that IMHO most theists nowadays are really anywhere between Pellagianism and Arianism.

[HansMustermann]

There is one truth which does permeate all cultures, and it's really the most basic, that too many people ignore.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

... and it's even biologically built in. You know, those mirror neurons. So we wouldn't actually need a religion, moral philosophy, or whatever, to do just that. Most of the human efforts related to it, mostly were or ended up, rationalizations as to when it's ok and indeed expected to go _against_ that basic instinct.

[Gaetan]

The forbidden fruit

New International Reader's Version, genesis, 3.2-4
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We can eat the fruit of the trees that are in the garden. 3 But God did say, 'You must not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. Do not even touch it. If you do, you will die.' "

The tax are the monopoly of devil. This is the devil who told to Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit and this is the devil in the form of a serpent who told them to eat it. The Christ was right to say in the Gospel according to St. John in 8.44:

"From the beginning, the devil was a murderer. He has never obeyed the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his natural language. He does this because he is a liar. He is the father of lies.”
The error of Adam and Eve was to blame themselves to eat it. When you face the devil the last thing to do is to acknowledge one’s faults because you open your doors to him.

More about Tax:

The satanic tax

I want to point out the ignorance of peoples facing the technique of devil, as for exemple, the satanic taxes as food restrictions. At the beginning of the creation, the devil was present. He didn’t want that Adam and Eve our parents eat apples in the garden. The devil wanted to stop humans to live as free beings. Luckily Eve free us of this tax by eating the apple.

Later the devil in his instructions to Moses prohibit peoples to eat food like pigs, since that time muslims and jewish follow this tax. The effect of this compulsive tax is the following: if you don’t eat pig, no problem. But if you eat it, the devil comes in you. He shift his own crimes on your fault. You see right away this criminal of Satan, the god of jewishs, muslins and christians. The Christ told them that what was impure was not what comes in the mouth but what comes out of it.

Gaétan

[HansMustermann]

The tax are the monopoly of devil.

Really? Now that's an interesting thesis, but I'd like to see something more than a non-sequitur in its support.

The error of Adam and Eve was to blame themselves to eat it. When you face the devil the last thing to do is to acknowledge one’s faults because you open your doors to him.

So, basically they should have been complete psychopaths? If they do something right, it's their merit, but if they err, it's because of someone else?

I'm sorry, but that kind of person is a psychopath. I don't think that the whole population being psychopaths would be a viable society. Nor one that's fun to live in.

I'm sorry, but the world would be a much better place if people started taking credit and responsibility for what they did.

No, I'm not saying cower in shame for every little mistake. Sometimes you don't have all the data, sometimes you screw up the execution, etc. Acknowledge your limitations, or you'll never improve.

But if you did something evil, that's it. It's not the devil, it's not society, it's you. No god or devil made you do it. The mens rea (evil intent) is yours alone, if you had it.

More about Tax:

The satanic tax

I want to point out the ignorance of peoples facing the technique of devil, as for exemple, the satanic taxes as food restrictions. At the beginning of the creation, the devil was present. He didn’t want that Adam and Eve our parents eat apples in the garden. The devil wanted to stop humans to live as free beings. Luckily Eve free us of this tax by eating the apple.

Later the devil in his instructions to Moses prohibit peoples to eat food like pigs, since that time muslims and jewish follow this tax. The effect of this compulsive tax is the following: if you don’t eat pig, no problem. But if you eat it, the devil comes in you. He shift his own crimes on your fault. You see right away this criminal of Satan, the god of jewishs, muslins and christians. The Christ told them that what was impure was not what comes in the mouth but what comes out of it.

Gaétan

So, basically you don't know what "tax" means?

[TimCallahan]

The forbidden fruit


The tax are the monopoly of devil. This is the devil who told to Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit and this is the devil in the form of a serpent who told them to eat it.

QUOTE

Okay, did the devil - according to your view - tell them to eat the fruit or not to eat it?

QUOTE

I want to point out the ignorance of peoples facing the technique of devil, as for exemple, the satanic taxes as food restrictions. At the beginning of the creation, the devil was present. He didn’t want that Adam and Eve our parents eat apples in the garden. The devil wanted to stop humans to live as free beings. Luckily Eve free us of this tax by eating the apple.

Later the devil in his instructions to Moses prohibit peoples to eat food like pigs, since that time muslims and jewish follow this tax. The effect of this compulsive tax is the following: if you don’t eat pig, no problem. But if you eat it, the devil comes in you. He shift his own crimes on your fault. You see right away this criminal of Satan, the god of jewishs, muslins and christians. The Christ told them that what was impure was not what comes in the mouth but what comes out of it.

Gaétan

Not only can I not figure out what your talking about, your whole post is tortured by your indifference to grammer. Try using articles, proper tenses and making your subjects and verbs agree with respect to singular or plural endings.

[Ethnikos]

While the Pelagian view makes a great deal more sense, it was judged heretical and remains so to this day. So, are you a Pelagian or an Augustinian?Though I recognize the brilliance of Augustine and find myself much of the time in agreement with him, I have to think he is worse than Calvin on this. It may be because he was being personally attacked, that he took an extreme stance on this question. Augustine does not even allow for us to refuse salvation.
Augustine may have thought he had to throw in the thing about sex because Jesus was born without that act being part of his birth. They may have been of a mindset back in Augustine's time where they put more importance into it than we would.

