This thread is not for debating whether religion is a good thing or a bad thing, or for saying that believers or disbelievers in one thing or another are more correct. I just want to have a discussion about religious concepts in a scholarly way that avoids the banter of Chit Chat.

I want to start this off with the concept of original sin.

As I understand it, the thought behind "original sin" is that Adam and Eve's disobedience (eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil), which supposedly caused G-d to cast mankind out of paradise, is passed down genetically through the generations. Each of us shares in Adam and Eve's sin and therefor must be redeemed, or as Christians refer to it, "saved."

However, take a look at Deuteronomy 30:19, which is one of my favorite biblical verses. "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live."

Heaven and Earth bear witness to G-d putting both good (blessing) and evil (curse) in front of mankind, just as in Eden. But there's a distinct difference here when compared to the story in Genesis 2. In Genesis, man is told not to eat of the tree, therefore keeping the knowledge of good and evil away. But here there is a clear choice. A strong suggestion is made of which way to go, but a choice is still offered. G-d intends for us to make a choice, and a choice can only be made through proper knowledge of both options. Why would G-d keep knowledge from us but still want us to make a choice? It is because G-d wanted us to have the knowledge, but first needed show us HOW to make a choice.

A person sins when making the wrong moral choice when they already know what the right choice is. Prior to eating form the tree, Adam and Eve were unable to make a choice based on knowledge. Therefor I would not call their action a sin, and they would not be able to pass this sin to future generations. What they did pass on was the KNOWLEDGE. We now know what evil is and can choose to act against it.

12/24/2012 5:26:39 PM

There a reason you keep spelling God like an idiot?

Is that like some leftover from when people were to scared to spell out Yahweh?

12/24/2012 5:51:34 PM

4) Never get high on your own supply.

12/24/2012 5:54:49 PM

Just a show of respect. Doesn't bother me how other people do things, it's just how I do it.

12/24/2012 5:58:19 PM

How, exactly, is that respectful?

12/24/2012 6:03:30 PM

http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

12/24/2012 6:11:35 PM

Time to break out the lube, let's get this circlejerk started.

12/24/2012 6:11:36 PM

somebody post the Froshkiller rant please

12/24/2012 7:15:02 PM

Quote :

"As I understand it, the thought behind "original sin" is that Adam and Eve's disobedience (eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil), which supposedly caused G-d to cast mankind out of paradise, is passed down genetically through the generations."

Let me make sure I understand. You think we have genes for original sin? Is this one of the markers picked up on 23andMe? https://www.23andme.com/

12/24/2012 7:21:00 PM

^You clearly didn't keep reading, because my entire post was AGAINST the concept of original sin. I began by stating what I understand other people to believe.

12/24/2012 7:22:18 PM

I thought the closer analogue would be referring to the "L-rd" (usual translation of the Tetragrammaton, "YHWH") or possibly the "L-rd G-d" (when the word for "lord," "adonai," appears before the Tetragrammaton); then again, whenever "elohim" (word for "gods") is used in the singular to address Him, that is translated as "G-d" so whatev


Anyway, I had thought for a while that the legend of Eden was about how the L-rd punished the ancestors of His chosen people (the people created elsewhere in Genesis 1 were already condemned) for daring to seek knowledge as the Serpent had encouraged, rather than remaining docile and imbecilic supplicants to Him; I was about to submit an essay on this theme to the Ayn Rand Institute about 12 years ago to win a contest but ended up not doing it because it sounded so sacrilegious (even though the ARI is adamantly atheist and so am I, I still had that concern).

Oh, on a minor note, I recently learned from Crash Course World History that the current word for "apple" in English was once the generic word for "fruit" and that may be why many retellings of the legend have Eve biting into an apple.

[Edited on December 24, 2012 at 10:20 PM. Reason : ^Genetics is a LIE it was all put there by GAWD in mens spirits! - fundie

12/24/2012 10:19:21 PM

The word was always fruit, nowhere does "apple" ever appear.

