Religion says we are all born in sin?
Have you ever seen a newborn? How can you believe that?
Have you ever seen a newborn? How can you believe that?
Seeker
Favorite Answer
Yes. That's the twisted, perverse, morality of the Bible, starting with Genesis. Here's what the Bible would have you believe . . .
Have you ever done something you regret? Well, if so, how does that compare to eating a fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”? If all sins are the same to God and all sin is disobedience to God, then eating the apple was, by God’s own terms, a pedestrian sin.
Yet God condemned all of us to death because of a single sin by a pair of humans with no life experience. Are you guilty of Eve’s sin? Of course not! No more so than for Hillary Clinton’s sins or for mine. Right off the bat, common sense tells us that the Bible, in Genesis, is preaching a twisted morality. It puts us in opposition to ourselves by claiming our nature is sinful. Biblical sin is a tool to manipulate and control us via fear and guilt. I reject that neurosis: I believe most of us are basically good but we sometimes make mistakes. If we live life believing we’re no good, then we probably won’t be.
On the scales of justice, most people are basically good. If there’s an afterlife, many people deserve free admission. And many people don’t.
But that’s definitely not what the Bible preaches, is it? We’re ALL unworthy sinners.
The Bible says God created the universe, including Adam and Eve. They were pure and sinless and had all eternity, in Eden, to bask in God’s glory.
Unless they pissed Him off, of course.
And it doesn’t take much to piss off God. No sir! And second chances? Forget about it. One mistake and you’re history. By the way, all of your offspring, forever, will also be cursed with death. How do you like them apples?
Because of Adam and Eve, we’re all born guilty of “Original Sin”. So much for God’s perfect plan (let’s call it, “plan A”). In fact, Original Sin made the human condition so intractably degenerate that God eventually had to wipe out all life (human or not) with a catastrophic flood so that Noah’s family could start humanity anew, from scratch. This was God’s idea of plan B.
Well guess what? God’s plan B was all for naught. A few thousand years later, humanity had repopulated itself from Noah’s incestuous Ark and – surprise, surprise – was no better than before. I guess that’s what inbreeding gets you. You’d think God would know that.
Time for plan C.
This time, instead of genocide, God chose suicide. He came to Earth personally, as Jesus, to act out a script he divinely inspired, in biblical prophesy, that ended with his own trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension back home to heaven.
Why did God do this? Original Sin. Because of Original Sin, we can never be innocent enough for eternal life. We must be forgiven before heaven’s gates will open for us. If you know your dogma, you know Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross so that we may be redeemed from sin (and have everlasting life). Because God cursed Adam and Eve AND all their descendants – in perpetuity – with death, he had to provide some means for our redemption. The alternative was to abandon us. Quite a conundrum God put himself in, no?
Basically, God had to “save” us from the curse he imputed upon us to begin with. I’m amazed that so many people don’t see through this preposterous charade. Perhaps the pretzel logic is too convoluted for most to unravel. The Bible would have us believe – and doctrine upholds – that we are all miserable wretches who will be granted eternal life only if we love Jesus. Of course, this assumes we can trust God not to resort to a plan D or E or whatever. After all, God is all-powerful and a perfectionist: who’s going to stop him from tossing out plan C if he decides, yet again, that he still hasn’t gotten creation right?
God must regret cursing mankind with death. If God is perfect, we can’t say he makes mistakes; so I prefer to say he has regrets. Anyway, I suppose God was hot-headed in his youth; the Old Testament clearly depicts him with a short fuse. So once he imputed death upon us, he couldn’t “un-impute” it. I mean, he’s God! Right? His word is law and immutable. What kind of self-respecting God would change his mind? If God is love, then I guess it’s true that, “love means never having to say you’re sorry”.
Eventually, God found a loophole in his own immutable law: leave mankind cursed but offer individuals an exemption by redemption. Yeah, that’s the ticket! For Christ’s sake – why didn’t God think of plan C BEFORE plan B? After all, if redemption is a workable plan, God wiped-out humanity for nothing. I hate when that happens!
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that the Supreme Being should be an elected position. Surely we can put somebody with more foresight onto the throne of the Ruler of the Universe. At least, if we elect poorly, we can vote for a replacement next time.
Hassan al-Adel
Sin of the Abrahamic religions is a misinterpretation of the First Thought "I Am" in which God creates an "I" perspective to reference the "Am" dimension of God's Essence. The "I" displaces the "Am" and God must Become God through a discovery of all that God is not, for us that means the observable universe.
The realization of Essence displaces Essence and replaces it with Beingness. Beingness requires an Observer "I" to form the thought "I Am". This 'To Be' sets up a potential 'To Not Be' which is the Duality of the Consciousness. Original Sin is God creating something to be 'Not God'. Of necessity we turn away from God to have an experience of the world God created. We have free will only in our thoughts and opinions regarding the universe God has set before us. Everything else is God's will to which we bear witness through perception.
There is no need for us to beg forgiveness. Concepts of good and evil, right or wrong, beneficial and detrimental are all values assigned by us. They are subjective ideas. Religion uses guilt and notions of sin as a way to gain powerful authority over the believer. Without sin there is no need to learn how to be forgiven, which is what some religions are all about.
*bRiTiSh*
It's alright only one religion says that! And I don't believe we are born in sin! A baby can't sin neither can a young child since they don't understand anything.
Theresa
I think where this whole concept goes haywire is because there are widely ranging definitions of sin.
If you believe that sin is separation from God (as I do), then yes, everyone who is born here on Earth is born into sin, because we have left heaven and come to a place that is not God-like.
That doesn't make babies evil - it just makes us all kind of lost.
Trying to care
Its very easy to understand. We all descend from Adam & Eve. They became imperfect after sinning. To be perfect means to be without sin. That imperfection has been inherited and cannot be fixed, so every child born from then on has it.
Although the child has not sinned at that point at sometime in the future it will be a sinner undoubtedly. There is no avoiding it.
So it is born into sin in the sense of it is predisposed to sin.