Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary con

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2Dbunk
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Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary con

Post #1

Post by 2Dbunk »

This Biblical story suggests that Adam and Eve squandered eternal life and bliss in the Garden of Eden when they ate fruit from the forbidden apple tree – the tree of Knowledge of good and evil. This resulted in the death sentence of all humans the way I understand the story. That is how we all became sinners -- religionists say: “original sin!�

Okay, but here’s the rub: Let’s say Adam and Eve DID NOT eat of that fateful tree, and lived in the Garden for many years without knowing sin. Their children, Cain and Able were born, also without that knowledge, as the second generation of humanity. If Adam and Eve lived all that time without doing anything wrong (what are the chances of that?), then could the second generation perfectly avoid the urge to do some evil thing or two? If so, what about the third generation, or the fourth? As the offspring multiplied, the chances of doing evil would grow exponentially, eventually causing the family to be ousted from the Garden.

Well, we are told the second generation violated God’s law with the famous murder of Able by Cain – probably an event that would have justified eviction from the Garden. But wait, murder was not yet defined as a sin since no one yet had knowledge of evil – that would come later from God’s deliverance of the stone tablets to Moses containing the Ten Commandments . Confusing isn't it?

Probably by this time some of the offspring may have eaten the forbidden fruit and the family would have been evicted from Eden (you know how kids are, doing the opposite of what their parents say). I guess what I’m trying to say is that the knowledge of good and evil was inevitable, if not with Adam and Eve, then with the next generation, or the next, and so on.

So why the big deal over Eve’s temptation? Did the writers of the Bible mean-fully find this as a way of suppressing women. They were already condemned as �unclean� because of their monthly menstrual ordeal, but I guess that wasn’t enough for the male scribes who wanted to ensure male supremacy for the ages. Does anyone care to comment?
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Re: Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary

Post #2

Post by polonius »

2Dbunk wrote: This Biblical story suggests that Adam and Eve squandered eternal life and bliss in the Garden of Eden when they ate fruit from the forbidden apple tree – the tree of Knowledge of good and evil. This resulted in the death sentence of all humans the way I understand the story. That is how we all became sinners -- religionists say: “original sin!�

Okay, but here’s the rub: Let’s say Adam and Eve DID NOT eat of that fateful tree, and lived in the Garden for many years without knowing sin. Their children, Cain and Able were born, also without that knowledge, as the second generation of humanity. If Adam and Eve lived all that time without doing anything wrong (what are the chances of that?), then could the second generation perfectly avoid the urge to do some evil thing or two? If so, what about the third generation, or the fourth? As the offspring multiplied, the chances of doing evil would grow exponentially, eventually causing the family to be ousted from the Garden.

Well, we are told the second generation violated God’s law with the famous murder of Able by Cain – probably an event that would have justified eviction from the Garden. But wait, murder was not yet defined as a sin since no one yet had knowledge of evil – that would come later from God’s deliverance of the stone tablets to Moses containing the Ten Commandments . Confusing isn't it?

Probably by this time some of the offspring may have eaten the forbidden fruit and the family would have been evicted from Eden (you know how kids are, doing the opposite of what their parents say). I guess what I’m trying to say is that the knowledge of good and evil was inevitable, if not with Adam and Eve, then with the next generation, or the next, and so on.

So why the big deal over Eve’s temptation? Did the writers of the Bible mean-fully find this as a way of suppressing women. They were already condemned as �unclean� because of their monthly menstrual ordeal, but I guess that wasn’t enough for the male scribes who wanted to ensure male supremacy for the ages. Does anyone care to comment?

RESPONSE: Thank you for your post. You raise an interesting question. In the last 20 or 30 years it has been recognized that the first seven books of our Bible were really written during the Babylonian Captivity.

They have been termed the "foundation fable"

They are not reliable history. Just a story. This is also frequently the case with the the writings of other major world religions.

I'll follow your thread with interest and perhaps add some material as it develops.

