Why there is no sin

EmperorofIceCream

Join Date 09/2004

Why there is no sin

Or, sex is fun. And holy.

There is no such thing as original sin. There is no such thing as 'sin' at all.

Original sin as sexual sin began life with the writings of Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential Christian writers and thinkers in the history of the Church. Augustine was not always a Christian. He was a convert from Manicheanism, and before his fascination with Dualism took hold he had been, by his own confession, a drunkard and a general debauchee, possessed by a rabid appetite for sex.

What he so eagerly enjoyed in his youth he was to deny to others in his later life, being tormented by guilt - or, as he put it, having repented of his 'sin'. Augustine is the principal originator of the doctrine of Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the Spirit, a doctrine to be found in his greatest work 'The City of God'.

The Christians will tell you that sin is as much a physical as a spiritual reality. But if the source of sin is in the Spirit it can have no effect on the body; and if it originates in the body it can have no effect upon the Spirit, because the two are totally different in nature. Spirit is immortal and perfect; material reality, including the body, is fallible, subject to decay, and transitory. Original sin, as an idea, is equivalent to the statement "That apple is diseased, so these elephants will get sick." Not merely nonsense - but nonsense on stilts and turning cartwheels.

However, the fact that Original Sin is nonsense in itself hasn't had any adverse effect on its popularity as a staple of Christian doctrine and belief. It's also proved remarkably effective as a tool for controlling the behaviour of the believer. Once granted as a basic premise of faith, it's a perfectly serviceable argument to use in order to explain that sense of dissatisfaction and unhappines, that vague sense of malaise and discomfort we all feel, simply as a consequence of being born human in a human world. We all feel that things aren't right. That there's something wrong, somewhere. This faint sense of existential angst was the premise of Neo's search for the Matrix, of Faust's desire for 'unholy' knowledge, of the the alchemical search for the Philosopher's Stone (which had nothing to do with turning physical lead into physical gold, and everything to do with the transmutation of the human condition).

In order to exploit it you have to be able to explain it. And once you have, you have the ground for the Doctrine of Salvation and Damnation, for the hope of Heaven and the fear of Hell, and for all the opportunities for the exercise of power that come from the authentic belief that you (the family priest, the Church) control the eternal destiny of the believer. And the more things there are that constitute grounds for damnation, then the more opportunities there are for the exercise of that power.

Just as the canon of books that constitute the Bible did not fall ready-made made from Heaven but was constructed by men (primarily at the Council of Nicaea) so the idea of sin was constructed over time. Sexual sin in particular was constucted against the mores and sexual practices of the ancient Middle East, which were used by the early Fathers of the Church as standards to define what Christianity was not. It's always easier to say what a thing isn't than what it is. Augustine, womanizing hypocrite and drunkard that he was, took his own life and used his new-found standard of sin (everything he had done previously) and used it to define a new standard of Godliness and righteousness (everything he had not done previously - particularly in relation to sex). But so great was the spiritual paranoia induced by the history of his personal sexual adventures, as well as by his former devotion to heathen religious practices, that he had to find a ground for the 'corruption' of human nature (all of humanity had to be corrupt, because otherwise Augustine would have had to face an angry God alone) - so that this corruption had to be universal in nature - as well as a means of ensuring that every human being had by necessity to participate in that corruption.

The only possible contender is sex. And birth the perfect means of transmission. We're all created as the consequence of a sexual act, and everyone reading this was born of a woman. And because sex and birth come together in the bodies of women, women have always been condemned by both Augustine and the Church as the carriers of sin. Women, said Augustine, were the Devil's gateway.

If you look carefully into what's known of religio-sexual practice in the ancient Middle East (which included Temple prostitutes of both sexes as well as a whole host of sexual acts performed both openly and privately that most Americans regard with sickly prurience to this day) and then compare those practices to the sexual mores of contemporary American Christianity, you'll find every one of these formerly holy acts to be subject to condemnation.

Sin, and sexual sin in particular, were born out of two complimentary impulses: fear, and the desire to control others. It's no more a sin for two adult males to engage in sex than it is for two adult females, or for an adult man and an adult woman. So far is it from being 'sinful', that these types of acts have been practiced as holy rituals across human cultures and throughout human history.

Sin, far from being an act or acts subject to Divine punishment, is in fact an act or acts which are subject to the punishment of men, at the behest of those in Authority, using God as their justification and accomplice.

