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Author Topic:   Why is sin heritable?
Modulous
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Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 8 of 139 (563665)
06-06-2010 11:57 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Larni
06-06-2010 9:04 AM


Sin and death
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned Romans 5:12 (King James Version)
To me this means the state of being 'in sin' is passed on through generations. Yahweh seems to have decreed that all people will start off in a state of sin.
Adam invited sin into all men. This means that men became sinners because of Adam: not because of Yahweh. Yahweh made no such decree. He told Adam not to sin. Adam sinned. Consequences followed. Yahweh tried to figure out a way to relate to people who had found themselves in a state of sin.
If one accepts that Adam deserved punishment and Yahweh did indeed punish him why did Yahweh also decide to punish other people (Adam descendants) so setting in motion the events that required Yahweh kill his own son.
Yahweh did indeed punish the descendants of Adam, but not with sin. That was Adam's doing alone. It was not required that Jesus was killed. Jesus was killed because of the sin of men (which leads to death).
It was his resurrection that contains the magic. By undoing the death that sin caused, Yahweh made it possible to overcome even the death that must follow from sin through faith (being the terms and conditions of Yahweh's covenant). A believer finally is able to live in triumph over sin and death.
We killed the Christ because of sin. Jesus knew that we would do so. God said the Christ must let himself be betrayed, captured, tortured and executed. It was the Christ's obedience to Yahweh's command that made all of mankind righteous in his eyes, meaning he could overcome man's sin and therefore death, leading to the resurrection and the promise of eternal life. It's a loophole. Yahweh can't get rid of sin, but now if we have faith in his promise to resurrect us all - he can give us final triumph over the calamity Adam brought upon us all.
At least that's how I read Romans 4-5
I would contend that Yahweh's 'go to' method for getting things done is suffering even to the point of making himself suffer, but that can't be right, can it?
I don't think Paul argues that the Christ is Yahweh. But suffering is important, it says so in Chapter 5. Suffering leads to perseverance, perseverance leads to character, character leads to a positive expectation (or hope), which Yahweh then fulfils.
I'm not sure how this fits into the argument, maybe someone else can fill in the gaps on that?

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 14 of 139 (563747)
06-06-2010 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by hooah212002
06-06-2010 12:33 PM


Re: Sin and death
But isn't that kind of like saying that YHWH didn't make the rules, just because it isn't explicitly in the bible?
I'm reading from the Bible and that's what it says. So it is explicitly in there. It's in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.
Yahweh didn't invite sin in the world. He is/was without sin, Adam invited sin into the world.
That tells me that god did institute the inherit sin, even though it was due to A&E eating some fruit.
Yahweh cursed them and their offspring. That's a separate event.
What that amounts to, in my opinion, could equate to this: you place a bet with a bookie. You can't pay the bookie. The bookie now tortures your kids when you die even though they had nothing to do with it.
Indeed - punishing the children for the inequities of the father is monstrous in our world. But given the short life span of those people - threatening their lives meant a lot less than it does now. It is feasible that punishing offspring serves as a better deterrent. In a world with no CSI, no fingerprints, no CCTV, no mobile phones in every citizens hands...deterrent might be the only way to keep tens of thousands of people from collapsing into internecine bickering and civil war.
Maybe not, but we're talking about sin - not the curse. Unless Paul says the curse was sin, which he might have - I've not studied him in depth.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 17 of 139 (563756)
06-06-2010 6:38 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by hooah212002
06-06-2010 6:16 PM


Re: Sin and death
But, like Larni is saying, it could have ended with A&E. Or did A&E create sin itself? Was it their idea that it be passed down to every generation thereafter?
A & E sinned. They disobeyed Yahweh. Now sin has first entered into creation by the actions of A & E. Those that followed sinned. And as such they died. It wasn't 'passed down' it was just a repeating pattern of people not obeying god's admittedly very high standards.
We can see that as a basis for society's initial necessity for a god, but is it a necessity for YHWH?
Depends on which variant. The Yahweh that didn't know where Adam was in the Garden, that didn't foresee the consequences of the flood, that was constantly being morally corrected by Moses, that Yahweh isn't all knowing when it comes to the world of mankind. He frequently makes errors and tries new tactics. The Christians believe his final idea was to send the Christ to suffer the consequences of sin so that Yahweh could resurrect him due to the power of the Christ's faith and provide a way for mankind to escape the pattern of sin and death. They also tend to believe that that was his plan all along, but that just makes him out to be a monster as you point out.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 22 of 139 (563797)
06-06-2010 9:04 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Pauline
06-06-2010 8:34 PM


