Original sin and inherited guilt

[Æsahættr]

The first seems more like sympathy. The latter is more like empathy. Sounds like you got them mixed up.

Both of them are empathy, but the first is sympathy as well.

For now, can we just agree to define empathy as the ability to put yourself in someone else shoe's? That statement has no automatic associations of whether you then go on to use that ability to help or harm others.

Did you mean to quote the rest of my post with no response?

 

[Quiddity]

Both of them are empathy, but the first is sympathy as well.

For now, can we just agree to define empathy as the ability to put yourself in someone else shoe's? That statement has no automatic associations of whether you then go on to use that ability to help or harm others.

Did you mean to quote the rest of my post with no response?

My 1 one year old accidentally pressed enter half way down the post...
Ok, I'll play along with your understanding of it...You will note that in the second half of my post.

 

[Æsahættr]

Ok, I'll play along with your understanding of it...

Isn't really relevent, but just to let you know, it isn't just my understanding of it. It's the proper psychological term as opposed to the common useage term that you cited from that dictionary reference. If you search "empathy" in wikipedia for example, it will give you my definition.

As I said before, I do think that sympathy, empathy, or just any feeling plays a role in a persons decision and in identifyng right from wrong. And more then likely this is what does it for many people. But I think it can be dangerous, if not accompanied with some thorough reasoning and nurtured is some way. Can you think of anything you personally think is wrong, but have absolutely no feelings towards it? That it's just obvious it's wrong that no feelings was necessary to conclude it.

I hate to bang on and on about the bloody definition of empathy that we've got caught up in, but under the definition that we are now using, empathy is not a feeling. It is a part of reasoning. Empathy comes in because the logic goes like this: "this person has feelings like me, therefore if I hit them they will experience pain." Now, if someone also decides that it is a bad thing for others to experience pain, then they will not hit them. If they decide it is a good thing for others to experience pain, then they will not hit them. But if they did not understand from the beginning that the other person would experience pain if they hit them, then they would not be able to make a concious "good" decision to not cause someone pain, or a consicous "bad" decision to cause someone pain.

For the psycopath the problem lies in both his understanding and his feelings.

If you begin from the assumption that the understanding that it is good to cause others pain is a bad one, and that having violent feelings is also a bad thing, then that is correct. And I'm sure we both start from those assumptions, so yes that is correct.

Not with my understanding and definition I provided.

But using my definition, then it is true that sympathy is a possible but not certain by-product of empathy.

That's true, but where does using your noggin come in? Are we to excuse people simply because of their potentiality? Maybe some will, yes. But the overwhelming majority of us have the capacity to think and reason to things without feelings.

As I said, empathy is part of the reasoning process. We all have different abilities to reason.

You mean like heaven and hell?

Heaven and Hell is the exact opposite of a spectrum of punishment and reward. It's a black and white thing. You either get rewarded, or punished.

Perhaps that person wil, but I don't believe it should be solely based on empathy (using my definition). If your definition of empathy includes using your noggin, then I agree.

Ok. So, using my definition of empathy, you agree that someone with less empathy can be punished and rewarded more. So, do you now agree that there is a spectrum of empathy (my definition again)? If so, you must conclude that a certain act can be worse if committed by one person than another, and therefore deserve more punishment. Does God's justice work like that?


If you believe that justice is a desirable thing, and that God's justice would be perfect, and that perfect justice would mean giving a punishment in proportion to the crime, and that crimes can be throughout a range of severity, then why do you not conclude that a black and white justice system, where people are either punished or rewarded, is unjust, and therefore could not be part of God's justice system?

(apologies for the ridiculously long length of that last sentence)

 

[fromthe heart]

God does know we are going to sin because Adam sinned therefore we were all suceeded since in sin...God is a loving and JUST God only unblemished sacrifice was justifiable in redemption of sin...it got to a certian point HE felt HE had to send the supreme sacrifice as a way to bring us all into rightness with Him...when He sent Jesus Christ to die for all of the human race He was offering us a way to free ourselves from that sin if we but accept the sacrifice of HIS SON in our own place as a GIFT to us...It was done out of God's love for us that He made it possible for us to atone for the sin we are born into...If you can fully understand how God sees sin and the nature of what we are as humans it seems prefectly justified and thus is JUST!!!

 

[fromthe heart]

Hi, Heart!



Nope.

This is where I have to disagree because as I quoted before, Ezekiel 18 says quite specifically that sin cannot be inherited, and that there is no way that one is culpable because, for example, of the sin of his father!

And the Baha'i scriptures go on to state explicitly that we are born good--hence, unstained.

Granted, staying this way is a huge challenge, frequently impossible, it seems!

Nonetheless, we are responsible solely for our own actions and never answerable for what anyone else has done, Adam included.

Regards,

Bruce

But you don't seem to understand where the inherited sin comes into play...we are all born into sin...Jesus was the only person to be born free of sin...You are right that we will not have to answer for what our dad has done in sin...it comes down to OUR sin that is in us on the day we are born...to be born without sin had God designed us that way we would have been mere robots just acting out what the creator instructed in our brains...we were given free will and thus also a sinful nature..we must accept Jesus as our personal Savior for those sins and accept the sacrifice of the cross where Jesus' pure unblemished person was given as a gift for our salvation...I never said we have to pay for Adams sin..only hte ones WE are born with.

:>)
Respectfully,:162:

 

[Adstar]

My response to this would be, how is this consistant with a just god? That would surely suggest that when God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden (again, literally or metaphorically as you please), that he was not only punishing them, but punishing every human who would ever live. If He is omnipotent, then he must have been able to punish Adam and Eve in a way that would not affect their descendants. Yet He obviously chose not to do that, so He chose to punish people for something that they are not responsible for, which is an unjust thing to do.

The withdrawal of access to the tree of life was because human where faulty. and we are all faulty now just like Adam and Eve became when they chose to obtain the knowledge of Good and Evil. So God is not punishing innocence as you assume. He is not keeping us from the tree of like because he is punishing Adam and Eve though us. No He is doing it because we are faulty beings. But God is Just and has given up a way to be made acceptable to Him in eternity via belief in Jesus.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days