My main arguement against the original sin is ultimately how easily avoidable it is. Because of how avoidable it is, it’s existance makes no sense. Christians believe Adam and Eve were put on the garden of eden, **they** disobeyed God and now **we** must suffer for **their** actions.
Why is the the tree even there? What purpose did it serve other than to give Adam and Eve the means to sin? The tree being there is not necessary, therefore adding the tree knowing it will aid in sin is an immoral act, similar to giving a small child a loaded gun. The garden could have existed without the tree, and everyone would have lived in eternal bliss. Do not claim the trees existance was to ‘test’ Adam and Eve, god knows everything, including the knowledge they would eat from the tree before they were even created. There is such thing as ‘testing’ a known event, that’s called observing.
Adam and Eve were the ones who sinned, but everyone is held accountable? This is an entirely immoral and irrational, as people who are born don’t have any responsibility or agency to change the previous actions of their ancestors. If Hitler were to have a child, is it fair to say the child is immediately deserving of death?
The tree did not need to be there. Therefore god created the tree to give Adam and Eve the means to sin, and to give god the justification for punishing them, thus making the original sin irrational and immoral.
The one thing for sure about original sin is that not one descendant of Adam and Eve asked to be a sinner.
A little side step and explaination. My faith thinks “the original sin” was a nessisary part of our evolution and growth. Our progression… I know this doesn’t really address your gripes but …
[Churches website on original sin](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/original-sin?lang=eng)
So would you rather God have never put the tree there, thus never granting you the ability to rant and rave about how “bad” He apparently is?
The view of Original Sin™ that is peddled by mainstream Christianity simply doesn’t make sense if it also holds that God is omniscient, omni-etc.
However, this whole issue goes away- and much more sense is made- if one takes a look at the Gnostic Christian version of Adam and Eve. In the classic Gnostic version, Adam and Eve were created by the Demiurge (the same vile, twisted entity who actually- albeit accidentally- created our universe), and the whole issue of Original Sin™ is rendered moot.
Essentially, Adam is created, then Eve, and they are both imbued with a ‘spark of the divine’ from the Archangel Sophia (or, in some accounts, they were simply inanimate ‘meat sacks’ that became ‘alive’ only after being inhabited by an angel trapped here when the universe was created). A&E were intended to be the beginning of a line of servitors to the Demiurge, but the Archangel Christ intervened and urged them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and thus they gained wisdom and knowledge of their spiritual nature which made them more powerful than the already-corrupted spirits of the Demiurge. As a result, A&E were cast out of the Garden and the rest is history.
Thus, in the Gnostic version of Creation, there is no Original Sin™ at all- far from it. The only ‘sin’ was from the Demiurge’s point of view, and that was A&E believing Christ and becoming more powerful. Of course, in the OT the story is truncated to indicate that A&E sinned against God- but the God they ‘sinned’ against is actually none other than the Demiurge- and through the Demiurge’s incessant work to hide from Man his spiritual nature he has managed to get most to believe the narrative of the OT as opposed to the Gnostic version which (while fantastical to mainstream Christians) makes much more sense and provides answers for an awful lot of questions about how evil got here and sin and all manner of things.
So, yes: if you go with mainstream Christianity you’re faced with some uncomfortable and ultimately unanswerable questions, when one can readily address these concerns by taking the Gnostic Christian approach.
“Sin” means “imperfection.” “All have sinned” means “everyone has made a mistake.”
Actually, humans are not held accountable until we willfully sin. Toddlers go to Heaven.
***Do not claim the trees existence was to ‘test’ Adam and Eve, god knows everything, including the knowledge they would eat from the tree before they were even created. There is such thing as ‘testing’ a known event, that’s called observing.***
***Adam and Eve were the ones who sinned, but everyone is held accountable? This is entirely immoral and irrational***
These two points are critical Clay jones and Michael from IP tried to respond it clay jones said
**That we didn’t individually vote to make Adam the head of our race doesn’t matter because God knows who can best represent us. Also, if God knew that all of us would act the same way he does no wrong in choosing for who to represent us”**
you mentioned if there was no tree there would be no sin. but is that true was there really no other way for sin to come into the world? really was there no other way satan could have deceived them?
Michael went further citing both clay jones and using lewis and other arguments of free will he said: ” **If Christianity is true and the problem of evil needs to be addressed one can not say its unfair that adam and eve were our chosen representatives god given his omniscience would have to know the best representatives would have been and therefore given human free will there were no possible futures were humans did not choose sin. ( clay jones say something similar in page 125 of his book)**
of course, one can argue that paradise without free will to not choose sin is better or was there really no other way
Also how does each of us have free will, but we are beholden to the original sin of two people?