Re: Sin and death
False. Satan first introduced sin into the world i.e first being to sin Adam and Eve were the first humans to sin.
Ok fair enough- clearly you know the truth and I am a poor fool. Take it up with Saint Paul since it was he that deceived me. From Romans 5:12-14
quote:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
But I think Larni's question is, why was it a repeating pattern i.e why did God allow it to become a repeating pattern and not just curb it (after all,He hates it)?
How could Yahweh stop humans with free will from doing what they wanted to do, which was sin. He told them they had a choice, they could master their urge to sin - but they did not. And that's Adam's fault, not Yahweh's. Yahweh did curb it, but he could not eradicate free choice (which is what you are asking he do): he found a loophole. Through trusting that he will keep his promises, and via the resurrection of Christ, we can all escape sin and death entirely. We don't need to resist the urge to sin, just trust that Yahweh will free us from it.
t seems to me that if Adam's soul was marred because of his sin, then God would give Adam's son a pure soul like Adam once had, making only Adam pay for his sins.
Cain had a choice. Yahweh said: You can choose to disobey me, or obey me. You have the power within you to do the right thing.
Genesis 4:7
quote:
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.
His soul was not 'tainted'. It was as pure as Adam's. He had the choice to sin or not to sin and the capacity for both. He freely chose to murder his brother. He cursed him, and then protected him from mortal retribution for being cursed.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 26 of 139 (563820)
06-06-2010 10:20 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Pauline
06-06-2010 9:44 PM


Re: Sin and death
Yes, That's how sin entered the world. You said that sin entered creation through Adam and Eve. And I understood your usage of the word "creation" to mean everything God ever created, which includes angels..which includes lucifer
Lucifer isn't mentioned in Genesis. Where does he disobey Yahweh before Adam and Eve? Even the serpent didn't disobey Yahweh if that's what you were thinking.
The question is, WHY did they want to sin as opposed to not sin?
Because dualism is true and they have absolute free will. There is no further reasoning because dualism doesn't imply a deterministic soul where one can point to cause and effect and answer 'why'. That's just what happened when humans realized they could disobey Yahweh courtesy of Adam's first foray into doing just that.
There must have been some sort of spiritual, i supernatural intervention than brought about this unexpected affinity towards sin in Adam's descendants.
Adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and his eyes were opened. No longer under the impression that obeying Yahweh was the only way to do things he entered into sinful behaviour. That's his fault, his responsibility, his free will.
We don't need to resist the urge to sin, just trust that Yahweh will free us from it.
The Apostle Paul's not going to side with you on this one.
Sure Paul would say we should try to resist the urge to sin, but he would argue that we needn't succeed to gain salvation.
In that case, why do we need Jesus, His death, and resurrection since you seem to imply that perfect purity can be achieved through proper exercise of freewill?
Yahweh tried that, by creating a strict law and covenant. It didn't free mankind from sin. He could keep trying something that didn't work, but that would make him a fool.
Or are you implying that Christ's sacrifice was pointless?
Christ needed to have faith in Yahweh's promises to such a degree he would willingly be tortured, humiliated and executed on the basis of that faith. This faith (which allowed him to walk on water), was so strong it allowed the resurrection - an act through which Yahweh was able to free mankind from sin and death if only they tried to emulate the faith in his promise that Christ had.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 36 of 139 (563874)
06-07-2010 7:40 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Phage0070
06-07-2010 2:39 AM


