"original sin'', an inherently evil concept.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Born into sin is STILL evil, no matter how you slice it.

So you admit there is evil?

If there is evil, it obviously comes ffrom us, especially if the Bible is a man made document as you believe.

You may not like it, but it is the truth. That is, unless you view some "evil" and some "good".

Originally posted by sonhouse
Original sin was cleverly designed by men to trap those with weak minds so as to always have a whip to hang over the heads of the duped.

An evil concept by any standard, it should never have been the basis for ANY religion.

First, make up a creation tale, like there was only A&E, then have one of them fall from grace and thereafter the entire human ra ...[text shortened]... ho invented this god to make it more palatable to the population the elders were set to control.

I don't think we can pin hell solely on nefarious schemers.

We can think of Christianity as a meme or meme group that has evolved {shudders} over time to defeat or at least react to challenges with minimal change. The sub-meme of eternal punishment must clearly have some survival power among the rank and file population as a meme, otherwise it would be either extraneous baggage or it would be discarded, neither of which has (yet) been the case. Some Christians seem to do OK by either ignoring the issue or promoting eventual universal reconciliation, but they are not very much in the forefront.

An example of a big meme change was dropping geocentrism as a tenet. I get the feeling that many Christians are hardly aware of its having been dogma.

Some popular denominations have for all practical purposes dropped the YEC meme and accepted old earth (God-guided) biological evolution, although they retain things like ensoulment as being directly God-given.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-atheism/religion-and-memetics/

quote:

The Fitness of the Christian Meme

Christianity does indeed possess those features that are necessary for an idea to compete for survival effectively.

Christianity is very good at replicating itself; the great commission, Jesus‘ instruction to his followers, is to go and make disciples of all nations. Those who possess the Christian meme, who believe in the God of the Bible, therefore replicate Christianity as far as they are able to do so.

Christianity is also very robust. The all too common emphasis of religion on faith to the exclusion of reason makes those that possess the Christian meme liable to reject evidence against it. Christianity has even been accused by Antony Flew in his paper “Theology and Falsification” of being unfalsifiable, i.e. of being such that no evidence could possibly count against it. Those that possess the Christian meme are therefore unlikely to lose it.

The Memetic Critique of Christianity

None of this memetic critique of Christianity, of course, proves that Christianity is false; that is not what it attempts to do. Rather, what the memetic critique of Christianity attempts to do is demonstrate that even if Christianity were false, we would expect belief in it to be widespread. Atheism, the argument goes, can explain Christianity; there is nothing mysterious about the success of religion.

unquote

The term “original sin” is unknown to the Jewish Scriptures, and the Church’s teachings on this doctrine are antithetical to the core principles of the Torah and its prophets.
...
According to Church teachings, as a result of the first sin committed by our first parents in the Garden of Eden, there were catastrophic spiritual consequences for the human race. Most importantly, Christendom holds that these devastating effects extend far beyond the curses of painful childbirth and laborious farming conditions outlined in the third chapter of Genesis.

This well-known Church doctrine posits that when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and ate from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge, all of their descendants became infected with the stain of their transgression.

Moreover, as a consequence of this first iniquity, man is hopelessly lost in a state of sin in which he has been held captive since this fall. As a result, he is powerless to follow the path of obedience and righteousness by his own free will.
...
Despite the zealous position missionaries take as they defend this creed, the Christian doctrine of original sin is profoundly hostile to the central teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. The Torah loudly condemns the alien teaching that man is unable to freely choose good over evil, life over death.

http://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/

Unfortunately the doctrine of "original sin" serves to keep Christians from fully exercising their free will and "freely choos[ing] good over evil".

Originally posted by robbie carrobie

This is what the rabbi said:

How could the authors of the New Testament reasonably insist that man’s dire condition was hopeless if the Torah unambiguously declared that man possessed an extraordinary ability to remain faithful to God?
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The authors of the New Testament do not really portray man's alienation from God as hopeless. GOD is faithful to not leave man totally without hope.

And we do not have to WAIT until the New Testament to see that a faithful God seeking man gives this man in a dire situation some hope.