I believe in the Augustinian Genesis, that is to say, it’s an allegory. Adam and Eve did not literally eat a fruit and they were not cast out of a literal Eden.
Original sin to me is the idea that humans inherently have the tendency within them to reject paradise. Every man, If put in the exact same scenario as Adam or Eve, would have done the same.
Adam and Eve chose evil because they didn’t have a preconception of evil. That’s why Lucifer fell even though he was a being created in paradise. Original sin is our inherent tendency to reject paradise.
I agree, I would add the fact that at least in the modern conception of sin, you need to understand that what you are doing is evil, or bad. If the fruit of knowledge gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of sin, of good and bad, then they couldn’t have sinned because they didn’t understood what were they doing.
Right with ya. The very existence of tree of knowledge in the ancient fables was entirely pointless unless Yahweh had fully intended for humanity to one day consume from the tree, thus creating plausibility that he was punishing Adam & Eve for eating from it earlier than he had planned. But then, it seems well outside the probability for a being summarized as truly omniscient to hold desires to punish every creature along planet Earth, unless you believe that solely humans were once immortal and strictly aside the other cycles of nature, including simply being made of flesh consumable by anything along the entire planet. Homo sapiens were special, until an interesting talking snake(note: Eve was from Harry Potter) convinced one early human to eat some fruit. Your analogy that allowing the first ever humans near the unknown and intriguing tree of knowledge being akin to allowing a baby to play with a loaded gun is very accurate. I’d summarize it myself as an analogy to that of as humans evolved intelligence and understanding of certain things in reality, they felt such lead to a more selfish and outwardly harmful existence, but I feel that Christians would profusely refuse the analogy when they have biblical literalism to attend to. Humanity badly needs to get out of such magical thinking. “Christian reasoning” leading to simple figurings that Yahweh was just testing humankind but refusing the idea that he may have been able to figure what would happen due to his omniscience, or at the very least, refuse the supposedly talking, legged snake from ever even entering the garden, just to be safe.
Christianity makes no real logical sense.
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The very fact that you are earth in the ‘flesh’ means that you committed original sin. Your soul is spiritual and that is your true natural state of existence. You are here on earth in the flesh not only because you violated God’s Law (which was.. enjoy my “Garden”, but keep your hands off it, and don’t corrupt it >> you & I violated that Command of God) …….. and because:
over a long period of time, you, me, and other people in our company, have been unable to live sin-free lives … so we keep reincarnating back here on earth, hoping one day, we can follow the example of Jesus , mother “Theresa,” and anyone else who may have lived a sin free life. The soul within Jesus was the same soul that was in Adam. That is the reason Jesus said what he said to John (Revelation1: 9-18) i.e I am the FIRST and the LAST, etc. Many people have difficulty with this issue and many other “Christian” issues because they don’t know they are reading corrupted scripture created by Lucius, the Bishop of Antioch, Laodicea, Cenchrea, and Cyrene who never understood the reason for Christ’s incarnation on earth.
in order to be good there must be evil. in order to have free will there must be choices to choose. tree is that concept.
original sin is a symbol that also reminds us that its god who determines good and evil. not us.
when they ate the fruit they can now define good and evil for themselves. it became inherit. so anyone that will be born from them or from their offspring will have that power
The tree was there so that Adam and Eve had a choice to obey or disobey. Aka: free will. You seem to say that that is ‘immoral’, but you don’t explain why.
The tree, whether real or not, has far greater significance than just being a “tree.”’ The Bible shows two lines from Genesis to Revelation. The first is the way of life with its source in God, signified by the tree of life, consummating in the city of life, the New Jerusalem. The second is the way of death with its source apart from God, signified by the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, consummating in the lake of fire.
The original sin wasn’t eating from a tree in and of itself, it was choosing to be independent of God and living a life with something other than God as your source and your supply.
This same principle is seen in the New Testament. Jesus commanded his disciples to “abide in Him” as branches in a vine. The apostle Paul commanded the early church, likened to a body, to “hold Christ as their head.” Jesus again said “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Therefore, it is more accurate and meaningful to categorize the original sin as declaring independence from the creator. That is, eating from another source for your life and living.
To further highlight this principle, Jesus said in John 6:57 “He who eats me, He also shall live because of Me.” And in 1 Peter “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” So, it’s ultimately a matter of what you depend on, what you eat.
As far as carrying over from generation to generation – another life was injected into humanity. This isn’t a matter of holding children accountable for the sin of their father Adam in an outward, legal way. It’s a spiritual principle that mankind as a species was ‘contaminated’ by the fall and has by birth a sinful nature.
