Christianity and Blood Guilt

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Do Christians believe in Blood Guilt?

This is meant to apply specifically to the things whites have done to other races, but it has broader implications as well. I hear a lot of people protect their individualism and that they specifically didn't do anything wrong, so they're pretty much blameless because they didn't own slaves.

I actually... don't believe in this (to me, absurd) degree of individualism. I don't believe that if you steal a painting and will it to your child, that the painting is now his and he's blameless. I don't believe that if your child is running a marathon, and you kill the person running ahead of him, that that equals a win, even if he had no idea what you were going to do. I don't believe that if you're a soldier, marching into an enemy's homeland, that you're blameless and a murder victim when the other guy shoots you first. This fully libertarian individualism, I find foolish, and I'm always fighting a losing battle trying to explain why.

What I really don't understand is how everyone is always fighting me on this while most of the Western world is Christians. You literally believe that I am at fault, or at least carry some sort of fault, because Eve ate an apple. You don't believe that I am an individual; you well know that I carry some sin and some obligation to make up for it, because of something one of my ancestors did, not something I did. The odd thing is that I agree with you that it's not an invalid concept; if one of my ancestors did something unbelievably horrible, especially if that act continues to have effects to this day, I believe it falls to me to make up for it. It's not fair, but it's right, considering that people care about their children and perhaps wouldn't commit so many atrocities if they knew their progeny was going to have to suffer for it, and conversely if you're a full libertarian individualist, a parent is free to do whatever horrible murderous or miscellaneously atrocious things he wants in order to benefit his descendants and then simply fall on the sword, daring fellow individualists to take those benefits away from his "innocent" offspring.

I don't think the world ought to work this hyper-individualist way and it hasn't worked this way for ten thousand years; it's been only recently that people have pretended that it has. Sins of the father has merit, both as a survival mechanism and, believe it or not, individually as an instrument of individual fairness, unless you buy the idea that parents should be able to shoot their childrens' competitors or steal to enrich the child and suffer the consequences themselves, while allowing the child to remain blameless while keeping the ill-gotten benefit.

What baffles me is that Christians seem to argue for hyper-individualism unless the topic of original sin comes up, in which case they change their tune.

[Paul of Tarsus]

Do Christians believe in Blood Guilt?

I think you are asking if it is morally acceptable to benefit from bloodshed even if we did not shed the blood ourselves. Most people, including most Christians, I think would answer no, benefitting from the violent acts of others is not morally acceptable. In practice, though, we benefit all the time from the blood shed by others. Here in America, for example, our high standard of living is made possible by the many wars we have waged for land and other natural resources like oil reserves located overseas. I'm not sure what to do about it, though. Should I move to another country?

[Purple Knight]

I think you are asking if it is morally acceptable to benefit from bloodshed even if we did not shed the blood ourselves.

Close. Closer would be asking if it's morally permissible to take reparative or punitive action against people who merely got ill-earned gains when they did nothing themselves. There are quite a lot of people who seem to make a living out of ill-gotten gains while holding up their individuality like a shield... "But, you see... I didn't do anything wrong."

But the real question is... is that person who received ill-gotten gains actually guilty. There's a concept in original sin of someone being born guilty. I believe this is possible if the evil act is bad enough and far-reaching enough... like slavery for instance. It doesn't seem like anyone else believes it, though.

Here in America, for example, our high standard of living is made possible by the many wars we have waged for land and other natural resources like oil reserves located overseas. I'm not sure what to do about it, though. Should I move to another country?

This is a really good question I have no idea of the answer to. I've actually contemplated whether suicide would be a good idea to protest an evil and racist government. But I've come to the conclusion that it wouldn't do anything. Even if a large number of people did it, there would be enough cattle left standing for those controlling things to continue the bloodshed that enriches them and keeps us alive.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

Christians seem to argue for hyper-individualism unless the topic of original sin comes up, in which case they change their tune.

Maybe. Can you give an example to show this being true, so I can better understand your POV?

Do Christians believe in Blood Guilt?

I'd saw they do, if the believe in inherited original sin (aka the fall of man with Adam and Eve).

That inherited sin concept never made sense to me. How can I be held responsible for the actions of someone else I may (or may not) be related to in some far off sense?
I didn't kill Jesus. Neither did any of my sins as Jesus existed a long time before me (if he existed as the bible says). If my grandmother killed someone before I was born, it's not my fault nor my problem.
If my ancestor owned a slave, it's not my fault (I've always wondered about this concept; if I had one ancestor that owned a slave, but a dozen others that didn't, how would it be my fault?)