We are all determined to be fit for destruction. We are all predestined for salvation in Christ, meaning it was pre-planned for Jesus to be saved out of mankind and when we enter into Christ, through repentance, we can be saved no matter how bad we may have been previously.
Jesus inherited flesh that had been weakened by generations of people trapped into a cycle of sinful behavior. Jesus was perfect, even though he had imperfect flesh. He most likely had been born into the best version that would have been available at the time. That in itself would not have been sufficient to keep him from falling. He would have had a good hearted set of parents and helpful siblings, from Joseph's previous marriage, to watch out for him. Being a product of a mysterious transformation, of a preexisting spiritual entity into a human, would have given him advantages that we can not help but think was influential. As a result of the combination of several factors, Jesus was able to live without sinning and so was capable of saving us. Could we do that? I don't think so. Could we become equal to Jesus? No. We get on the path to being more like him when we believe because the Spirit shows us Jesus gradually more clearly as we turn out minds more away from the world.

[Ethnikos]

"in the wilderness... god speaks to man.."
I was not giving a formula on how to have an experience.
I was showing that we can have a connection to God in a spiritual way without a building and hierarchical vestments and figurative props.
The Waldenses had to go up into canyons to read the Bible. Their church was the natural mountainside.

[Marduk]

The concept of original sin, as I understand it, is that all humans are born sinners because they are descended from Adam and Eve, who sinned.

not neccesarily so, if original sin is true then I am definitely a child of Lilith and some demons

:D

[Ethnikos]

The error of Adam and Eve was to blame themselves to eat it. When you face the devil the last thing to do is to acknowledge one’s faults because you open your doors to him.
True repentance is how you create a communion with Christ.
Satan tries to short circuit the process by presenting your errors in such a way as to have you react by you becoming defensive about it.

[Marduk]

what did the poor bastards who lived before Jesus was born have to do...dance a jig?

believe it or not they had to touch a goat in the temple on Yom Kippur. The goat was then kicked out to die in the wilderness along with their sins. This caused the famous first decree of Nebekiah in 500bce, who proclaimed the Arabs sinful purely because they had set up an entrepreneurial second hand goat dealership
:D

[Marduk]

Satan tries to short circuit the process by presenting your errors in such a way as to have you react in a way that makes you defensive about it.

ah so thats why palaeontologists arent big on the bible, he's constantly rubbing their noses in it with fossils isn't he

:p

Bless you dark lord

[TimCallahan]

He [Jesus] would have had a good hearted set of parents and helpful siblings, from Joseph's previous marriage, to watch out for him.

Here you seem to advocate the theology of the perpetual virginity of Mary. What, precisely, do you base this on? Mark 6:3 mentions the several siblings of Jesus, not step-brothers and step-sisters. Since there is really no biblical basis for the assumption that Mary remained a virgin all her life, what is the source of your assumtion that the siblings were from Joseph's previous marriage?

[Foster Zygote]

Here you seem to advocate the theology of the perpetual virginity of Mary. What, precisely, do you base this on? Mark 6:3 mentions the several siblings of Jesus, not step-brothers and step-sisters. Since there is really no biblical basis for the assumption that Mary remained a virgin all her life, what is the source of your assumtion that the siblings were from Joseph's previous marriage?

The author of Mark doesn't even mention virgin birth at all. The concept of the virgin birth was added later in order to spice up the story with a popular narrative element of the time.

[Marduk]

The author of Mark doesn't even mention virgin birth at all. The concept of the virgin birth was added later in order to spice up the story with a popular narrative element of the time.

Really I didn't know that, I thought it was invented by Mary when her pregnancy became obvious so that she could avoid being stoned to death as an adultress

:p

[HansMustermann]

The sad thing is that she could actually have been honest about being technically a virgin. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_conception

What I don't understand, though is: why is anyone pretending that that's a miracle?

Girls figuring out that if it's not in their pussy it's not really sin, is as old as sexual restrictions. It was popular enough at least during the renaissance that a writer noted that unmarried women were saints from the front and martyrs from the back. And occasionally one got pregnant while technically still a virgin.

It was at least common enough to warrant the incubus/succubus explanation for how come virgin girls occasionally get pregnant anyway.

So, really, how inconsistent must someone be to believe that if it happened to Mary it was a unique divine miracle and proof of God... unlike every Annie, and Jill, and Katie, and Sue, who also got the same, but for those it's not a miracle. It's like pretending that I'm special and unique and the messiah because I was born on a full moon... same as every 28'th person on the planet.

[I Ratant]

Long article....
Note the part about Celsus...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Birth_(Christian_doctrine)

[Ethnikos]

Here you seem to advocate the theology of the perpetual virginity of Mary. What, precisely, do you base this on? Mark 6:3 mentions the several siblings of Jesus, not step-brothers and step-sisters. Since there is really no biblical basis for the assumption that Mary remained a virgin all her life, what is the source of your assumtion that the siblings were from Joseph's previous marriage?When Jesus was born, Mary had no other children. Any subsequent births would not be as important to Jesus as the children who were older and would have had a part in his upbringing. Any other children would not have been important to my argument.

[TimCallahan]

When Jesus was born, Mary had no other children. .

Where in the Bible does it say this?

[blobru]

Original sin is pride, not sex. ...


I think the [act of] original sin of Adam & Eve is from pride, according to Aquinas etal; or disobedience, according to Augustine etal. The state of original sin for us descendants is depravity, concupiscence, lust (in what must be one of the most stringently-reasoned bits of theology in the xtian canon, Augustine argues that lust produces a disobedience of the flesh to mirror the disobedience of the spirit A & E demonstrated, hence the instant shame and fig leaves; in other words, original sin shows up as embarrassing boners). Since original sin is transmitted via boner, kids are always infected (except virgin births, of course... and in vitro fertilisation, I suppose... who the hell knows, really).