How's my apologetics?
If the act of eating the fruit gives Adam the ability to distinguish good and evil, and effectively free will, then how can God ethically hold Adam responsible for eating the fruit?
Yahweh said obey me or there will be consequences.
Adam didn't obey him.
There were consequences.
Adam was held only partially liable.
Genesis is quite clear that the sin that earned him all the punishment and expulsion from the garden was eating the fruit, not what came after.
Yes, so does Romans. And after eating the fruit, the options of disobedience went from one single item of disobedience to the full range of shitty possible behaviour that was previously unthinkable. Yahweh didn't mankind a choice in having a choice (which would be logically impossible), but he did give them a choice to live in obedience or disobedience. Mankind chose disobedience, so we deal with the consequences. Yahweh has been trying to figure a just way out for a while. He even tried killing all the worst sinners in an attempt to engage supernatural selection to give mankind salvation.
That was a decision he's been criticised for since!
Furthermore, how can he be held responsible for his sin after gaining free will, if the free will was not gained through his free will? (convoluted I know) By having free will it is literally impossible for him to follow God's law since God punishes for thought crimes; even considering sinful action is worthy of eternal torment (Commandments 6 and 9 for example).
How can one gain free will as an act of free will? That's nonsensical. They were created with it, they chose what to do with it. They faced the cosequences. It's the Israelites explanation for why free agents are also morally responsible.
You'll have specify the commandments since different groups number them differently (they aren't numbered in the text) = 6 is often murder and 9 is often lying. I don't see how they are thought crimes, nor do I see the relevance of bringing thought crimes up.
Since Adam didn't possess the wherewithal to determine if he wanted free will or not (lacking free will), can he really be held morally responsible for the inherent infractions involved?
Yes. Yahweh is responsible for the consequences for brining free agency into the world. The free agents, by definition, are responsible for what they do after then.
Look - we could, you are right, in a deterministic universe, keep pointing to causes back to the original one and conclude that the big bang was morally responsible for 9/11 (or we could conclude that the British theft of Kuwait meant they were responsible or whatever).
So, in practical terms we need to establish a cut-off.
We can try 'but for' ('but for Yahweh's creation of free will - there'd be no sinning') which does apply. But nobody just relies on 'but for' because of the Big Bang problem.
So we could also demand proximate cause.
quote:
Active, direct, and efficient cause of loss in insurance that sets in motion an unbroken chain of events which bring about damage, destruction, or injury without the intervention of a new and independent force. Also called direct cause.
Sorry - the insurance related ones were more straight forward.
Now - you want to argue like a determinist and that there was a direct chain between Yahweh's creation of man and sin. But mankind have non-deterministic free will - they are truly independent forces. So we can't hold Yahweh, liable. Sorry.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 37 of 139 (563875)
06-07-2010 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by Hyroglyphx
06-07-2010 7:38 AM


Secondly, the verses I suspect you are alluding to don't say that sin is inheritable, but that if you sin, up to the 3rd and 4th generation (children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren) are in jeopardy.
He's talking about Romans, you're thinking of Old Testament stuff. The potential penalty for breaking the Law was punishment by Yahweh to the 3 and 4th generation (though Yahweh is also merciful and does look the other way on this sometimes). As Paul notes, sin existed before the Law.
Exodus 20 etc.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 45 of 139 (563886)
06-07-2010 8:16 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Hyroglyphx
06-07-2010 8:03 AM


omni-God versus Yahweh
Adam did not know that it was wrong to eat the fruit.
He knew it was in contravention to Yahweh's actions and that there consequences attached to eating it. Whether or not he knew it was morally wrong is not relevant. He did know that he would piss Yahweh off if he did it, and he still did it.
Sure, Yahweh could have explained things a bit more straightforwardly, but Yahweh isn't perfect so what are you gonna do?
Remember, the whole point of that tree was to give them understanding of what good (righteousness) and evil (sin) was. Adam did not know it was wrong, God intentionally placed an enticing tree in the middle of the garden, and instilled in to Adam his natural desires and curiosities.
There are no 'natural desires and curiosities' - humans aren't simply natural and they don't make decisions based on some physical organ like their heart or kidneys. Those desires simply existed because sin was in the world. Before then, there was just obedience to a command or not.
Sounds like the only one at fault would be Yahweh, no?
Not according to the story Paul tells, no.
That God is allegedly omnipotent and omnipresent makes God complicit in everything, especially the first sin.
Yes God is complicit. Yahweh isn't. God is omni-omni but Yahweh doesn't know everything and makes mistakes.
Yahweh completely facilitated their sin. In a court of law, we'd call that "entrapment."
No - because Yahweh was not the serpent. If Yahweh was the serpent you'd have a point. Yahweh just told them they had a choice to obey, or disobey. They used their free will to disobey. An act Yahweh could not have foreseen, by definition of free will.
What you have to demonstrate is that Yahweh is the proximate cause for sin.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 47 of 139 (563888)
06-07-2010 8:22 AM
Reply to: Message 43 by Larni
06-07-2010 8:05 AM


Peg, I'm really sorry to sound like a broken record but the point is that YHWH could remove our sin without having to create Jesus with the express intention of killing him.
Are you reading a different story than me? Where does it say that?

