Original Sin, the basis for Christianity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hubriss
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Hubriss

Guest
Christianity is based on the beliefs that there is a god and there is no god but God, and that she created everything (yeah I know, but if you think about it, any pronoun that can refer to God besides “it,” it would be she, not he), and that Christ was her son. The greatest thing that separates Christianity from every other religion is the belief that God manifested herself into a man on Earth who suffered and died for our sins.

Now, here’s my question. The whole reason for Jesus to come down and die for us is because of our sins, right? So, where did sin come from? You say that it came from Adam when he betrayed God and ate the fruit of knowledge, that he created us without sin, which would mean that if we were all born with sin after Adam then God created us as incapable of sinning, because a newborn baby has not and cannot commit any sinful acts (I’m not just saying Christians believe we were made incapable of sin, that’s just what I’ve heard priests and teachers say, and I think it might be in the Bible as well). But Adam did choose to sin, which means he was capable of sinning from the beginning. Which then means that God created us capable of sinning, capable of evil. It was not our “choice to turn from God” that made us evil. Christians say that the Fruit of Knowledge made us aware of evil and sinning. Which is not true, because Adam was already capable of sinning and disobeying God. Also, I think Everyone will agree that it would be more of a sin to not eat of the fruit of knowledge and remain ignorant, then it would be to eat and be able to experience the world we live in freely.

Also, Christians believe that God created us with the “gift” of free will. So, in other words, he doomed us to eat of the tree and do evil. If Adam could not eat the tree for fear of God, then that is not free will, he would then be forever stuck doing God’s will because he did not have the freedom to do anything else.

And, so the conclusion is that the Doctrine of Original Sin is baloney. God created us evil, we did not choose to be capable of evil, but if we did, then God did not make us with the gift of free will. So, since there is no original sin, then there was no point for Jesus to come down and die for us, and all the beliefs that Christianity are based upon are… pointless.

I know it might be hard to follow, I’m can get kind of scatter-brained, but I urge you all to think about this carefully, and state your opinion and arguments for/against please.
 
Change.

Sorry. I remember it isn’t that God created us incapable of sinning, rather god created us as Good, not evil. But if we are capable of evil, and are born with original sin, that doesn’t make sense.
 
Adam and Eve were created capable of Good and evil. they could have just as easily obeyed God as they could have disobeyed God. At the fall they lost the ability to choose good without the grace of God.
 
So what does that mean? Grace of God? We now have to wait till we die and go to heaven?

So Jesus was supposed to have given us the grace back when we died then right? What does grace do for us? How are we any different now than when we were then. Is grace like brownie points for when we die? Do they determine whether or not we can go to heaven?

BTW, I don’t think it says anything about grace in the story.
 
Christianity is based on the beliefs that there is a god and there is no god but God, and that she created everything (yeah I know, but** if you think about it, any pronoun that can refer to God besides “it,” it would be she, not he), and that Christ was her son. The greatest thing that separates Christianity from every other religion is the belief that God manifested herself into a man on Earth who suffered and died for our sins**.
Only if it were a species of some sort. God, of course, is not. God simply **is **and therefore is neither male nor female. The reason we refer to God in the masculine is because Jesus, His only begotten Son, instructed us to. He taught us to pray “Our Father, who art in heaven…” not “Our Mother, who art in heaven…”

**…and thus opened the gates of heaven to all souls…**don’t leave that part out. He didn’t die just to make up for our sins, He died so that the Orignal design could be fulfilled…that God’s creation, man, could live in eternity with God. When you look at the other religions, you’ll notice a big difference in what happens after death.
Now, here’s my question. The whole reason for Jesus to come down and die for us is because of our sins, right? So, where did sin come from?
Sin is an outcome of free will. The reason hell even exists is because of the archangel who was too proud to be considered second to man in God’s design and thus started a rebellion against Him. He had full knowledge of God’s design and of the consequences for refusing to accept that design yet chose to do so anyway, and so God cast him and those angels who followed him into Hell.
You say that it came from Adam when he betrayed God and ate the fruit of knowledge, that he created us without sin, which would mean that if we were all born with sin after Adam then God created us as incapable of sinning, because a newborn baby has not and cannot commit any sinful acts (I’m not just saying Christians believe we were made incapable of sin, that’s just what I’ve heard priests and teachers say, and I think it might be in the Bible as well).
First of all Adam was created in his full-grown state, as was Eve. They were not infants who grew into adults. Being created without sin is not the same as being created incapable of committing a sin. With free will comes the capability to make a wrong choice…which of course means there even exists a right and a wrong. When we choose the wrong path we sin. When we choose the right path we walk with God.