Anyway, re the OP, according to St. Augustine in his magnum opus The City of God, one important implication and likely the most prominent artefact of Original Sin is boners, and our embarrassment thereof.

[I Ratant]

Augustine didn't consult the right source...

[TimCallahan]

When Jesus was born, Mary had no other children. Any subsequent births would not be as important to Jesus as the children who were older and would have had a part in his upbringing. Any other children would not have been important to my argument.

Okay, are you saying that Jesus was her OLDEST child, or her ONLY child? If you are arguing the latter. consider Mark 6:3:

". . . Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters with us?" And they took offence at him.

Mark, the earliest of the gospels, makes no mention of a virgin birth, a curious lapse if its author know of such an event. Therefore, we can reasonably assume that the story was a later invention. There is no reason to believe that the siblings of Jesus were foster siblings. I challenge you to show me one solid biblical support for the idea that these brothers and sisters were anything but actual siblings.

[Ethnikos]

Okay, are you saying that Jesus was her OLDEST child, or her ONLY child? If you are arguing the latter.
I am only saying that Mary's husband, Joseph, had children from a previous marriage, and that God would have taken that into consideration when placing His Son on Earth. If they were bad kids, God might not have wanted Jesus being born into that family. The point I was working on was the sin thing. If we are born sinful. Just by looking at this one case, I would have to say no. Jesus was special and his situation was special. Jesus somehow kept himself innocent of sin.
As for the other kids, they may have been old enough to be left behind, when Joseph and Mary took their journey. He was an older dude and was already dead when Jesus was doing his ministry.

[Foster Zygote]

I am only saying that Mary's husband, Joseph, had children from a previous marriage...

And you know this how?

[joobz]

And you know this how?
Same way he knows faith is evidence....

[TimCallahan]

Okay, Ethnikos, I'll say this one more time:

There is no reason to believe that the siblings of Jesus were foster siblings. I challenge you to show me one solid biblical support for the idea that these brothers and sisters were anything but actual siblings.

You have stated that Joseph had children from a previous marriage. Again, what is your biblical source for this? Please state chapter and verse.

[Ethnikos]

what is your biblical source for this? Please state chapter and verse.Aparently it comes from some other writings that are not in the canonical Bible. I am not promoting some sort perpetual virginity. I am sure Mary had later children.
Here is a nice verse I ran across that is on the subject of original sin from 2 kings 14:6 But he did not execute the sons of the assassins. He obeyed the Lord’s commandment as recorded in the law scroll of Moses, “Fathers must not be put to death for what their sons do, and sons must not be put to death for what their fathers do. A man must be put to death only for his own sin.”
Here's something you could do. Tell me what scroll that is referring to.

[TimCallahan]

Aparently it comes from some other writings that are not in the canonical Bible. I am not promoting some sort perpetual virginity. I am sure Mary had later children.
Here is a nice verse I ran across that is on the subject of original sin from 2 kings 14:6 But he did not execute the sons of the assassins. He obeyed the Lord’s commandment as recorded in the law scroll of Moses, “Fathers must not be put to death for what their sons do, and sons must not be put to death for what their fathers do. A man must be put to death only for his own sin.”
Here's something you could do. Tell me what scroll that is referring to.

If you're going to accept non-canonical writings about Jesus and his famiy, are you also going to accept the infancy gospels and the story that, as a boy Jesus supernaturally killed one of his playmates in a snit, then brought him back to life? I am glad, hou=wever, that you don't subscribe to the thesis of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

My Oxford Annotated Version (OAV) translation of 2 Kings 14:6 calls it "the book of the law of Moses" and the notes say the verse in question is Deuteronomy 24:16. I looked it up, and it checks out. Since this verse says that "every man shall be put to death for ihis own sin," would I be right in judging that by calling attention to this you reject the doctrine of original sin?

[Ethnikos]

If you're going to accept non-canonical writings about Jesus and his famiy, are you also going to accept the infancy gospels and the story that, as a boy Jesus supernaturally killed one of his playmates in a snit, then brought him back to life? I am glad, hou=wever, that you don't subscribe to the thesis of the perpetual virginity of Mary.No, I am not using some alternate gnostic or something version. It comes from an ordinary sort of Bible commentary, or something. I have read tons of books and it would be difficult to remember where I got that from. Again, my point was nothing to do with any question on where Jesus' siblings came from. I was making an argument about how it could have been possible for someone to live a sinless life, given the fact that we are all descended from sinful people. I could use myself as an example. I grew up in like a bubble and never even considered doing anything bad. A lot of that was because I had an older brother and two older sisters who were good people and a good influence on me. Later on, my younger brothers turned out to being hell bent on being evil. Once they got to a certain age, where they were more my equal, they became a very destructive influence on me.
In the case of Jesus, he would have had to have had some decent older siblings to have a chance of not sinning. His younger ones may have been more of a given, since they would have been from the same mother. She would have had to have been a saint, just to be allowed to be the mother of God. So you would expect any of her children to be pretty good, to start with.
My Oxford Annotated Version (OAV) translation of 2 Kings 14:6 calls it "the book of the law of Moses" and the notes say the verse in question is Deuteronomy 24:16. I looked it up, and it checks out. Since this verse says that "every man shall be put to death for ihis own sin," would I be right in judging that by calling attention to this you reject the doctrine of original sin?Thanks for checking that. I am pretty busy working on the translation from Hebrew of Genesis 3:16. When I worked on it before, I was only working off some sketchy notes on the back of an envelope. I am doing a more thorough investigation, which is hogging up my time , right now.
The reason I was working on it before is because it is something pointed at as some sort of proof that we were cursed, through Eve. My argument is first, it is not a curse; second, it only applies to that one person, and is not something passed down.
As for original sin, I do not buy into the "official" version any more than I buy into the "official" version of the trinity. What I believe is that we are incapacitated from being able to save ourselves through our own good works. If that was so, Jesus coming to earth and suffering would have been redundant.