>Christianity’s original sin is irrational and immoral
I agree as far as you seem to be defining ‘original sin,’ but only that far. I agree as far as whoever it is, among those you are calling Christianity, that consider “original sin” to be us suffering for the sins of people. I believe you if you know Christians that think that’s what it is. That just isn’t necessarily how all Christians understand the concept of ‘original sin.’ I would guess you got the version you’re describing from evangelicals/fundamentalists, maybe?
Millions of Christians don’t even use that term (‘original sin’) and instead refer to it as “ancestral sin.” Most of those who do don’t understand it the way you describe it. When I say ‘most Christians’ I’m referring to the communions with ancient historicity, the Eastern and Roman catholic and the Eastern and Oriental orthodox. Together, that’s most Christians.
None of those churches teach that the reason we suffer is some other actual people’s choices. Now of course I mean that with the exception, all religion aside, that obviously one of the causes of our suffering could be said to be because of the choice of an ancestor just as a matter of the fact that at least one of our parents chose to reproduce, producing us into this life of suffering. Technically that is us suffering for the (because of the) actions of others. Is it not?
>Christians believe Adam and Eve were put on the garden of eden, they disobeyed God and now we must suffer for their actions.
In most of Christianity, there is an extremely emphasized difference between intentional sin and unintentional sin, sin done deliberately and sin done without the intent, without the knowledge that it is wrong. So ‘sin’ is not always considered ‘evil’ in the sense of something that gives rise to blame and guilt. Basically it means ‘to miss the mark.’ It is often associated with evil and blame and fault, but the word itself actually just means miss, miss the mark, mistake, basically. So ‘all have sinned’ can even mean ‘to err is human,’ technically.
Most Christians also don’t insist that Genesis be taken to be references to literal days, literal people, nor literal much of anything material 6,000 years ago. One might have this opinion and another that, as far as particular Old Testament matters, but there isn’t the emphasis on actuality of events that is seen in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. That’s because the purpose is seen as spiritual, not as a material history leading to where we are today as far as our physical condition.
Historical Christianity doesn’t take the ‘everyone has done evil,’ ‘everyone chooses to sin because Adam did,’ nor even the ‘we all suffer now because someone named Adam a long time ago messed up’ view of their writings that many in the modern West (especially evangelicals) take. For instance, in the historical communions the Mother of God is held up as an example of a person who never intentionally sinned. Jesus still died and rose again even for her, she still suffered. So it wasn’t because she necessarily needed “punishment” for “guilt” from “Adam” or “Eve” that she (nor we, necessarily) suffer. In other words, we would suffer and die, and Jesus even would’ve still suffered and died, even if none of us had/have ever chosen to do anything ‘evil.’ To err is necessarily human, and to suffer is necessarily human, and to die is necessarily human.
Adam can be thought of as humanity, the human, necessary human-ness. These things, mistake, suffering, and death are how the created human becomes like the uncreated God. There must be some time of mistake to gain understanding, some time of suffering to gain peace, and some time of death to know life. As humans becoming like God, we must err, suffer, and die. That’s human. But to choose evil is not necessarily human. Suffering is unfortunately necessary in Christianity, even suffering that is incomprehensible, and suffering is seen as temporary (since physical life is not the end of life as they know it), and as leading to a peace that is incomprehensible, eternally. So ultimately suffering, during the times it is unfortunately unavoidable, is hoped and believed to be for our good, to become more like God… to evolve from human and level up, in other words.
However, some suffer for having chosen evil… those who do so choose. The whole “human nature is now evil because of Adam,” or “everyone is guilty of sin by evil human nature inherited from the garden, and God hated the evil in our human nature so much He had to hurt someone” thing is more of a tenant in evangelicalism and fundamentalism than anywhere else. One way to read about Adam and Eve, from within the context of historical Christianity, is not that they were punished for doing evil but that they were banished to a temporary experience of evil as a logical consequence of their choosing to become like God, to become one who by knowing good and evil has the ability to recognize good and choose it. The banishment from perfect good, the paradise of the garden, for a time, was necessary not because ‘they required punishment for evil sin’ but was only *necessary* for them to become ‘like God’ (from Genesis 3, “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”). The next verse, “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever,” can be seen as meaning since in our physical, Earthly lives we have to experience evil to become experientially cognizant of God as good eternally, we cannot live physically forever. Otherwise we would suffer forever. So they (we, with Adam and Eve representing all of humanity) were not ‘punished’ so much as given an unfortunately required period of suffering necessary to become like God, meaning necessary to become able recognize and experience peace or paradise or whatever one calls joy and love so powerful it is incomprehensible to us now… eternally.
The first time “punishment” for particular sin is actually mentioned in the Genesis story is when Cain chooses to kill his brother, not simply with the intention and motivation to learn about good and evil and become more like God, but motivated by selfishness and anger with the intention of harming his brother for his own benefit… sin (mistake) sure, but more specifically sin with what seems to be evil intent.