I have never read or heard any Catholic priest or teacher claim humans are incapable of sin, but infants, certainly. Sin requires knowledge of right and wrong. No infant has that and therefore is incapable of making any choice, let alone a right or wrong one.

Original Sin came from Eve and then Adam when they chose to eat of the fruit which was expressly forbidden. They exercised their gift of free will and as a result all of mankind was to share in the consequence of that wrong choice, just as all of mankind was to share in the consequence of making the right choice - had they not succumbed to the temptation of the devil.
But Adam did choose to sin, which means he was capable of sinning from the beginning. Which then means that God created us capable of sinning, capable of evil. It was not our “choice to turn from God” that made us evil. Christians say that the Fruit of Knowledge made us aware of evil and sinning. Which is not true, because Adam was already capable of sinning and disobeying God. Also, I think Everyone will agree that it would be more of a sin to not eat of the fruit of knowledge and remain ignorant, then it would be to eat and be able to experience the world we live in freely.
Again, Eve made the choice first, then led Adam to follow, but still Adam had the choice to make and he, too, chose erroneously.

Sin does not equal Evil. Sin is easy to fall prey to. Becoming evil takes a lot of work. Sin enough and evil can creep into one’s mind/heart, but no one is born evil.

As for remaining ignorant…I laugh at the suggestion. Adam and Eve knew complete bliss conversing with God, receiving His blessings and grace. They did not know hunger, pain, sorrow, envy, jealousy, death. THAT ignorance truly was bliss and they blew it for all of us. What eating of the tree resulted was in revealing to us the consequences of turning away from God. None of what was revealed has been pleasant, if you think about it. There was no shame in their nakedness before the Fall because they only saw the beauty of the human body as God’s handiwork. With ‘knowledge’ came lust and we struggle with that to this day.
 
Also, Christians believe that God created us with the “gift” of free will. So, in other words, he doomed us to eat of the tree and do evil. If Adam could not eat the tree for fear of God, then that is not free will, he would then be forever stuck doing God’s will because he did not have the freedom to do anything else.
The fear of God is not over His wrath as much as it is over the loss of his affection. Ask any person who was raised in a loving household if the spankings they recieved were worse than the look of disappointment in their parents’ eyes whenever they got caught disobeying one of their parents’ rules. THAT is the fear which drives us to use our free will to remain in God’s graces rather than to use our free will to disappoint Him and cause Him distress.

Without free will we could not choose to love God. We would be robots and thus we would not benefit from His love in return. He loves us so much He wants us to experience His love and so He gives us the gift of choosing to know and love Him. He didn’t give that gift to any other species on this planet or in the galaxies, so yes, it most certainly is a gift.
And, so the conclusion is that the Doctrine of Original Sin is baloney. God created us evil, we did not choose to be capable of evil, but if we did, then God did not make us with the gift of free will. So, since there is no original sin, then there was no point for Jesus to come down and die for us, and all the beliefs that Christianity are based upon are… pointless.

I know it might be hard to follow, I’m can get kind of scatter-brained, but I urge you all to think about this carefully, and state your opinion and arguments for/against please.
Not hard to follow at all.
Quite easy to dismiss, however, since the entire premise of your argument is false.
Nice try, though.
 
So what does that mean? Grace of God? We now have to wait till we die and go to heaven?
The grace of God is as close to His presence as man could get after the Fall but before Christ gave us His body, blood, soul and divinity to eat.

Adam and Eve were basking in God’s grace prior to the Fall. Life was perfect, just as God designed it. He loved them, they not only could comprehend and experience His love, but they were also able to experience returning His love. It really was Paradise, physically, spiritually and emotionally.

So long as Adam and Eve focused their energies and attention on God and each other, appreciating the gift of life He gave to them and for being able to share in His love through the act of marital relations thanks to the creation of Eve for Adam, they were unaware of the flip side of all those blessings.

