... that we are all so reliant on the good will of others and end up corrupting each other when it is perceived as necessary for survival (or at least for some measure of security and confort)?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Could the origin of the idea of an "Original Sin" be the perception...
- Thread starter LuisDantas
- Start date
I do not believe so. I suspect it evolved from a primitive biblical view on reward and punishment.
allfoak
Alchemist
I believe the concept of original sin surfaced in the 2nd century but Augustine is the one responsible for popularizing it.
It is an awful concept that has been used to control the masses for centuries.
Especially in light of what has been revealed through science, it can be seen to be not only archaic but flat out wrong.
Guilt is an emotion, our emotions get exploited all the time.
Emotions are guides not a reason for condemnation.
Condemnation is a judgement, an interpretation based on an erroneous perception.
When we are in a circumstance that makes us feel uncomfortable or even guilty, it is just our source telling us to shift our thinking and act accordingly if we want to be happy again.
If we want to get specific then lets look at the word guilt for a moment.
Guilt is an experience that causes us to think that we may have harmed someone in some way or perhaps broken a rule.
What would be a healthy response to something like this?
Should i think that because i do these things that i am to be condemned?
The healthy response would be of course is to admit that there are areas of my life that may need to be worked on a bit in order to be a better person.
This has nothing at all to do with condemnation and everything to do with healing.
Emotion is our inner compass, i do not let others decide for me which direction i should go when i have my own guide.
And i certainly don't let others interpret how my compass should be read.
When i feel guilty i know that i must turn around and go the other direction.
The story of the prodigal son illustrates the point well.
When the son decided to finally come back home the Father was there with open arms and a feast.
NO judgement.
It is an awful concept that has been used to control the masses for centuries.
Especially in light of what has been revealed through science, it can be seen to be not only archaic but flat out wrong.
Guilt is an emotion, our emotions get exploited all the time.
Emotions are guides not a reason for condemnation.
Condemnation is a judgement, an interpretation based on an erroneous perception.
When we are in a circumstance that makes us feel uncomfortable or even guilty, it is just our source telling us to shift our thinking and act accordingly if we want to be happy again.
If we want to get specific then lets look at the word guilt for a moment.
Guilt is an experience that causes us to think that we may have harmed someone in some way or perhaps broken a rule.
What would be a healthy response to something like this?
Should i think that because i do these things that i am to be condemned?
The healthy response would be of course is to admit that there are areas of my life that may need to be worked on a bit in order to be a better person.
This has nothing at all to do with condemnation and everything to do with healing.
Emotion is our inner compass, i do not let others decide for me which direction i should go when i have my own guide.
And i certainly don't let others interpret how my compass should be read.
When i feel guilty i know that i must turn around and go the other direction.
The story of the prodigal son illustrates the point well.
When the son decided to finally come back home the Father was there with open arms and a feast.
NO judgement.
Well...I think that this is the consequence, rather than the cause. In other words, the invention of "original sin" has the aim to make humans feel not guilty, if they harm or corrupt other people. Sometimes it is seen as "collateral damage" of a mankind that can't do but sin.
A misconception of the human nature is that harming others is considered indispensable to achieve happiness.
But if man uses reason and logic, he will understand that, through free will, actions are avoidable and efforts produce results.
That's why I think that Christian theology (the Augustinian one) has been producing a profound distrust among people...which is not present among atheists, who do use reason.
Augustus
…
(based on my personal preference rather than an in depth knowledge of theology) I think it is more to do with the idea that humans are a fundamentally flawed species (purportedly due to the transgressions of Adam and Eve), and cannot be saved from their nature absent Divine Favour. A state of innocence can never be regained, at least not in this life. Eating from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil made humans self-conscious, and this leads to pride, envy, lust, avarice, etc., and these are the source f our problems.
(This is also a partial answer to the question of theodicy and why God didn't make the human condition 'better')
Burl
Active Member
Actuating the karmically redundant as a means of control.
Its Paul's invention to fit the utter implausibility of a messiah crucified and resurrected with his Jewish theology.
First Baseman
Retired athlete
Huh?
What is unclear about this. The idea of original sin is not found outside of Christianity at all, and Paul clearly puts forth the idea in his letters to explain what the supposed death and resurrection means. He invents the idea. The point being that a sociological explanation is unnecessary for a sectarian belief that is not shared by anyone uinless you subscribe to Christianity.
The modern notion, at least in Western Christianity, is probably a sort of culmination of several different things, from the various cultures that Christianity is related to/had contact with.
While I certainly don't claim it to be the most influencing factor, I suspect one of the sources might have been the concept of debt. That is to say, "original sin" is just as much "original debt", one that all humanity is theoretically subject to because of Adam and Eve's sin (sans acceptance of Jesus, of course), as anything else.