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 53 of 139 (563906)
06-07-2010 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Hyroglyphx
06-07-2010 8:40 AM


Re: omni-God versus Yahweh
No, we don't know that at all. All we know is the measly details provided by the bible.
Yahweh warned Adam not to eat of the tree.
Adam knew that Yahweh had done this.
Death could not be a reasonable consequence because, according to Paul, death entered the world as a result of A&E sin.
Erm.
By committing the first sin (the wages of which are death) they had to face the consequence of death.
And we know they had zero comprehension of sin because they ate the fruit before they could conceptualize it. That is why immediately after they ate it, they felt the pang of guilt, but not before.
I don't disagree. Before, they simply knew the order from Yahweh and the associated consequences: death. Afterwards they understood that disobedience is sin, and by sinning they created death. They developed their own concept of decency and began their independent lives away from Yahweh. Yahweh kept trying to help them all out, fix the problems they had caused, but mankind refused. Eventually, he realizes it's a fools errand and tries to find a loophole via the faith of Christ.
God is the Creator and was the one who imparted their innate desires to sin in the first place.
But Yahweh didn't impart 'innate desires'. He gave them the ability to choose either way, including the capacity to not sin.
2. He places a tree that serves no purpose EXCEPT for temptation. So you either eat it and know what is bad, so you can avoid it, or you don't eat it and it just serves as a temptation.
If there was no choice to obey or disobey Yahweh, then there would be no free choice and A & E would have simply been forced to follow Yahweh which would have been a crappy story because any good story requires conflict, right?
He allows the world's most cunning creature unlimited access two most naive human beings on planet earth and gives them no indication to abdicate the Serpent.
If he didn't give them access, how would Adam have been able to name it?
He tells them to abdicate the Serpent. He says don't eat the fruit.
Yahweh: Eat of this fruit and you will die that day.
Serpent: Nah - Yahweh isn't telling you the whole story. Eat the fruit and you'll know the full story.
So humans had the choice: Live in paradise in obedience to Yahweh, forever unsure what the full truth was (but having faith it was in their best interests). Or they could abandon faith in favour of empiricism.
They chose the latter.
Because death entered the world as a result of their sin, death BEFOREHAND was of no intellectual consequence to them.
You are assuming that Adam didn't understand what death was. I find no such account of Adam's confusion. They both seem quite competent in what ceasing to be alive means.
For the sake of the argument, we'll suppose that Adam is guilty of something (I'll let you know precisely for what if I ever figure it out). But is not God even more indictable?
Disobeying Yahweh's instructions.
If you are suggesting that it would have been better had Yahweh not bothered in the first place, you are making assumptions into the reasons behind Yahweh's act of creation which aren't explained in the story.
Anyway - Job tried to indict Yahweh on similar grounds. To paraphrase "How can you condemn me? Have you got eyes of flesh through which to see the world? What gives you the right to try and find evidence of my sin - you know I'm not wicked for I have not been wicked." Job 10:
quote:
I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
To which (eventually after several chapters of whinging and intellectual argument, we get to Job 38):
Yahweh: Who the heck are you and why do you think you know so much about everything? And then in Job 40 they cut to the chase:
quote:
Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
Yahweh gets Job to confess he has sinned after all - and Yahweh was not to blame, and it was essentially all bluster, he accepts the punishment of death, lives a happy life and dies. And here endeth the lesson and all that.
It was a set up. He provided the bait, they took it. It was all part of the plan.
I see no evidence it was 'all part of the plan'. I know some Christians profess this - is it any of the Holy books? It may well be, there's a lot of words in there.
So human beings don't have instincts???
That's right. Only animals have instincts. Humans have a soul that means they are morally responsible for their own actions.
*sigh* I just assumed you were playing the role of devil's advocate. All right, let's have it. What are you up to?
I'm just explaining the story as I understand it from Paul's perspective. I don't believe any of it is true, but I don't believe Macbeth is true either and it's still perfectly reasonable to discuss whether the Three Witches caused Macbeth to do the things they predicted he would do. But I'm not going to start wondering how the Three Witches came to have magic, how they gained knowledge that the prophecy they were going to give would be the precisely worded prophecy that makes the prophecy come true. Sounds like a computational nightmare - but it's still a cool story.