[I Ratant]

...
What I believe is that we are incapacitated from being able to save ourselves through our own good works. If that was so, Jesus coming to earth and suffering would have been redundant.
.
And that's the core of your problem.
No concept that everyone has the good common sense to not be evil.
Evil behavior is learned, it's not innate.
When one's self image is so damaged that he expects bad things as the normal course of events through his own actions, then religion comes along to reinforce that bad image, and promise "salvation" through acceptance of fairy tales and fables.
Good areligious people abound through history.
Religions just con men of good will who need no assistance in living good moral lives other than that which is self-evident, into prostrating themselves into the self-flagellation and denigration of one's own character that religions feed from in their parasitic lives.
Without the psycho-babble of "sin" from the conmen of religions most people would live perfectly good lives.

[HansMustermann]

With all due respect, I Ratant, while what you say is true and insightful in its own right, it seems to me like it's orthogonal to what he was saying there. He didn't say you're incapable of being a good person or doing good deeds without Jesus, just that you're incapable of "saving yourself" through good deeds alone.

In other words: Daddy won't let you in heaven unless you brown-nose Junior, no matter how good and moral you are.

Which is really the beauty of having an imaginary being. Who's going to prove that he said otherwise?

[I Ratant]

Hans, I wonder why Christianity and the baggage that it imposes on the believer isn't a subject in the study of aberrant psychologies.
The basic premise of omnipotence is irrational from the git-go, and yet it's promoted by otherwise intelligent folk who really should know better, if they can use the brains god gave us :) to think the precepts through.

[TimCallahan]

While I'm not a believer, I have to say that the Pelagian view is the least offensive. Pelagius, a contemporary of Agustine, put our estrangement from God in terms of someone who's living in pverty because their great-grandfather squandered a vast fortune. His view was that God had to bridge that gap of estrangement because humans werent able to. Still, being God's creations, humans were, in his view, basically good and could, of their own free will, respond to Gods's offer of grace.

Augustine's view was that we were so depraved that we lacked even that bit of free will. Thus, God arbitrarily chose some and consigned the rest to hell. Augustine further argued that because we were conceived as a result of sexual desire or, as he called it, "concupisence (sp.?), " we inherited original sin through sex.

To some degree, the sense of estrangement, whether from God or the cosmos is, I suspect, a side effect of self awareness. Thus, throughout the world we find myths in which death and isolation accompany the change in consciousness that makes us individuals.

If we can aunderstand such myths in this light, we can still use them as a form of literature and wisdom, while dispencing with the baggage. Yes, because we changed, we are separate entities destined to die. Such problems never bother amoebas.

[HansMustermann]

Hans, I wonder why Christianity and the baggage that it imposes on the believer isn't a subject in the study of aberrant psychologies.
The basic premise of omnipotence is irrational from the git-go, and yet it's promoted by otherwise intelligent folk who really should know better, if they can use the brains god gave us :) to think the precepts through.

To be honest, omnipotence -- or at least damn near omnipotence -- is the least illogical thing there. Think of my standard analogy of a programmer and the simulated universe he created. Yes, he can't create a rock he can't move afterwards and other such paradoxes, and some don't apply because he's outside it, but otherwise it's as close to omnipotence as it possibly gets. Or at least if you had to explain it to a bronze age goat herder, "omnipotent" would be a good enough approximation.

It's the rest of the stuff in there that gets my goat more than that.

[hamelekim]

It is likely that the very act of sinning corrupts the soul.

Because of this, any progeny from corrupted being will be inherently corrupt.

The Bible is specific in places that a son is not responsible for the sins of his father, nor the other way around. That doesn't mean the son is free from sin, just that they aren't held accountable for those sins.

[HansMustermann]

It is likely that the very act of sinning corrupts the soul.

Because of this, any progeny from corrupted being will be inherently corrupt.

The Bible is specific in places that a son is not responsible for the sins of his father, nor the other way around. That doesn't mean the son is free from sin, just that they aren't held accountable for those sins.

That seems to be some really perverted form of Lamarckism. And just as with Lamarckism, the evidence points the other way around.

Like it or not, we're all descendants of a long line of murderers. (According to a recent study, in primitive tribes the murderers have an easier time finding a wife and producing more offspring.) We're descendants of pagans, of conquerors, of people who looted starving peasants of their grain (how do you think armies in the middle ages were supplied?), of slavers, of rapists (attacking someone to take their women was standard primitive and ancient warfare), and of people who not only covetted their neighbour's donkey but actually declared war on the neighbour for that donkey. Etc. We're descendants of people for whom the 10 commandments were a checklist of what to break, and the 7 deadly sins were a checklist of things to do.

So it seems to me that:

1. _If_ that was the case, we'd all have a list of inherited sins a mile long. If anything, it makes that original sin a lot less important. Why give a flying f**k about some dumb broad stealing an apple, when we have a thousand murders on the pedigree after it? It's as silly as being outraged that some serial killer's socks were the wrong colour.