Free will means there is always **a **choice…to do the right thing or the wrong thing. Up until they made the wrong choice they were protected from knowing about, let alone experiencing, wrong choices. But curiosity got to them and they wanted to know what was on the flip side of the coin.

Did they **need **to know it? No. Everything they needed for bliss they had. The only thing that fruit revealed was the negative side of life - including death.
So Jesus was supposed to have given us the grace back when we died then right?
Actually, God continued to shed His grace on those who continued to love Him and obey His laws. The old testament traces God’s saving grace on the line of David, from whom entrance into Heaven would be granted through Jesus. Jesus’ death **and **resurrection fulfilled the covenant between God and His chosen people, the Hebrews/Jews. From there Jesus (God) entered into a new covenant with mankind which includes every person born to this world.
 
What does grace do for us?
Grace strengthens, empowers, heals, reveals. It opens our souls, minds, hearts and bodies to God’s love. Through grace we come to know Him, and when we know Him we can’t help but love Him, and from that love comes our desire to serve Him - to do anything we can to please Him.
How are we any different now than when we were then.
From the Fall until Christ’s resurrection no soul was able to enter into Heaven to be in the presence of their creator, God.
Before Jesus’ death and resurrection grace was bestowed upon men and women through faith and instruments of God’s choosing (prophets, angels, miracles). Jesus left mankind with access to grace through the sacraments: baptism, where we are cleansed from the original sin of Adam and Eve and thus become brothers and sisters of Christ; reconciliation, where we continue to be cleansed from the sins we bring upon ourselves - not only are the sins forgiven, but we are given the grace to resist the temptation to make the same mistake again; the Eucharist, where we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus within our own physical bodies - it doesn’t get any more intimate and real than that; confirmation, where we receive the graces to become servants of God and soldiers for Christ; Marriage or Holy Orders, where a man and a woman enter into the vocation of marriage in order to bring more souls into the world so they can guide them to know, love and serve God or where men respond to God’s call for them to enter into the priesthood in order to deliver God’s graces through these very sacraments to all the people of the earth (it’s a big job); and through the rite of healing, where those who are at risk of death can receive the graces to be healed or if it is His will for them to join Him, to receive the grace which clears their souls of all sin so that they may join God soon after death.

The big difference being we have access to God’s graces just by turning to His Church, entering into it, and availing ourselves of the gifts of grace Jesus left for us. Of course, the old way of receiving God’s grace are still available to those outside the Catholic Church, through faith, works, love, charity and so on.
Is grace like brownie points for when we die? Do they determine whether or not we can go to heaven?
No, they are not brownie points.
No they do not determine whether or not we can go to heaven. Grace empowers us to do God’s will so that we can gain entrance into heaven.
Man, without grace, is weak against all the temptations of the world. With grace, we become strong and are able to face any challenge which comes before us.
The thing is every human being on this earth has God’s love.
We all feel it.
We all long for it whenever the feeling seems to go away.
We just don’t all recognize it is His LOVE which makes us whole.
Grace opens our minds, hearts, souls and bodies to come to know that Truth. That God is love.
 
I suppose I should note, here, that the summary I provided is based upon my understanding of Catholicism. I’m not theologian, and not a priest nor a nun, so by no means am I trying to speak officially about any of this. But I’m a cradle Roman Catholic who enjoys practicing the faith and learning about it’s rich history. I’m sure I put some of this stuff in too simplistic of terms but the gist is right, for the most part.
 
Sin is an outcome of free will. The reason hell even exists is because of the archangel who was too proud to be considered second to man in God’s design and thus started a rebellion against Him.
-YingYangMom

