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.

[Purple Knight]

....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.

I can be as righteous as I want and if I turn down the part where I tell Jesus I'm sorry, I still lose. If I'm righteous, what do I have to be sorry for? Original sin.

I'm not claiming to be righteous, but if I was, I would still have original sin to deal with. Again, I don't disagree with this concept; I disagree with the opposite of this idea, which is the rugged individualism that such nonsense follows from such as, if your child is running in a race, you can shoot the child running ahead of him and YOU get punished for murder and cheating, but your child legitimately wins and is blameless.

[1213]

I can be as righteous as I want and if I turn down the part where I tell Jesus I'm sorry, I still lose. If I'm righteous, what do I have to be sorry for?

Then you have no sin and you don’t have to be sorry about anything.

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

[nobspeople]

I can be as righteous as I want and if I turn down the part where I tell Jesus I'm sorry, I still lose. If I'm righteous, what do I have to be sorry for?

Then you have no sin and you don’t have to be sorry about anything.

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

Ecclesiastes 7:20
New Living Translation
Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.

English Standard Version
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Berean Study Bible
Surely there is no righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

King James Bible
For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

New King James Version
For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin.

New American Standard Bible
Indeed, there is not a righteous person on earth who always does good and does not ever sin.

NASB 1995
Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.

NASB 1977
Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.

Amplified Bible
Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who always does good and who never sins.

Christian Standard Bible
There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
There is certainly no righteous man on the earth who does good and never sins.

American Standard Version
Surely there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For there is not a righteous man in Earth who will do what is good and will not sin

Brenton Septuagint Translation
For there is not a righteous man in the earth, who will do good, and not sin

Contemporary English Version
No one in this world always does right.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For there is no just man upon earth, that doth good, and sinneth not.

English Revised Version
Surely there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

Good News Translation
There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Certainly, there is no one so righteous on earth that he always does what is good and never sins.

International Standard Version
For there is not a single righteous man on earth who practices good and does not sin.

JPS Tanakh 1917
For there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

Literal Standard Version
Because there is not a righteous man on earth that does good and does not sin.

NET Bible
For there is not one truly righteous person on the earth who continually does good and never sins.

New Heart English Bible
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth, who does good and doesn't sin.

World English Bible
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth, who does good and doesn't sin.

Young's Literal Translation
Because there is not a righteous man on earth that doth good and sinneth not.