Quote from: Laura91 on May 18, 2010, 09:27:30 AM
The concept of "original sin" is completely idiotic and it amazes me that some people actually believe it.

With respect, that is because of the mistaken notion that original sin is sex.

Original sin is defiance.

The allegory being that Adam and Eve were instructed not to eat the fruit of one tree but did so anyway.

The example of Jesus was that, even though He knew he was to suffer death by crucification, he accepted it as the will of God.

Jesus didn't die for our sins, He died because of them.

I can agree that most have sined. If we define sin as doing something intrinsicaly evil. Because if it isn't evil then how could it be a sin?  However I refuse to accept the flawed unsubstantiated, unproven and vicious lie that all have sined.
That is an opinion posited by an anchient philosopher who way too many people took seriously.
Besides by who's measuring stick do we even dare say the words 'you have sinned'?

I understand you have a faith in God. But when you say all are sinners and subject to 'gods laws' you are apropriating my soul and my life and the souls and lives of many people who do not believe this. That statement is at its core an acusation and conviction in a bold and sweeping statement. That is not cool or acceptable. Please refrain from casting your acusations of sin in my direction.

That is one of the vicious realities of religion that completely expose all of the Abramaic religions as farce and an evil perpetuated to maintain the power of the rulling classes.

The message is corupted, probably on the day of its inception.

The only salvation for our souls is directly through our own actions and beliefs not via a savior. That just affords to much room for abuse of power.

Quote from: cynthialee on May 18, 2010, 11:01:53 AM
I can agree that most have sined. If we define sin as doing something intrinsicaly evil. Because if it isn't evil then how could it be a sin?  However I refuse to accept the flawed unsubstantiated, unproven and vicious lie that all have sined.
That is an opinion posited by an anchient philosopher who way too many people took seriously.
Besides by who's measuring stick do we even dare say the words 'you have sinned'?

I understand you have a faith in God. But when you say all are sinners and subject to 'gods laws' you are apropriating my soul and my life and the souls and lives of many people who do not believe this. That statement is at its core an acusation and conviction in a bold and sweeping statement. That is not cool or acceptable. Please refrain from casting your acusations of sin in my direction.

That is one of the vicious realities of religion that completely expose all of the Abramaic religions as farce and an evil perpetuated to maintain the power of the rulling classes.

The message is corupted, probably on the day of its inception.

The only salvation for our souls is directly through our own actions and beliefs not via a savior. That just affords to much room for abuse of power.

This whole post is internally self-contradictory.

Now, I live in a country that's largely Protestant, so I don't know if I understand "original sin" right.
I've heard two explanations for it.
One is that since we are born of sex, and sex is a sin, we are born of sin. This seems absolutely ridiculous to me due to the whole "be fruitful" thing.

The other explanation is that we are born with the lingering taint of the first sin of man, that is, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. (Though, technically Eve wasn't Eve at the time, depending on which part/version of the bible you're reading.)
Now in this context there are two things that come to mind.
There's the one within the religion which goes; Didn't Jesus take care of that by dying?
The other is from a non-christian, even non-religious standpoint, and goes; Well hold on there. You mean that we are sinners simply because we know the difference between right and wrong? You mean that seeking knowledge and understanding is somehow wrong?

And the whole "tree of knowledge" story bothers me.
How can a person with no knowledge of what is right and what is wrong be blamed for doing something wrong? They didn't have any way of knowing it was the wrong thing to do without doing it.
It seems to me like putting a bowl of candies before a 2 year old, drawing it's attention to it and going "now, don't eat the candy" and then leaving the room for an hour.
-.-

Sorry, off topic I'm sure.. just came to mind and willed it's way out.

As I said the Orthodox don't have the concept to any meaningful degree that the Western Churches do. 
As far as I understand it "Sin" is taken to mean death.
So it would be fair to say that once humans evolved socially to the point where they became aware of their own mortality, then the concept of death entered our consciousness. 
If there are any members of the Orthodox Churches on this site I would be interested to see what they think.

I am not a sinner.

I stand by what I posted.

