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Original Sin

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member

Interpretations of the Bible often are used politically, that is, to promote a certain sect, but the Bible as far as as I know does not allocate sin to anyone at birth.

We Baha’is believe each human is born pure and good and pure and it is only through wrong education that we learn wrong ways not through birth. We believe in the goodness of humanity.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
It's true that I'd be closer to Christianity if all it was down to was what Jesus said. He certainly said many of the right things in the Bible, Apocrypha and the Gnostic texts. It's too bad that much of it is bogged down by theological constructs instead of imparting good morals and a method to reach the kingdom of God.
 

savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It's true that I'd be closer to Christianity if all it was down to was what Jesus said. He certainly said many of the right things in the Bible, Apocrypha and the Gnostic texts. It's too bad that much of it is bogged down by theological constructs instead of imparting good morals and a method to reach the kingdom of God.
Don't say thank you. I am imagining it OK.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
Psalms 51:5

That is a verse that speaks about us potentially.

We are all born with the potential to do good or evil but it is only when we consciously make the choice that we are judged by God.

We are all born with a physical nature and a spiritual nature.

We only sin when we deliberately consciously make a known decision to disobey God. Until then we are innocent.

The passage is only admitting we are born with the potential to sin not saying we are conscious sinners at birth because at that time we are unable to make informed decisions to sin.
 

savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
That is a verse that speaks about us potentially.

We are all born with the potential to do good or evil but it is only when we consciously make the choice that we are judged by God.

We are all born with a physical nature and a spiritual nature.

We only sin when we deliberately consciously make a known decision to disobey God. Until then we are innocent.

The passage is only admitting we are born with the potential to sin not saying we are conscious sinners at birth because at that time we are unable to make informed decisions to sin.
Ignorance is bliss, says you? I do not believe that.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
"If sin doesn't affect children....then why are so many born with physical deformities, or die from cancer, or genetic deficiencies?"

Are you seriously suggesting that all children born with deformities or who die from cancer or genetic deficiencies are being punished by God for some perceived sin? And you worship such a horrendous God?
I didn't say or imply that at all! Wow. Bad things happen to good people, all the time.....surely, you know this.

I spoke the truth about our imperfections, but if you deduce this from my statement (that it's God's fault, not Adam's), No wonder you and others don't understand the Bible.

Many times offspring suffer from the choices their parents make, and we're all suffering from the decision Adam made, when he chose to be disobedient. (Some just suffer earlier.)

But thanks to Jehovah's and Jesus' love for us, it will all be rectified in the Resurrection.
 

outlawState

Deism is dead
Thank you for catching my oversight, It was a typo that should, and now does, read "Ephesians 2:3."

As I've pointed out before in other threads, what scholars have concluded was the wording in the original manuscripts is unimportant---for one thing, there's little agreement. What is important is what idea is transmitted by those who put together today's Bibles. At least four Bibles use the word "corrupt" in Eph 2:3, whereas others use, "passion," "desires," "cravings," and "lusts," among other terms. So it's really a crap shoot as to which best expresses the intention of the original writer. What these variations do provide are theological cherries to pick so as to flesh out ones theology as one sees fit. In one sense, Christianity is a true do-it-yourself religion. Don't like how the King James Bible translates the Hebrew ra in Isaiah 45:7 as "evil"? then you can pick the Amplified Bible that translates the word as "disaster," or the World English Bible that translates it as "calamity," or the New Life version that has watered down the meaning to just "trouble," or other Bibles that tell us god simply created "woe."

"Evil"
"Disaster"
"Calamity"
"trouble"
"Woe"
Hardly decent synonyms of one another. It's as if god really doesn't give a **** what his book says, or what his followers believe. So, the Bible having been redrafted and re-translated so many times and in so many different ways, what the original writers wrote is immaterial. And people don't read the original manuscripts.
The issue with "corrupt nature" is that not everyone's nature is "corrupt" or "corrupted" in the same absolutist way that the use of this phrase suggests. The phrase is too absolutist and dogmatic. A "lust" may be said to arise from the flesh, but not everyone will harbour the same lusts. Some lust after money, and become habitual shoplifters and criminals but most do not. Some lust after adultery, etc, but not everyone does. As Jesus said "If you look at a woman lustfully...."

