Guilt is a natural response to violation of a standard we have erected for ourselves....either learned or innate it's irrelevant.
Yes, guilt is a natural response to a violation of a standard, learned or innate. By I disagree that it being learned or innate is irrelevant. Didn't Paul make this point in Romans 7:7? Paul was making the point in context that some of the Mosaic Law was no longer valid. In fact, here is all of Romans 7 in context. Let the readers judge for themselves what Paul was saying about sin.
1. DO YOU not know, brethren--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only during his life?
2. Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.
3. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4. Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
5. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
6. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
8. But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead.
9. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;
10. the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me.
11. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me.
12. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
14. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
17. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
18. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
19. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
20. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
21. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
23. but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
24. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
We can start another thread about the logical problems of trying to understand this in a practical, pragmatic way. The fact is that Paul is discussing sin. He gives an example of a sin he still believes is a problem for him, covetousness. He dispairs over it. But he also admits in verse 7 that if there wasn't a specific prohibition on covetousness taught to him, he woudn't have known it to be wrong and to thus feel guilty about it.
An interesting question for Paul is, would he still feel guilty about not keeping the Sabbath, which is one of the 10 commandments? (No, just read Galatians.) How is Paul able to pick and choose what to feel guilty about when it comes to the Sabbath. Numbers 15:32-36 says
32. While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.
33. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation.
34. They put him in custody, because it had not been made plain what should be done to him.
35. And the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."
36. And all the congregation brought him outside the camp, and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.
Paul said at Col 2:13-17
13. And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
14. having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
15. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.
16. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. 17. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.
That poor man in Numbers! Maybe his conscience said that picking up a few sticks didn't amount to work. While YHWH didn't give him the opportunity to tell him it was, wanting to make a nice example of the man so that the rest of Israel could know sin, Paul said that we no longer had to worry about the Sabbath. Christ didn't come soon enough for the man in Numbers. We later LEARN that the Sabbath doesn't matter anymore, even though we have it taught in the bible that this kind of activity on the Sabbath supposedly cost at least one man his life. I would say learning what specific sins and guilt are is very important in the world of the bible.
The point is that Paul LEARNED guilt. Or to be more clear, he was taught what he should feel guilty about. (if I didn't make myself clear on that, my apologies)
Christianity teaches not only what we are to feel guilty for (being sinful descendants of Adam just from being born) but we are also taught how to feel better. (believe that Jesus died for your sins). Interestingly, this kind of cosmic guilt through offending Christ is something that the other 6 billion people in the world don't suffer from.
I put those scriptures in as much context as I could. I find these passages illogical and frankly, petty on God's part. Perry, believe me when I say that you are not the first to say that I am a sinner in need of the sin atoning value of Christs shed blood. What the entire bible fails to teach is why some sins are in fact, offensive to god, why some laws caused the death of people, only later not to even matter. The bible's fascination (and YHWH's insistence) on blood sacrifice should be called for what it is: a mideval practice that is sick. It is my strong belief that history teaches these superstitious ideas to be destructive. They have no place in a progressive society.
I will certainly allow Perry that your individual faith does much for you. Because of this, I wouldn't dissuade you from your own conclusions. But for anyone to maintain that this belief is the only way for salvation tomorrow and a better life today for all man is simply not true.
I for my part do not rule out the existence of god. I do see the value of being a spiritually minded person. However, I do not accept that worship means we must believe antiquated stories and superstitious beliefs about sin, guilt and blood sacrifice as a way to appease him. And I will not give up my standards of evidence to believe in something no one can ever ever prove.