None of which is to say that there is no such thing as wrong-doing. From our days in the schoolyard, all of us know that some things are simply wrong. Ask any child, and he or she will tell you that snitching is wrong. They can't tell you why it's wrong, but they know that it is. They know that breaking a promise is wrong; they know that maliciously harming another is wrong. In other words, they know that it's wrong to break the bonds of personal trust and communal fidelity. Being children they can't put the issue in such terms, but they understand the principle - as do we all.

They know this because each of us has a conscience that doesn't depend for its integrity and meaning on religious revelation. Such principles form 'the Rules', with which every child is intimately familiar without any need for instruction by an adult, a priest, or any other intermediary. Conscience is formed in part by the mores of the community, and in part by the practice and example of parents. And any man could live at peace with himself and his neighbours if he simply followed the dictates of his own conscience.

Sin, however, is something distinct from this generalized sense of wrong-doing that we all share. Sin is wrong-doing flavored with religion. In order to say what I actually mean, I'm now going to have to introduce a couple of technical philosophical terms. The first of these is 'ontology'. Ontology is that branch of philosophy that tries to determine what makes a thing the thing that it is. What constitutes the 'horsiness' of a horse? What constitutes the 'grassiness' of a blade of grass? What constitutes the manliness of a man, or the womanliness of a woman, or the humanity of a human being? What are the first principles of being a particular thing that makes that thing the thing that it is?

And the second of these terms is 'teleology'. If ontology looks at first principles in relation to things, teleology looks at the processes by which those first principles operate. By what process does the 'horsiness' of a horse lead to the full expression of that principle in the adult horse? What processes are at work in the development of the child into the adult man or woman? But teleology and ontology are not random, as evolution is. A teleological view of the horse does not permit the idea that the horse as we know it today was ever any other type of creature than a horse. Early horses may have been less perfect horses than those of today - but they were never anything other than horses.

As Thomas Aquinas showed in his great work the Summa these ideas, first developed by the ancient Greeks, are not incompatible with the Christian doctrine of the soul as the animating force that gives life to matter, to flesh. Teleology, which is developmental in nature, shows that there is a principle at work in the flesh that leads to greater and greater sophistication and refinement. Ontology shows that this principle of development is not a part of the flesh itself but derives from something greater than and independent of the flesh - which in the Christian mythology is the soul.

What Augustine did was to argue that, through the Fall, both the soul and the body had become sick with the sickness of pride, with a delusion of self-sufficiency, and that this sickness, contaminating soul and body alike, was transmitted through the mechanism of sex. Why sex? Remember, Augustine had been a pagan, had made use of Temple prostitutes, had participated in rituals in which sex becomes the vehicle of communion with the Gods, is a sacrament in itself.

Whether he knew it or not, sex retained for Augustine a profound spiritual component - but a component through which 'false' gods, 'demons', now made themselves manifest. Sex, obviously, was the primordial means by which the nature of God (the imago dei) was imprinted upon the mind and body of the human being. And sex, therefore, was essentially sinful. And not merely sinful but the worst of all possible sins because the most perilous. As he was all too well aware, being himself a sexual sinner of (in his own mind) the worst sort, sex lead straight to Hell. And sex of the kind practiced in the Temples with which he was familiar, homosexual sex, promiscuous sex, ritual sex, was the worst of the worst of all possible sins.

Which is why Christians are so terrified of, fascinated by, and repulsed by, unregulated sex - especially unregulated sex that doesn't conform to what they consider to be 'natural'. Why other behaviours which, according to the school-yard code of 'the Rules' are far more damaging to the integrity of the individual and the cohesion of the community, go unregarded and unremarked.

It's wrong to tolerate poverty when you have more than you need. It's wrong to tolerate unfairness, prejudice, and greed. It's wrong to bear false witness. It's wrong to allow the weak to be subject to the arbitrary tyrrany of the strong.

But those things are not sins. They're just wrong.

The notion that there are sins for which we will be punished after death is at once hysterically funny (how much attention do you pay to the social interaction of the ant colony in your yard?) and an instrument of social, personal, and political oppression that has served the powerful well for two thousand years.

There is no such thing as sin. 'Sin' is the construction of those who wish to determine the course of your life so that it, your life, serves their interests and not yours. There is, however, wrong-doing. The sooner you realize the difference the less you will fear death, and the more free you will be.

The gods are dead (may they live forever) and only we remain. And the sooner we know it the happier we will be.

