Christians, why are we "sinners" because of what Adam and Eve did?

The concept of "original sin" has to be one of the most ludicrous aspects of a religion that is based on lies.

The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. We can't have that."

-- Frank Zappa

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/zappa.h...

Not just because of the original sin, but the fact that human beings are born into sin, and are still sinning to this very day, is the reason why we are sinners. We must take responsibility for our disobedience against God our Father in heaven. Adam and Eve did have knowledge from God not to eat fruit from the tree that was in the middle of the garden. It seems that you did not read far enough. >> In the Book of Genesis 3:2-3, The woman ( Eve ) answered the snake ( Satan ), "We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden. But God told us ( Adam and Eve ), 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die'". Later on after the original sin, which was Satan's strategy to wipe out the possibility of Jesus' lineage The Lord said, "My Spirit will not remain in human beings forever, because they are flesh." The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. He was sorry He had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.

Ok first....read the account...Satan asked Eve about the law...she repeated it showing she had been taught. Second there was only one simple law that was there to represent something very important namely; God's right to rule the universe. There is no mention that this fruit was extraordinary....even Eve said to the devil, ("we may eat the fruit of the garden"). They had plenty to eat and plenty of freedom. Now, the above is only secondary information. Your feelings about punishment are not based on the blessings that are in store for all humanity, (even those who have died in the past). After this disobedience, the Creator immediately uttered the first prophecy recorded in the scripture, (Gen 3:15) which indicated he was going to rectify this situation and do it for GOOD! You must understand 3 things: 1) Adam & Eve had no children yet. The actions of the Creator were in the interest of those children. Because the original parents were now imperfect, all children which came from their gene pool were now imperfect and in need of rescue, (not punishment). 2) The devil interfered. His timing was criminal and a perversion. If he had encountered Eve (or Adam) after they had produced even one child, his odds of trickery were reduced. If he had encountered Eve too early it would have scared her away. If he had encountered her later she would have been wise to his efforts....('Get outa here, snakes don't talk'). 3) There is an audience looking on. Perhaps Billions of spirit creatures, perhaps themselves wondering if Satan was right?......SO....here is really the situation: The perfect justice was already proclaimed. The sentence for what Adam & Eve did was death. God allowed them to live long enough to have children and tell their story. Out of love and out of consideration for the situation the Creator has in effect stood back with his hands folded behind him.....in effect saying, "well...it is too bad that the devil interfered and man has proven disobedient, but I know my creation and I kow my creation needs me. I know I am a good father and the rightful ruler. I will immediately begin to work out a situation where someone will rectify this for me. I will empower an individual to form a perfect government. I will allow humanity to try different sorts of government. I will allow the devil an opportunity to prove his point. When I have proven to be the rightful sovereign, I will end this nonsense and the new government ("God's Kingdom") will reverse all the damage including resurrect all the dead.

The outcome is: What God created was what is ABSOLUTELY going to come to be. His intent was for the gene pool of our original parents to be the gene pool that would live forever on this planet, (and who knows maybe the whole universe). There was a slight interference in all of this, but he is rectifying that and his repair will never again be challenged. His original purpose will take place. We need to ask ourselves, Do we want to be part of it?

The reason is because the fundamental nature of man changed, they now understood sin and the propensity to commit it increased with the want. They might not have known the difference between God and evil in the existential sense that they learned it, but they knew God and his will, so they knew good and they knew that the fruit of that tree was not good.

God waited more than 2000 years before Christ because he wanted man to see the price for sin, that is not to say that all of those people went to Hell and had no chance, no they had to have several ritual laws to bring purity through faith in the laws. Also, God could not simply "just get rid of sin" because sin is so against his nature, specifically his fundamental holiness. As for perfection creating imperfection, God did not want simple copies and robots and so gave man the ability to chose to follow him, with the knowledge that they would not. He created the means of imperfection, not the imperfection itself. This does not change his perfection in the slightest.

i'll try to answer ALL your points....ok?

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1)........(And, heck, in the Bible story, Eve hadn't even been created yet when God told Adam not to eat the fruit! (Depending on which version of the creation you follow, seeing as how there are two contradictory ones within the first two chapters of the Bible...)