While I certainly don't claim it to be the most influencing factor, I suspect one of the sources might have been the concept of debt. That is to say, "original sin" is just as much "original debt", one that all humanity is theoretically subject to because of Adam and Eve's sin (sans acceptance of Jesus, of course), as anything else.
Actually, it can be argued that the sacrificial death and resurrection have some basis in the protocols surrounding the cities of refuge.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
It also shows up in some of the Greek myths as well.
Where in Greek myths do we have such a sacrifice made to save others?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
I wasn't referring to that aspect but, instead, of humans becoming deities and sometimes vice-versa.
EtuMalku
Abn Iblis ابن إبليس
Perhaps of interest . . .
The Original Sin as the tradition of the Fall from the Garden of Eden' is an archetypal structure embedded deep within our unconsciousness.
The Original Sin is Man's guilt of being carnivorous and lycanthropic.
We are all descended from males of the carnivorous lycanthropic variety, a mutation evolved under the pressure of hunger caused by the climatic change at the end of the pluvial period, which induced indiscriminate, even cannibalistic predatory aggression, culminating in the rape and sometimes even in the devouring of the females of the original peaceful fruit-eating bon sauvage remaining in the primeval virgin forests.
It was the 'clothes of skin' and the 'aprons of fig-leaves', that produced the nakedness of man, and not the other way round, the urge to cover man's nudity that led to the invention of clothing. It is obvious that neither man nor woman could be 'ashamed' (Gen. ii. 25) or 'afraid because they were naked' (Gen. iii. 10 f.) before they had donned their animal's pelt or hunters' 'apron of leaves', and got so accustomed to wearing it that the uncovering of their defenseless bodies gave them a feeling of cold, fear and the humiliating impression of being again reduced to the primitive fruit-gatherer's state of a helpless 'unarmed animal' exposed to the assault of the better-equipped enemy.
The uncovered body could not have been considered 'indecorous' or 'im-moral'. The very feeling of sin, the consciousness of having done something 'im-moral', contrary to the mores, customs or habits of the herd, could not be experienced before a part of the herd had wrenched itself free from the inherited behaviour-pattern and radically changed its way of life from that of a frugivorous to that of a carnivorous or omnivorous animal.
- from a lecture delivered at a meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine by ROBERT EISLER
First published in 1951 by Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London, B.C.4
Printed in Great Britain by Butler and Tanner Limited Frome and London
The Original Sin as the tradition of the Fall from the Garden of Eden' is an archetypal structure embedded deep within our unconsciousness.
The Original Sin is Man's guilt of being carnivorous and lycanthropic.
We are all descended from males of the carnivorous lycanthropic variety, a mutation evolved under the pressure of hunger caused by the climatic change at the end of the pluvial period, which induced indiscriminate, even cannibalistic predatory aggression, culminating in the rape and sometimes even in the devouring of the females of the original peaceful fruit-eating bon sauvage remaining in the primeval virgin forests.
It was the 'clothes of skin' and the 'aprons of fig-leaves', that produced the nakedness of man, and not the other way round, the urge to cover man's nudity that led to the invention of clothing. It is obvious that neither man nor woman could be 'ashamed' (Gen. ii. 25) or 'afraid because they were naked' (Gen. iii. 10 f.) before they had donned their animal's pelt or hunters' 'apron of leaves', and got so accustomed to wearing it that the uncovering of their defenseless bodies gave them a feeling of cold, fear and the humiliating impression of being again reduced to the primitive fruit-gatherer's state of a helpless 'unarmed animal' exposed to the assault of the better-equipped enemy.
The uncovered body could not have been considered 'indecorous' or 'im-moral'. The very feeling of sin, the consciousness of having done something 'im-moral', contrary to the mores, customs or habits of the herd, could not be experienced before a part of the herd had wrenched itself free from the inherited behaviour-pattern and radically changed its way of life from that of a frugivorous to that of a carnivorous or omnivorous animal.
- from a lecture delivered at a meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine by ROBERT EISLER
First published in 1951 by Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London, B.C.4
Printed in Great Britain by Butler and Tanner Limited Frome and London
First Baseman
Retired athlete
You have labelled yourself well. You are indeed secular. Paul invented nothing but was taught by Christ Himself. But since you are secular of course you cannot understand what that means.
Peter Stone
Member
Original s
Original sin in my perception presented to me by Jesus is feelings, temptations and desires of our body. Put in simple for my tiny brain
Original sin in my perception presented to me by Jesus is feelings, temptations and desires of our body. Put in simple for my tiny brain
Peter Stone
Member
It is really hard for all of us to be argumentative of perception. All in all People of Judah and Christians are with a God who reveals what appears to be an accurate and truthful scientific process according to science. Science revealed more in depth evidence that does not rule out but still is in sink with a God presence with Judah in a scientific observation of an entity explaining a process of the creation. How ever it is very hard for anyone of us to claim observation of something that can not be observed.