So your evaluation of the New Testament is exaggerated, firstly.
And secondly, you ignored many passages in the Old Testament that I provided that showed this problem of the fallen man's alienation from God.

Until I see your comment on the several OT passages, I will assume that you intend to completely ignore them. If the rabbi can be invited here to argue with me, fo invite him.

So in the statement " New Testament reasonably insist that man’s dire condition was hopeless ... " is the underlying problematic phrase.

The Hebrew Bible on "hopelessness" again:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, And it is INCURABLE; Who can know it ? (Jeremiah 17:9)

This is not an "author of the New Testament". This is the Hebrew canon. That is the first thing.

Second thing: Though God says the situation of man's heart is "INCURABLE" it is not totally beyond the power of God's salvation. This should be ascertained not only by the following passage in verse 10 but by the whole of all the book of Jeremiah tells us. But I don't need to argue for that because the rabbi already points out that there is hope. I emphasize that the hope is in God.

Again then, your underlying statement : " ... New Testament reasonably insist that man’s dire condition was hopeless ... "

1.) Is unfair in that the Hebrew Bible states that fallen man's situation is dire. The New Testament only ECHOES that Old Testament teaching.

2.) Neither the Hebrew Bible nor the New Testament leaves God SO totally out of the picture that we could say there is no hope at all for the fallen man.

Obviously, The "Good News" of the Gospel conveys HOPE . Otherwise it would not be "Good News" right ?

Well .... right or not ??


The rabbi backed it up with the following:

…if you will hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law; if you turn unto the Lord thy God with all your heart and with all your soul; for this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you neither is it too far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, and make us hear it, that we may do it?” Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say: “Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it that we may do it?” The word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
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Okay. This is a passage that that one of the "writers of the New Testament" Paul, himself quotes in Romans 10:6-8).

But the righteousness which is out of faith speaks in this way, "Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven?"
that is, to bring Christ down; Or, "Who will descend into the abyss?" that is to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart," that is the word of faith which we proclaim,

That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:6-9 expounding on Deuteronomy 30:10-14)

Paul is saying that it was the FAITH that really saved the Old Testament lovers and seekers of God. They had faith in the offerings which pointed to the incarnation of God in the saving Savior.

The consecration offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the peace offering and the other offerings prescribed by the law pointed forward symbolically to the Son of God. He as God incarnate came down from heaven. He as God came up from the abyss after accomplishing the one offering of Himself in eternal redemption.

To love the law of God WITHOUT drawing close to God by FAITH was never the desire of God. To love the law of God in drawing close to God in FAITH was His heart's desire in the Old Testament time.

So the New Testament writers refer quite much to the hope in drawing toward God in faith while seeking in that to walk in His ordinances. This was a kind of schoolmaster leading up to the anti-type of all the offerings which redeem. Christ, the Son of God replaced all the bulls, goats, doves, lambs by shedding His own sinless blood - the reality of the types of all the offerings ordained in the law of Moses.

Everything has not been said by me about this. This is an attempt at a concise reply.


The rabbi then restated the point:

How could the authors of the New Testament reasonably insist that man’s dire condition was hopeless if the Torah unambiguously declared that man possessed an extraordinary ability to remain faithful to God?
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The "extraordinary ability" is less with MAN than with the extraordinary faithfulness of the God who would not GIVE UP on man.

The rabbi's point is really a good one. And it deserves more time and space than this short reply will offer.

But, the real seekers of God in the Old Testament time did love the law and sought to keep it. But the more exemplary ones did NOT do so apart from drawing close to God Himself. It was the faithful God who infused them with an ability to live for Him.

I think the best place to see this is in Psalm 119 that very long Psalm by David revealing how much he loved the law of God. But he did not do so APART from drawing close to God in faith.

There was absolutely not extraordinary ability for any man to dismiss God and without His grace KEEP the commandments of God.

I wrote a thread called something like "God I just can't make it" . In that thread, (which I may just reactivate if possible) I expounded that without God's faithfulness and coming in to be man's enabling and power, there was not way for men to live right unto God.

There is no question that many of the Old Testament saints were pleasing to God. But was this by their own extraordinary ability ?
I say, not indeed. It was God's faithfulness, God's reaching them, God's empowering them, and God's redeeming them that was their hope.