2. _If_ that was the case, and merely stealing an apple robbed your descendants of their very free will (as per Augustine)... then we should all be mindless beasts by now. Because every generation just adds more corruption there. If stealing one stupid apple had that devastating effects on the soul, think of what _thousands_ of murders, rapes, thefts, perjuries and the like should have done.

And that just doesn't seem the case. If anything, on the whole we're nicer to each other than ever before.

[Ethnikos]

.When one's self image is so damaged that he expects bad things as the normal course of events through his own actions, then religion comes along to reinforce that bad image, and promise "salvation" through acceptance of fairy tales and fables.
Religions just con men of good will who need no assistance in living good moral lives other than that which is self-evident, into prostrating themselves into the self-flagellation and denigration of one's own character that religions feed from in their parasitic lives.
Without the psycho-babble of "sin" from the conmen of religions most people would live perfectly good lives.This may be a pessimistic view about things. I was invited to attend a service yesterday at a Southern Baptist church that was doing an outreach thing to get some people saved. I figured I would go and see how it went. They did the whole gospel presentation thing and I was shocked at how they missed a great opportunity to play on people's fears and self loathing. They just blew right through the forgiveness part and went right into following the will of God.
They might have a different view on salvation from a lot of other churches and an opposite of Calvinism, I would think. Seems like you make a choice and get baptized and you are good for life. It makes me feel almost like putting some fear of God in them, but that might be mean. If they are happily saved, in their opinion, it might not be so good to shake them up.
Some people just want to live a good life and to a lot of people that means going to church and believing in God. No serious theology necessary.

[Ethnikos]

He didn't say you're incapable of being a good person or doing good deeds without Jesus, just that you're incapable of "saving yourself" through good deeds alone.All of history was worked out the way it was, for the sake of one person. That person was meant to overcome Satan and live strictly to the instructions of God, being obedient to the point of death.
We can not duplicate what he did and we rely on him being accepted by God and standing as the representative of all mankind. By accepting him as our representative with his righteousness, and as our substitute for taking on the consequences for falling away from God, he becomes our intercessor before God, for us, then we obtain for ourselves the benefits of receiving what he deserves.
All of this is not an excuse for abandoning ourselves in immorality. We are required to make use of our new-found freedom from death to become more like Christ and to be fit for heaven. We can do good without the burden of doing for our salvation. Being imperfect, be need not abandon hope, but trust in what has already been done for us and our assurance that God gives us through His Spirit who gives us faith. We can live good lives without the fear that we are not good enough.

[Ethnikos]

The basic premise of omnipotence is irrational from the git-go, and yet it's promoted by otherwise intelligent folk who really should know better, if they can use the brains god gave us :) to think the precepts through.God only needs to be powerful enough to kill Satan, and raise us from the dead, and re-make the Earth.

[Ethnikos]

Still, being God's creations, humans were, in his view, basically good and could, of their own free will, respond to Gods's offer of grace.The fact that almost everyone was killed by the flood would go against that opinion about our relative goodness.

Augustine's view was that we were so depraved that we lacked even that bit of free will. Thus, God arbitrarily chose some and consigned the rest to hell. Augustine further argued that because we were conceived as a result of sexual desire or, as he called it, "concupisence (sp.?), " we inherited original sin through sex. I just ran across a web-site today that listed some verses that seemed to show that we were born evil. Someone is said to start doing evil right from birth. Another verse says, "how can you take a clean thing from the unclean?" I should have copied it, I guess, but it did not look all that convincing, during the few seconds I looked at it. All this lust business is an invention of the Medieval translators who were looking for good Latin words to describe things they probably did not understand in the Old Testament. That may not be the case with Augustine but he seems to be coming to that opinion, of sex being sinful, without too much evidence. The idea of God being arbitrary in choosing can not be right. Jesus himself is given the job of judging the world, so it is not predetermined. Jesus at least had the ability to know people's hearts.
To some degree, the sense of estrangement, whether from God or the cosmos is, I suspect, a side effect of self awareness. Thus, throughout the world we find myths in which death and isolation accompany the change in consciousness that makes us individuals.God was strange from the universe before He made it. We do not know what God is, exactly because he is cloaked by impenetrable glory but the Son, who is the radiance of the Glory, makes Him known. So, that being said, the god we know as a person who is the visible representation of God, is an individual. This individual being strange to the universe wanted to make a universe in order to have someone live in it who was like himself. That person living in the universe would himself be strange to the universe, being like god. We, being in the likeness of God are meant to be god and to dominate the universe. So we have a natural estrangement and it feels weird because we lost our god abilities.
If we can aunderstand such myths in this light, we can still use them as a form of literature and wisdom, while dispencing with the baggage. Yes, because we changed, we are separate entities destined to die. Such problems never bother amoebas.I just heard something about amoebas on the radio today. When you heat them up to kill them, they sense they are going to die so they use all their energy to split up into a lot of individuals, with the hope that one will survive. I have to think everything is aware of death on some level.

[Ethnikos]

To be honest, omnipotence -- or at least damn near omnipotence -- is the least illogical thing there. Think of my standard analogy of a programmer and the simulated universe he created. Yes, he can't create a rock he can't move afterwards and other such paradoxes, and some don't apply because he's outside it, but otherwise it's as close to omnipotence as it possibly gets. Or at least if you had to explain it to a bronze age goat herder, "omnipotent" would be a good enough approximation.The difference between God and the programmer is that God can create a universe He can live in. A few years ago, I used to think God lived outside but I have gone over to the way of thinking that God has made a major commitment to it and it is not going to be left when He gets bored with it. He moved in and has His existence within the universe.

