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Paralysis of Will in the creation of a New Social Order?

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Since I was a child I was always taught that we were all born sinners, but Genesis states that we were born in God’s image. That indicates to me quite clearly that we were born pure and sin free as God is pure and free from sin. My religion (Baha’i Faith) teaches me that we are all born pure but that through wrong education and bad examples have acquired unhealthy habits not that we are inherently born sinners.

I think that scholars have misinterpreted the Bible and unfortunately many have accepted their fallible views as truth without question. Now is the time and age to question these things, I believe.

Why is it important? My belief is that the concepts that we are born sinners or are animals which can never change, has caused a paralysis of will in our minds that prevents us from establishing a just social order because........ Christians say as sinners we cannot change the world, and must wait for Christ to return to bring the Kingdom of God, while the materialists maintain that man is an animal that cannot change. So we all stand by wringing our hands watching the world go down the gurgler instead of banding together to make something better.

Other obstacles are. Will it be a humanist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, capitalist or socialist order? We have passed through the establishment of tribe, society, state, nation do the next stage is a world community and the technology is already here to create it.

What do you say?
 

Daemon Sophic

Avatar in flux
Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Since I was a child I was always taught that we were all born sinners, but Genesis states that we were born in God’s image. That indicates to me quite clearly that we were born pure and sin free as God is pure and free from sin. My religion (Baha’i Faith) teaches me that we are all born pure but that through wrong education and bad examples have acquired unhealthy habits not that we are inherently born sinners.

I think that scholars have misinterpreted the Bible and unfortunately many have accepted their fallible views as truth without question. Now is the time and age to question these things, I believe.

Why is it important? My belief is that the concepts that we are born sinners or are animals which can never change, has caused a paralysis of will in our minds that prevents us from establishing a just social order because........ Christians say as sinners we cannot change the world, and must wait for Christ to return to bring the Kingdom of God, while the materialists maintain that man is an animal that cannot change. So we all stand by wringing our hands watching the world go down the gurgler instead of banding together to make something better.

Other obstacles are. Will it be a humanist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, capitalist or socialist order? We have passed through the establishment of tribe, society, state, nation do the next stage is a world community and the technology is already here to create it.

What do you say?
Interesting OP.
Since you seem to be operating off of the Bible and Christian theology, then I would immediately have to respond to your first thoughts about being born pure as overridden by the story of Eve and Adam with their original sin in the garden of Eden. This supposedly made all descendants from them unworthy of the Garden as well. Their sin is what is passed down from generation to generation, resulting in all of us being born impure.

However to your follow up thought on that, it is quite possible (in fact obvious) that the human interpreters of early scriptures as well as the writers of those early scriptures were mistaken or lying or in someway creating a false set of tales in the book of mythology called the Bible. Just like any other mythological text.

Your next paragraph, I disagree with. Materialists and those who see the world without any magical divine intervention recognize that we are in fact animals just like other primates and other mammals. However, that fact in no way whatsoever keeps any of us from believing that we can make the world a better place for future generations. We do not believe that per the Genesis account; the sins of the parents are passed down to their children. Rather, everyone is capable of making the world a better place. And morally they should try to.

Your later paragraph discussing obstacles or end game goals is a little troubling, in that I would state that hopefully none of those options you offered, whether they be capitalist or socialist or religious of any form, will be the final state for humanity.
So far only a democracy, run by a well-informed voting public has shown any chance of long-term survival and widespread justice. Likely it will contain a well regulated capitalistic economic system with many supports of the general welfare (socialism) such as police, fire, and medical response; very healthy infrastructure, unsurpassable education system, etc...etc... If there are any religious beliefs in that distant shining future is beside the point, as long as they stop causing so much harm.


Cheers!
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
I interpret the Bible to really mean that we are all essentially Divine, the image of Divinity. But we come into life with limited human egos (born sinners). So I take both statements are not opposite but reconcilable when viewed in my admittedly personal way.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
Interesting OP.
Since you seem to be operating off of the Bible and Christian theology, then I would immediately have to respond to your first thoughts about being born pure as overridden by the story of Eve and Adam with their original sin in the garden of Eden. This supposedly made all descendants from them unworthy of the Garden as well. Their sin is what is passed down from generation to generation, resulting in all of us being born impure.

However to your follow up thought on that, it is quite possible (in fact obvious) that the human interpreters of early scriptures as well as the writers of those early scriptures were mistaken or lying or in someway creating a false set of tales in the book of mythology called the Bible. Just like any other mythological text.