I would inform the learned rabbi that he should re-consider all the accompanying offerings that went with the law of Moses. It should be evident that all the law keepers still needed redemption, atonement, trespass and sin substitutes, sacrifice on behalf of their offending selves. These all were pointers on the road of revelation leading up to the Savior of the world - the Son of God.

For length's sake, I stop here.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne

Now that I have gotten you unmixed up with Robbie ...

The term “original sin” is unknown to the Jewish Scriptures,
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And it is unknown in New Testament Scripture as well.
Some theologians however find it a useful phrase.


and the Church’s teachings on this doctrine are antithetical to the core principles of the Torah and its prophets.
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I think you ignored even a representative number of Hebrew Canon passages agreeing with a degradation of man from his beginnings, which requires a divine salvation from God.

So far you or the rabbi you are fond of quoting completely ignores the evidence in the Hebrew Scripture for a sin filled humanity. ...

According to Church teachings, as a result of the first sin committed by our first parents in the Garden of Eden, there were catastrophic spiritual consequences for the human race.
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According to the passages above which are being ignored, the Old Testament spoke of these consequences before the New Testament did. Once again, Solomon's comment -

"See, this alone have I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." (Ecc. 7:29)

How then did God make man? Upright.
Then what happened? They have become NOT upright but have sought out many schemes.

Will ignoring the passage make it evaporate from the Hebrew Bible ?


Most importantly, Christendom holds that these devastating effects extend far beyond the curses of painful childbirth and laborious farming conditions outlined in the third chapter of Genesis.
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Look at the Messianic prophesies in say Isaiah 11 and see how the salvation of the world is ACCOMPANIED by a restorative transformation of NATURE. Why, if the fall of man has NOT effected Nature ? ?

IE. Old Testament speaking:

"Righteousness will be that which girds His loins [Messiah King] And faithfulness will be that which girds His hips.

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb; And the leopard will lie down with the kid; And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a young boy will lead them about.

The cow and the bear will graze; Their young will lie down together; And the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the cobra's hole. And upon the viper's den the weaned child will stretch his hand.

They will not harm nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah, As water covers the sea." (Isaiah 11:5-9)

Paul's words about the restoral of creation accompanying the manifestation of the sons of God in Romans 8 echo these same Hebrew Canon teachings.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne

The Torah loudly condemns the alien teaching that man is unable to freely choose good over evil, life over death.

Your analysis is not at all totally right or fair with either the Old Testatment or the New.

How "loud" is this from the Hebrew Bible ?

"I do indeed know that it is so. But how can a man be righteous before God?" (Job 9:2)

"How then can man be righteous with God? And how can one born of a woman be pure ? " (Job 25:4)

The point is not so much that man cannot choose to repent and turn to God to do the righteously, by His mercy. It is that Hebrew Bible speaks FIRST of the fallen situation of man in need of God's reaching to him to justify him.

Why does the Torah include so many offerings for the Israelites' atonement, redemption, and reconciliation to God ?

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne

From ThinkOfOne, I would like you to take a break from cutting and pasting just long enough to answer :

Are you interested in the rabbi's comments because you wish to adopt the Theism of Judaism ?

Or are you just interested in the rabbi's comments because they seem useful to you to argue against the New Testament ?

How could the authors of the New Testament reasonably insist that man’s dire condition was hopeless if the Torah unambiguously declared that man possessed an extraordinary ability to remain faithful to God?

They say God as Savior is the hope for the fallen man.


How could the Church fathers possibly contend that the mitzvoth in the Torah couldn’t save the Jewish people when the Creator
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The offerings in which they placed their faith pointed to Christ.
Christ saved them. Retroactively, thier faith in the offerings for reconciliation were realized finally in time in the redemption of Christ.

proclaimed otherwise? How could missionaries conceivably maintain that the commandments of the Torah are too difficult when the Torah declares that they are “not far off,” “not too hard,” and “you may do it”?
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One cannot be justified by keeping the laws. And the Torah said without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Leviticus 17:11)

Though God wanted and wants man to live righteously by His power, the offering of sacrifice is needed to justify the sinner.

