What the ORIGINAL SIN really is. And why Christians are guilty of it

[Avoice]

The church claims man has been infected with the "original sin." Its defined by the church as being unable to please God. That we are all doomed. And only killing a good guy named Jesus can save us.
No one is infected with anything. Its just a cop out. An excuse to failure.
Do you think such a concept insoires people to try harder or an excuse

[Data]

The church claims man has been infected with the "original sin." Its defined by the church as being unable to please God. That we are all doomed. And only killing a good guy named Jesus can save us.
No one is infected with anything. Its just a cop out. An excuse to failure.
Do you think such a concept insoires people to try harder or an excuse

Hello. First off, I don't particularly like terms like original sin in discussions like this because they are so possibly broad in application and subjective; subject to interpretation. They may be useful in a broad sense, but that can be misleading if other implications are being made, as would be the case in the specific dogma of a specific group. It's best to circumnavigate any such dogma and go straight to the source, the Bible. Secondly, I don't take seriously anything any "church" (another broad and subjective term) says. Having said that, let's define sin. Sin is a transliteration, meaning to miss the target or set goal. For example, an archer who sinned didn't hit the target. Very simple. I sin against my boss if I'm late for work, against the government if I exceed the speed limit. The mark set by Jehovah God, in this case, was also simple. Don't touch or eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of what is good and what is bad. Doing so brought the foretold result of death to Adam, as opposed to the everlasting life he meant to have.

The question becomes have we been "infected with it?" I wouldn't use that term, because what actually happened is we inherited it. Think about the implications in modern language; infected being affected with a disease-causing organism and inherited being received as an heir at the death of the previous holder.

[1213]

The church claims man has been infected with the "original sin." ...

I recommend to remain in the Biblical teachings, if the goal is to be a disciple of Jesus.

By what is told in the Bible, we can think that original sin was that people rejected God in the garden of Eden. Because of that, people were expelled to this first death. And because of it, we are also born to this state, in separation from God. Sin can be understood as to reject God, or to be without God. Christians didn't do the act, because they were not there. Therefore they are not guilty for it. However, everyone is in this sinful state because of it. And no human can alone fix the situation, without God's help.

[Revelations won]

Dear Avoice,

You said:

"The church claims man has been infected with the "original sin." Its defined by the church as being unable to please God. That we are all doomed. And only killing a good guy named Jesus can save us.
No one is infected with anything. Its just a cop out. An excuse to failure.
Do you think such a concept insoires people to try harder or an excuse"

Can you specifically list and name what churches teach this doctrine and which do not? Surely I would not want you to bear flesh witness against any who do not fall into the category of your posted claims.

Kind regards,
RW

[JehovahsWitness]

If by "original sin" one is referring to what happened in the Genesis account: this was when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and are from a tree they were ordered not to.

GENESIS 3:11

At that he said: “Who told you that you were naked?+ Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

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ADAM , THE ORIGINAL SIN and ... THE DECEPTION OF EVE

[onewithhim]

The church claims man has been infected with the "original sin." Its defined by the church as being unable to please God. That we are all doomed. And only killing a good guy named Jesus can save us.
No one is infected with anything. Its just a cop out. An excuse to failure.
Do you think such a concept insoires people to try harder or an excuse

Such a concept inspires people to have hope. It inspires people to want to follow after Jesus Christ and do what he taught his disciples to do.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to Avoice in post #1]

Technically, wasn't it the serpent that committed the first sin according to the account in the book of Genesis?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to Avoice in post #1]

Technically, wasn't it the serpent that committed the first sin according to the account in the book of Genesis?

Yes. Then our focus is on what humans did. It is because of what Adam did that plunged the human race into sin and death. "Just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, likewise also through the obedience of the one man many will be constituted righteous." (Romans 5:19)

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to Avoice in post #1]

Technically, wasn't it the serpent that committed the first sin according to the account in the book of Genesis?

Yes. Then our focus is on what humans did. It is because of what Adam did that plunged the human race into sin and death. "Just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, likewise also through the obedience of the one man many will be constituted righteous." (Romans 5:19)

More literally, according to the mythology, it was Eve (not Adam) who was first deceived by the sinfully evil serpent into touching and eating the forbidden fruit. Adam only ate the fruit after Eve gave it to him and after hearing her explain that it was edible. Obviously, neither Eve nor Adam could be held morally accountable for eating the forbidden fruit because they didn't understand how it would be evil for them to disobey the god and eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Sure, they may have understood that eating the forbidden fruit would be an act of disobedience against the god. However, having not yet eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had no understanding of how to distinguish a disobedient act from any other type of action in terms of good and evil.

The only specified reason why Adam and Eve hadn't handled or consumed the forbidden fruit earlier is because the god had told them that doing so would result in their immediate death. So, they must have understood what death was as a concept for it to have initially deterred them from eating the forbidden fruit. However, after the serpent explained to Eve that eating the fruit would not result in her immediate death, she no longer felt deterred. Having no knowledge of good and evil and with no justifiable reason to distrust anything in the surrounding environment that was specifically designed for her and Adam to survive and thrive, Eve lacked the capacity to doubt a talking serpent who she observed as inhabiting a perfect world.

The outcome of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit was exactly as the serpent stated. They did not die that same day but had acquired the god's knowledge of good and evil. The story claims that the god would not have Adam and Eve become more god-like by retaining the property of immortality granted by the tree of life. Consequently, the god expelled the two of them from the garden where the tree of life was growing and permanently blocked their access to it. This meant, despite having acquired god-like knowledge of good and evil, the god prohibited Adam and Eve from retaining their god-like property of immortality that was previously accessible to them by eating fruit from the tree of life growing in the garden.

Again, the existence of the deceptive serpent in the narrative demonstrates that evil and sin were already in the world prior to the fall of Adam and Eve. Just before the god expelled them from from Eden, he stated to Eve, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth." It can be logically inferred from this statement that the pain and suffering associated with childbirth must have already been intended for Eve to experience prior to the fall for the god to subsequently "multiply" it as a form of punishment. So, pain and suffering as well as evil and sin also necessarily existed in the world prior to the fall.

Therefore, it is a mistake to credit Adam and Eve with bringing evil, sin, and suffering into the world because those things are reasonably inferred as having already existed there in some capacity. In terms of accountability for the fall, the god could only hold Eve accountable for being deceived by the serpent and only hold Adam accountable for listening to his wife.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to Avoice in post #1]

Technically, wasn't it the serpent that committed the first sin according to the account in the book of Genesis?

Yes. Then our focus is on what humans did. It is because of what Adam did that plunged the human race into sin and death. "Just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, likewise also through the obedience of the one man many will be constituted righteous." (Romans 5:19)

More literally, according to the mythology, it was Eve (not Adam) who was first deceived by the sinfully evil serpent into touching and eating the forbidden fruit.

Yes that's true. But it was Adam's responsibility as the head to keep his family in order. He could have reprimanded Eve, letting her know that what she did was unacceptable, but he didn't.