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Kingbee posts:

despite having been merely innocent bystanders, animals and plants were punished by their all-merciful loving creator?

EOIC posts:

Actually, they suffer in the same way that we do and for the same reason.

Genesis 3 tells us that God pronounced a sentence on Satan (cast down to Hell), the serpent which had been his instrument (is hated by man on account of its creeping, cunning and poisonous ways), the animals, and the earth itself all came under the curse.

Adam, who was made from the earth, was also the lord of the earth and having sinned, the curse upon him extended to all nature.

Prior to the Fall, the animals were plant eaters as death and killing had not made its entrance into human history until Adam's fall into sin. As a consequence of the curse, the animals, which before the Fall were attached to man, have become either shy or intractable or positively ferocious towards him. Even the elements and forces of nature are often hostile to him and destroy the work of his hands. Moreover, the devil has now obtained a certain dominion and can injure man.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

Prior to the Fall, the animals were plant eaters

so there was plant-killin goin on from the jump?

what was it plants did to warrant death?

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To me, the notion that God watches us to see if our actions are right or wrong is as ridiculous as the idea of my watching the inhabitants of an anthill to see if the ants within it are leading righteous lives.

This comparison would be true if God was not our Creator. We didnt create the ants and their hill, so it really doesnt matter to us what they do, unless they mess our sugar bowl of course. then we kill them.

God's interest in US (humans) is like the interest of the artist in his work. I defy you to find an artist, even KG-scrippler artist who doesnt care about his art-work. That is God's only interest in what we do. It doesnt affect Him in the least. But it bothers Him if we mess up His work. and i am not joking when i say His Art-work. He actually looks at all His creation that way. He loves, cares, control, ...etc His work as an artist would. The following is true and the artist is right here with me:

My grandson, now almost 8 yrs old, made a little booklet the size of a long rectangular stamp. He made that about 3 yrs ago. It has about 20 pages and is titled " If You Give A Mouse A Cookie". it is really funny and neat. the art-work is a KG-quality of course. He gave me that booklet and said "Gampy, i made this book for you .... keep it"

I keep it on the top of my small book case. On top of everything. and believe it or not, he comes everyonce and while and say, where is the book i made for you. I say, here. He says, dont loose it i made it for you.

I really dont know what happens if i lose this book. It seems that he watches what i do with it. If my grandson can be that interested in his art-work, i dont how in the world can God ignores His. And in fact He, God, does not.

Yes man made "Sin" materialize. You are correct in that. But God made the concept by deciding that certain things done in certain cases are not acceptable to Him. Why is that? because It is His art-work and He doesnt like these things to be done. Period. If you can allow the artist to manage and control what happens to and by his work, you certainly should allow the same to the Greatest Creator/Artist.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

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polar bears and sharks once ate only plants?

you're not serious?

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Since I don't believe that God has any interest in the moral status of our actions your comments regarding the sovereignty and prerogatives of Kings and Queens are irrelevant. God is no more sovereign of the universe than an artist exercises sovereignty over the canvas he's painting. Artists create - they don't rule.

Your reference to a 'maker of gadgets' who creates a 'rule-book' for the proper use of the gadgets he's made is also inappropriate. we are not gadgets with specific functions that must operate in certain ways to function properly. we appear to be autonomous generalists with both reflixive and forward-looking capacities. Specific rules of operation are not applicable to such creatures because they would, if coercive and unavoidable, utterly contradict the capacity for autonomy; and if they were not coercive they would be utterly irrelevant.

We call it moral and immoral, He just said: certain things not to be done as I, GOD, tells YOU, My creation, My art-wrok. Dont mess it up. I, God, Created You, the Canvas, The display case, The display room and in fact the whole Gallery. I know how it should be displayed, and how the character should do and when, I, God, allowed you many things which you can do whatever you want and whenever you want with and to them. But the things I, God, told you not to do and must do you should listen but I, God, also gave you the abilty to disobey me. You, Humans, are my very special creation. That is why i gave you that ability. If You follow what i said i will even reward you with what you can never imagine. If on the otherhand you disobey i will forgive most of your foolishness as long as you realize your mistake. And you, Humans, make amend by doing good as i defined it and if you do enough of that i might wipe out all your mistakes and still reward you. One thing I, God, never allow and that is "Deny My Existence". Anything else i will see how you behave in general. I, God, know that you are not perfect, I created you and I know your weaknesses. Dont worry, Just do your best and try to follow what I said.