Christ was the one to Whom all the prescribed offerings in the law point to. Without His shed blood there is no forgiveness. Without forgiveness there is no salvation from a holy God.

So the Torah "unambiguously declared that man possessed an extraordinary ability to remain faithful to God" just as the rabbi contended.
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Psalm 119 is a long Psalm showing the heart of an exemplary seeker of God. But if you look at it carefully you will see that it is God's faithfulness and mercy which is David's hope and NOT some extraordinary ability that he possesses in himself.

Hence the very last line of 176 verses:

"I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek Your servant, For I have not forgotten your commandments." (v.176)

His trust was in God's SEEKING of him. In himself though he has just used 175 lines to explain how deeply he loves God's law, he ends up confessing that he needs GOD TO SEEK HIM.

There is no confidence in his own "extraordinary ability" to keep God's word. Herein lies the healthy proper attitude of the best of the Old Testament saints.

I don't believe that original sin was invented by evil priests to oppress weak-minded masses; it would not have survived thousands of years if it had been that simple (and simplistic). Leninism was that simple (and simplistic), and in less than 100 years the masses arose in anger and overthrew it. I think you have to look at original sin in the historical context of the time to see what 'problem' it may have solved for the people to whom it occurred.

Let's make a few broad assumptions about what life was probably like then: most people then were illiterate, poorly fed, living in constant fear of natural disasters (storms, earthquakes, floods, crop failures, etc.), living in constant fear of disease and injury (no antibiotics, no disinfectants, not the slightest idea what germs or bacteria are, etc.); infant mortality was very high (probably 6 out of 10 children would not have lived past age 5). Life was hard, toilsome, filled with misery and injustice. Good and decent people were struck down every day by seemingly random fate. On the other side, evil people were seen to prosper; people who tyrannized others and acted with ruthless brutality were seen to make it to the top of the social heap.

There are several possible responses to this. One is the Greek stoical response: just accept it. Seek tranquility in your own mind and let the gods do their worst to your body. But there is psychological weakness to the Stoic position: it does not make the misery any easier to bear. Misery is hard to bear, and senseless misery even more so. Misery is easier to bear if it has (or at least appears to have) some meaning or purpose.

Religion, as opposed to Stoic philosophy, places misery within a meaningful-purposeful context. Religion tells us that misery isn't random, it contributes to some higher goal in the cosmic economy. This serves the psychological function of making misery easier to bear. It thereby solves a 'problem', if you will.

Examples: Buddhism. Misery isn't random; our present misery comes from prior karma, and we are all working out karma in this life.

The Abrahamic tradition found a different solution to the problem of incomprehensible misery: it isn't random; it is intended; it is atonement/punishment. This at once gives misery a meaning, a purpose, and a place in the cosmic economy: God wants us to suffer.

'But why are good people punished along with the bad?' is the obvious objection. And this is where original sin comes in. Because apparently innocent people are seen to suffer along with obviously evil people, an explanation was needed, otherwise God is just an arbitrary bastard. Original sin covered this case: people aren't innocent; there was a primordial crime of which we are all guilty. The primordial crime was: disobeying God (breaking the Covenant)--that is why we are being punished, that is why there is misery (the pain of childbirth, the toilsomeness of having to work for our daily bread, illness and death, etc. ).

If you just leave it at that, it does seem a monstrous imposition. Misery has acquired a meaning, but we still want/need comfort in our misery. Stoicism didn't provide much of that. What religion provided, over and above stoicism, was comfort: the injustice will be rectified (in another life), the misery will be compensated (double, in another life). Original sin, without the 'glad tidings', would indeed be a foul soup.

This is a terribly long post, I know, but original sin is complex. Great theologians have racked their brains over it for centuries. A pat answer would hardly do it justice.

Originally posted by moonbus
I don't believe that original sin was invented by evil priests to oppress weak-minded masses; it would not have survived thousands of years if it had been that simple (and simplistic). Leninism was that simple (and simplistic), and in less than 100 years the masses arose in anger and overthrew it. I think you have to look at original sin in the historical co ...[text shortened]... logians have racked their brains over it for centuries. A pat answer would hardly do it justice.