Your next paragraph, I disagree with. Materialists and those who see the world without any magical divine intervention recognize that we are in fact animals just like other primates and other mammals. However, that fact in no way whatsoever keeps any of us from believing that we can make the world a better place for future generations. We do not believe that per the Genesis account; the sins of the parents are passed down to their children. Rather, everyone is capable of making the world a better place. And morally they should try to.

Your later paragraph discussing obstacles or end game goals is a little troubling, in that I would state that hopefully none of those options you offered, whether they be capitalist or socialist or religious of any form, will be the final state for humanity.
So far only a democracy, run by a well-informed voting public has shown any chance of long-term survival and widespread justice. Likely it will contain a well regulated capitalistic economic system with many supports of the general welfare (socialism) such as police, fire, and medical response; very healthy infrastructure, unsurpassable education system, etc...etc... If there are any religious beliefs in that distant shining future is beside the point, as long as they stop causing so much harm.


Cheers!

Thanks for your sharing your insights. With Christian interpretations of the Bible many are contrary to reason and scientific proofs such as the creation story. As a Baha’i, I accept the Bible as the Word of God but couldn’t there be other explanations which accord with science & reason? My hypothesis is that the Bible has never been truly understood and that it has mostly been approached as a novel instead of a deep, meaningful account of history. For instance. It also mentions that a day is a thousand years. But science tells us the earth is far older than 7,000 years. So then what kind of day is the Bible referring to? A day of man or a day of God? As the Bible concerns itself with primarily spiritual occurrences, then could this not be an allusion to the appearances of Prophets, Teachers or Messiahs on earth during the Adamic ‘week or cycle’? And was creation speaking about spiritual not material creation?

Since the time of Adam there have been a number of Divine Days, Days of God, when a new spiritual Sun arose and a new Day dawned. Suns bearing Truth, so Suns of Truth let’s call them.

To the Jews, Moses was One such Sun of Truth Who brought in the Days of Judaism. Another Sun was the Buddha and another Krishna. Abraham, Christ, Muhammad and Zoroaster were other Suns that brought in new Days to humanity. Historians may differ on these but there have been around seven such Suns of Truth spanning around 7,000 years which constitutes the religious history of mankind just in the creation story alone. But simple minds have conjectured mythical, irrational explanations which science both debunks and disproves. That the entire religious history of mankind can be alluded to in just a few short verses is proof enough to me it is of God and as with the born a sinner explanation - a result of ignorance and failure to respect that the Bible is not merely a literal storybook.

The problem such fictitious interpretations present is that there are over 2 billion people who await Jesus to appear, floating on a cloud, delivering the Kingdom of God to the world and that dead bodies will rise from their graves.

So massive amounts of financial and Human Resources, which could be working towards establishing a new order, waste time trying to convert people instead of building it, meanwhile waiting for magic to appear from the heavens. We are in the west so I mention Christianity but other religions also await their messiah to reappear to fix things up.

Meanwhile, the world powers jockey for world dominance. The new order, in order to succeed, I believe, will have to be a joint effort with contributions from the best each society or nation has to offer, while discarding the worst. But this new system can only function upon the principle of the oneness and equality of all human beings. No race, religion, nation or culture can dominate. The world must keep its diversity for it is impossible for all to become western or eastern, but a blending of the two. There are things each has to offer the other. Looking down the track, a world culture will emerge, I believe, with all as world citizens of a world commonwealth.

Technology so far has enabled us to unite as one on the Internet. The virtual world is united. Now it’s for the real world to walk through the doors which science and technology
has opened for us, giving us an example of the early glimmerings of the dawn of world civilisation.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
I interpret the Bible to really mean that we are all essentially Divine, the image of Divinity. But we come into life with limited human egos (born sinners). So I take both statements are not opposite but reconcilable when viewed in my admittedly personal way.

Very nice explanation.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
...
What do you say?
We humans are both good and bad. The good side of our nature is stronger. That's why we humans are treating each other better right now than at any time in our history. We are making moral progress. If we project this trend into the future, global harmony is inevitable.

I'm pretty sure that religion will have nothing to do with achieving global harmony because, when moral advances have been made in the past, like the abolition of legal slavery, the religions of the world had nothing to do with it. The Christians who opposed slavery did so because their conscience demanded it but there are more than 100 references in their Bible to slavery and none condemn the practice.

Global Harmony is Inevitable
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Since I was a child I was always taught that we were all born sinners, but Genesis states that we were born in God’s image. That indicates to me quite clearly that we were born pure and sin free as God is pure and free from sin. My religion (Baha’i Faith) teaches me that we are all born pure but that through wrong education and bad examples have acquired unhealthy habits not that we are inherently born sinners.