[HansMustermann]

The difference between God and the programmer is that God can create a universe He can live in. A few years ago, I used to think God lived outside but I have gone over to the way of thinking that God has made a major commitment to it and it is not going to be left when He gets bored with it. He moved in and has His existence within the universe.

I see. Anything other than dellusion and wishful thinking in support of that idea? I'm going to even make an exception and allow biblical references here. But just your being scared of his getting bored and moving on, does not a proof make.

[I Ratant]

God only needs to be powerful enough to kill Satan, and raise us from the dead, and re-make the Earth.
.
Oh, come on!
God MADE Satan.
Why he do dat?
"Raise us from the dead"... Carrot at the end of the stick.
Dead is dead. What you were made of returns to be recycled into other living things.. carrots, rabbits, foxes. All parts of the food chain.
That's the only "re-make" that occurs.
And why expect the third attempt to be any less botched than the first two?
Same ditzy diety involved.

[I Ratant]

...
They just blew right through the forgiveness part and went right into following the will of God.
.
And this guidance comes from where?
.

They might have a different view on salvation from a lot of other churches and an opposite of Calvinism, I would think. Seems like you make a choice and get baptized and you are good for life. It makes me feel almost like putting some fear of God in them, but that might be mean. If they are happily saved, in their opinion, it might not be so good to shake them up.
Some people just want to live a good life and to a lot of people that means going to church and believing in God. No serious theology necessary.
.
"... good for life." is certainly not "serious theology".. or even meaningful!
Just wishful thinking, or not thinking, about all the problems that arise -after- the baptism, that come under the heading of "sin".
Pre-cleansed in the blood of the lamb.

[I Ratant]

...
And that just doesn't seem the case. If anything, on the whole we're nicer to each other than ever before.
.
And that is directly attributable to the SEPARATION of the whims of the church from the realities of living.
Tossing god and satan out with the bathwater worked marvels for human dignity and rights.

[TimCallahan]

The fact that almost everyone was killed by the flood would go against that opinion about our relative goodness. [Quote]

That only works, of course, if you believe the flood myth. Perhaps you need to hear Dr. Donald Prohetero's lecture to the Skeptics Society on "The Breathtaking Inanity of Flood Geology

[QUOTE] The idea of God being arbitrary in choosing can not be right. Jesus himself is given the job of judging the world, so it is not predetermined. Jesus at least had the ability to know people's hearts.[QUOTE]

In that case, explain what Pauls was talking about in his "vessels of wrath" riff in Romans 9.

[QUOTE] God was strange from the universe before He made it. We do not know what God is, exactly because he is cloaked by impenetrable glory but the Son, who is the radiance of the Glory, makes Him known. So, that being said, the god we know as a person who is the visible representation of God, is an individual. This individual being strange to the universe wanted to make a universe in order to have someone live in it who was like himself. That person living in the universe would himself be strange to the universe, being like god. We, being in the likeness of God are meant to be god and to dominate the universe. So we have a natural estrangement and it feels weird because we lost our god abilities. [QUOTE]

God was "strange" from a universe he hadn't yet made? We are meant to "dominate" the universe? Is this meant to be an excuse for all sort of environmental degradation? It has always seemed odd to me that in this schema humans, even before the fall, were meant to "dominate" a world supposedly good and harmonious.

[QUOTE]
I just heard something about amoebas on the radio today. When you heat them up to kill them, they sense they are going to die so they use all their energy to split up into a lot of individuals, with the hope that one will survive. I have to think everything is aware of death on some level.

Don't take the amoeba thing too literally. I must confess to indulging in a bit of hyperbole in that instance. However, the awareness of death in living things other than human beings seems to be immediate. As far as we know, they don't ruminate on it when they are not under threat.

[HansMustermann]

I just heard something about amoebas on the radio today. When you heat them up to kill them, they sense they are going to die so they use all their energy to split up into a lot of individuals, with the hope that one will survive. I have to think everything is aware of death on some level.

Hate to disappoint you, buddy, but amoebas don't even have any kind of memory or anything. All unicelular life is a bunch of simple (by comparison with the more complex life forms) chemistry. If X happens then protein Y reacts with substance Z, and something happens. It's really that straighforward and immediate a relation between stimulus and what happens next. There is no complex planning or pondering the future or even remembering the last minute.

A better analogy would be with the well known knee jerk reflex. You hit there and the leg kicks. No planning, no thinking, just direct stimulus => effect. Except even that's more complex than in a single cell, because there are neurons and whatnot involved.

_Everything_ about single cells is really that simple.

E.g., those that have a flagellum (spermatozoa are close enough too, btw) are simply guided by chemical gradients. There's some proteins sensing those chemicals by just reacting with them, and they're connected directly to the ionic motor of the flagellum. Those that can sense light, well, they just have a photo-sensitive protein connected directly there.

There is no brain, there is no judgment, there is no thought involved. If the right stimulus is applied, the same effect happens every time, and it happens immediately.

So if they do anything at a given temperature, it doesn't actually say anything more than that a certain protein triggers that effect at a given temperature. It's like a temperature-triggered detonator on a bomb. Nothing more complex and nothing more self-aware than that.