The usage of apple started with the Latin translation.

malum = evil

malum = apple

http://translate.google.com/#la/en/malum

Easy to see where people got confused.

[Edited on December 24, 2012 at 10:39 PM. Reason : =]

12/24/2012 10:38:11 PM

ibt Froshkiller quote

12/24/2012 11:21:39 PM

lol religion

12/25/2012 2:46:56 PM

people in Chit Chat were confused that Mormons and Jehovas Witnesses are not Christians

12/25/2012 4:50:06 PM

Shouldn't this be in the entertainment section, where people are discussing whether Gandalf could have gone about defeating Sauron in a better way?


The fact that this is even a serious discussion topic show how much medieval thinking still dominates our daily lives.

12/25/2012 5:17:26 PM

Both are the same genre too

12/25/2012 5:32:36 PM

i like the NT god a lot better than the OT god. too much genocide and slavery for my taste in the OT. aint nobody got time for that

12/25/2012 7:51:40 PM

The bible is more wibbly wobbly timey wimey than all the continuity errors in Dr. Who combined.

You're either trying to make sense out of a faulty story line not based in reality (like with all the incorrect religions/mythologies), or if it is reality you're trying to make sense out of the supernatural workings that only an omnipotent being could fully understand.

A challenging task either way. I am interested in seeing where this thread goes though. Keep up the discussion. I'll be reading.

For what it's worth, my take on religious texts generally is that while they aren't generally internally consistent (even with the NT retcon) if folks can get something meaningful out of them without using it to harm others, more power to them.

12/26/2012 12:21:18 AM

Quote :

"A person sins when making the wrong moral choice when they already know what the right choice is. Prior to eating form the tree, Adam and Eve were unable to make a choice based on knowledge. Therefor I would not call their action a sin, and they would not be able to pass this sin to future generations. What they did pass on was the KNOWLEDGE. We now know what evil is and can choose to act against it."

in your reading, what's the evil that's been revealed?

12/26/2012 1:41:36 AM

Quote :

"The word was always fruit, nowhere does "apple" ever appear."

I think it's more because there wasn't initially a distinct word for this fruit as opposed to others in English (the Old English word for "fruit" was æppel), but the argument that it was the fault of the Vulgate is a good one, because it was the basis of early English translations (like the Great Bible and before, including fragmentary translations into Old and Middle English but excluding the controversial efforts of Tyndale) Latin did have a word that was more commonly used for the benefits of one's labor but is also the origin of the English "fruit": fructus.

*also only the neuter form malum was used in Latin for "apple" although it was also used for the noun "evil" or "harm"; the related term "malus" meant "apple tree" as well as (declining to agree in gender) the adjective "evil"

Quote :

"people in Chit Chat were confused that Mormons and Jehovas Witnesses are not Christians"

To be fair, the Jehovah's Witnesses aren't nearly so far off the mainstream of Christianity as the Mormons are: After reading up on their history and more curious beliefs, it sounds like they were formed from a schism with Protestants akin to the one that split off Catholics from the Orthodox and the later one that split off Protestants from Catholics, while the Mormons rely on a massive set of novel scriptures and doctrines totally at odds with Christianity; I mean non-trinitarianism and the refusal to believe in the fires of Hell aren't as rare as you might think among Christian denominations, but a third testament and rather specific doctrines placing America at the spiritual focus rather than Palestine point to the emergence of a new religion rather than the restorationism of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
(The source of confusion for the Chit-Chatters was taking the Mormons' own insistence that they are Christian and that the other groups are just getting it wrong as proof that Mormonism is a type of Christianity rather than a descendant from it.)

12/26/2012 3:09:51 AM

if there's a thread in CC about this, then I'm glad I missed it


also, I've never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever heard it stated that "sin is genetic" or that original sin is passed down genetically. Then again, to say such a thing would generally require a level of knowledge about biology that typically eludes most hardcore bible thumpers.

