Original Sin

[Austin]

As a former evangelical, I know how deeply the theology of original sin affects evangelicals. My husband (who is questioning his own religious views - hell has frozen over!) and I had an interesting discussion about this last night. And there are some problems.

Here's the basic story:

1) God created Adam because he wanted to have fellowship (I'm not sure where the Son and the Holy Spirit were, but anyhoo) and thought that Adam should have a companion, too, so then created Eve. These people were created as perfect and were to live forever.

2) He hooked them up in a nice garden and told them they could eat any delicious fruit that grew there, except for one particular delicious fruit.

3) They ate of the forbidden fruit.

4) Sin entered the world and all of mankind at this moment, which is the cause of eveything bad such as death, destruction, disease, misery, and feminism. (Okay, I made up that last one.)

5) God got pissed because they did the forbidden thing and threw them out of the garden. Now they had to work to eek out a living and Eve would be miserable bearing children and they would both die, as would all of their descendants. They could never be reconciled to God because God cannot tolerate sin. Someone would have to pay.

6) A couple thousand years go by and God gets mad at his people who were all born to be world-class screw-ups many times, destroying them by floods and plagues and in general has a troubled relationship with his creation.

7) God sends his Son, who is qualified to make said payment, as he was perfect and part of the Trinity. Son dies a terrible death on the cross and thereby redeems all of mankind.

It's hard for me to contemplate that this ever made sense to me and I considered this the easy little formula by which all that cannot be known can be explained. God was not at fault, of course; everything was the fault of his creation. When a child starves to death in Somolia, that is the result of Adam's sin. When people rape and pillage and murder others, that is the result of Adam's sin. See, no fuss, no muss.

It's mind-boggling.

Thoughts? How do other religions or even other non-evangelical Christians view this theology? How has this affected our thinking?

ETA: Oh, I forgot this. After some discussion on this last night, my husband said that he was beginning to have problems with this God. He compared the forbidden fruit thing to us putting a big bowl of delicious cookies in the middle of the kitchen table, a place where there's all sorts of other good food to eat, and then telling a five-year-old, "You can eat anything you want, but don't eat those delicious cookies". Yeah, problematic.

[Deleted02]

I think it's kind of a dick move. If God knows everything he knew Adam and Eve would sin so why did he get all pissy with it? And why wait so long to send a savior?

I think people are the products of where and how they were raised. Of course, some people are just jerks.

[freejoytoo]

It makes no sense to me. If God knows everything then He had to know Eve was going to take the apple. Personally I think the serpent had a point - what's wrong with wanting knowledge anyway? And why should we all be punished for it? You wouldn't throw someone in prison for their father committing a crime.

I always thought His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman had a good spin on the whole thing.

[genericJname]

I would say the theology I came from is pretty much as stated above. I don't know why it made sense to me.

Also, maybe someone Jewish knows but I don't think the serpant is necessarily supposed to equal Satan. That interpretation happened by superimposing later Christian theology on Genesis.

[valsa]

Before Adam and Even ate the fruit, they weren't even capable of understanding that it was wrong to disobey God and eat it. It was a total set up! God's a dick.

[She Who Laughs]

I was taught, and I believe still, that God could have made Adam and Eve like little robots that would never do anything wrong. But God didn't want robots, he wanted living, breathing, FREE people who could make a choice, he wanted them to have the freedom to make a choice to love God, obey God, etc. If there wasn't anything for them to make a choice about, then they still would have been robots basically. So he placed one tree in the garden and instructed them not to eat from that tree. He gave them a choice. It wasn't a set-up, it was so they could be free to make a choice to either obey or not obey. They chose to not obey, thus bringing original sin. And I also don't believe the tree actually gave them any more knowledge except that it opened their eyes to sin and evil, so the knowledge they acquired wasn't something that was good anyway.

[wtfrenchtoast]

Before Adam and Even ate the fruit, they weren't even capable of understanding that it was wrong to disobey God and eat it. It was a total set up! God's a dick.

Exactly. I read on a blog once that it's like this:

God: Don't eat that fruit. If you do, I'll warrgarrbl (kill, but they don't know that concept) you.

Adam and Eve: What is warrgarrbl?

