Born Sinners

[Berzerker]

Is a baby really a sinner or does the phrase refer to people who've been around long enough to obtain a sense of right and wrong and fail at doing right? I cant imagine anybody living a decade or more avoiding sin much less several decades, but I'd guess if they did they'd qualify for sainthood in my book.

If we are born sinners then we are destined to sin, and that calls into question the design giving rise to that destiny - if we cannot avoid sin then are we culpable?

Another intriguing aspect of this notion is the implied evolution, Adam and Eve were "innocent", unaware of good and evil... They were naked an unashamed. Before making Eve God even paraded the animals by the Adam in search of a "helpmate" - none was found.

This leaves us with a paradox, if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil led to us acquiring morality and immorality which we lacked beforehand, how can we be blamed for our "fall" from grace? We didn't know right and wrong until partaking of the tree, thats when Adam and Eve realized they did something wrong - assuming of course disobeying God is a sin.

So God sent his one and only son to die a horrible death to redeem us born sinners? I dont get it... God engaged in "human" sacrifice because we're the sinners in need of redemption? God made us! How do we give God a pass when he is the source of our existence?

Maybe life would be boring without sin...

If you were God would you be more impressed by the saint who doesn't sin but never faces serious temptation or the sinner who fights against their nature and rejects sin?

Sexual desire is hardwired, if we lust in our hearts (like Jimmy Carter) we have committed adultery according to Jesus. The person who doesn't have lust in their heart has not faced the temptation. If homosexuality is not a sin but the act is, the heterosexual hasn't dealt with that temptation. The same would be true for the pedophile who resists having sex with children.

Can those who commit adultery, homosexuality or pedophilism in their hearts qualify as saints?
If the first is a sin aren't the other two even if people guilty of all three resist their nature? I admit it, I see an attractive woman and I feel lust. How do I avoid that feeling without tearing my eyes out? Even if I did that my mind could and would still imagine an attractive woman, I'm doomed regardless.

According to the Bible the sons of God came down and saw the daughters of man, were enamored (lust) and took them as wives. Apparently that was not beastiality but wouldn't that suggest not even God's own "blood" is immune to sin?

The only way to remain innocent is to never acquire the knowledge of good and evil, yet even animals appear to have their own ethical codes. A member of the clan might be killed or banished should they act far outside the code... Yet we typically dont ascribe "sin" to animals, just us.

One more thing, if God had his way we'd still be naked and ignorant of right and wrong. Is that really desirable? Maybe, but it was the Serpent who gave us morality and it was God who wanted to keep us unenlightened and in servitude.

 

[Lexicus]

Sin=taking a debt against the universe (represented in human form by God).

Human life itself is a debt against the universe, meaning that all humans are sinners by default.

 

[W|M]

Human life itself is a debt against the universe, meaning that all humans are sinners by default.

Humans are all sinners --> Adam and Eve were sinners --> Adam and Eve were sinners yet non-sinners --> Checkmate, creationists

 

[Lexicus]

Well the Adam and Eve story is just kind of meant to demonstrate that. I think if you study the world religions, particularly the older religions (Zoroastrianism, Second Temple Judaism) from which Christianity directly descends, you will see the establishment of a philosophical framework in which relations between humans and the cosmos (again personified by Gods, spirits, what have you) are explained in commercial metaphor. Thus human life is the debt, sacrifice in various forms is the interest, and death is repayment. The devil and the angels each have their ledgers. Thou art weighed in the balance, and thou art found wanting - it's a metaphor clearly taken from the marketplace, where coins frequently had to be weighed to establish they were of the proper metallic composition.

That, I think, is the best way to look at sin. The words for sin and debt are the same in most of the languages important to Biblical history. It makes perfect sense because the historical context from which these religions emerged saw societies literally torn apart by debt slavery. It's likely that the Biblical Hebrews, rather than being a distinct ethnic group per se, were simply debt refugees from surrounding societies (Egypt, Mesopotamia).

Getting toward where Jesus comes into this, one should read Nietzsche for a pretty clear picture. The debt entailed in human life becomes so large, so impossible to pay back, that the sacrifice of God himself (embodied in His only son through the trinity, somehow) is the only thing that can possibly redeem it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Born sinner is like born wizard in Harry Potter.

 

[civvver]

Are you actually interested in a theological response or is this just an anti christian rant about the incongruities of religion?

 

[Berzerker]

correction, one of several I imagine: God's sons took human wives but it doesn't say these sons and women were already married

 

[CivCube]

Born sinner is like born wizard in Harry Potter.

Hermione's a half-sinner.