Right, sin is an outcome of free will, God created us with free will, so God created us capable of evil, and in some cases evil. But now, since God is all-knowing, he consciously knew he was creating evil. Evil was not born when Satan rebelled against God. It does not say God created Hell, then sent Satan and his demons there, it just said he cast him there, meaning that Hell had already existed.
First of all Adam was created in his full-grown state, as was Eve. They were not infants who grew into adults. Being created without sin is not the same as being created incapable of committing a sin. With free will comes the capability to make a wrong choice…which of course means there even exists a right and a wrong. When we choose the wrong path we sin. When we choose the right path we walk with God.
Okay, Adam not being born doesn’t matter. The point is that original sin had not existed. BUT, Adam did not really have free will since he did not have knowledge of the choice to do what he wanted, and yet he did when he Chose to eat the apple. It’s a contradiction. It is not the fault of man that we are sinful, it is the way God created us.
Original Sin came from Eve and then Adam when they chose to eat of the fruit which was expressly forbidden. They exercised their gift of free will and as a result all of mankind was to share in the consequence of that wrong choice, just as all of mankind was to share in the consequence of making the right choice - had they not succumbed to the temptation of the devil.
Okay, now keep what you just said there in mind.
Sin does not equal Evil.
What eating of the tree resulted was in revealing to us the consequences of turning away from God. None of what was revealed has been pleasant, if you think about it. There was no shame in their nakedness before the Fall because they only saw the beauty of the human body as God’s handiwork. With ‘knowledge’ came lust and we struggle with that to this day.
Ok, those contradict each other. You said that we were made aware of evil when Adam ate the fruit, but not sinning since you said they were different. You say then here that lust (pre-maridal sex, etc) is evil (since they were made aware after eating). So if lust is evil, then stealing, cheating, coveting, lying, killing, greed, etc would all reasonably be considered evil as well (sex is worse than none). So what sins does that leave us that is not evil? Disobeying? Could be, but that is minor. Worshipping false idols? They aren’t real so why does it matter? So sins are evil.
The fear of God is not over His wrath as much as it is over the loss of his affection. Ask any person who was raised in a loving household if the spankings they recieved were worse than the look of disappointment in their parents’ eyes whenever they got caught disobeying one of their parents’ rules. THAT is the fear which drives us to use our free will to remain in God’s graces rather than to use our free will to disappoint Him and cause Him distress.
That’s nice, but it doesn’t matter. Any fear works.
Without free will we could not choose to love God. We would be robots and thus we would not benefit from His love in return. He loves us so much He wants us to experience His love and so He gives us the gift of choosing to know and love Him. He didn’t give that gift to any other species on this planet or in the galaxies, so yes, it most certainly is a gift.
Right, so in order for free will to be, it was inevitable that we would choose sin. And God created us knowing this, so in effect, he did not make us “good,” but partly evil as well.
Quite easy to dismiss, however, since the entire premise of your argument is false.
Nice try, though.
Haha, ok, you can think what you want but you havn’t dismissed any of it.
 
Free will means there is always a choice…to do the right thing or the wrong thing. Up until they made the wrong choice they were protected from knowing about, let alone experiencing, wrong choices. But curiosity got to them and they wanted to know what was on the flip side of the coin.
Oh, they certainly knew about the wrong choice. God explicitely told it to Adam. And God knew that curiosity would get to them.
Did they need to know it? No. Everything they needed for bliss they had. The only thing that fruit revealed was the negative side of life - including death.
Yes! They did need to know it in order to have Free Will! Choice requires choices to choose from, which they did not have.
Grace strengthens, empowers, heals, reveals. It opens our souls, minds, hearts and bodies to God’s love. Through grace we come to know Him, and when we know Him we can’t help but love Him, and from that love comes our desire to serve Him - to do anything we can to please Him.
Okay, so in other words, nothing, it is a meaningless term. Because in order to get grace we must already love, serve, and please him, which you say grace gives us the ability to do. But if that is not the case, that would mean that God bestows grace on each of us randomly or when we were born, and we can’t change the “amount” we have.

Again, you’ve dismissed nothing
 
Yes! They did need to know it in order to have Free Will! Choice requires choices to choose from, which they did not have.
They did have a choice. The choice to obey or not to obey. They were created with both abilities. The fact that God knows the future doesn’t mean he caused their disobedience. He ALLOWED it. look at it this way:
  1. God planned beings with free-will
  2. God knew they would disobey
  3. This leaves God with a choice, Don’t create them at all, Create them but remove all choices so they can never make a mistake (this will also ruin much of their value), Create them and let them screw up and then let them suffer forever because they screwed up, or create them anyhow and also plan a way for them to redeem their bad choices.
God chose the last one. You can be mad at Him for not choosing the first one I suppose, but what good would it do?
Okay, so in other words, nothing, it is a meaningless term. Because in order to get grace we must already love, serve, and please him, which you say grace gives us the ability to do. But if that is not the case, that would mean that God bestows grace on each of us randomly or when we were born, and we can’t change the “amount” we have.