Yes we are not gadgets, but you forgot my note that any example is just to make the point. We are not gadgets and the designer is not God. and the artist is not God. neither of the Two create anything. They just use what is available and put it in different form using whatever God gave them of intelelct and imagination.

The comparisons are not invalid. They are applicable to a "T".

Yes we have feelings and brains and we can do things gadgets and human art-works cant do, that is why we get rewarded or punished for what we do.

But read the above again, as long as you believe in Him, He is very easy to deal with , really. no matter what we do He will always welcome us back with open arms with generous rewards if we always admit our mistakes.

What difference does it make if you call certain things Sin or wrong. it is just a name. the main thing is to admit that as a Creator, as an Artist He, God, has every right to decide how and what different things done or not done to His creations and art-work. After that, He is the Best in forgiving our foolishness and wrong-doings.

His sovereignty is musch more than that of an artist over his canvas. He actually creates His work and makes it animated and thinking and deciding, the human artist cant do any of that. But the human artist certainly have control of how and what happens to his art. you cant allow that to a mere human and deny it for God.

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'Free will' is nothing but the necessary concept which accompanies, substantiates, and justifies, the concept of sin. 'Free will' and sin are both illusions, and both have the same source and origin - man.

We can discuss "Free Will" later. But yes both concepts are related. Saying that both are illusions is not supported by any logical way of looking at the universe while recognizing that we and the universe Are the Creations of a God.

And yes, both concepts are mere possibilities i.e. theoritical until man acts on them. that does not make them illusions. it is like a static electric charge. it does not materialize till it gets a way to discharge itself. That doesnt make it an "illusion" does it? you will never get the shock till you touch that door knob. well, you have the abilty to decide: God said if you try to open that door you will get a shock, because there is a static charge on the door knob and by touching it you will provide it with the way to discharge itself through you.

well Rev Emp, ..... you decide. the charge is there as a potential, not an illusion. If you touch it you know what will happen.

It is really simple. There is no mysteries. But guess what? if you stil insist on touching the knob and after that you say, sorry God i made a mistake. He will forget the whole thing. On the other hand if you insist on keep touching it and cause sparks to fly allover the place, He really gets upset because you may cause the whole thing(His art-work, the display case, the room and may be the whole gallery) to be messed up which leads to his displeasure. You dont want that, do you?

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Your reference to a 'maker of gadgets' who creates a 'rule-book' for the proper use of the gadgets he's made is also inappropriate. we are not gadgets with specific functions that must operate in certain ways to function properly

I just wanted to add a little note regarding this gadget thing:

We, Humans, are really amazingly arrogant and soooo resistent to telling us what to do. even when using actual gadgets.

I cant tell you how many times I managed large complicated projects for producing fancy chemicals and other fantastic stuff we all use. In many if not all of these projects there is always a "new" machine with special features.

After the design is finished and the equipment are installed we, the gadget designer, write a "Manual" called "Operating Procedure" for each machine and for the whole system as a unit. For the "new" machine, we get all the operators and tell them what to watch out for and what to do and what Not to do with THIS new machine. We point out the differences between this new one and the other ones they are used to and know how to operate while their eyes are closed.

WE start the plant and we transfer it to production along with the manuals.

Not a day or two after that, and I get a call that the new machine doesnt work and everything is messed up and the production manager curses me, the whole engineering profession, the gadget manufacturer and the day he accepted this new machine.

I go to see what is wrong, and i see that the machine is like a pin ball machine with all lights flashing and peeping allover the place. I say what did you guys do. They start telling me stories of what happened and what they did. I say, when you noticed what was happening, didnt you check the manual and see what it says to fix that? they say no, we didnt. I get mad. and you know what the forman told me, laughing, at one time? He said: we only check the manual when everything else fails and there is no engineers around. But you were here, so Fix it.

This is absolutely true. no exaggeration. It happens many many times.

So even with gadgets, we resist the idea of being told what to do and what not to do. even if it results in interrupting the operation of a huge plant and multimillion dollars of losses. The sad thing is, sometimes this results in fatalities. It happened three times in my life. one resulted in two deaths, one in the death of more than 20 and the third in serious injuries for several operators.

So i understand your resistence to the idea of God's rules and regulations for humans. If some of us resist the rules that have obvious and direct results, it is no surprise that even more will resist the idea of "Sin" since the consequences are not really obvious and direct as in the case of gadgets.

