Among Christianity’s many odd doctrines is the notion of original sin. The details vary from denomination to denomination, but a common view is that all humans are born into a state of sin because Adam succumbed to temptation in the Garden of Eden, and that this state of sin makes us worthy of God’s eternal condemnation. Only Christ’s sacrifice can redeem us.
Here’s how the Catholic Catechism describes it:
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” – a state and not an act.
This raises an obvious question of fairness. Why should all humans suffer and be damned eternally because of the act of their ancestor, Adam?
In a recent UD comment, Vincent Torley offered a defense:
To answer your silliest questions first: under the tribal scenario that I was envisaging, all human beings then living would have assented to Adam’s decision. Of course, if there really was an original couple then that makes things a lot simpler. The exact nature of Adam’s sin has been debated for centuries, but on one sensible interpretation, the sin wasn’t simply learning the difference between good and evil; rather, Adam wanted to create his own moral standards and define good and evil on his own terms. In so doing, he deliberately eschewed the Divine protection that had preserved the human race from suffering and pain and made a declaration of human independence, telling God to nick off. Bad move. God reluctantly took him at his word and withdrew His special protection, leaving the entire human race vulnerable to starvation, predation and disease. That may sound unfair on future generations, who had nothing to do with Adam’s fateful decision, but to me it seems obvious that you can’t have half the human race running around enjoying supernatural protection from death and suffering while the other half is suffering from raging toothaches and dying off at the age of 30. We’re all one race, and whatever happens to us, we’re all in this together.
[Emphasis added]
I’m always disappointed when Vincent writes something like this because he’s smart enough to know better. Why is it “obvious” that God can’t treat people unequally? He already does it, and he’s certainly going to do it when he “separates the wheat from the chaff” at the time of the final judgment.
So let me throw the question out to Christians generally: Is the unfairness real or only apparent? How do you reconcile it with God’s goodness?
And why should we inherit Adam’s sin, anyway?
As a non theist I can only suggest that it represents a design flaw, or as they say in the software biz, a feature.
Where are the bibles that say this? It seems to be pulled out of thin air.
I can’t find anthing like this in there either about god being “reluctant”. Are we allowed to just stick stuff like that in between the lines as we please to force it to make sense, or to make it appear less unfair and judgemental?
Why the hell didn’t god just take a break and decide to talk to Adam about these things, you know, use his vastly superior intellect and understanding of human nature, to explain to Adam what he has done, why it was wrong and so on? You know, how parents usually act when their children go astray.
Here ya go:
http://www.jesusandmo.net/strips/2016-02-17.png
Why does it work for descendants but not creators?
I confess, when I was a devout, practicing Christian, the issue of fairness regarding Adam’s sin perpetuated on all mankind didn’t actually bother me that much…mostly because I could never get that far. For me, the far larger issue was how any material, mortal entity could ever “sin” against an immortal deity. Still makes no sense to me, particularly given that said “sin” was the very necessary basis for understanding “sin” in the first place. The entire story is an exercise is identifying the number of times the author(s) beg the question…
I always wondered how one could know something was wrong before knowing about right and wrong.
Reminds me of the red button that you aren’t supposed to push.
People will go to great lengths to defend these goofy doctrines. Case in point:
Many Christians invoke the Fall to explain the presence of death and evil in the world, including “natural evils” like earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, epidemics, and so forth.
For scientifically informed Christians, this idea is problematic. Death and natural evil were obviously part of the world long before humans existed — and thus long before Adam (if he ever existed) had the opportunity to sin.
This article at BioLogos argues that it was human death that came into the world via the Fall, and that animal death was part of creation from its beginning. The article then waffles on the issue of whether the human death thus engendered was spiritual or physical.
Bill “I bow to the text” Dembski believes that the Fall worked retroactively, and that animals suffered for hundreds of millions of years because of the sin of a particular primate in the far-off future. He wrote an entire book on the subject.
Interestingly, the book got him into trouble with his employer, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, not because of the “retroactive Fall” idea, but because it denied the historicity of the global flood in Genesis. Dembski ended up recanting his heresy:
So much for “following the evidence wherever it leads.”
petrushka,
HeKS and StephenB tried (and failed) to grapple with that issue in this thread.
keiths,
that integrity thingy.
Yeah. Apparently it’s as new and unfamiliar to Dembski as it is to Mung.
We don’t inherit adams sin. We inherit the dna to sin. Yet we sin/crime all by out own will.
We have the choice not to sin but fail.
Robert Byers,
Conclusion: kill the unborn, send them to heaven*
*not really.
if we are all born in sin, does that mean that the unborn are not? And that abortion is a blessing? That is really going to piss off the pro-life nut jobs.
Macduff was not of woman born, and he kicked ass.
Robert,
I see. The “dna to sin” is so strong that out of the billions of people on earth, not one can resist it, and we get that DNA through no fault of our own, yet when we do sin, it’s completely our responsibility and we deserve to be condemned eternally by God.
Perfectly rational, perfectly fair.
So uhm, there was no human death in the garden before the fall, right?
And Adam was allowed to eat from all the other trees in the garden except the tree of knowledge, right?
What would have happened if Adam stopped eating entirely?
I don’t know about most Christians, but I’ll tell you how I used to reconcile that issue. To me, it wasn’t a case of Adam and Eve knowing that disobeying god or eating the fruit from the Tree of KoG&E was “wrong” in any sense of the term. What they “knew” (to any extent they actually knew anything) is that what this “god” fellow told them to do seem to work well for them, so they had never before considered doing anything other than what he had told them.