Again, you’ve dismissed nothing
Everyone is offered enough of God’s Grace to Choose Him in the first place. Otherwise it wouldn’t be Grace. It is part of His plan to redeem us.
 
They did have a choice. The choice to obey or not to obey. They were created with both abilities. The fact that God knows the future doesn’t mean he caused their disobedience. He ALLOWED it. look at it this way:
So it’s either one. Either we don’t have free will, or God created us part evil, or it could be both I guess. He did cause their disobedience becaus he IS God, The Creator. He knew if he created us this way, we would “disobey.”
  1. God planned beings with free-will
  2. God knew they would disobey
  3. This leaves God with a choice, Don’t create them at all, Create them but remove all choices so they can never make a mistake (this will also ruin much of their value), Create them and let them screw up and then let them suffer forever because they screwed up, or create them anyhow and also plan a way for them to redeem their bad choices.
God chose the last one. You can be mad at Him for not choosing the first one I suppose, but what good would it do?
So are you saying that we don’t have free will? That is a necessary conclusion you must make. Are you going to convert to Calvanism now? It doesn’t matter to me, I’d just like to know.

So, now the question is, why would God condemn most of us to eternal suffering? He created us to “sin” because it is our very nature to, which he created, and yet he punishes us for mistakes we make. An example would be sex. Catholics belieave God wants sex to be only in marriage, and that lust and premaridal sex is sinful etc. And yet, we physically and mentally want sex, it gives us pleasure. We are stimulated by the opposite sex through our reproductive organs. But, we do not need sex to be pleasureful in order for life to survive. All but a few animals take no pleasure in reproduction whatsoever, it is their instincts to know that it is necessary to reproduce. So, either God is purposely trying to trap us, or sex outside of marriage is not a sin or against his will.

The whole point of this “logical exercise” is to show how illogical the idea of sin or original sin and hell is. They are just man made concepts used to create an orderly society. I should have made that my thesis in my original post… I’m not good at thesis(es?).

And if there is no such thing as “original sin,” then what was Jesus’s purpose? Was he really our savior or was he just trying to reform the minds of the Jewish people?
 
So it’s either one. Either we don’t have free will, or God created us part evil, or it could be both I guess. He did cause their disobedience becaus he IS God, The Creator. He knew if he created us this way, we would “disobey.”

So are you saying that we don’t have free will? That is a necessary conclusion you must make. Are you going to convert to Calvanism now? It doesn’t matter to me, I’d just like to know.

So, now the question is, why would God condemn most of us to eternal suffering? He created us to “sin” because it is our very nature to, which he created, and yet he punishes us for mistakes we make. An example would be sex. Catholics belieave God wants sex to be only in marriage, and that lust and premaridal sex is sinful etc. And yet, we physically and mentally want sex, it gives us pleasure. We are stimulated by the opposite sex through our reproductive organs. But, we do not need sex to be pleasureful in order for life to survive. All but a few animals take no pleasure in reproduction whatsoever, it is their instincts to know that it is necessary to reproduce. So, either God is purposely trying to trap us, or sex outside of marriage is not a sin or against his will.

The whole point of this “logical exercise” is to show how illogical the idea of sin or original sin and hell is. They are just man made concepts used to create an orderly society. I should have made that my thesis in my original post… I’m not good at thesis(es?).

And if there is no such thing as “original sin,” then what was Jesus’s purpose? Was he really our savior or was he just trying to reform the minds of the Jewish people?
**
Jesus Christ, the Son of God taught more about hell than he did heaven. He loves us so much that He warned us over and over again that a place called hell does exist

Jesus does not want anyone to go to this horrible place of endless torment and everlasting fire that is never quenched. Yet each day, people go there after death because they refuse to accept God’s free gift to mankind.

Hell, is not a man-made concept, and you decide if you go there or not by your own choices…

Free will is a grace given to us by God, we choose to do evil or to obey Gods laws and commandments…

God does not allow evil but he permits it so he may judge us accordingly. If he created us all to be perfect robots, what would be the meaning and purpose of us being here.?

What is our purpose and meaning for being here anyway, so we all just get along and for what reason.???