There is an element of choice in "lusts of the flesh" which is a more literal translation, but which "corrupt nature" tends to defeat by asserting that everyone's nature is corrupt equally. It isn't so. This was the Pelagian idea, i.e. to say that it must be possible, even if only hypothetically, to resist the "lusts of the flesh" as Jesus himself did, who had the same flesh as anyone else.

This idea of a corrupt nature suggests a Manichaean idea that says that matter is bad, spirit is good. It is clearly demarkated as Augustinian/Manichaean. We have to inquire as to whether phrases such as "corrupt nature" are really leading us to be Manichees and to miss the real point that our nature is completely under our control. Hence the idea of repetence is valid. The heretical notion of "born that way" is defeated by the fact that Manichaeism is false.
 
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74x12

Well-Known Member
Psalm 51:5 King James Version (KJV)
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
How on earth are entirely new creatures such as humans to all be found guilty of sin?

So before you were born your guilty, because of our human nature.

It sounds absolutely like a high pressure psychological tactic.

Thats how religion gets a bad name.

Imagine being born into a family where your parents raise you as a sinner before you are old enough to walk. Nightmares indeed!
 

savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
How on earth are entirely new creatures such as humans to all be found guilty of sin?

So before you were born your guilty, because of our human nature.

It sounds absolutely like a high pressure psychological tactic.

Thats how religion gets a bad name.

Imagine being born into a family where your parents raise you as a sinner before you are old enough to walk. Nightmares indeed!
It isn't about sinning. It is about not being able to be righteous. Genesis 6:12
 

74x12

Well-Known Member
How on earth are entirely new creatures such as humans to all be found guilty of sin?

So before you were born your guilty, because of our human nature.

It sounds absolutely like a high pressure psychological tactic.

Thats how religion gets a bad name.

Imagine being born into a family where your parents raise you as a sinner before you are old enough to walk. Nightmares indeed!
It's not like that. We believe all are accountable for their own sins only. Little children are innocent because they don't know better until they reach a certain age when they become aware of the difference between right and wrong and what that means.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
It's not like that. We believe all are accountable for their own sins only. Little children are innocent because they don't know better until they reach a certain age when they become aware of the difference between right and wrong and what that means.

And yet that concludes all under sin by the time they are of age. That leads to all kinds of questions. But i will resist asking.
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
I didn't say or imply that at all! Wow. Bad things happen to good people, all the time.....surely, you know this.

I spoke the truth about our imperfections, but if you deduce this from my statement (that it's God's fault, not Adam's), No wonder you and others don't understand the Bible.

Many times offspring suffer from the choices their parents make, and we're all suffering from the decision Adam made, when he chose to be disobedient. (Some just suffer earlier.)

But thanks to Jehovah's and Jesus' love for us, it will all be rectified in the Resurrection.

Well, when you claim that deformed and cancer ridden children is evidence that newborns are sinful, it sure SOUNDS like you're saying that God thinks some children deserve to die of cancer.

So what did Adam do that made God decide that a child born without legs deserves to be born without legs? And why is an all powerful God incapable of creating this newborn whole? What about what Adam did forced God to make a limbless child? And doesn't the bible say something about the son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father? And if it isn't God who punishes a newborn for Adam's sin, who is it that does the punishing? Isn't God supposed to be the top dog?
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
How on earth are entirely new creatures such as humans to all be found guilty of sin?
By simple declaration. Don't agree, then don't believe it. Agree, then believe it.

So before you were born your guilty, because of our human nature.

It sounds absolutely like a high pressure psychological tactic.
I believe it's more of a sales tactic. One of the better tactics in getting a people to rally around a religion is to concoct an enemy that only
the religion can defeat. In this case the enemy is eternal damnation and the solution is the acceptance of Jesus as one's savior.

Thats how religion gets a bad name.
Personally, I believe religions get a bad name because of the way they treat people, either harming or trying to control them.

.
 
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