Regards,

Polonius

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Re: Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary

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2Dbunk wrote: This Biblical story suggests that Adam and Eve squandered eternal life and bliss in the Garden of Eden when they ate fruit from the forbidden apple tree – the tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
Evil (unhappiness, or the causes thereof) is the punishment for sin. Sin is doubting or disobeying god.

The first sin was before Eve tasted the apple. It was when she entertained the serpent's argument, when she doubted that god had her best interests in mind the he forbade eating the apple.

Eve was the first sinner, but this isn't what is referred to as "original sin."



This resulted in the death sentence of all humans the way I understand the story. That is how we all became sinners -- religionists say: “original sin!�

Okay, but here’s the rub: Let’s say Adam and Eve DID NOT eat of that fateful tree, and lived in the Garden for many years without knowing sin. Their children, Cain and Able were born, also without that knowledge, as the second generation of humanity. If Adam and Eve lived all that time without doing anything wrong (what are the chances of that?), then could the second generation perfectly avoid the urge to do some evil thing or two? If so, what about the third generation, or the fourth? As the offspring multiplied, the chances of doing evil would grow exponentially, eventually causing the family to be ousted from the Garden.
The soul consisted of parts:

- the intellect
- the will
- the appetites
- the senses

They were in that order. The intellect controlled the will; the will controlled the appetites; the appetites controlled the senses.

So, unless Eve reasoned that she should do something wrong, she wouldn't want to, and doing wrong wouldn't be attractive. Reason was king.

But, after she sinned, god turned our souls upside down. Now our senses are in charge. I look at a donut, and it looks good, so my appetite kicks in. My appetite makes me will to eat the donut. My will causes my intellect to rationalize rather than reason, so I decide that I'd better have two donuts, to give me strength to stay on my diet.

This inversion of the soul is called concupiscence. These days we mostly use the world to refer to lust, but it originally referred to all of the effects of the upside down soul.


Well, we are told the second generation violated God’s law with the famous murder of Able by Cain – probably an event that would have justified eviction from the Garden. But wait, murder was not yet defined as a sin since no one yet had knowledge of evil – that would come later from God’s deliverance of the stone tablets to Moses containing the Ten Commandments . Confusing isn't it?

Probably by this time some of the offspring may have eaten the forbidden fruit and the family would have been evicted from Eden (you know how kids are, doing the opposite of what their parents say). I guess what I’m trying to say is that the knowledge of good and evil was inevitable, if not with Adam and Eve, then with the next generation, or the next, and so on.
Before Eve was punished for sinning, our souls were not upside down. We didn't have the tendency to sin. There is no reason to think that multiplying more people and generations would have resulted in more likelihood of sin.

This temptation, this tendency to sin that we get from concupiscence, this is what is called original sin. We have this tendency because god gave it to us after Eve sinned. He "hardened our hearts and darkened our counsels" to make us keep sinning like our ancestress.

Had god not done this to us, we might have lived thru all the generations of the world without further sin.


So why the big deal over Eve’s temptation? Did the writers of the Bible mean-fully find this as a way of suppressing women. They were already condemned as �unclean� because of their monthly menstrual ordeal, but I guess that wasn’t enough for the male scribes who wanted to ensure male supremacy for the ages. Does anyone care to comment?
There's a joke I like. It's dated; people may not remember when women's clothes were made this way.

God is about to cast the kids out of the garden, but first he's explaining about all the kinds of suffering they will endure. He gives examples that represent types: They will have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, they will have to deal with weeds, Eve will suffer pain during childbirth, they will have to cover their nakedness with raiment -- "and you," god says, suddenly pointing at Eve, "gots to button yours backwards."

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Re: Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary

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Post by PinSeeker »

wiploc wrote:Eve was the first sinner, but this isn't what is referred to as "original sin."
Actually, Adam was the first sinner, because Eve was merely deceived -- Paul tells us this in 1 Timothy 2:14 -- and Adam, who was there with Eve according to Genesis 3:6, could have kept her from sinning by "laying down his life for her" (in the words of Paul in Ephesians 5), as it was his responsibility to do so.