Early on in my catholic upbringing I learned that if you don't think it's a sin, it isn't.  You have to believe something is a sin then do it anyway.  I reasoned away so many things I was told were sins as not being sins that I almost never sinned.  When I went to confession I had to lie to the priest about the sins I committed because, based on what I was taught, I rarely sinned.  Since I knew the priest wouldn't believe me that I hadn't sinned, I made up sins like lying to my parents.

Then after I left confession, I had to go back and confess lying to the priest, which I KNEW (at least then) was a sin. 

This is really the perfect out.  Rekers could have said, "I had no idea getting a naked rubdown from gay male escort was a sin.  Now that I know, I'll make a note not to do that again."  Problem solved.

As for original sin - nothing I was taught got you out of that one unless you were baptized catholic. Since I was baptized long before learning about original sin, there was no need to search for a loophole.

Maybe I should apply for a PR job with fallen christians.  I'll make their sins go away in a hurry.  All they have to do is make a small donation. 

My belief says water baptism only gets you wet.

Quote from: Laura91 on May 18, 2010, 11:05:47 AM
Just so you know, I'm not religious. In my brutally honest opinion, I find it to be absolute garbage regardless of what brand you choose to follow. If people want to follow that stuff then that's fine. Everyone has the right to do what they want, but don't expect me to believe in your little fairytales.

You can and should hold whatever views you wish.

I was simply pointing out what the Gospels  themselves say and imply about original sin.

In much the same way as if i were to point out what Hindu scripture says about reincarnation, or Islamic scripture says about rehabilitation of criminals.

It may be garbage to you, but that, with respect, is irrelevant. The issue isn't whether it is garbage or not, the issue is what the texts say.

Original sin, like so many of the concepts in Christianity, have been misinterperted and corrupted so often and so variably over the centuaries that some clarification seemed appropriate.

Like many I recall being told, when I was young, that original sin was sex. I'm simply pointing out that, according to the texts, it is not sex, but defiance.

Let's see. Uh, it was on an island. And there was this snake.
And the snake had legs. And he could walk all around the island.
Yes. That's true. A snake with legs.
And the man and the woman were on the island too.
And they were not very smart.
But they were happy as clams. Yes.
Let's see. Uh...then one evening the snake was walking about
in the garden and he was talking to himself and he saw the woman
and they started to talk. And they became friends.
Very good friends.
And the woman liked the snake very much. Because when he
talked, he make little  noises with his tongue, and his long tongue
was lightly licking about his lips.
Like there was a fire inside his mouth and the flame
would come dancing out of his mouth.
And this woman liked this very much.
And after that, she was bored with the man.
Because no matter what happened,
he was always as happy as a clam.
What did the snake say? Yes! What was he saying?
OK. I will tell you.
The snake told her things about the world. He told her about
the time there was a big typhoon on the island
and all the sharks came out of the water. Yes.
They came out of the water and they walked right into your house
with their big white teeth.
And the woman heard these things. And she was in love.
And the man came out and said: We have to go now!
And the woman did not want to go. Because she was a hothead.
Because she was a woman in love.
Anyway, we got into their boat and left the island.
But they never stayed anywhere very long.
Because the woman was restless. She was a hothead.
She was a woman in love.
And this is not a story people tell.
It is something I know myself.
And when I do my job, I am thinking about these things.
Because when I do my job, that is what I think about.


Laurie Anderson, Langue D`amour, from Mister Heartbreak, 1984

It's just an allegory tekla and has been recognised as such by the Church since earliest times.

It's only the US fundies who have reinvented almost everything, including the notion that the Adam and Eve story was anything other than an alegory.

Atheism is SO much easier and WAY less complicated!

One of my favorite "Folk Songs" puts it this way, which makes sense to me!!

"Young folks, old folks, everybody come!
Join the Deacon's Sunday School and make yourself at home.
Please to park your chewin' gum and razors at the door
And you'll hear some Bible stories like you never heard before!

God made Satan, Satan made sin
God made a hot place to keep Satan in
Satan didn't like it so he said he wouldn't stay
He's been acting like the devil ever since that day
.................

Adam was the first man that ever was invented
He lived all his life and never was contented
He was made of clay in the days gone by
And hung on a fence in the sun to dry

Along came Eve a pretty little thing
Caught ol' Adams eye and got huge diamond ring
She asked him in for dinner with a wink so sly
And then she served him up a big apple pie

The very next morning they went out pickin' fruit
But when Ol' God saw what they'd et' he gave them both the boot!"
.................................