God asks us to obey him so we may have eternal life in Heaven with him, however if we deny him or do not abide in him , then there is Hell…

Jan**
 
Yet each day, people go there after death because they refuse to accept God’s free gift to mankind.
Oh, but we do accept it, every day and in every way. His gift would be life, and we live it every day. If we “accept” the “gift of grace,” we refuse some other gifts to us. We are driven by our mind and bodies. The only way we can “refuse” a gift, would be to destroy or damage other life.
God does not allow evil but he permits it so he may judge us accordingly.
Allow and Permit are exact synonyms.
What is our purpose and meaning for being here anyway, so we all just get along and for what reason.???
Ultimately no reason.
 
**
Oh, but we do accept it, every day and in every way. His gift would be life, and we live it every day. If we “accept” the “gift of grace,” we refuse some other gifts to us. We are driven by our mind and bodies. The only way we can “refuse” a gift, would be to destroy or damage other life.

Allow and Permit are exact synonyms.

Ultimately no reason.
In other words I dont know would be acceptable for you as to the reasons of why we are here,rather than the Christian understanding.

First of all, it is possible that God has reasons for allowing evil to exist that we simply cannot understand. In this the Christian can have confidence in God knowing that His ways are above our ways.

Second, God may be letting evil run its course in order to prove that evil is evil and that suffering, which is the unfortunate product of evil, is further proof that anything contrary to God’s will is bad, harmful, painful, and leads to death.

Sin is rebellion against God ,. God works within the fallen world to affect change and He uses fallen people to accomplish His will. In this, He is proving His sovereignty over evil, suffering, and rebellious people, proving that sin and evil are utterly futile, and that He is worthy of honor and glory.

God is letting evil occur is so that on the day of judgment, the condemned will have no right to say that their sentence is unjust. God is not stopping people from exercising their free will

If someone said that God should stop evil and suffering, then should God then stop all evil and suffering? If God only stopped some of it, then we would still be asking the same question of why it exists. So, if we want God to stop evil and suffering, then He must stop all of it.

Evil is evil whether it is acted out or not. Hatred and bigotry in someone’s heart is wrong. If it is wrong, and if God is to stop all evil, then He must stop that person from thinking his own thoughts. To do that, God must remove his freedom of thought.

AngelJan**
 
Christianity is based on the beliefs that there is a god and there is no god but God, and that she created everything (yeah I know, but if you think about it, any pronoun that can refer to God besides “it,” it would be she, not he)…

And, so the conclusion is that the Doctrine of Original Sin is baloney. God created us evil…
:rotfl:

– Mark L. Chance.
 
Ultimately no reason.
Why is it that there are atheists who believe that all of life is purposeless and meaningless, yet they seem to have found meaning in communicating this to anyone who doesn’t agree?

For a christian, or a muslim, or heck, even a scientologist, it’s different. They believe they have the truth - that there is, in fact, a truth - and that’s it’s vital to share it with everyone, for everyone’s best interests. For an atheist? There’s no meaning whatsoever, other than ‘forced subjective meaning’.

In other words… atheists who proclaim that there is no meaning to life, the universe, existence, or morality… undermine their case the moment they start to proclaim and argue.
40.png
Hubriss:
Also, I think Everyone will agree that it would be more of a sin to not eat of the fruit of knowledge and remain ignorant, then it would be to eat and be able to experience the world we live in freely.
Why should anyone agree with that?
 
Why is it that there are atheists who believe that all of life is purposeless and meaningless, yet they seem to have found meaning in communicating this to anyone who doesn’t agree?

For a christian, or a muslim, or heck, even a scientologist, it’s different. They believe they have the truth - that there is, in fact, a truth - and that’s it’s vital to share it with everyone, for everyone’s best interests. For an atheist? There’s no meaning whatsoever, other than ‘forced subjective meaning’.

In other words… atheists who proclaim that there is no meaning to life, the universe, existence, or morality… undermine their case the moment they start to proclaim and argue.

Why should anyone agree with that?
**
Well said.!

AngelJan**
 
**

Hi Null,

Well said.!

**However all of the above mentioned Religions believe in a Deity, (God or divine Creator.)

It seems more logical to believe in a God than not.

There is a meaning and purpose for why we are here,to suggest there is none is just not acceptable.****

AngelJan (now sara888)

AngelJan
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top