[Ethnikos]

It is likely that the very act of sinning corrupts the soul.
Because of this, any progeny from corrupted being will be inherently corrupt.
The Bible is specific in places that a son is not responsible for the sins of his father, nor the other way around. That doesn't mean the son is free from sin, just that they aren't held accountable for those sins.The son would not be free from the results of sin, which is corruption. God can compensate for some of the negative affects of sin, when we have faith and are given the indwelling Spirit of God. Mental changes will go along with physical changes, such as the turning on of some genes.
Since sceptics will think this is bunk, I should give some evidence. One of my brother's friends was one of identical twins. I knew these people when they were kids because they were in my boyscout troop. You could not tell them apart.
As they got older, one was born again and went to church with my brother. The other one chose to serve Satan. By the time they were 25 you could barely tell they were related. One looked like this nice christian person and the other one looked like a thug.

[arthwollipot]

It is likely that the very act of sinning corrupts the soul.

Because of this, any progeny from corrupted being will be inherently corrupt.

The Bible is specific in places that a son is not responsible for the sins of his father, nor the other way around. That doesn't mean the son is free from sin, just that they aren't held accountable for those sins.Then wherefore redemption?

[HansMustermann]

As they got older, one was born again and went to church with my brother. The other one chose to serve Satan. By the time they were 25 you could barely tell they were related. One looked like this nice christian person and the other one looked like a thug.

Anecdote is not data. So you found, what, one person, and you're probably judging him by clothes and/or your prejudices to start with.

If you opened your eyes and looked around without the t(a)inted glasses of how it fits your preacher's bulls**t, you'd see plenty of people in both categories which look good and/or were pretty successful in life. And plenty in both categories which are the bottom of the human barrel.

The world is just as full of born-again Quasimodos stuck in a janitor job, as it is of successful and good looking atheists. I work every day with some of the latter.

Plus, some of the greatest figures in history were not christian, nor fit that idea. The most successful and remembered Roman emperor, Trajan, was not just pagan but also gay. Pretty good looking dude too, you wouldn't confuse him for a thug. So not serving God or fitting the christian mores didn't do jack squat to him. The guy that formalized Christianity, the one and only Constantine, was a pagan until the day he died. He only pulled an early Pascal's Wager and allowed himself to be baptized on the dying bed. He was pretty successful while a pagan, you know? Or Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, the guy we "thank" for christianizing Western Europe at sword point, was already a very successful emperor and described as pretty good looking, long before he got any interest in Christianity. Etc.

[Mashuna]

As they got older, one was born again and went to church with my brother. The other one chose to serve Satan. By the time they were 25 you could barely tell they were related. One looked like this nice christian person and the other one looked like a thug.

Which one looked like a nice christian person and which like a thug?

[Ethnikos]

Which one looked like a nice christian person and which like a thug? What I was trying to say was that it became clear which one you were looking at because their souls seemed to change them physically, as if their bodies were modified in order to better accommodate their personalities.
The main point I was trying to make was that Having the Holy Spirit could possibly bring about physical changes in order to better accommodate living a life of goodness. The specific application I had in mind was Jesus. God would have been at work with him from his conception.
I was at a Baptist church Sunday that was doing an outreach to evangelize the unsaved, or whatever. They were running a video on three big screens that looked like an edited version of a gospel movie. Predominantly, it was these extreme closeups of the Jesus character looking really compassionate. I have a feeling that there could be something to that. I would imagine that if you were around Judea when Jesus was walking by, you would feel compelled, just by looking at him, to ask him for something.(if you needed something like to be healed) I think his soul would have been evident in his countenance.

[Morrigan]

The other one chose to serve Satan.
:newlol :newlol :newlol
Serve Satan? Really? Did he sacrifice goats and virgins? I really hope there were goats. It's not Satanic enough if no goats are involved.


By the time they were 25 you could barely tell they were related. One looked like this nice christian person and the other one looked like a thug.
...Wow, just wow.
What does a "nice christian person" look like exactly?

Do these guys (http://www.metal-archives.com/images/7/9/2/792_photo.jpg) look Christian enough?
How about those guys (http://www.metal-archives.com/images/3/9/3/393_photo.jpg)? Or them (http://www.metal-archives.com/images/3/0/4/8/3048_photo.jpg)?

Which one looks more like a "nice Christian person" to you, this clean, decent young man (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6XfJqtZqons/SKWrkaGt1JI/AAAAAAAACMw/-3GD5TRMUn0/s400/H_P_Lovecraft.jpg), or this filthy thuggish-looking man (http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03_02/055jesus_468x498.jpg)?


What I was trying to say was that it became clear which one you were looking at because their souls seemed to change them physically, as if their bodies were modified in order to better accommodate their personalities.

He probably grew some horns and hooves, his eyes started glowing red, and he had a maniacal laughter, too. You just knew he was straying from the Light by looking at him. Like Smeagol turning into Gollum. Right? :newlol

[TimCallahan]

Morrigan has a point, Ethnikos. What specifically amounts to serving Satan? Do this mean specifically begcomming a Satanist, or does it merely refer to general wongdoing? If it's the latter, was Clinton serving Satan when he played around with Monica Lewinsky? Were the executives of Enron servig Satan when they screwed their employees out of their pensions? If these acts aren't examples of serving Satan, what acts are?

[Mashuna]

What I was trying to say was that it became clear which one you were looking at because their souls seemed to change them physically, as if their bodies were modified in order to better accommodate their personalities.
The main point I was trying to make was that Having the Holy Spirit could possibly bring about physical changes in order to better accommodate living a life of goodness. The specific application I had in mind was Jesus. God would have been at work with him from his conception.
I was at a Baptist church Sunday that was doing an outreach to evangelize the unsaved, or whatever. They were running a video on three big screens that looked like an edited version of a gospel movie. Predominantly, it was these extreme closeups of the Jesus character looking really compassionate. I have a feeling that there could be something to that. I would imagine that if you were around Judea when Jesus was walking by, you would feel compelled, just by looking at him, to ask him for something.(if you needed something like to be healed) I think his soul would have been evident in his countenance.