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 Message 51 by Hyroglyphx, posted 06-07-2010 8:40 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 54 of 139 (563908)
06-07-2010 9:55 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by Larni
06-07-2010 8:32 AM


Does YHWH not have to power to effect any change in reality or not?
Not that I can see.
If he does not, then I guess he may have been constrained in his use of methods to effect his wishes.
Well, he certainly went through a lot of shit trying to get the Israelites to the promised land. He could have just magicked them all into faithfully following him and setting up a perfect city of moral virtue.
At the very least - Yahweh chooses not to engage his super powers, but it is not clear what the extent of those super powers are.
If (as I'm led to believe) YHWH is a creator god then he must have the ability to tinker with his work without leaving any trace then he could have said "ok, A+E took their medicine and paid the price but I won't leave the poison in their kids".
But Cain had a choice too! He could have chosen not to murder his brother. He wasn't infected or poisoned. He just knew that it was morally wrong to do it, but that his brother had pissed him off and it was possible to do it. Yahweh told him he could follow what he knew was right, that it was in his power.
But he murdered his brother. Cain had his own battle with sin to deal with, not Adam's. Everybody has their own personal choice to make - do the right thing all the time, or only some of the time when it's to our personal advantage. It's our fault if we choose the latter, not Yahweh's. Yahweh did not make the choice, we do.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 56 of 139 (563910)
06-07-2010 9:58 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by Larni
06-07-2010 7:53 AM


Re: Sin and death
I see no reason why YHWH should have punished their off spring, as well as A+E.
Because he got pissed off. He does that a lot. Apparently there's no Undo button on Yahweh's decrees, as evidenced by the flood in which Yahweh opines for a do-over and settles for a promise to not do it again.
Sorry: didn't see the correction.
I see no reason why the off spring of A+E should inherit sin.
They didn't
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 58 of 139 (563926)
06-07-2010 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Phage0070
06-07-2010 10:24 AM


Re: How's my apologetics?
Held partially liable for something he didn't have the free will to avoid? He didn't have the capacity to make moral decisions without free will!
But he did have free will.
Oh, so God cannot do things that are logically impossible now? I will adjust my view of miracles accordingly... (Don't worry, I give you a 50% chance of flip-flopping on this point)
Miracles aren't logically impossible. The evidence is: they occurred.
You are still missing the point, it is more than that. God can give people free will without letting them choose if they want it or not and be perfectly ethical; just don't punish them solely for having it.
He didn't punish them solely for having it. Otherwise it'd say that in the story, but it doesn't. It says he punished them for freely disobeying him. As he said he would. And the punishment he gave was less than the punishment he threatened.
God could have simply said "Make good decisions with your free will," and it would have been fine. Once they have free will they can consider the bad choices and the good choices, and make their moral decision. God punishing *considering* the bad path is simply immoral, yet that is what he claims to do with things like adultery!
Well that's what Matthew says he claims, yes. But I was talking about what Paul claims. And to be honest it would appear not to be a great inconsistency: Jesus wasn't warning after considering having sex with a woman, but he was warning that the lust itself that led you to consider it was sin and you let it have mastery over you and cause your lusts.
The Christian concept of God lacks basic ethical sense.
Probably. But I'm trying to address Paul's concept of Yahweh.
Ahh, but they were not created with {free will}, they gained it from eating the fruit! They were also punished for that act; if they were created with the free will they would be being punished for being created.
There is no suggestion in the story that the fruit gave them free will, you are reading that into the text.
They had free will, they freely chose disobedience. They were punished for that.
Too true; after all Jesus leaves one out. I was referring to desire of another person's wife or property, and adultery.
Yes, part the Law appears to be an attempt at explicitly providing the Israelites a defence against sin, and allowing Yahweh to justly punish transgressors because the Law was clear. So thoughts of jealousy, immoral lust etc should be immediately discarded lest sin gain mastery of you. If he had just left it, sin would have resulted in a cycle of repeated death. He tried to whip the children of Israel into shape with tough love.
Right; they are responsible for their choices *after* they gain free will. But you just said that they gained free will and God punished them for that same act (eating the fruit).
I said no such thing. You interpreted me saying that because in your interpretation of the story they gained freewill by eating the apple. But that reading makes no sense for all the reasons you listed.
The story strongly implies the couple had a choice. If there was no free will they didn't actually have a choice, they were pre-determined by Yahweh to do it. But then this just makes everything look silly and impugns the authors of being the most ludicrous idiots ever (How come they bothered to point out Yahweh's surprise, how come predetermined robots could correct Yahweh's mistakes, how could they persuade him of the correct path to take? The whole thing becomes a stupid puppet show with no moral responsibility on the part of the individual. Since the entire story is a just-so story trying to explain why we are individually responsible for our own behaviour (because they were an Absolutist culture), I think my interpretation is at least closer to the intent of the authors than yours.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Phage0070, posted 06-07-2010 10:24 AM Phage0070 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by Phage0070, posted 06-07-2010 12:45 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 62 of 139 (563938)
06-07-2010 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Hyroglyphx
06-07-2010 12:01 PM


