Should all people be blamed for Adam's sin?

[polonius]

At the beginning of the Bible, we are told that Adam and Eve sinned. ("Original Sin")

And all future generations inherited their guilt.

Is that true?

And wasn't that rather unjust of God?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 2 by ttruscott]

Who can believe this blasphemy????

A lot of people, apparently.

[marco]

So, all things not witnessed are imaginative and figurative, or does that apply to only spiritual matters? I just would like to clarify!!

Just when all was quiet, nurse steps up with a needle. An account of something not witnessed is certainly imaginative though the event itself may have some basis in fact. So the creation of matter may be a real event but the description of how it happened, involving two humans, is surely imaginative. We don't know the names of the first two humans - they are representatives of the race - so are figurative. Livy didn't witness the origins of Rome and so his tale of the two brothers, Romulus and Remus is imaginative.

I don't believe we can build consequences or guilt and redemption on an imaginative account. I may be wrong but I would love to see how.

Go well, my good friend.

[ttruscott]

RESPONSE: If something is not witnessed then there is no proof that it occurred. It's called reality checking.

But to claim that no evidence of a reality being claimed as checked is proof of non-existence is the black swan fallacy.

[marco]

RESPONSE: If something is not witnessed then there is no proof that it occurred. It's called reality checking.

But to claim that no evidence of a reality being claimed as checked is proof of non-existence is the black swan fallacy.

Yes, it is wise to be cautious, Ted. Because black swans weren't seen it was assumed there were no black swans, though there is absolutely no reason to suppose there could not be. There are birds with black feathers - so why not swans?

But the Genesis account is not of the same coinage. No one witnessed it and so it is right to believe that it is wholly fictional, for to believe otherwise is not like believing there are birds with black feathers; one would have to suppose that the writer was magically transported to God's primal act of creation and recorded it. This requires much more suspension of disbelief than black feathers. Biblical verses are not sufficiently divine to enable us to make that suspension.

[Peds nurse]

[Replying to post 10 by polonius.advice]

If something is not witnessed then there is no proof that it occurred. It's called reality checking.

That cannot always be true, can it? Isn't the proof the reality of what has occurred? If I didn't witness someone spilling the milk in my kitchen, does that mean it didn't occur?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 13 by ttruscott]



[center]


Bad reasoning isn't a good idea.[/center]

But to claim that no evidence of a reality being claimed as checked is proof of non-existence is the black swan fallacy.

I agree.
We don't want to fall for bad thinking like that.

That's why I'm an agnostic. Just because I have no evidence whatsoever of a god or goddess, doesn't mean that somewhere, out there.. somehow they don't exist. They might, and Santa might, and Zeus and Vishnu and Quetzalcoatl might. All the gods and goddesses in history MIGHT possibly exist.

_________________

Question:

• Is anyone in here claiming to have PROOF of no gods or goddesses? If so, I will help you out to sort him or her out. People should think better than that.

_________________

[ttruscott]

RESPONSE: If something is not witnessed then there is no proof that it occurred. It's called reality checking.

But to claim that no evidence of a reality being claimed as checked is proof of non-existence is the black swan fallacy.

Yes, it is wise to be cautious, Ted. Because black swans weren't seen it was assumed there were no black swans, though there is absolutely no reason to suppose there could not be. There are birds with black feathers - so why not swans?

But the Genesis account is not of the same coinage. No one witnessed it and so it is right to believe that it is wholly fictional, for to believe otherwise is not like believing there are birds with black feathers; one would have to suppose that the writer was magically transported to God's primal act of creation and recorded it. This requires much more suspension of disbelief than black feathers. Biblical verses are not sufficiently divine to enable us to make that suspension.

It is NOT the claims of the Genesis story that bring us to believe in and trust GOD but the other way around. I did not accept Genesis until I "met" GOD and then a lot of the Bible made sense thought I've had to wait and slowly learn other trickier things to understand Genesis as I do now. HE is the witness to HIS creation and if Job 38:7 (and even Rom 1:20) are accepted, so are we all, so to have faith in GOD is to have faith in HIS witness. It was not the lack of black feathers that turned the Natural Society against their claims it was that they were outside of the Society and in competition with them, iirc.

The 'lack of seeing GOD in the world' is just another way to say a lack of 'black feathers' and while the topics may have different import, the logic of claiming non-existence based only on non-evidence is wrong in both cases.

[marco]

That cannot always be true, can it? Isn't the proof the reality of what has occurred? If I didn't witness someone spilling the milk in my kitchen, does that mean it didn't occur?

This is exactly the suggestion of the philosopher Bishop Berkeley. The tree in the quad exists only because it is observed to exist; go away and we cannot assume the tree exists.

Ronald Knox (whose writings helped form my boyhood view of religion) stated this idea and supplied a nice religious answer, in a double limerick, if you please.



There was a young man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

REPLY

Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by Yours faithfully, GOD.

[postroad]

[Replying to post 10 by polonius.advice]

If something is not witnessed then there is no proof that it occurred. It's called reality checking.

That cannot always be true, can it? Isn't the proof the reality of what has occurred? If I didn't witness someone spilling the milk in my kitchen, does that mean it didn't occur?

The milk may be spilt but that's not proof that I did it.

[Peds nurse]

[Replying to post 19 by postroad]

I would agree with your statement, but that isn't what I understood you to say in the beginning (could be misinterpretation from this gal). I thought you said that without witnesses, nothing occurred, which cannot be true.