God: Don't worry about it. Just know it's very bad.

Adam and Eve: ...okay.

I mean really. They couldn't even grasp the concept of punishment or obedience. God's a jerk.

[Shirley MacLaine]

I was taught, and I believe still, that God could have made Adam and Eve like little robots that would never do anything wrong. But God didn't want robots, he wanted living, breathing, FREE people who could make a choice, he wanted them to have the freedom to make a choice to love God, obey God, etc. If there wasn't anything for them to make a choice about, then they still would have been robots basically.

That would all be well and good, if the consequence for choosing not to love and obey God were not hell. When you have a choice like that, where one option is eternal suffering... how is that a free and unfettered choice? How is that not a setup?

[deelaem]

There are all sorts of creation myths. The Christian one just has a bunch of damnation in it, so it works to control people a bit better, but it's still a myth. And it makes sure there's no way people can win unless they conform to a certain code. And my thought is, what kind of an asshole God tests his creation that way? For what purpose? Seems like a set-up to fail. And what does God gain by putting his creation in a state of original sin?

[Austin]

There are all sorts of creation myths. The Christian one just has a bunch of damnation in it, so it works to control people a bit better, but it's still a myth. And it makes sure there's no way people can win unless they conform to a certain code. And my thought is, what kind of an asshole God tests his creation that way? For what purpose? Seems like a set-up to fail. And what does God gain by putting his creation in a state of original sin?

Well, I know that there are other similar creation myths that actually pre-date the writing of Genesis. I need to study that more.

[JesusFightClub]

And if he's omniscient he knew what Eve would do, right? And where did the serpent come from if God didn't make it?

[Austin]

I look back and realize I didn't even make mention of the serpent. It's probably indicative that my childhood religion taught me that it was mostly Eve's fault, and she's the one who brought Adam down. The serpent's role was that he manipulated the constitutionally weaker human.

[dcmhejbl62]

If I have to believe the creation story, I like the Mormon twist -- that it was part of God's plan that Adam and Eve ate from the tree, so their descendents would go through the process of being born into an earthly life and learn all the lessons that everyone agreed to ahead of time when they were spirits in heaven with God. This is considered a good thing, not a "fall."

It gets a little goofy after that.

I don't take the bible literally, and I don't pretend to understand the nature of God, so at this point I don't get wrapped up in the creation story. It was a nice bedtime story for prehistoric people to help bring about order in what must have been a very confusing and scary world.

But remember, I'm not exactly seen as a theologian in my circles, so don't take my thoughts as representative of any official Christian doctrine.

[Sola]

As far as I am aware the concept of original sin is limited to Christianity alone.

Never really understood it myself. Seems to me that god was setting humanity up to fail, then punishing them for all eternity for that. Plus there is the whole guilt trip get out clause of Jesus.

[valsa]

It wasn't a set-up, it was so they could be free to make a choice to either obey or not obey.

Except they weren't able to comprehend that the option to not obey was bad. It's like offering a 3 year old a choice to wear a pink shirt or a purple shirt. Without assigning morality to either choice (which Adam and Eve could not do at the time), the choice to obey or not obey would have seemed just a benign. If you, as the parent/God, choose to then shoot that 3 year old in the head when they choose the pink shirt, you've set them up. And you're a dick.

[Jezebel]

I look back and realize I didn't even make mention of the serpent. It's probably indicative that my childhood religion taught me that it was mostly Eve's fault, and she's the one who brought Adam down. The serpent's role was that he manipulated the constitutionally weaker human.

On top of that, God created the very serpent who talked Eve into eating the fruit.

So did God intentionally create the serpent to be the kind of creature who would lie to Eve and encourage her to disobey? He must have. And yet he condemned the serpent for acting according to its God-given nature, as well as Eve for being deceived by it, and Adam for eating the fruit Eve offered.

God's just not coming across as a great guy worthy of worship, IMO.

[emmiedahl]

The word "sin" is not used in the Hebrew Bible until well after the Creation/Adam and Eve thing. I don't believe in original sin, nor do any Jews that I know.