12/26/2012 5:31:43 PM

It's right up your alley: http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=632331

12/26/2012 5:34:52 PM

Dude its a mmetaphhor. People are not perfect therefor we are born with sin. Hence adam and the apple. The bible is truly amazing and inspirational. You just have to know how to read critically, which most people cant.

12/27/2012 12:55:59 AM

^ they should re-write it to be more dramatic and poetic and less preachy, and maybe it could be taught that way.

But this would probably piss people off i'm sure...

Or maybe do a reboot of the Bible in movie form?

A movie of Revelations would probably be really bad-ass.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 2:21 AM. Reason : ]

12/27/2012 2:21:35 AM

^That's called a "paraphrase"; a couple notable ones I can think of are The Living Bible (a.k.a. "The Book" or "The Way") and The Message, of which a PDF of Genesis and the overall intro. is available here: http://www.navpress.com/images/pdfs/9781576839164.pdf



This link shows five different translations of Genesis 1-3 (from Creation to Original Sin)...
NRSV (New Revised Standard Version), a fairly literal translation in the tradition of King James.
TNIV (Today's New International Version), a somewhat more dynamic translation, especially where the Hebrew or Greek idioms sound awkward when translated directly into English.
NLT (New Living Translation), a dynamic translation born from an effort to revise The Living Bible.
CEV (Contemporary English Version), a dynamic translation using simple English, so that children and other people with a poor grasp of English can understand.
The Message, a paraphrase that frequently combines the traditional verses into their own units to make the text more easily understood and more engaging, but recognized even by its translator (Eugene H. Peterson) as unsuitable for "serious" study or preaching from the pulpit.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1-3&version=NRSV;TNIV;NLT;CEV;MSG

12/27/2012 4:06:23 AM

This is kinda pointless. God is such an incoherent idea that one can ultimately handwave away anything regarding religion. Original sin doesn't make sense? Well, God doesn't play by your rules. Nailing one dude to a cross redeems everyone how? The rules don't apply to God, man.

Quote :

"What they did pass on was the KNOWLEDGE. We now know what evil is and can choose to act against it."

Yes, one recurring trope in Abrahamic religions is knowledge is wrong and you need to just trust your god. That should set off alarm bells in your head.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 9:30 AM. Reason : .]

12/27/2012 9:25:25 AM

The devil is the ego.

God is the collective consciousness.

12/27/2012 12:29:16 PM

As the world gets more and more techy, there is less and less of an interest in actual critical reading. And in that scenario something as figurative as the bible becomes virtually impossible to be trusted. When the religous haters get their hands on it, they misinterpret the scripture just as bad as the church people do.

And no, You can't dumb it down, that is just ludicrous. Because if you did take away the figurative language, it would not convey the power and imagery that is necessary to really bring about a change in somebody.

No where in the NT does it say: "Believe in Jesus, and you will go to heaven." Because how does that affect anybody? How does that make you think of your life believing in JC?

12/27/2012 1:37:43 PM

Quote :

"When the religous haters get their hands on it, they misinterpret the scripture just as bad as the church people do"

But it's BanjoMan with the correct interpretation, amirite?

Quote :

"No where in the NT does it say: "Believe in Jesus, and you will go to heaven." "

I mean, it's an obscure passage, but I seem to remember....

Quote :

"John 3:16 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

For grins, I included the part about what happens if you simply don't believe.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 1:47 PM. Reason : .]

12/27/2012 1:47:42 PM

^ That confirms my point. If you just take the bold print alone you miss the whole message of it all. You have to read it in context.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 1:56 PM. Reason : edit]

12/27/2012 1:54:19 PM

I'm not sure I get your point banjo man. A piece of literature has literary qualities?

Seems self evident.

12/27/2012 2:20:57 PM

Quote :

"^ That confirms my point. If you just take the bold print alone you miss the whole message of it all. You have to read it in context."