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>>>>>not two contrary but two from different views......God often shows us truths in many ways to understand them better...the book of revelation shows the same things multiple ways....its like looking at a house from different angles........Adam could of easily told Eve the commandment

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2)........(And, secondly, how could Adam and Eve, who were innocent, have truly "disobeyed" when, before they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they, well, had no knowledge of good and evil, and, thus, no concept of right or wrong, thus, no ability to "disobey" with the intention of disobeying... )

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>>>>>>>>>>>>but they did have knowledge of the commandment and chose to dis-obey therefore they did know right from wrong on that account

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3).....(When your child disobeys you, do you get in your car, drive to the next county, and spank every child you see to punish them for your child's disobedience? Do you punish your child's children 30 years later for your child's disobedience? )

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>>>>>i think a better anology would be what the bible teaches because when we use our own story to illistrate something; we, in the process, change the context of what was originally meant and though we might justify what we feel or understand , we would lose the meaning of what was originally taught.....so then the original meaning is that God created adam and eve in true His true image of rightousness and holiness....what is meant by that is the image or the likeness is of SPIRITUAL QUALITY not in likeness of humanly body form....so that in spiritual quality adam was of greater moral understanding than we give him credit for because adams spiritual likeness was of the same quality as God but yet not equal to God which is how God could fellowship mankind....but adam sinned the first sinned and THEN THAT SPIRITUAL QUALITY or image of likeness was lost.....then when adam and eve had children that same sinfulness was passed on "in the spirit of what adam and eve did".....thats the teaching of inherited sin........that we humans are a FALLEN SINFUL RACE .............

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4).......(Why do we go to Hell unless we repent and accept Jesus just because Adam and Eve disobeyed God? ).....

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>>>>>>>>God has given everyone a free will.......He gave adam a free will and adam sinned......we humans have free will to choose or reject God....God has given ways to return to Him through the teachings of old testament and new testament.......WE ARE MORALLY ACCOUNTABLE..........if you love truth and love you will choose it....if you love lies and sinfulness you will choose it......God has a reward and punishment......it has to be that way or TRUTH would not be true

Despite your disclaimer at the end of your question, I will answer your question.

You are right, we are not punished for what Adam and Eve did. They disobeyed the command not to eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. The exercise of their agency, the act of choosing to eat, was the beginning of knowledge, the loss of innocence. With that loss of innocence, they became unclean and no longer worthy to be in God's presence, thus were they cast out of the Garden and given the mortal opportunity to live by faith and repent of their mortal weaknesses. They were also given the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, which was actually the more important commandment in order to carry out God's will to have all of His children go through the mortal experience.

We believe that man will be punished for his own sins and not for Adam's transgression.

We are all accountable to God for how we live our lives. Each will be judged according to what we do with what we were given.

The actions of Adam and Eve was actually a great thing for mankind and they have been judged incorrectly.. The ability for mankind to know what God is, requires our knowledge of what God is not. Adam and Eve should be regarded as heroes to everyone. The bible, as is so often the case, is incorrect again..It should be noted also that God created many people in that era and not just Adam and Eve..

We're not sinners because of what Adam and Eve did -- we're sinners because of what WE do. The concept that human beings are somehow born with "indwelling, original sin" is a non-Scriptural teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Actually, the Scriptures tell us that we are all born with a nature that encourages us to rebel against God's commandments. When we transgress or violate His law, we sin and are stained by iniquity. Only God's forgiveness can heal that iniquity and bring us back into a relationship with Him.

So to repeat, we are not sinners because of others, we are sinners because we choose to be.

EDIT: I've read your comments to Servant of God and I'd like to answer. Think of it this way: if God had sent Jesus from the very beginning, then humanity wouldn't have fully understood how disgusted God is by our sin. This is the true purpose of the Mosaic Law: to show us what God hates. It's largely a symbolic representation of how sin creeps into our lives and defiles us. For example, when God said at Deut. 22:11 that "You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together," He wasn't concerned with mixing fibers; He was providing a SYMBOLIC DEMONSTRATION to His people that it's improper to mix holiness with unholiness. When He stated at Leviticus 11 what foods should and shouldn't be eaten, He wasn't concerned with food -- He was symbolically demonstrating how sin enters our lives and how to recognize it (see Jesus' explanation of this at Matthew 15:11-20).

Without these lessons, humanity wouldn't have understood what it meant to be a holy people, consecrated to the Lord. And without this knowledge, Jesus' presence would have been premature.

God was angry and very unhappy at his created man for being disobedient to what he had said and as a consequence called upon a curse that augmented some kind of death as a result of eating the forbidden fruit which resulted in an irrepairable fallen human race.

Your answer is found in the Bible's genealogies.

It says that Adam and Eve were made in God's image.

Later on in Genesis 5 it says that Seth (son #3 for Adam) was made in Adam's image, which by that time was a sinful image because of Adam and Eve's sin in the garden.

Genesis 3 says the Adam was changed, and took on a Godly quality, to know good from evil because of Adam's disobedience.

The disobedience was written into Adam and Eve's DNA and was passed along to us. Don't be rationalistic in your mind. These are

spiritual truths that must be accepted in order to understand man's condition.

Mankind is flawed because of the act of disobedience. God created Adam and Eve with the power of choice. They choose to disobey God's Word and warning about what would happen if they ate the forbidden fruit. They ate and all of mankind and all of creation is in a fallen state because of it.

Is it not true that we want to do things that are not right? Doesn't your conscience warn you when you do something wrong or want to do the wrong thing?