I think that scholars have misinterpreted the Bible and unfortunately many have accepted their fallible views as truth without question. Now is the time and age to question these things, I believe.

Why is it important? My belief is that the concepts that we are born sinners or are animals which can never change, has caused a paralysis of will in our minds that prevents us from establishing a just social order because........ Christians say as sinners we cannot change the world, and must wait for Christ to return to bring the Kingdom of God, while the materialists maintain that man is an animal that cannot change. So we all stand by wringing our hands watching the world go down the gurgler instead of banding together to make something better.

Other obstacles are. Will it be a humanist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, capitalist or socialist order? We have passed through the establishment of tribe, society, state, nation do the next stage is a world community and the technology is already here to create it.

What do you say?


IMO, people are controlled by the subconscious psyche which we have very little control over. I don't agree we are born "pure". We have some genetic coding that influences our view of the world, sets up our personalities. Then there is cultural and experiential programming thrown into the mix which influences our subconscious thoughts and feelings.

So, bottom line, I suspect we would all like this perfect society but our subconscious mind allows limited if any control over our choices it is not something we are capable of choosing yet. While we are not as primitive as we were, we are neither as advanced as we think we are.

Maybe in 10,000 years if we don't destroy ourselves in the meantime.
 

1213

Well-Known Member
Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Since I was a child I was always taught that we were all born sinners, ...

It depends on what sin means. I have understood sin is to reject God, or to be without God, or to be separated from God. We are born here in separation from God and that is why I would say we are born in sinful state. That we are image of God, doesn’t mean we could not be sinners.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Since I was a child I was always taught that we were all born sinners, but Genesis states that we were born in God’s image. That indicates to me quite clearly that we were born pure and sin free as God is pure and free from sin. My religion (Baha’i Faith) teaches me that we are all born pure but that through wrong education and bad examples have acquired unhealthy habits not that we are inherently born sinners.

I think that scholars have misinterpreted the Bible and unfortunately many have accepted their fallible views as truth without question. Now is the time and age to question these things, I believe.

Why is it important? My belief is that the concepts that we are born sinners or are animals which can never change, has caused a paralysis of will in our minds that prevents us from establishing a just social order because........ Christians say as sinners we cannot change the world, and must wait for Christ to return to bring the Kingdom of God, while the materialists maintain that man is an animal that cannot change. So we all stand by wringing our hands watching the world go down the gurgler instead of banding together to make something better.

Other obstacles are. Will it be a humanist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, capitalist or socialist order? We have passed through the establishment of tribe, society, state, nation do the next stage is a world community and the technology is already here to create it.

What do you say?
There has always been people that gain power. Even if they are part of a religion, lots of people in power use that power to exploit others. Those that are being exploited or in other ways treated unjust are going to try and change the social order. Those in power do things to try and keep the old social order in place. This struggle continues. Will it end with what the Baha'is are trying to accomplish?

Unfortunately, I don't have much confidence in it. Religions with rules are always going to have a struggle getting people to obey those rules. Those that don't like following those rules will continue to struggle against even a social order that is governed by laws that have been supposedly given by God. Since, nobody will probably ever to perfect, those in power and in leadership roles of any religion are still going to do things that others see as wrong and as abusing their power. In a Baha'i social order, who has power? How are they going to gain power? How are they going to justly govern all people in the whole world? If Baha'is aren't then who is? Why will they be just? Somebody is always going to have to do the grunt jobs and others are going to have things easier.

I also have a question about how Baha'is make it seem like each prophet brought knowledge that led people to develop ever larger groups... like the family, the tribe etc. But, since ancient times, there has always been empires. Some of them large enough to have essentially, ruled the world. There has always been a need to enforce a certain amount of obedience and conformity to the rules of the society.

Even in the U.S., with the Black Lives Matter protests, in a society that says people have the right to peaceably protest, the enforcers have done a lot of things to forcibly break up the protests. On the other side, some people have broken windows and looted stores and started fires. But, in the middle of all these protests, protests demanding justice and equality for Blacks, where are the Baha'is? That's what is so strange. The Baha'is support what the protesters are saying, but they can't take part in the protests... as that would be getting too "political"? There's no paralysis in the will of those fighting to bring change. There's maybe a paralysis in the support they get. It takes a shooting to get people involved, then a few weeks of protest, and then the support slowly dwindles away.
 
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