Nice answer, long or not. I can actually read🙂 The only objection I have to that is other religions have been around as long or longer than any of the Abrahamic ones, and they seem to adjust to abject misery pretty well. It was not a deity making life better for common folk in the last 500 odd years, it was a direct result of the combined effort of literally hundreds of thousands of humans, Islam, Buddhist, Christian, Jew, they all had a part in bringing about the reduction of misery in the world where most folks are fed reasonably well, most infants surviving and so forth, so there should be no reason to keep sticking with the original sin meme. I think it sticks around now because of cultural inertia. Perhaps a hundred years hence, a Christian denomination will start up with a new meme, we were not born into sin but only contracted sin later in life and our religion will save you if you act quickly enough. If something like that took off, perhaps the whole aircraft carrier worth of force required to move memes or remove them will happen.

The thing I see NEVER happening is the loss of the hierarchy structure of religion, our Rabbi or our Deacon or our priest has a direct line to god so you can direct your love of your god through him or her, whoever is the honcho priest ATT.
I don't think that will change even if another thousand years goes by with Abrahamic religions in sway.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The thing I see NEVER happening is the loss of the hierarchy structure of religion, our Rabbi or our Deacon or our priest has a direct line to god so you can direct your love of your god through him or her, whoever is the honcho priest ATT.
I don't think that will change even if another thousand years goes by with Abrahamic religions in sway.

The established Christian hierarchy (meaning the Church) has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I don't see them voluntarily giving up their main source of income (which appears to consist in soliciting 'donations' ).

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
[quote]
The term “original sin” is unknown to the Jewish Scriptures, and the Church’s teachings on this doctrine are antithetical to the core principles of the Torah and its prophets.
...
According to Church teachings, as a result of the first sin committed by our first parents in the Garden of Eden, there were catastrophic spiritual consequences for ...[text shortened]... to keep Christians from fully exercising their free will and "freely choos[ing] good over evil".

Really? Are you actually saying that Christians choose God as a result of NOT exercising their free will while atheists choosing "not-God" ARE fully exercising their free will?

(And btw, I'm not sure that explaining to us that Jews have no concept of original sin is really going to make us sit up and exclaim, "My God, you're right! I've been duped all this time! I don't need Jesus after all!" Of course they have no concept of original sin. They do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting more than a thousand years for, either.)

Originally posted by sonhouse
Nice answer, long or not. I can actually read🙂 The only objection I have to that is other religions have been around as long or longer than any of the Abrahamic ones, and they seem to adjust to abject misery pretty well. It was not a deity making life better for common folk in the last 500 odd years, it was a direct result of the combined effort of literal ...[text shortened]... think that will change even if another thousand years goes by with Abrahamic religions in sway.

You refer to "Abrahamic religions." Who do you think Abraham was ? And how did this man Abraham have such influence on world history ?

Originally posted by sonship
You refer to "Abrahamic religions." Who do you think [b]Abraham was ? And how did this man Abraham have such influence on world history ?[/b]

Do YOU know what that means? The Abrahamic religions?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Do YOU know what that means? The Abrahamic religions?

Yes.

Abrahamic religions (also Semitic religions) are monotheistic religions of West Asian[1] origin, emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham[2] or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him.

Do you have some special Internet Infidel's version you prefer ?

Now, your opinion. Who was Abraham ? How was this little guy able to make such a big hallubaluh in world history ?

Originally posted by sonship
[b]
This is what the rabbi said:

How could the authors of the New Testament reasonably insist that man’s dire condition was hopeless if the Torah unambiguously declared that man possessed an extraordinary ability to remain faithful to God?
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The authors of t ...[text shortened]... ion leading up to the Savior of the world - the Son of God.

For length's sake, I stop here.[/b]

C'mon jaywill, you need to focus here. You keep missing the points.

The rabbi chose Deuteronomy 30:10-14 for two reasons:
1) Moses, speaking in the name of God, declared that man "can and must merit his own salvation."

2) To show how Paul underhandedly took a snippet from the passage "in order to create the illusion that his theological message conformed to the principles of the Torah."