Original Sin

[JBlack]

I was talking to one of my cousins who is a Christian. We started talking about children and babies that die. My cousin, as well as many other Christians I know, believe that babies and kids will go to heaven automatically.

But they also believe in Original sin. They believe that we're all born hell-bound sinners, and must be saved. If you don't die an accepter of Jesus Christ, then you go to hell.

I point out to my cousin that this is kind of contradictory. How can a baby go to heaven if that baby is already a sinner, being that he was born a sinner. We're all born sinners and that's why we all need Jesus Christ....right?

Apparently I was wrong (as usual ). It's different for children. So then at what age does Original Sin kick in? He tells me after 12, is when you need Jesus. He claims this to be biblically supported. Disappointingly (but not surprisingly), he wasn't able to tell me where in the bible this was.

And so my question:

1. Do babies and children go to heaven automatically?
2. Is there really a such thing as Original Sin?
3. Is there anything in the bible about 12 being the "cut off " age?

[Cathar1950]

WOW! Good point.

A good exemplar of how Original Sin is a sex problem in the western Christian mind.

I wonder. Has anyone in the churches come up with an theological explanation as to how a person born out of an invitro procedure ends up a sinner from Adam? I mean, if they're going to make the assertion that it comes from Adam, shouldn't they have to explain how it actually works?

Like many doctrines they don't have to know how it works as they can called it a mystery. The less sense they can make of it the more faith or belief is required leading them closer to God while doubts just destroy heir faith.

[myth-one.com]

WOW! Good point.

Of course, it was meant as satire. I discovered that many popes had chosen the name "Innocent." Does anyone else see the irony in the leader of a church teaching that all mankind is born with original sin -- calling themselves "Innocent?" How can they be innocent? Did their parents buy a dispensation?

A good exemplar of how Original Sin is a sex problem in the western Christian mind.

"Original sin" is meaningless anyway since a few sprinkles of water over the baby cures all:

Augustine's doctrine was an austere one. As children were born full of sin they were damned if they died before baptism. Hell, he said, was paved with infants.

So if an infant dies, his eternal destination is based on whether or not his parents had him or her baptised in time.

I wonder. Has anyone in the churches come up with an theological explanation as to how a person born out of an invitro procedure ends up a sinner from Adam?

I'm no expert, but I'll make a wild guess that in all outside the womb produced pregnancies, original sin is passed through the sperm procurement process. Need I say more? (God I hope not).

I mean, if they're going to make the assertion that it comes from Adam, shouldn't they have to explain how it actually works?

It doesn't work, and the original error multiplies to protect the original erroneous theology. For example:

1) Original error: All mankind is born with original sin.

Problem: But Jesus was born as a man. How can we handle that? Ah, Jesus was born of a virgin. Therefore:

2) Secondary error protecting the original: Original sin is passed through lust during sexual intercourse.

Problem: Now they have God commanding us to sin:

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, . . .

[Jonah]

lol. "sperm procurement process". You mean anti-bacterial soap doesn't help?

Seriously. My mother suffered under these nut-wack ideas. She had babies that lived only a couple days...two sets of twins and a little girl. It was the only girl she had. She suffered from the worry about them being baptized before they died. I knew of the deaths when I was young, but it was not until I was in high school when I was present for a tense recollection discussion between my mother and father, and it was in hearing that discussion that I learned that it had been my father's job to baptise the babies...which my mother did not see...and so she put it to him really hard. "You DID baptize them, right?" My father's response was nervous "yes"...and I decided not to pry. But, the trauma in my mother's voice, I will never forget.

In the same way, when I was a Lutheran pastor, I had a young couple come to me. They were distraught. They came to me from a neighboring Lutheran parish and a pastor who was a colleague. Their baby had died, unbaptized. The pastor told them the baby went to hell. What I knew, was the drama on the other side of the train wreck. My colleague was very messed up because his little girl had just died from a terminal illness. The only power he had in his own nightmare was that he had seen to her baptism. He was sick. But, the tragic Augustinian tradition is the ready resource to feed into such unfortunate breakdowns in spirits.

I baptized my own daughter. And I took her out of the Church because of the cultural wars in mainline Christianity whence emerged the power of the religious right. Many of my clergy colleagues and their families were utterly destroyed by liberal-conservative conflict in their parishes. Divorce, drug abuse/alcoholism, suicide. I took my daughter out of it. Even though I converted to Judaism, my daughter was to decide for herself. She considered Judaism, and ultimately decided to go back to Christianity in a different tradition. My choice is to conclude that I honored my daughter's baptism, as best I could, given the moral conflicts inherent in the shortcomings of all religion. Abraham didn't sacrifice his child, and neither did I.

The thing my wife and I struggle with is the question of what can we give our children to help them discern authentic life and spirituality from the societal forces of greed and subjugation of others. If we are honest, every pastor, rabbi, school teacher, and parent is up against a host of corporate driven interests that are in our kids' faces every minute of every day so that our kids really think they are supposed to keep up with the Kardashians. The evangelicals came up with entrainment evangelism for the kiddies...but if truth be told, they even admit they're running out of material. School teachers and youth pastors have to be cooler than reality tv and ipods and clothes and cars and parties....and meanwhile, a village in the Sudan is genocided. Where is the baptism that protects against The Having Your Cake & Eating Too culture? How do you preach old time religion when you're busy building your big metal mega church? or synagogue?

Blackwater massacred innocent people. Blackwater is still in its role. But, the party must go on. There ought to be a baptism against that sin. And it's a cop out that sin is Original Sin, and thus you can't do any damn thing about it. It just happens...it's just in the dna...can't stop it.

It's not true. We can do something about it. Yes, we can? Do we have the courage of our campaign speeches? Or not?

[myth-one.com]

And it's a cop out that sin is Original Sin, and thus you can't do any damn thing about it. It just happens...it's just in the dna...can't stop it.

It's not true. We can do something about it. Yes, we can? Do we have the courage of our campaign speeches? Or not?

False Christian theologies continue to cause much unnecessary grief, sorrow, and worry. It should be criminal to convince someone that their dead infant is in hell. Those women needed to be comforted by their church.

The various Christian Churches I belonged to over the years believed in what was generally called the "age of accountability" doctrine. Baptism saved no one, it was a sacrament to show you were a believer. We were taught that children who passed away before reaching the "age of accountability" were guiltless of any sin and went directly to heaven for all eternity.

This age of accountability is the age at which a child can distinguish good from evil and is capable of making a personal decision regarding accepting Jesus as his Savior. Thus the age varied depending on intelligence, environment, etc.

That well-meaning but poorly thought out false theology has resulted in the murder of untold numbers of innocent children over the years. Periodically depressed parents who were losing it for whatever reason, have murdered their children in their "innocent years" and sent them to heaven, avoiding the possibility that they might spend eternity in hellfire -- had they lived past their innocent years.

Although I support separation of church and state, the state should hold people responsible for their actions -- including those in the field of religion!

Sadly, the impetus which might induce change today is not logic and knowledge, but something many churches consider to be really important, money! If finances suffer substantially, the churches might be driven to discovering the answers to their problems.