This a load of shit. You say "nowhere does the Bible say X" I provide X and then you say "CONTEXT!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZFf5o

I don't give two shits really. Prove that the book is more than just mythology and I'll consider unwrapping whatever the fuck you think the context of "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" is.

12/27/2012 2:26:41 PM

The context doesn't appear to restrict the meaning of that famous passage...

Quote :

"14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

This particular quotation is from the NRSV, but as a comparison of these five translations shows, the main disagreement is whether the purported words of Jesus ended with verse 15 or went all the way to verse 21: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3:1-21&version=NRSV;TNIV;NLT;CEV;MSG

12/27/2012 2:39:14 PM

first of all dude, I spoke in simple terms for a reason. Even the verse that you shat out does not once mention heaven, or that when you die you will go to heaven, it requires some interpretation. Which is the root of the problem. You can't interpret things that are taking out of context. I think that the bible is too complex for people that just run to the internet, find a phrase that sounds right, and formulate an argument out of it. That is exactly what you did, and that is exactly what the homophobes do when they are getting ready to hang some gays.

So yes, you went ahead, chased a bone, and proved my point.

But the book isn't anything more than mythology, it is fantastic mythology. As I have said before, it is one of the crowning achievements of mankind. BUT, people can't really believe that there is a supernatural after life, and that water was turned into wine. That is also a problem with it.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 2:41 PM. Reason : still undecided]

12/27/2012 2:39:24 PM

That is a good point: To those of us raised in the Christian tradition, "everlasting life" or "eternal life" or (as Young's Literal Translation put it) "life age-during" is tantamount to "goin' to Heaven"; maybe there's some more distant context that explained that association in the minds of many a preacher.

Similarly, it's way too easy to conflate the Serpent, the Beast, the False Prophet, and Satan, and to confuse Hell ("Gehenna") and Hades (where the souls of dead people went on the regular, confusingly rendered in some translations, including the KJV, as "Hell") with "the lake of fire and sulfur" (Rev. 20:10, NRSV) into which all of those figures, along with Hades itself (v. 14) and the souls of the unsaved (v. 15), were prophesied to burn "forever and ever" (v. 10) after the thousand years of darkness following the Rapture.

I say this of course as someone who doesn't believe in the supernatural but still

12/27/2012 2:57:44 PM

^,^^

Those issues are characteristic of all ancient mythologies, because they all were assembled from previous stories and traditions. The concept of Hell was introduced by the Persian invasion of the near east, and still didn't percolate to all people following abrahamic religions. There isn't an overarching context to the bible that makes it coherent because it was assembled from such disparate sources through the ages, like most stories derived from oral traditions. The only meaningful context of the bible is the historical climate in which it was written. We can get a sense for what the people of the authors' time valued, which is useful because it tells us something about how humanity has changed ( or hasn't).

The uniqueness of the bible is that unlike the majority of other ancient mythologies, like Gilgamesh or the stories attributed to Homer, is that we have fairly complete copies of the texts that large portions of the bible were derived from. Other religions have this too, but historically, this level of preservation is extremely rare (despite translations).

12/27/2012 3:23:46 PM

^^ read the OP, that is what I am griping about. From a literary perspective, the bible is brilliant in terms of setting courageous examples of how to lead and how to endure, but more often than not, snips and pieces are taken out of it and used incorrectly. This neglect has endured to the point where the bible is now taking the blame for the wrong that the people cause. Many atheists I know would gladly wipe their ass with it, which is sad.

Lewis, you kind of rushed into it with a classic "oh you guys are talking about X, well here is all of this stuff that I know" without really saying anything. but it's ok. I understand your enthusiasm for the scripture.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 3:31 PM. Reason : double post]

12/27/2012 3:31:34 PM

Quote :

"From a literary perspective, the bible is brilliant in terms of setting courageous examples of how to lead and how to endure"

Quote :

"As I have said before, it is one of the crowning achievements of mankind"

See you've made these opinions clear multiple times, but haven't explained how. I've read the Bible front to back and read passages/translations/discussions about translations on a near daily basis. I mean, I'm reading English translations rather than Koine or Hebrew or Aramaic or what the fuck ever but I'm not getting the brilliance or courageous leadership examples. Seems like an appropriate thread to support your thesis.