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LULA POSTS:

Prior to the Fall, the animals were plant eaters

Kingbee posts:

so there was plant-killin goin on from the jump?

what was it plants did to warrant death?

In Genesis 1:31, God proclaimed His finished Creation "very good". Consistent with this, people and animals were given plants to eat. 29-30.

Scripture makes a clear distinction between the status of plants and animals. Genesis describes people and animals as having or being "nephesh" which conveys the idea of a breathing creature. Genesis 2:7 where Adam became a "living SOul" is "nephesh chayyah". It's also used in the OT as combined with other Hebrew words meaning emotions, feelings, etc. It's thought that "nephesh" refers to life with a certain amount of consciousness. Plants don't have such nephesh and so when Adam ate a carrot it didn't involve death in a biblical sense.

Isaias 11:6-9 tells us of a future new earth when there will be no violence or death. ANimals and man will dwell together peacefully. This vision of future bliss reflects the former Paradise lost through sin.

polar bears and sharks once ate only plants?

you're not serious?

Yes, I'm serious, just not dogmatic.

In the world before the Fall, there was no disease, pain, suffereing and death of animals. There was no meat-eating carnivorous part of the food chain. Lev. 17:11 and Gen. 9:4 gives us a clue just what is a "nephesh" animal. It tells us the "life (nephesh) of the flesh is in the blood". Yes, of course, there as difficulties as to what counts as blood... in the case of fish and sharks...

Anyway, as I read and understand it, there was no violent death especially that involving bloodshed before the Fall. Man was permitted to eat meat only after the Flood Gen. 9:3 and that may be due to the extinction of many plant species that were formerly able to provide all the protein and vitamin requirements for humans.

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Plants hate you too, lula.

So what did Venus flytraps eat before the fall?

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EOIC WRITES:

There is no such thing as original sin.

This just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun. This is the same denial a fellow by the name of Pelagius was peddling back in St.Augustine's day. Pelagius, probably born in Britain around 354 denied Original Sin writing that Adam's sin was purely personal and it would be unjust for God to punish the human race for his transgression. Since all are born without sin, infant Baptism is useless, etc. He also taught on freedom of the will and that Divine grace, actual or sanctifying is unnecessary. The freedom would be destroyed if the will were inclined to evil becasue of another's sin or had to be strengthend by another's help. The Redemption doesn't give new life to the human race. Pelagianism rests on the idea that God is only a spectator in the events of human salvation.

St.Augustine was the champion of orthodoxy against the heresy of Pelagianism which was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418, afterwards confirmed by the Pope and at the General Council of Ephesus in 431.

Original sin as sexual sin began life with the writings of Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential Christian writers and thinkers in the history of the Church. Augustine was not always a Christian. He was a convert from Manicheanism, and before his fascination with Dualism took hold he had been, by his own confession, a drunkard and a general debauchee, possessed by a rabid appetite for sex.

What he so eagerly enjoyed in his youth he was to deny to others in his later life, being tormented by guilt - or, as he put it, having repented of his 'sin'. Augustine is the principal originator of the doctrine of Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the Spirit, a doctrine to be found in his greatest work 'The City of God'.

Of St. Aurelius Augustine, Bishop, theologian and Doctor of the Church...Nov. 13, 354 to Aug. 28, 430...No two spiritual experiences could be more opposed than those of St. Augustine and Pelagius.

Your description of Augustine in his early years is accurate...by the age of 16, he lived a life of sensual pleasure and for 12 years, he placed his intellectual hopes in the sect of Manichaeism and behind their myths.

According to the biography of his mother, St.Monica, she cried and prayed for his conversion day and night....and God must have listened to her....for we know that prayers work.

Manchiaeism proved disappointing to Augustine's searching quieries and so he moved to Milan where he was converted in part due to Bishop Ambrose's spritual guidance in the concept of God and man, his introduction with NeoPlatonism where he discovered man's personal responsibility for the evil they commit and his reading of St.Paul particularly his Epistles to the Galatians and Romans.

The experience of his conversion convinced him that there could be an efficacious grace necessary to break the habit and the slavery of sin. His mother lived to see her son baptized in 387 in Milan. Within one year he had begun 2 philosophical dialogues and his first treatise against the Manichees. Until 399, he struggled against the heresy of Manicheism until after engaging in public dialogue, his opponent, the Manicheism Felix was himself converted. St.Augustine refuted Manicheism and it was finally condemned at the Twelth General Council, the FOurth Council of the Lateran in 1215.