>Why is the the tree even there? What purpose did it serve other than to give Adam and Eve the means to sin?
It gave them the means to become like God.
It’s the only way they can call their God “just” while he sends innocent nonbelivers to eternal torture.
The reason the whole “we got kicked out of the Garden” story was so important is because the ancient Israelites needed something to explain why they, the chosen people of El/Yahweh, couldn’t just talk to him as a tangible being. Their getting kicked out of the Garden offered an explanation.
Here is the thing to remember about Genesis: it was meant to be a story about A: the creation of the world, plants, and humans and B: the origin of the Israelites.
Adam wasn’t the first man in Genesis. Go back and read Genesis 1. In Genesis 1:26-28 God creates humans. Then in Genesis 2 he creates Adam. Humans were there before Adam, it’s just that Adam and Eve were the first and only ones in the Garden.
Go back and read Genesis 2. Show me were it says Adam was the first man. It doesn’t. In fact, Genesis 1 saying explicitly that God created humans and then created Adam disproves that. And Cain’s wife had to come from somewhere.
So the fall from grace wasn’t about “this is why the world is messed up” as much as it was “this is why we, the Israelites, while being the chosen people of the supreme God, live like everyone else. Unlike the rest of humanity we had a chance at the perfect life but we lost it. But we’re still special for having had a taste of it.”
But yes, as a former Christian, I understand.
Putting aside the historical issues and doctrinal history of the Bible and how it evolved and was changed around over the years, I still chuckle at the silliness of it all.
How does Christianity answer the question “why do we suffer” ? With a long acid trip of a story that includes talking snakes, a supreme being who makes the cosmos out of nothing yet still needs ribs to make a woman, and an angel with a giant lightsaber.
How does Buddhism answer the same question? “We suffer because of our attachments and delusion.” And that’s it. No creation myth needed.
And yet when I explain just that one issue among many between the two religions, there are Christians who still can’t understand why I converted.
The Holy Spirit is one hell of a drug, I guess,
you gotta wonder why American conservative Christians are so against reparation and cancel culture digging up someone’s past, if they believe people inherit the guilt of their ancestors
It’s the login al away to extend the Ponzi scheme leverage against parents of innocent infants
Why do people analyze this ridiculous mythology to death. Original sin, the fall, and the serpent being Satan were not original to Judaism. These concepts were retconned in by early believers to fit the Christian narrative.
The original sin led to spiritual death: separation from God. It is from this false premise that we pass on our sin. We are intrinsically one with God, but the people we think we are when we imagine everything as separate will burn away.
>they disobeyed God and now we must suffer for their actions.
When someone’s parents drink alcohol, they can pass down the predisposition to alcoholism to their children, making their children suffer for their actions. Diseases and other things can be passed down. This is much the same.
>Why is the the tree even there?
Because God planned to let them eat from it. If they were to wait for him to let them eat from it, they would know sickness as someone who is healthy. But now from disobeying, we can only know health as one who is sick.
>Adam and Eve were the ones who sinned, but everyone is held accountable?
This is only a Catholic view. Orthodox do not believe we are guilty of Adam’s sin.
You aren’t in the right seat to call anything of God immoral or irrational
In my view the story is an allegory for man’s separation from nature, going from hunter gatherer societies to agrarian ones. Living in the garden was man living in harmony with nature, and eating the fruit was man gaining the knowledge that nature can be manipulated to further human goals. This is akin to Prometheus bringing fire to humanity, and is why leaving in the garden meant toiling in the fields.
We pay for this original sin because once the knowledge was out there was no way to undo that, and we have been further progressing down the path of separation from nature throughout human history.
Adam and Eve were almost certainly disobeying / not living up to [Gen 1:26–28](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen1.26-28&version=ESV) by the time they encountered the serpent. Adam would have named the serpent, and so should have known it was the cleverest living creature, other than the divine image-bearers themselves. But he and Eve clearly weren’t exerting dominion over the living creatures in their interaction with the serpent. This is perhaps how the serpent was able to convince them that they weren’t like God: because they weren’t engaged in the god-like activity they were given! So, how does God convince them to take up the vocation given them? I think that’s a tricky question, if “love does not insist on its own way”.
It is rational if you look at it from Yahweh’s perspective. All he wants is more and more (1) suffering or (2) submission, and original sin is a great ace up the sleeve for this. You made yourself suffer and the only way out is to glorify him, it’s actually rather genius.
Basically the Apostle Paul re-interpreted the whole Bible so it’s his fault if original sin was invented from Romans chapter 5
Ezekiel 18:20 contradicts the idea of original sin
Well. Put your mind in 700BC, and then answer someone how we got here and if it’s a monotheistic God, why did he make us? And why aren’t things better? You gotta come up with something.