Implications of Original 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

 

[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

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

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 damned

Original 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 ?

 

[arthwollipot]

yup, do you have a sense of humour ?

I do, 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 ?

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.