Yes, Eve fell into sin, as Paul says, but so did Adam through his inaction in allowing Eve to disobey God; the first sin was theirs together. In other words, Adam failed in his responsibility to keep Eve -- and in effect, the whole human race -- from sin, even though he knew it was his responsibility to do so. Both share in the Fall equally. But even so, the greater responsibility is Adam's, and therefore the necessity for God to provide a Second Adam (Jesus) who would redeem all of humanity from sin. As 1 Corinthians 15:22 says, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.)

The whole "All the writers of the Bible were mysoginists" meme is wrong-headed.

Here's what the Westminster Confession of Faith has to say about the fall of man, of sin, and of the punishment thereof (emphasis added):

Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.

By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.

From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.

Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal and eternal.

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Re: Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary

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Post by 2Dbunk »

[Replying to post 4 by PinSeeker]
The whole "All the writers of the Bible were mysoginists" meme is wrong-headed.
Oh, and you know this how?

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Re: Is "ORIGINAL SIN" a misleading and unnecessary

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Post by PinSeeker »

2Dbunk wrote:Oh, and you know this how?
It's quite plain.

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Post #7

Post by 2Dbunk »

2Dbunk wrote:
Oh, and you know this how?
quote by pinseeker:
It's quite plain.

Wow! What's plain to you is the obverse of what I see. Please show your hand and inform me of what is so plain to see. I'm not saying that all the writers of OT scripture were misogynists but the greater preponderance of them were.


Please cite an example or two to prove your point.
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Post #8

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2Dbunk wrote:What's plain to you is the obverse of what I see.
Yeah, that's quite obvious.
2Dbunk wrote:Please show your hand and inform me of what is so plain to see. Please cite an example or two to prove your point.
I did; see post 4 above.
2Dbunk wrote:I'm not saying that all the writers of OT scripture were misogynists but the greater preponderance of them were.
Wouldn't you say that's just your opinion?

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Post by ttruscott »

Original sin is a direct and natural response to the decision to claim the pre-conception existence is false and we are all created here on earth at the time of our conception or our birth. This would mean that we are innocent at creation but other Bible verses contend that no one is innocent which demands some resolution of the dissonance. IF we are evil at birth then either we chose to be evil pre-birth by our free will OR the doctrine is false and the Bible wrong.

Most Churches chose to accept that we are sinners even though newly created because of our inheriting Adam's sin, even though this flies in the face of 1. HIS Righteousness that HE cannot create sinners, 2. HIS Goodness that HE has no reason to have created HIS Bride as disgustingly evil but supposedly did just that by making her born into Adam's evil, and 3. HIS justice that to hold a person guilty for a sin with no mens rea, ie, no intent to sin is unjust.

They chose this blasphemy over the more Biblical contention that we lived pre-earth and by our own free will chose to put our faith in HIM (becoming elect) or against HIM (non-elect) pre-earth then after the creation of the physical universe all sinners were sent to earth AS sinners already for the redemption of HIS good seed, the sinful elect.

That this interpretation is denied to be in the bible is because so pervasive is the pro-earth creation theory that no one even thinks about pre-earth creation nor has ever heard of a rational Biblical approach to this doctrine. Blasphemy rules as a basic orthodox doctrine because of the opposition to our pre-earth creation since ç300 AD.
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

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Post #10

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ttruscott wrote: HIS Righteousness that HE cannot create sinners...
God never did and never will create sinners. He creates men who chose, in Adam, to sin. God is not the author of sin.
ttruscott wrote:...the more Biblical contention that we lived pre-earth...
I'd be interested to see you cite biblical support of this claim.
ttruscott wrote:...and by our own free will chose to put our faith in HIM (becoming elect) or against HIM (non-elect)...
So we elect ourselves? That's far from the case; it would make God not sovereign over His own creation, which is very unbiblical. Also, in saying this, ttruscott, you're making faith a work, which is also very unbiblical; saving faith is itself a gift of God (Ephesians 2).

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