I never said that I wish harm on anyone

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

Wow, I don't think you could be more wrong.  I went to Catholic school through a Jesuit HS, and we spend a lot of time on that.  The (mandatory, five days a week) religion class for my junior/senior year in HS was comparative religions, junior year on all the other religions, senior year, on just the differences in Christianity, with the major sections taught with someone who really believed in their faith, be it high protestant, low protestant or Unitarianism.  Though the Unitarian guy was pretty vague, I'm still not sure exactly what he believed, I don't think he knew either.

Hell, it wasn't until I got to college that I even heard the term Reformation, up to that point it was simply taught as The Great Schism.  But we had to read Calvin (yeesh, what a prig), Knox, Zwingli (I kinda liked him), Waldo, Wycliffe and Simons, who I really liked.  And we read the major American like Wesley, Whitefield, and Edwards with that wonderfully optimistic god is love sermon: Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.^*  We also spent time on people like Aimee Semple McPherson, but only because I think the priest had some sort of fetish for her.

And, of course, being Jesuits, we went through every single motherf-ing one of Luther's talking points in his Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum (95 Theses) in frickin Latin, so we could disprove him chapter and verse - or bullet point by bullet point, which is closer to the deal.

But of course the Catholics only run about 200 colleges and universities in the US, so they might not know much about education.  I know that my Ignatian education stressed:
-- Rationality and the use of evidence, consistency, making valid argumentation, and systematic avoidance of omissions, the last two tend to be pretty common failings outside of the Jesuit system.  They were so damn good at this that a solid 30% had given up the church faith for a more rational belief system before we were out of high school.
-- The existence of God
-- What the ultimate goals for humans should be
-  The highest end/ends/tasks/duties/obligations of the polis (community), or society
-- The right means for pursuing the goals humans and the common good were striving to achive (i.e., ethics, or more basically, the end never justifies the means).

And in Jesuit tradition explicitly, but in Catholic tradition in general, knowing and/or understanding was pretty much worthless without the ability to articulate and defend those thoughts/values/ideas/notions.  That, at a basic level, compelled us to study not only what was true and right (Catholic thinkers) but also the people who got it dead wrong, i.e. Protestants.

And, for the record, though I don't believe the basic Catholic teachings, I think that they veer much closer to some reality because quite frankly the Protestant take on sola scriptura and sola fide is total bull->-bleeped-<-.



* - Complete text at below, lets just say Edwards was not a very happy person - but it's a classic.
http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yMTo0Ny53amVv

Quote from: Laura Hope on May 19, 2010, 08:53:07 PM

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

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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?

Religion created sin and clearly defines it. I do not believe in any god and think the bible is pure fiction. So, to me sin as defined in the bible doesn't exist. Now, you may say oh but your are a sinner. But to be honest, that is only your perception of reality.

Murder is defined by non-fictional people.

Basically religious people can throw around the word sin or sinner all they want but that doesn't make the source any less fictional for people who do not believe in a god.

The problem with sin is that the concept is ussed by one person or group to accuse or condem anouther person or group bassed on some vague ideas.
But by who's measuring stick do we say someone is a sinner. Also there is such a thing as mitigating and extenuating circumstances which can make an action a sin for one person but justified by anouther. The assassin who is a sniper is hated yet the soldier is blessed.
I do believe that sin is real. But sin is in your heart, it is a feeling. It should never be defined or assigned by a third party. Only we know if we are sinners. And I do not believe that 'God/s' count our sins and hold them against us. I am pretty sure that our sins are counted by ourselves and are the measuring stick by which we measure our souls growth. We hold sin against ourselves, god/s could care less.

Quote from: Laura Hope on May 19, 2010, 08:53:07 PM
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.

Actually, I cut it short, since the longer name of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is just excessive to type out repeatedly in one post, So tree of knowledge it became.

"they had no concept of what it was to do wrong" Is my point.
Without a concept of what it was to do wrong, how can they do wrong?
"the sin was NOT eating the fruit in and of itself, but disobedience" But they did not know that disobedience was wrong.

Personal opinions:

- The devil, or whatever evil faction one believes in, does not exist.  All our wrongdoings originate from our individual minds.  There is no outside force "tempting us to do evil".  That's just a cop out (avoiding responsibility) for people who feel guilty for something they did they knew was wrong.  Everyone knows this, few admit it.

- The bible was originally written as a history book.  Many of the historical accounts in the bible were written decades and even centuries after the incident.  Word of mouth and scientific ignorance turned real events into fictional accounts.  But events, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomor'rah, did actually happen.  It just wasn't god being mad at its citizens that caused it.  A lot of exaggeration, filling in the blanks, using a supreme being to explain what the lack of science couldn't, all went into the writings.  Along the way, people turned this history book into a religious book.  Same with the other "holy books".

- Religion is a business, first and foremost.  As in politics, they use fear of the unknown to motivate their followers and maintain their leadership - and keep the money rolling in.

- Most people are "in religion" for themselves.  The reasons range from saving their own souls from damnation to living the high life by saving others souls.

Yes, he's a real preacher/evangelist.

- Religion is abused by most of its followers, sometimes to do some of the most horrific acts ever conceived by mankind.

- If you're looking for false prophets, take a close look at the religious people closest to you, the ones who broadcast themselves, the ones who campaign against human rights and the ones who pass judgment and encourage others do do the same.  Also be leery of anyone who points the finger at someone else as being evil.  They are likely trying to keep the focus off themselves while they are robbing the store or having a tryst with rentboy. 

- Some religious people and some religious institutions perform a positive service for people and the community.

okay let me get this straight...

Once upon a time, Male God created MAN in His own image, complete with these nifty nipples which served no practical purpose but they looked really nice and balanced the belly button. This went okay for a while, but Male God observed that MAN began to gaze wistfully at the sheeps. So almost as an afterthought, Male God gave MAN this pretty little plaything which He called "Woman" (where He finally figured out something to do with those nipple thingies), and told MAN he'd better take care of his toys or mark Male God's words, there would be trouble.

Later on, much to Male God's chagrin, He discovered that while it was easy enough to keep MAN in line and doing as he was told by keeping him ignorant (which we all know is bliss, right?), that pesky woman took the attitude of screw this, I'mma think for myself. I'm sure she reasoned if she was going to have to bear and raise children all on her own, a little Knowledge might come in handy and it wasn't like MAN was using it or anything. And so the concept of Original Sin was created, and of course it was all that beguiling woman's fault.

The only "lesson" I can see to be gleaned from this story is that women are nothing but trouble, and with that big black blot on her permanent record of having brought about the downfall of the entire species (because, wow, did that uppity woman ever get Male God in a snit), the best thing a woman can do to make up for it now is to clean the house, cook the meals, have the babies, and hope like hell her husband doesn't beat her for screwing that up, too.

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Eve was framed.

Fairygirl, that was funny!

Thought I would throw this in for those that haven't seen it.

Betty Bowers (America's Best Christian) explains what a bible based marriage is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw&feature=player_embedded#

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Eve was framed

Heh  Good one Chloe 

Always get a kick out of Betty Bowers also