Is the concept of Original Sin fair?

[Metatron]

I have some concerns about the fairness of Original Sin and would be interested other forum members opinion on this issue.

One of my concerns deals with the account as presented in Genesis. God tells Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil otherwise he will die. Later of course, Adam and Eve are seduced by that rascally serpent, God banishes them from Eden, and death is brought into the world, etc. The problem I have with this is that by definition, not having yet partaken of the famous apple, Adam and Eve have no concept of good and evil and indeed the threat of death is meaningless to them since they also would have no understanding of what death is! Adam and Eve are innocents who have no moral compass with which to make the decision. Its like telling a toddler who has never been disciplined not to eat the really neat looking poisoned candy and then walking away and seeing what happens.


Another thing that bugs me is the implied concept of inheritability of sin, i.e. Adam and Eve sin so everyone else to the umpteenth generation is equally culpable and has a one-way ticket punched to the Really Hot Place. Where is the personal responsibility in that? Indeed, where is free will if the punishment is already in place without a decision having been made? I would think that God at least would want to punish you for the sins that YOU have committed.

Thank you for your time.

[Easyrider]

Can I only demonstrate my free will by choosing whether or not to shoot someone?
You have not shown to my satisfaction at any rate why God needs to allow evil in the world just to give us free will.

How about you play God for a moment and spell out for me how you would create man with free will, while at the same time not allowing him the choice to sin or do evil if he wants?

Simple. I remove evil actions from the still enormous list of actions that I have to choose from to express my free will. Evil joins the huge list of other choices I don't have like the choice to teleport to Paris or make myself 20 years old again. I will have to make do with mundane expressions of free will like deciding who I'm going to marry, where I will live, how many children will I have and how will I educate them. I'm willing to live with that constraint on my free will in order to have a world without murder, rape, theft, etc. A pretty good trade off in my opinion.

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

Somehow I don't think the women's libbers would like that very much.

[juliod]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

How is this relevant?

He easily answered your challenge of how to create a universe with free will but no evil. And he isn't even infinitely wise or powerful. Can you explain again why you worship YHWH?

DanZ

[Easyrider]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

How is this relevant?

He easily answered your challenge of how to create a universe with free will but no evil.

Ha. Man in his scenario has no free will. Man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to his "god's" whims. If his God doesn't like gay sex but the man does, he's out of luck.

Can you explain again why you worship YHWH?

One reason is that in the end I won't have to listen to all you dedicated Bible bashers.

[Metatron]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

How is this relevant?

He easily answered your challenge of how to create a universe with free will but no evil.

Ha. Man in his scenario has no free will. Man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to his "god's" whims. If his God doesn't like gay sex but the man does, he's out of luck.

Huhhh???

Of course I would have my own, personal moral framework! Who doesn't? Last I checked YHWH had one too... what was it called..... its on the tip of my tongue... oh yeah, the TEN COMMANDMENTS!

As for free will, I grow weary of giving examples of free will which do not involve choices of murder and mayhem. I'm not sure where your going with the whole gay sex thing, please elaborate.

[Easyrider]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

How is this relevant?

He easily answered your challenge of how to create a universe with free will but no evil.

Ha. Man in his scenario has no free will. Man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to his "god's" whims. If his God doesn't like gay sex but the man does, he's out of luck.

Huhhh???

Of course I would have my own, personal moral framework! Who doesn't? Last I checked YHWH had one too... what was it called..... its on the tip of my tongue... oh yeah, the TEN COMMANDMENTS!

Man in your scenario doesn't have true free will. He cannot fathom what's wrong with doing wrong or evil since he won't have any experiences with them to learn his lessons. Thus, unlike the Biblical model, his moral framework is stunted. In addition, your "god" has a captive audience, which is a shallow victory. How would they know this "god" is really good if there's no way to make a comparison of ideas? Man doesn't even get to "shop around" to see if there's better, or other ideas, floating around.

[Metatron]

Man in your scenario doesn't have true free will.

There you go again.

He cannot fathom what's wrong with doing wrong or evil since he won't have any experiences with them to learn his lessons.

Errr... why do we care about understanding evil if THERE IS NO EVIL!

Thus, unlike the Biblical model, his moral framework is stunted. In addition, your "god" has a captive audience, which is a shallow victory. How would they know this "god" is really good if there's no way to make a comparison of ideas? Man doesn't even get to "shop around" to see if there's better, or other ideas, floating around.

Last time I checked "shopping around for better ideas" bought you the one way ticket on the Gehenna Express!

[Cathar1950]

Just to be fair I don't believe in Original Sin and it makes no sense.
It is not a Hebrew idea it is Pauline and later endorsed by the church.

One man did not bring sin into the world. Two people did not bring sin into the world.
A woman did not get tricked into eating a fruit by a snake and give it to man to create our sinful natures. It is a myth.
I look at my parents and I see their parents and I can see where they got some of their problems. We inherit good and bad genes behavior, characteristic and attitudes from out parents, society, family and friends and make them our own. In Hebrew thought we have good and evil inclinations and we grow, struggle and work them out.
I notice as I get older my once sense of free will was an illusion and doubt I would have done it better. Now if I could go back in time and remember what I know I might have some free will that actually counted. But some things I would still do over. Even if my marriage failed I would still want my children and so I would marry her all over again.

Now back to the garden myth. There is no fall. It is a promotion. The myth says we were created to be gardeners. We lived forever by eating this fruit. One fruit was forbidden because it would kill us. What ever that was. Maybe we saw dead animals and God said, “they ate the fruit” (in the Sumer myth says one god wanted us t eat the fruit the other tricked us into not eating it I doubt it matters). So we eat the fruit and become like the gods. Now we get kicked out of the garden and are told we have the whole earth. That, my friend is a promotion. God then kills some animals; remember they die all the time before we ate the fruit because they didn’t, tells us it won’t be any picnic and blocks the entrance. (Changes the locks)
There is no fall. We were evicted. Dad kicked us out and told us to get a job.
No original sin, just growing up.
This makes sense in a Jesus the Jew kind of way because he was preaching the good news and God’s rule before his dad and not the Romans killed him.
Original sin is a Pauline invention.
The first common ancestral Woman that we all go back to was about 12,000 years ago according the genetics. The first common ancestral Man was about 70,000 years ago. Adam did not know Eve (the mother of all living was a ancient goddess).

[SimonH]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

...haven't you just described the Christian "my way or the hell-way" god?

[Lotan]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

Oooh oooh...I've got it!

Let's leave the rules the same, but instead of punishing unrepentant sinners at the end of the game, why not make the consequences immediate? For example, telling a fib gets you 30 seconds in the lake of fire, first degree homicide gets you a month. People would remain free to behave as they like, but they would be far less tempted to do so. Same "moral framework", same "choice".

Praise Lotan!

[Easyrider]

So then, you become a fundamentalist God with your own, personal moral framework, and man has no choice but to be forced to bow down to your whims.

Oooh oooh...I've got it!

Let's leave the rules the same, but instead of punishing unrepentant sinners at the end of the game, why not make the consequences immediate? For example, telling a fib gets you 30 seconds in the lake of fire, first degree homicide gets you a month. People would remain free to behave as they like, but they would be far less tempted to do so. Same "moral framework", same "choice".

Praise Lotan!

Run it by God and see if he'll okay your plan. I imagine he'll have some other considerations for you to work out, like incorporating some degree of grace into your scenario.

Jesus is Lord!