My understanding of Jewish belief on the issue (other Jews are free to correct this) is that eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not really a bad thing; it gave Adam and Eve a knowledge of good and evil. However, there was another tree in the Garden, the Tree of Life, which gave immortality. God did not want Adam and Eve to gain immortality, so he kicked them out of the Garden. In other words, they were already mortal, and they were prevented from becoming immortal.

Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil made them aware of moral issues and thus responsible for making good choices, but there was no sin involved.

[Mama Mia]

I was taught that it was allegorical

-- God had Adam and Eve in the garden and the garden was filled with love and peace and other cool stuff. The 'forbidden fruit' symbolized hatred/bitterness/envy/anger etc...Once you feel hatred/envy etc you are kind of bound to have a hard time with just feeling love - so people go around making a bunch of other mistakes in a bunch of stories that prove one point or another ( but all given as a story- the actual people in the story might have been real, but the events themselves were magnified and dramatized in order to prove a point - as was God's role in all of it).

Original Sin wasn't stressed, at all, but if anything it just meant that people are prone to weakness and sometimes need to work really hard to not cave in to hatred and evilness.

The point of Jesus was that he didn't feel hate/bitterness/anger and all those other negatives - so he taught people to be loving towards each other and when you aren't filled with all of those negative emotions you are closer to God ( who is Love and exists in everyone ). The sacrifice of himself wasn't a one time blood sacrifice thing --- it was to show that you shouldn't given in to evil thoughts/feelings/actions just because you can. Basically that each individual is a better person and can make the world better for those around them if they act out of love instead of out of hate.

Don't know if that was a good explanation.. Sunday School was a looooonggg time ago.

[valsa]

The point of Jesus was that he didn't feel hate/bitterness/anger and all those other negatives

Aren't you talking about the guy who cursed and killed a fig tree for not giving fruit out of season? And who trashed people's businesses if he didn't like them?

Yeah, that guy totally never felt any anger or other negative emotions.

[debrand]

And if he's omniscient he knew what Eve would do, right? And where did the serpent come from if God didn't make it?

God is supposed to be our father but what parent would knowingly allow an evil person to visit their children. He knew the snake was going to enter the garden and talk with Eve, yet he did nothing to stop it. To me, that looks like a set up. It's bad enough to put the trees in the garden but why let Satan have access?

Remember God did not just punish Adam, Eve and their human descendents. The world is supposedly not the perfect creation that it was meant to be. (at least that is what I was taught)

If you dig deep enough, the reason that most people will say that we were given free will was so that we could choose to love god. So, the entire set up was because god wanted love. That bothers me because it seems so selfish

[AnnoDomini]

Add to the doctrine of original sin the Calvinist doctrine that there is a limited number of people that God has elected to be saved, and no one has the power to 'save themselves' but hope God does it.

[Deleted07]

I have to admit I never understood the whole 'Jesus sent his only son to pay for our sins and to save us'.

How does that work?

[Austin]

I have to admit I never understood the whole 'Jesus sent his only son to pay for our sins and to save us'.

How does that work?

Because Jesus was sinless, he was the only suitable sacrifice to redeem Adam and his descendants. So God sent his own son to be sacrificed to pay the price for the sins of all of mankind throughout all history. If the "price" is not paid, God cannot be reconciled with his creation (mankind). Thus Jesus is "the only way".

[emmiedahl]

The story of Jesus Christ actually is very similar to the messiah stories of religions that were well-known to Palestinian Jews at the time of Christ. The theology of Christ borrows heavily from Greek and Egyptian myth, in fact it is more similar to these than to the messianic prophesies of the Old Testament.

Some info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Chri ... _mythology and there is a better website that I cannot think of, but will post when I remember it.

[Alcyone]

Good summary, Austin. It is confusing at every point but the one that really tripped me up was:

7) God sends his Son, who is qualified to make said payment, as he was perfect and part of the Trinity. Son dies a terrible death on the cross and thereby redeems all of mankind

It seems like that should be the end of the story, right? Shouldn't we all be floating on a happy cloud now? But no, we are still toiling by the sweat of our brow and bearing children in pain. In other words, everything is still EXACTLY the same as before Jesus paid the price of redemption. This is very, very suspicious to me, although I know there is a standard explanation that involves us all being caught in between the "now and the not-yet", whatever that means.