Following that, St.Augustine preached against the schismatic Donatists at Carthage and it was during a conference in 411 that he first met Pelagius. A Council at Carthage in 411 had condemned Celestius, a disciple of Pelagius and St.Augustine soon began his first anti-Pelagian work, De peccoatorum meritis et remissione. In 417, the Pope confirmed the excommunication of the two heretics, Pelagius and Celestius at the Synod at Milevas.

Fifteen years before the anti-Pelagian controversy, St.Augustine theology of grace was entirely developed and clear.

Augustine is the principal originator of the doctrine of Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the Spirit, a doctrine to be found in his greatest work 'The City of God'.

I've researched until I'm blue in the face and can't find this particular reference of yours concerning transmission, but I have found this.

In his writings on grace that came shortly after his conversion, St. Augustine's philosophy professed a creation that makes God not only the source of man's being but also of the conversion that makes man free. This doubling of the divine gratuity in Creation and in man's formation is shown again in the accomplishment of a good will. In directly opposing Pelagius, St.Augustine made this more explicit by stating that God also gives man capability, desire and action and even final perseverance.

This theology is governed by St.Augustine's idea of the primacy of grace and of his personal experience of the wound caused by sin. He says the will exists in a state of ignorance and trouble it is enslaved by consupiscence (which is a consequence of Original Sin, the natural activity of instincts or passions not subordinate to reason which may lead often enough to actual sin).

St.Augustine's concept of freedom is astonishingly existential in in perception of inner disposition of the self and even more on its emphasis on the impossiblility of the will's remaining neutral. The will is always a love ie a pleasure and a pressure. Accordingly grace, far from being reduced to a light, moves the liberty within by a love and a pleasure. God does not order without giving man what he ordains.

There is no question that St.Augustine connected Original Sin in offspring and consupiscence in parents...and what is very important to realize is that this is his own theological theory concerning transmission....there are several more out there besides his.

So, in this sense, you are incorrect to say that "Augustine is the principal originator of the doctrine of Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the Spirit, a doctrine to be found in his greatest work 'The City of God'". St. Augustine's theological ideas on the transmission are just that---his ideas and not what the Church dogmatically defined at Trent.

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Plants hate you too, lula.

Silly San Chonino. Plants don't hate, only people hate...this though, only after Adam's Original Sin.

Evidently, EOIC understands:

the commonest experience in that existence, is pain. It hurts to be alive. Hadn't you noticed?

Sad, isn't it? It wouldn't be this way if we listened to Almighty God who told us to love one another and bear one another's burdens.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

Sad, isn't it? It wouldn't be this way if we listened to Almighty God who told us to love one another and bear one another's burdens

whatcha mean we?

i wasn't consulted nor a participant at any level.

those who ignore plant respiration can't be relied upon to decide what's alive and what's not.

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Sad, isn't it? It wouldn't be this way if we listened to Almighty God who told us to love one another and bear one another's burdens.

You mean if everyone was Christian, certainly not the muslims with their virgins for martyrs or jews with their circumcision or mormons with their polygamy or any other crazy religion? It is nice to think of a one world religion and everyone abiding by the laws set forth by it, imagining everyone living peacefully, helping one another, and not have pointless wars, but that will never happen... and frankly, I wouldn't want it to be that way.

I am more curious on how life would be without religions that didn't push a "Sin Rulebook". People are able to decide for themselves if something is right or wrong, people do it every day.... for small matters and big ones. People just want the reassurance from their religion that they are doing the right thing... but the problem with a Rulebook is that people no longer think about WHY or IF something is REALLY right or wrong they just do it, it is almost as if their free will (or at least their normal thought process they would have given the issue) is actually taken away. And in many cases the resulting decision effect more then just the believer, I would cite examples, but im sure people already know many of them.

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There is no question that St.Augustine connected Original Sin in offspring and consupiscence in parents...and what is very important to realize is that this is his own theological theory concerning transmission....

So, in this sense, you are incorrect to say that "Augustine is the principal originator of the doctrine of Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the Spirit, a doctrine to be found in his greatest work 'The City of God'". St. Augustine's theological ideas on the transmission are just that---his ideas and not what the Church dogmatically defined at Trent.