Ah, I see. I was wondering if you were making some subtle point about the folly of judging by appearance, but apparently not.

[oggiesnr]

It is no longer there (instead there is a screed about historical context etc) but in Lincoln Cathedral there is "The Niche Of Little St Hugh" (it's on the south side of the Angel Choir) and there was the "Prayer of Little St Hugh". Little St Hugh was the infant supposedly murdered by the Jew's Daughter which gave rise to the pogram in Lincoln.

The prayer read -

From the sins of my father,
And his father,
And his fore-fathers before him,
Good Lord deliver me,
Amen."

Just an historical aside:)

Steve

[shadron]

What does a "nice christian person" look like exactly?

K_K would know. But, please, don't ask her.

[arthwollipot]

Morrigan has a point, Ethnikos. What specifically amounts to serving Satan? Do this mean specifically begcomming a Satanist, or does it merely refer to general wongdoing? If it's the latter, was Clinton serving Satan when he played around with Monica Lewinsky? Were the executives of Enron servig Satan when they screwed their employees out of their pensions? If these acts aren't examples of serving Satan, what acts are?When I attended church (AoG - don't worry, I got better), I was taught that every act that was not an explicit act of worship of Jesus Christ was by default furthering Satan's power in the world.

By this particularly odious philosophy, pretty much anything could be defined as "serving Satan".

[HansMustermann]

When I attended church (AoG - don't worry, I got better), I was taught that every act that was not an explicit act of worship of Jesus Christ was by default furthering Satan's power in the world.

By this particularly odious philosophy, pretty much anything could be defined as "serving Satan".

Interesting. By that kind of thinking it would follow that all Satan wants is for you to live your own life, fulfill your own needs, and just be yourself. Since, you know, doing that is "serving Satan." Remind me why he's the evil guy then, while the sadist PHB is the all-loving goodness?

[arthwollipot]

Interesting. By that kind of thinking it would follow that all Satan wants is for you to live your own life, fulfill your own needs, and just be yourself. Since, you know, doing that is "serving Satan." Remind me why he's the evil guy then, while the sadist PHB is the all-loving goodness?You have nailed the essential absurdity of the position.

If I've read her right, Kurious_Kathy subscribes to this philosophy.

[Ethnikos]

Serve Satan?
...Wow, just wow. Forsaking Jesus throws you into the waiting arms of Satan.
What does a "nice christian person" look like exactly?
Someone who looks like they are not in the habit of being cruel to people.
I know another set of twins who had a similar type of thing happen to. I knew them when they were kids because they were my best friends cousins. They looked identical when they were young and diverged as they got older. My advice is if you have twins, do not name them something like Cain and Abel. In both sets of twins, there seemed to be a built-in indicator to how they would turn out, in their names. Trying to be cute by having some sort of little word game in a pair of names is not that smart.
He probably grew some horns and hooves, his eyes started glowing red, and he had a maniacal laughter, too. You just knew he was straying from the Light by looking at him. Like Smeagol turning into Gollum. Right? :newlolNot exactly. It was something that was quite striking when you saw them together.
I get your point, about looks though. Teb Bundy looked nice and fooled a lot of women.

[TimCallahan]

Forsaking Jesus throws you into the waiting arms of Satan.

Okay, this still leaves us with the same question: Does all wrong-doing amount to serving Satan, or do you mean something more specific by that phrase? I might also point out that your quote above could be used to cover those of us who are skeptical of your views. So, if I disagree with your conspiracy theories, am I "serving Satan"?

[Ethnikos]

Okay, this still leaves us with the same question: Does all wrong-doing amount to serving Satan, or do you mean something more specific by that phrase? I might also point out that your quote above could be used to cover those of us who are skeptical of your views. So, if I disagree with your conspiracy theories, am I "serving Satan"?In the case of the twin, who I brought up earlier, I meant a self serving life that has no regard for the feelings of others, except for how you can use them to get what you want. That is the philosophy of Satan, and if you live that way, according to the philosophy of Satan, you are serving the purposes of Satan. Satan wants the maximum amount of people to follow him, and thus have an argument against God, that he should not be punished, since everyone else is just like him.

[Foster Zygote]

When I attended church (AoG - don't worry, I got better), I was taught that every act that was not an explicit act of worship of Jesus Christ was by default furthering Satan's power in the world.

By this particularly odious philosophy, pretty much anything could be defined as "serving Satan".

[Reverend Lovejoy] Oh, just about everything is a sin. Have you ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not allowed to go to the bathroom.[/Reverend Lovejoy]

[Stacy Head]

Yup, but as was pointed out to me by a young lady in another thread, Pope Ben administratively did away with limbo a couple of years ago:





The Pope did away with limbo? What shall we do at parties when someone gets the limbo stick out?

[TimCallahan]

What you have today are 501c3 churches who have signed contracts with the government to trade tax breaks for a certain amount of government controls. Only people dealing with a large amount of donations would make a deal like that. They are compromised organizations. Why do you think the government is so corrupt? It is that the churches agree not to get involved with "politics" which the government interprets to mean you can not criticize criminal politicians.

So this is your view of the separation of church and state? Shame on you!