[1213]

...Christians. You literally believe that I am at fault, or at least carry some sort of fault, because Eve ate an apple. You don't believe that I am an individual; you well know that I carry some sin and some obligation to make up for it, because of something one of my ancestors did, not something I did. The odd thing is that I agree with you that it's not an invalid concept;...

I don’t think that is a Biblical teaching. You are not guilty of what Adam and Eve did. But, we bear the results of what they did. Sin is basically that person rejects God or is in separation from God. Adam and Eve were expelled to this world where we are in separation from God, when they rejected God (sinned). You are not blamed for that. You are blamed only for your own wrong doings.

I think it is impossible for humans to settle wrong things that have happened long time ago, and if we would now do a new deal, it would be as arbitrary as the old one. I think best way to make a new deal is that people are free to seek own happiness peacefully without some government telling how people should be.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to 1213 in post #5]

we bear the results of what they did. Sin is basically that person rejects God or is in separation from God. Adam and Eve were expelled to this world where we are in separation from God, when they rejected God (sinned). You are not blamed for that. You are blamed only for your own wrong doings.

A biblical teaching or not, it is taught in many Christian churches across the planet as such - many or most of which claim to be upholding God's word.
And God has done nothing about it.

Beyond all that, there is no good reason why people have to suffer with the results of the sins of long dead people. That concept is almost as ludicrous as the concept of inherited sin.

But anything it takes to excuse God for doing nothing about the cluster he created, right?

[bjs1]

The odd thing is that I agree with you that it's not an invalid concept; if one of my ancestors did something unbelievably horrible, especially if that act continues to have effects to this day, I believe it falls to me to make up for it.

Perhaps your position would register with more people if you gave a concrete, real life example. What is something unbelievably horrible that your ancestors did, and what have you done to make up for it?

[Purple Knight]

I don’t think that is a Biblical teaching. You are not guilty of what Adam and Eve did. But, we bear the results of what they did.

Very well; then I'm only saying we should bear the results of what our ancestors did, not that we should be "blamed" for it.

You can call it whatever you like, but I am being punished - I am bound for Hell - because of what Eve did. And Christians see no wrong in this. I don't see any wrong in it either, because, as you point out, the results are often natural consequences of the act, as in my example below, where if someone is wronged and maimed, the natural consequences are that he can no longer move and someone has to take care of him.

The odd thing is that I agree with you that it's not an invalid concept; if one of my ancestors did something unbelievably horrible, especially if that act continues to have effects to this day, I believe it falls to me to make up for it.

Perhaps your position would register with more people if you gave a concrete, real life example. What is something unbelievably horrible that your ancestors did, and what have you done to make up for it?

I'm going to use a fictional example and say my mother chopped off someone's limbs and then immediately fell over dead. Now somebody's got to pay for this poor limbless fellow's care and upkeep, and I fail to see why it should be anybody but me. Frankly, people who would do such a thing shouldn't reproduce. If it's genetic (which behaviour tends to be) there's a good reason in and of itself, and even if it's not, I don't think people like that deserve to have children when the world is so overpopulated and there are decent people who never did such things who can't afford children.

Full disclosure, the scenario is fictional (as far as I yet know) but it's not at all unbelievable because schizophrenia runs in my family. She's affected I fully and furthermore exacerbates it with drugs and alcohol; I'm affected mildly and other than caffeine, I'm abstinent. I do have to remind myself that no matter what reality seems like to me, what reality actually is, is what other people who aren't me perceive it to be.

The ideal recompense in that scenario would be if I was somehow compatible with the poor fellow, in which case chop off my limbs to transplant them on him and then leave me to die in a ditch. Why? Because people care about the fate of their children, so a functional society needs punishments that punish progeny when no individual punishment is possible.

[Dimmesdale]

Even if logic is wrong, which I don't believe it is, why would one think there couldn't be some other standard other than reason to determine right and wrong?

Things could be right and wrong, according to a whole other calculus we haven't even dreamed of..... There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your particular logical positivism.

Dunno if that's really such a relevant post, but that came across my mind anyway.

Woops, wrong thread. I meant the logic one.....

[1213]

....You can call it whatever you like, but I am being punished - I am bound for Hell - because of what Eve did. ...

That is not Biblical teaching. You are not going to hell because of someone else. If you go to hell, it is because you are not righteous and that is by your choice and desire.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

And righteous can be recognized for example by this:

He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God doesn't commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can't sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
1 John 3:7-10