I don't believe I said anything at all in relation to the Council of Trent, or in relation to the position of the Catholic Church. What I said was that Augustine originated the idea of the passage of guilt for the Fall, through sex, to all Adam's inheritors (ie, those to whom the inheritance is transmitted).

Which is what you've just admitted I said.

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I'd respond to others as well, but I'm up at 4.30 so...

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I don't believe I said anything at all in relation to the Council of Trent, or in relation to the position of the Catholic Church.

Actually you did...albeit indirectly...and that's the finer point that I'm attempting to make.

By what you said, "Augustine is the principal originator of the doctrine of Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the Spirit, a doctrine to be found in his greatest work 'The City of God'", the reader is led to understand that St. Augustine's body of thought concerning transmission IS the Church's doctrine of OS, when in actuality, it isn't.

The only way theology becomes doctrine in the CC is when it is officially defined by the Pope alone, or by the Pope and body of bishops assembled at a General Council. The Church formalized the doctrine of OS first at the Council of Carthage in 415, and officially defined it at Trent. Original Sin is that guilt and stain of sin which we inherit from Adam who was the origin and head of all mankind. OS is a sin of human nature which is ours as sharers in that human nature. The Church has made no definitive statement concerning transmission.

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The Church has made no definitive statement concerning transmission.

But by its own doctrine, it has. If a)Everyone is subject to Original Sin, and b)Everyone is created by sex, then it stands to reason that c)sex causes everyone to be subject to Original Sin.

I stand by my earlier statement - Man must be held accountable for his own mistakes, and not for Adam's transgression. There is no such thing as Original Sin.

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Original Sin is that guilt and stain of sin which we inherit from Adam who was the origin and head of all mankind. OS is a sin of human nature which is ours as sharers in that human nature. The Church has made no definitive statement concerning transmission.

While the Church may have made no definitive statement, it's obvious from the chain of logic contained in the above quote that you yourself accept Augustine's thesis. As SC points out: everyone is subject to original sin; everyone is created through sex; sex is the objective link between the object 'guilt' and the predicate 'human'.

According to the Christian view of things, all men are damned sinners without the intervention of Christ. According to my view of things, men are neither damned nor sinners, because there is no such thing as 'sin'. There is wrong doing, as I pointed out. But that wrong doing is defined by the community and the conscience, not by divine will.

I have never, even remotely, in anything I have written, indicated that I think God to be disinterested in Its creation. What I have said is that, to my mind, this interest is entirely impersonal. As ThinkAloud points out, we don't care about the ants in our yard - not, as he contends, because we haven't created them but because our interests and their interests are in general too remote from each other to collide. When our interests collide, however, we don't simply take an interest in ants, we care about them; care enough to go out of our way to destroy them.

It seems to me that the reverse of this situation is true in relation to God. God, as artist, has an interest in every aspect of Its creation. But God as artist has no personal care for any aspect of the creation in particular, just as the human artist has no particular care for any individual brush-stroke. It is not possible for me, or you, or anyone else, to have a 'personal relationship' with God - because God has not the least interest in having a personal relationship with me, or you, or anyone else.

The fantasy that 'Jesus' is my 'friend', my personal friend, who intercedes for me before a vengeful Father-God, depends on a primordial fear of difference and punishment, and the purely arbitrary nature of that fear is perfectly expressed in stories such as the acceptance of Abel and the rejection of Cain. Where the standard of righteousness is unknowable except after the event of judgment, then the believer is left in a state of eschatological dread that is psychologicallu unsustainable - except when relieved by the presence of the 'friend' who bears the impossible burden of an unknowably costly justification for me. Sin is Fear, nothing more.

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c)sex causes everyone to be subject to Original Sin.

No, SC, sex doesn't cause Original Sin. It's Adam's original sin that causes everyone to be subject to OS.

Sex has to do with the physical natural, mortal body while OS has to do with the spiritual soul, specifically, the loss of supernatural grace in the spiritual immortal soul.

If Adam hadn't committed Original Sin, then all his posterity would have been born (through sexual relations) immortal never experiencing pain, disease, suffering or death.

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Preach it, Reverend Emp.

Oh, c'mon? You're too biased....what do you...love the Emp?

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San Chonino Posts:

There is no such thing as Original Sin.

Where is it that we the creation have a 'right' to be born in the state of grace and of supernatural dignities and immunities as Adam was?

