Implications of Original Sin

[SpuriusMaximus]

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 ◊◊◊◊ 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.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

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?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

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.

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 look Christian enough?
How about those guys? Or them?

Which one looks more like a "nice Christian person" to you, this clean, decent young man, or this filthy thuggish-looking man?

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?

 

[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.