 

[Kyriakos]

The 'primordial sin' concept is imo one of the most destructive effects judaism had. It really is a dreadful concept. While men can die/suffer very easily in other mythologies (eg ancient greek), there isn't any sense of "you died/suffered cause you were guilty, otherwise you would be ok cause i love you".
Then again, sometimes the judaic god kills a family just to test someone, eg Job. It's all good, though, he then can make a new family and his friends mocked him and die due to it

 

[El_Machinae]

It's a mistake to draw too heavily upon Genesis. Remember, Scripture in the Jewish tradition is trying to figure things out, it's not answers.

"Born a sinner" is simple; it's impossible to live a perfectly moral life. It just cannot be done. You also cannot draw a perfect circle.

We all die with debt. Some debt we bear because we failed to abrogate it. Some debt you bear because you were never able to abrogate it. The moral compass is still easy. Don't create debt if you can help it. Abrogate your old debt as you're able.

Christianity and Judeaism allow you to abrogate your debt against God, by their internal mechanisms. You still have debt towards others. Some can never be abrogated. Some can. Whether or not you're forgiven by those who you trespassed against is up to them, not you. If they forgive you without your attempting abrogation, that's good for them. If they fail to forgive you after you've sought forgiveness, that's on them.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's a mistake to draw too heavily upon Genesis. Remember, Scripture in the Jewish tradition is trying to figure things out, it's not answers.

"Born a sinner" is simple; it's impossible to live a perfectly moral life. It just cannot be done. You also cannot draw a perfect circle.

We all die with debt. Some debt we bear because we failed to abrogate it. Some debt you bear because you were never able to abrogate it. The moral compass is still easy. Don't create debt if you can help it. Abrogate your old debt as you're able.

Christianity and Judeaism allow you to abrogate your debt against God, by their internal mechanisms. You still have debt towards others. Some can never be abrogated. Some can. Whether or not you're forgiven by those who you trespassed against is up to them, not you. If they forgive you without your attempting abrogation, that's good for them. If they fail to forgive you after you've sought forgiveness, that's on them.

In Genesis the reason for future people being born sinners is specific: they pay for Adam & Eve, collective-punishment style. Shame living on eternally, needing to atone and all such crap.

Sort of makes much more sense if people are deemed as shameful if they actually do something to attract such views against them. Not by virtue of being humans.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. No.

I don't get it either.

I don't at all understand the actual mechanism by which Christ is supposed to redeem sinners by his sacrifice on the cross.

How does that work?

For example: if my brother commits a crime and I go to the police and say I'll pay his penalty for him then, assuming it's a serious crime, the police are just going to reject my offer. And even if they accepted it, his crime would still be his crime and not at all redeemed by anything that I might do.

I'd go even further and say that nothing he could do himself could redeem his crime either. The past is the past. It's both irretrievable and unalterable.

I do understand that theologians of the time equated sin with debt. But I don't understand how that could be considered valid either then or now.

A debt is something that can be repaid. A sin, or offence against morality if you like, can't.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes. No.

I don't get it either.

I don't at all understand the actual mechanism by which Christ is supposed to redeem sinners by his sacrifice on the cross.

How does that work?

For example: if my brother commits a crime and I go to the police and say I'll pay his penalty for him then, assuming it's a serious crime, the police are just going to reject my offer. And even if they accepted it, his crime would still be his crime and not at all redeemed by anything that I might do.

I'd go even further and say that nothing he could do himself could redeem his crime either. The past is the past. It's both irretrievable and unalterable.

Maybe more like:

peasants displeased noble who kept them in a garden like monkeys, for personal fun--- peasants hunted down and horrors sent after them wherever they go--- noble's son is sent by the noble to be killed by peasants so as to show that noble actually loves them, since he is even willing to cause the murder of his own son in order to prove to the peasants that he loves them more...than his only son he sents to be killed by peasants he routinely kills in all hideous manner?

Maybe it has some Philosoraptor vibe in there:

or "how can i be racist if i hate all races equally?"

 

[El_Machinae]

In Genesis the reason for future people being born sinners is specific: they pay for Adam & Eve, collective-punishment style.

Right. Like I said, it's a mistake to count on Genesis in your theology. We're smarter than the people who first tried to explain original sin.

I'm atheist, but the ideal that we all fail morally is a fairly easy concept. I don't need to include the idea of being abrogated of one's sins towards God. The failure towards other is still there.

 

[Flying Pig]

The 'primordial sin' concept is imo one of the most destructive effects judaism had. It really is a dreadful concept. While men can die/suffer very easily in other mythologies (eg ancient greek), there isn't any sense of "you died/suffered cause you were guilty, otherwise you would be ok cause i love you".
Then again, sometimes the judaic god kills a family just to test someone, eg Job. It's all good, though, he then can make a new family and his friends mocked him and die due to it

Actually, original sin is a particularly Christian doctrine. Genesis says that people will suffer and die because of Adam and Eve, but doesn't say that they carry their sins. In Judaism, it's at least theoretically possible to be without sin, though they acknowledge that nobody is actually going to manage that. This isn't so in most interpretations of Christianity.