So I have no problem with the idea that Adam and Eve would have felt “odd” or maybe “uncomfortable” doing something that this “god” fellow had said they should not do. However, that doesn’t help a whole slew of other problems intrinsic in the story. Why would this “god” fellow say “they would surely die” to entities that had no concept of death? So, unless there was already death in the GoE, that phrase would clearly have made no sense and would not have been a deterrent in any way. If there was already death in the GoE, for it to be a deterrent against a given behavior, that death would already have to have been perceived as “evil”, “wrong”, “bad”, whathaveyou. Which then circles back around to what this Tree of the KoG&E actually awakened one to?
Here’s another thing that always bugged me about the story. These two blissful teens are romping about in their hippie garden in total innocence. Then they eat this fruit and suddenly they are ashamed that they are naked???!?! WTF?? W H Y ???? I mean seriously…of all the things to suddenly become aware and ashamed of, unless they were cold or uncomfortable, that one just makes no sense to me whatsoever. I’m betting that their first actual inclination was, “WHEEWEEE…I STINK! Man…I need a shower like…NOW!” That or, “whoa! wonder what she’d look like if she…like…took some of that hair off of…like…everywhere!” But naked…just betting that really wasn’t it.
Reminds me of the red button that you aren’t supposed to push.
I don’t see any argument in the OP. Is there supposed to be an argument there?
I’ve heard that keiths has a killer argument against theism, but asking questions about the doctrine of original sin doesn’t seem to fit the bill.
Mung,
See the word “Questions” in the thread title? I’m asking questions of Christians, including you.
From the OP:
How do you answer those questions?
where?
That’s what I keep asking.
Mung,
No, where have you heard KeithS has ” a killer argument against theism”?
No, it contains questions, not arguments. Why did you think it contained arguments? Even the title says “questions for christians…”
Mung, are you dyslexic?
Still, there is an argument against Christianity, if not theism in general, encapsulated in the question. It’s a problem for a religion if its founding myth is a silly bit of sympathetic magic that doesn’t survive serious examination.
And Mung isn’t dyslexic. He’s just wearing God goggles, whose effect is similar in intensity to that of beer goggles.
But less chance of waking up and being surprised.
Glen Davidson
crack/pot goggles anyone?
I would be absolutely impressed if keiths were to take some of his many questions and turn them into actual arguments.
“I don’t understand the doctrine of original sin” is not an argument against the doctrine of original sin.
Mung,
Explain to us why it makes sense, rather than these pathetic dodges, Mung. No Courtier’s Response, either.
Well, if that’s all it is, I once again refer you to the place prepared for you and your demons.
Do let us know when you have an actual argument to make.
Mung,
‘redirect to my thread’. Congratulations on becoming more like Joe Gallien every day.
Just so we’re clear. I am dodging a not-an-argument. And you have a problem with that. If that’s in fact the case, I really don’t care. Like I said, I await an actual argument.
“I don’t understand Christian doctrines” is not an argument against Christianity or theism. “I don’t like Christian doctrines” is not an argument against Christianity or theism.
Just so we’re clear, you’re dodging a very clear and obvious question, from above: “Why should all humans suffer and be damned eternally because of the act of their ancestor, Adam?”
Do you have an answer? We’d love to hear it. Or don’t you know?
You don’t know where I stand on eternal damnation? Really?
Does not read what I write. Exhibit A.
I bet there’s still a myth here at TSZ that I was afraid to address that topic and avoided it. Honesty. Integrity. Anarchy.
Well, hell. I just redirected to my own thread. Becoming more and more like keiths every day.
Mung,
You’ve not answered the question:
“Why should all humans suffer and be damned eternally because of the act of their ancestor, Adam?”
Use your words, Mung.
Does keiths have an actual argument against Christianity?
That Christianity is false is a conclusion. One assumes there is an actual argument. Somewhere.
Still dodging, Mung.
Do you have any evidence that suggests that someone other than me wrote the words in those two OPs I provided links to?
Be honest.
C’mon, Mung, answer the question.
For once in your life, act like a woman.
Mung,
I mean here, in this thread. Copy and paste if you want, address the question. This dodging is making you look more pathetic.
What part of I don’t give a shit do you not understand? There’s no argument in the OP. Nothing worth actually responding to.
The idea that I am afraid to say what I think about hell and eternal damnation is false, but it didn’t seem to bother you in the slightest when those lies were being spread. Honesty. Integrity. Anarchy.
Here you are again, carrying keiths’ water for him. Good boy.
Immediate Ignore. Congratulations.
What I don’t understand is, if you WILL not answer the question, why dodge and weave and pretend you answered it somewhere else, and change the subject, and generally make it obvious that you have no answer and can’t admit it. Why not just SAY that?
It’s as if he actually thinks — or hopes — that he’s fooling someone.
Sure it is.
That much was obvious all the way back to Saul’s day. Acting in his Paul persona, he ruled that (pagan/Roman) Gentiles who wished to become christians did not have get circumcised — as they would have, if they were to start following the rabbi Jesus as converted Jews, which is the view Jesus’ immediate disciples took — and although Paul invented a “faith” reason why circumcision wasn’t necessary, the real reason is so that prospective followers would not be turned off by that barbaric practice.
Christian elders of one stripe or another have always known and acted on their knowledge that “I don’t like christian doctrines” is a sufficient argument against christianity.
We are conceived in sin and later born . We in our dna are never not in sin.
So while it is free will STILL we never would not sin.
Babies do go to heaven by the way.
OMG!!!
I AM MORTALLY WOUNDED!!!
Do you have an argument? The consensus so far seems to be that you have no argument, but that I ought to pretend as if you do have an argument.
keiths never sinned. ever.
I know some of you don’t like the term “butthurt”, but really, can you think of a word that better captures Mung’s chronic, constipated state of envy, resentment, and self-loathing?