My problem with Original Sin

by leftbelow 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  leftbelow

  I found this quote in a book I was reading and it struck me THIS is why Original Sin is a problem for me.

  “Damnation is the start of your morality, destruction is its purpose, means and end. Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice. It demands, as his first proof of virtue, that he accept his own depravity without proof. It demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not."

  John Galt in Atlas Shrugged
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  Crazyguy

  The orginal story was about the gods denying man or actually demigods immortality. One can see this in genesis too. The woman was talking to the serpent about the tree of wisdom and he said if you eat you will be like the gods knowing right and wrong. Later thegods knowing that Adam and Eve would be just like them if they ate of the tree of life prevented them from doing so. The sky god in this story which the Jews changed was Enlil and the serpent was his half brother Enki. Enki is also the god that warns Noah of the coming flood and tells him to biuld a ark.
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  AndDontCallMeShirley

  Your code begins... demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil

  This is the insidious and destructive nature of religion and the fairytales it builds itself on.

  Imagine how much better the world would be if the converse was taught as truth rather than the current lie: namely, that we all have worth beyond measure and have only to embrace and use it?
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  sparky1

  The concept of Original Sin : ASSIGNING BLAME TO THE BLAMELESS.

  The concept of Original Sin : EXTRACTING A PENALTY FROM THE INNOCENT.
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  Doug Mason

  Off the top of my head, I think that Augustine of Hippo was the person responsible for creating the concept of Original Sin. My memory could be wrong (again - it has been known to happen), but that's my story. Probably a www search would be the order of the day.

  Doug
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  sparky1

  "Look! I was born guilty of error, And my mother conceived me in sin." Psalms 51:5 NWT Revised 2013

  I think the Psalmist beat Augustine to the 'punch'.
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  Isle of Lewis

  John Galt's Speech is what woke me up.
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  Terry

  I don't want to poke a hornet's nest of haters, but I learned more from reading Ayn Rand's philosophy books

  than I had acquired in the previous 40 years of religious books.

  http://aynrandlexicon.com/

  Read the definitions and THINK. Examine your premises behind your long-held ideas, concepts and beliefs.

  Usually, the haters have out the long knives because of the personality of Rand and the unorthodox way she lived

  life. To ordinary sensibility, it was an outrageous life, indeed.

  I have read all the books against her. That doesn't touch the intelligence behind her philosophy.

  A few quotations:

  1. A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

  2. Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

  3. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

  4. Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

  5. From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man – the function of his reasoning mind.
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  Separation of Powers

  If God is a God of perfection in whom there is no blame, then how can he justify permitting sin to exist in the first place. I like the Buddhist position better, in the beginning was ignorance not sin.
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  Doug Mason

  Sparky1,

  Explain to me why this is speaking of Original Sin.

  Also, how do you know who wrote it? And if he was guilty of Original Sin, how can we believe what he wrote? (Reminds me of the man who said: "I always tell lies". Was he telling the truth when he said that?)

  Doug