This was the root of quite a big argument in the fifth century, when St Augustine clashed with a group of people who (he said) were arguing that human beings could make themselves perfect by their own good works, and so earn salvation. Augustine argued that nobody could 'earn' salvation in the sense that God 'had' to save them, because holding God to a bargain like that diminished his omnipotence - for Augustine, you had to do good, but you also had to receive Grace, given by God even though you don't 'deserve' it, and accessible only through the Church. The idea of Original Sin - that everyone is born a sinner, even if they don't actually commit any sins - came out of the various attempts to resolve this problem. Like so many problems in Christian doctrine, the Bible doesn't have an unambiguous position on it - on the big question of whether unbaptised babies are saved, you can find plenty of verses which seem to point in either direction, because the Bible isn't a unified text with a single editorial message.

In Judaism, God can be nasty, but it's emphatically not the case that he only punishes people who deserve it. The whole point of the Book of Job is that Job has to come to terms with the idea that he can't hold God to account. A huge part of it consists of God setting out to Job exactly how much greater he is than him - as part of it goes in the KJV:

Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret. Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

This is exactly what Augustine and the Original Sin advocates were trying to get across - that you can't imagine an omnipotent God as some kind of heavenly bureaucrat, filling in forms that have a set number of tick-boxes, and if you tick enough of them then you're going to heaven, or if you get a certain number of black marks, then you're going to be smote, and if you're an inch below the limit then you know without question that you're fine. Their God cannot be fully pre-empted or held to account by people. They tied themselves in some strange knots to get to that point, but the end result makes some sense.

I fully expect Plotinus to demolish all of that, of course.

 

[Berzerker]

In Genesis the reason for future people being born sinners is specific: they pay for Adam & Eve, collective-punishment style.

but are we born sinners because Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God or by virtue of obtaining the knowledge of good and evil, ie, acquiring that knowledge brings with it the inherent and unavoidable ability to sin?

if Adam and Eve and their descendants remained "innocent" and ignorant of good and evil, we couldn't be born to sin... We'd still be "animals" with sin reserved to critters with the knowledge of good and evil, critters like "God".

 

[Nexlev]

I'm not a theologian or even that serious about religion, this is just my limited understanding in my own words. I'm pretty sure someone more serious about this will take issue with my explanation.

We are born sinners, not because we committed a sin by being born, but that we are born prone to sin. We are effectively predestined to sin, technically we have a choice but we are weak and fail to make the right choice. As you've said, you can't really stop lusting when you see a body that's bangin.

Sin requires a sacrifice in return for forgiveness. God made the decision to sacrifice his son as a sacrifice to pay for our sins for us. This created a new way to forgiveness where we accept Jesus sacrifice and the gift of forgiveness.

Adam and Eve were born innocent, but were given a very limited knowledge of good and evil - don't eat from that tree. They chose to eat after being persuaded.

I think the heart of your question is, if it's fair or logical for god to set us up to fail. He's given us a choice in his logic and it may seem like a doomed choice, but he's also given us choices to "cope" with those failures so that we can become clean.

The bible mentions unforgivable sin, and mentions blasphemy against the holy spirit, but doesn't elaborate. I've always wondered if Pride is an unforgivable sin. If we don't think we need forgiveness, or we think that god is wrong and we are right, are we eligible for forgiveness? I also wonder if Lucifer is the one who's unforgivable. He has spoken out and campaigned against god since creation.

 

[Berzerker]

Sin requires a sacrifice in return for forgiveness. God made the decision to sacrifice his son as a sacrifice to pay for our sins for us. This created a new way to forgiveness where we accept Jesus sacrifice and the gift of forgiveness.

This is where I depart from much of Christian theology, according to the "Lord's prayer" forgiveness was not purchased by accepting Jesus' sacrifice but by forgiving trespassers.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

sounds kinda easy until you gotta forgive someone for a terrible trespass...

 

[Lexicus]

Actually, speaking from experience to some degree, the easiest option by far is forgiveness. All other options lead to Count of Monte Christo-like situations, or a life of bitterness.

 

[Nexlev]

This is where I depart from much of Christian theology, according to the "Lord's prayer" forgiveness was not purchased by accepting Jesus' sacrifice but by forgiving trespassers.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

sounds kinda easy until you gotta forgive someone for a terrible trespass...

The student has become the teacher.

That's a joke. Really though, I expected to answer your question and here you are reminding me of an important point.