Grace means gratuious. Can the son of a poor man justly complain that he should have been born of a rich man?
Our first parents fell from a state of supernatural wealth..and as a result we were born in a state of spiritual bankruptcy. We can't deny this or even say it's unjust. We've not lost what was due us.

To me, denying it is more of a mystery than Original Sin itself...but that's me..by faith and reason I accept it. How can we understand the conditions of the human race without admitting original Sin?

Reason points always in the direction of an original and inherited moral catastrophe. Nature does not know paradox, yet we have the human paradox. We see inherent in man egotism, pride, covetnousness, and iniquity. In honesty, we can't deny sin in ourself. Man has fallen from his true place and can't recover it. What is good in him is from his Creator and what is bad is the unhappy effect of his fall.

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EOIC POSTS:

According to my view of things, men are neither damned nor sinners, because there is no such thing as 'sin'.

My reply # 13 gives my view as far sin is concerned.

sin is a breaking of the law of God on purpose. St.Thomas Aquinas describes sin in Latin, aversio a Deo ---a turning away from God.

EOIC POSTS:

According to my view of things, men are neither damned nor sinners,because there is no such thing as 'sin'. There is wrong doing, as I pointed out. But that wrong doing is defined by the community and the conscience, not by divine will.

I think the Lord God was quite adamant about His Divine will that obey the Ten Commandments which are written on our heart. They weren't Ten Suggestions.

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I have never, even remotely, in anything I have written, indicated that I think God to be disinterested in Its creation. What I have said is that, to my mind, this interest is entirely impersonal.

EOIC, is it impersonal that He cares so very much for us that He humbled Himself and became true Man?
or that He knows every hair on our head, or that we are wonderously made, or that He knew us when He was creating the world and all that's in it? It's stuff like this that I find that our Father in Heaven is so loving...He answers our prayers...

It is not possible for me, or you, or anyone else, to have a 'personal relationship' with God -

Quite honestly, I don't really understand this Protestant concept of faith through a "personal relationship" with Christ..

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I really ough to attempt a rigorous Cosmogony, putting my own faith into the context of my relationship to Christianity - which is complex.

Because much of the 'debate' with lula and others would disappear if I made it plain that I am no longer in agreement with Christianity, and why. Lula says 'the ten commandments are written on the heart'. I say we all have a conscience. That's saying the same thing - only we differ as to the source of conscience, and its consequences.

Sex has to do with the physical natural, mortal body while OS has to do with the spiritual soul, specifically, the loss of supernatural grace in the spiritual immortal soul.
If Adam hadn't committed Original Sin, then all his posterity would have been born (through sexual relations) immortal never experiencing pain, disease, suffering or death.

As I said in the original article - if 'sin' occurs in the body it can have no effect on the soul. If it occurs in the soul it can have no effect on the body, because the two things are fundamentally different. Augustine's point is that a spiritual condition is inherited by (transmitted to) humanity through a physical act. How can one thing, in its essence supremely different, transmit to another thing, absolutely different from the first, a condition which is of the nature of the first thing and absolutely not of the second?

It can't. Original Sin as a sexually transmitted disease of the spirit is nonsense - no matter what the Bible is interpreted as saying on the point. The 'sinful nature' of man is a consequence of the Fall only if the connection between spiritual contagion and physical transmission is accepted. I don't accept it. Just as I no longer accept 'Jesus Christ' as anything other than the manifestation of the will of millions of Christians over time.

Jesus the god-form exists. Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World does not. The god-form Allah also exists, deriving that existence from the faith of millions of Muslims. All the gods exist, though all the gods be dead (may they live forever). And those who prove true to them will receive the rewards they have been promised.

But that doesn't stop all of you being believing fools, nor the rewards you will receive from being anything but the deceptions of your own desires.

Enjoy, and I'll see all of you in hell.

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LULA POSTS:

only people hate...this though, only after Adam's Original Sin.

Sad, isn't it? It wouldn't be this way if we listened to Almighty God who told us to love one another and bear one another's burdens.

JamesSerral POsts:

It is nice to think of a one world religion and everyone abiding by the laws set forth by it, imagining everyone living peacefully, helping one another, and not have pointless wars, but that will never happen... and frankly, I wouldn't want it to be that way.

JamesFerral,

It seems to me that you don't have to concern yourself about having Christianity with it's living peacefully and helping one another laws as the world religion.

For some time now, the United Nations and the European Union have been busily developing their "one world religion"....it's called secular and atheistic humanism.

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