As far as the politicians go, they actually have a role model that they try to ignore. Old Saul, aka Paul in later years, had the same attitude toward the early Christians that they have about gays.  The Book Of Acts says it got him blinded and knocked off a horse (by God), and as a result was "outed" as a closet Christian, and once out, became a worse problem for the Christians years later, like today even, by making a public show of it.  You will also notice that Paul has a lot of MALE companions (Timothy, Silas etc) but they never mention the female ones in the Canonical bible books, and the apochryphal book that has a female disciple of Paul in it (Thecla) has her as hating sex with men!!

Yes I have rephrased some of the ways the stuff comes out, but what the heck!

This forum is first I heard of sex being called the original sin. Disobedience is the way I learned it.

Well, no matter how you look at it, I think Flip Wilson had it right -

"The Devil made me do it!"

If we can argue the fact that there is no sin/rebellion in the world then where does our intrinsic values of right and wrong come from? Even a little baby will go blue in the face and scream because they want something that the parent knows is bad for them and most often than not the first word they know or say is not mum or dad but NO!

Stardust

most often than not the first word they know or say is not mum or dad but NO

Poor choice as that is 100% nurture, not nature.  The reason that's their first word, is that's the word they hear the most.

Quote from: Miniar on May 19, 2010, 04:25:26 AM
Now, I live in a country that's largely Protestant, so I don't know if I understand "original sin" right.
I've heard two explanations for it.
One is that since we are born of sex, and sex is a sin, we are born of sin. This seems absolutely ridiculous to me due to the whole "be fruitful" thing.

The other explanation is that we are born with the lingering taint of the first sin of man, that is, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. (Though, technically Eve wasn't Eve at the time, depending on which part/version of the bible you're reading.)
Now in this context there are two things that come to mind.
There's the one within the religion which goes; Didn't Jesus take care of that by dying?
The other is from a non-christian, even non-religious standpoint, and goes; Well hold on there. You mean that we are sinners simply because we know the difference between right and wrong? You mean that seeking knowledge and understanding is somehow wrong?

And the whole "tree of knowledge" story bothers me.
How can a person with no knowledge of what is right and what is wrong be blamed for doing something wrong? They didn't have any way of knowing it was the wrong thing to do without doing it.
It seems to me like putting a bowl of candies before a 2 year old, drawing it's attention to it and going "now, don't eat the candy" and then leaving the room for an hour.
-.-

Sorry, off topic I'm sure.. just came to mind and willed it's way out.

your confusion comes from one important distinction - it's not "The Tree of Knowledge", it's ""The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil"

which is to say, before the original sin, they had no concept of what it was to do wrong, or evil more specifically since one could, for instance, walk in the wrong direction to get home and it wouldn't be evil.

Now, understand, I consider the value of Genesis to be the lesson taught - I'm not arguing here that there was a literal Adam and Eve who ate a literal fruit.

Anyway, the sin was NOT eating the fruit in and of itself, but disobedience. More specifically, defiance. The original sin, then, is to suppose that one knows better than God.

Which works well as a root cause for all other sin.

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Post Merge: May 19, 2010, 07:58:49 PM

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Quote from: Dana Lane on May 19, 2010, 08:32:19 AM
I am not a sinner.

that opens up a world of potential avenues of discussion.

Do you say that because you reject the concept of sin itself?

If so, then how do you describe murder?

If you say "evil" then what distinguishes evil from sin?

If you do not reject the concept of sin, then how do you define it?

If sin exists, then what defines when an act is bad enough to be actual sin instead of simply "wrong"? Who sets that definition?

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Post Merge: May 19, 2010, 09:03:42 PM

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One should note for reference that there are at least three masjor "spins" on Christian doctrine (and innumerable subdivisions among those)

1. Catholicism/Orthodox

2. Protestant/Evangelical - not at all the same as the above

3. Literalist/Fundamentalist - relatively recent and a major offshoot from #2 above.

If one was raised Catholic (whether or not they are now Catholic) one is likely to have little familiarity with other interpretations. And so forth.

Things that get under my skin...

Murderers
Thieves
Pediphiles
Phony baloney religious folks

They all kill the spirit of someone