12/27/2012 3:42:06 PM

It seems like you are are determined on thinking that it is worthless because you have read it "cover to cover" and know it better than anybody else.

12/27/2012 3:53:47 PM

Or maybe you're used to making grandiose statements about the meaningfulness of the Bible to humanity without objection because most people (Christians) are fine with non-Christians trying to improve its secular worth.

12/27/2012 4:00:19 PM

It's actually not a very good book in any way. It's not historically useful, it's not good in terms of actual quality of writing, it's inconsistent at best in it's moral teaching, and the religions based on its teaching have been largely responsible for the retardation of human progress.

12/27/2012 4:15:48 PM

No, there really is no point since you seem set against it. But to me the beauty of it all is that as a whole, one of the take home meanings of NT can be summed up into imitatio christi, where you are not just giving rules for people to follow, you are giving them an example to follow: Be kind to others, don't mix words, help the poor, etc... It is a truly brilliant approach to guide people towards a righteous lifestyle that really isn't bound by any specific creed, it applies to all mankind. No knock on the 10 commandments, but imitatio christi is genious and as a literary tool has greatly impacted literature and theatre.

Now, sprinkle in other classic fables such as the "prodigal son", and you truly do have something to remarkable to live by. I don't think that you need an example for morality, and you don't need to encourage people to be moral by threatening them with fire, but it does help to have symbolic figures as a means of guidance.

I would suggest to you, not to just read as it is Twilight, but to search for the meaning and purpose of it all.

12/27/2012 4:16:58 PM

People would be better of treating it as classical literature as opposed to a religious relic/document, but that wouldn't fly with the evangelical types.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 4:19 PM. Reason : c]

12/27/2012 4:18:29 PM

Quote :

"it's not good in terms of actual quality of writing"

How often do you read? Virtually every remarkable piece of literature has strands of the bible in it.

Quote :

"its teaching have been largely responsible for the retardation of human progress."

Well, humans aren't perfect: adam did eat the apple.



[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 4:22 PM. Reason : j]

12/27/2012 4:20:24 PM

Basic biblical stories have appeared in or been the basis for many books, there's no doubt, but it's not a well written book. It's full of bad writing... poor sentence and story structure, contradictions, etc.

The bible is basically a compilation of earlier mythos cobbled together into one poorly structured work.

It's an important book, not a good book. There's a big difference.

12/27/2012 4:33:50 PM

Not only that, but its importance is not a product of any intrinsic value. Its importance is a product of the dominance of Christianity in Western Civilization.

12/27/2012 4:36:51 PM

12/27/2012 4:37:30 PM

Quote :

"It's full of bad writing... poor sentence and story structure, contradictions, etc."

It is beautifully written, maybe there are some typos and shit floating around on the internets, but I guess you would have to give some examples. And so far, I am the only person in this discussion that has brought something meaningful to the table.

12/27/2012 4:40:40 PM

Have you read Genesis? Within the first 3 verses Eve is created twice, in two different ways. Cain finds a wife despite he and his family being the only people on the planet.

The Gospels don't contain the same birth story... you would think that something like a Virgin birth would be significant enough to be mentioned by all 4 Gospels. Hell you would think that the two that do mention it would at least agree on where he was born. They don't.

I'm not going to go through the entire work for you, but there's plenty of issues if you bother to read it with a critical eye. Hell, reading the Bible is a good way to turn folks off of Christianity.

[Edited on December 27, 2012 at 4:51 PM. Reason : sffd]

12/27/2012 4:47:58 PM