Re: omni-God versus Yahweh
And, again, what purpose does it serve to warn somebody of something they have no concept for? You have to look at this in context and not how you understand it.
But what if how I understand it relies on context?
Please provide support that Adam did not understand what Yahweh meant by "Do this and die"?
If I was God and I said, if you do x, glunderhsirpdfms will happen as a resultant consequence. If you cannot even comprehend what in the fuck a glunderhsirpdfms is, it would be like telling a baby not to touch the burner on the stove.... Useless.... Futile..... Moot......
I agree with your point, but disagree that Yahweh did this to Adam.
Yahweh, in his infinite wisdom, surely would have known that.
If you are ascribing an action to a character, that is inconsistent with that character you have a lot of work cut out for you, right? So do the work
Look at it in perspective, Mod. What is death? What is glunderhsirpdfms? It's like a baby; completely innocent and incapable of understanding bad until the moment its get bit, burned, scraped, etc.
death is like a baby?
No, death is the ceasing of the state of living. Adam was in a state of living. He knew that was on the line.
Help them out? He helped them out by placing the tree there to begin with? He helped them out by giving the Serpent unlimited access to them? Fix their problems??? He's the cause of ALL of their problems.
Again with the determinism. You forgot the free will again.
So omnipotent and omnipresent beings don't know the future? That's not God.
You are correct. That's not omni-God. I'm talking about Yahweh, who clearly does not know the future when it comes to agents with free will.
But Yahweh didn't impart 'innate desires'. He gave them the ability to choose either way, including the capacity to not sin.
Then that pretty much makes the choice for them, no? That's like saying he gives us the choice to eat. Technically it's a choice, but not much of one, aye?
How does it make the choice for them? How is eating or you will die suitably comparable to eating causing you to die?
What was the compulsion?
So are we looking at this from a literary perspective or are we assuming (as fundamentalist Christians do) that everything contained within the bible is literal and historical?
It doesn't matter if it is literal and historical. We are discussing a character who may or may not be real. At the moment we are assuming it is the Holy Bible of the most populated Christian movements describes this character.
If Yahweh created man, he created all their instincts. Surely we agree upon that. Otherwise, something just springs out of thin air.
Again you are assuming that moral decisions are instinctual. The Israelites did not think that. So no, Yahweh did not create 'a moral instinct'. He created mankind and told it to obey, but allowed for mankind not to obey should it so choose (it didn't force us to obey).
Mankind learned what morality was by eating the apple, and learned lots of new ways to be shitty to each other. And they each individually chose to do some of them.
Which needs to be paid off through death.
Which is why he cut them off from the Tree of Life.
He doesn't mention the wiles of the Serpent, whatsoever.
We have no idea whether A & E knew about the Serpent. Adam had named it, so had clearly encountered it before. Since he knows no wrong, he would presumably have told Eve what he knew.
But anyway - Yahweh said do one thing. The Serpent said do another. We do know Yahweh gave explicit instructions with regards to the subject of the Serpent's speech.
Does it strike you as odd that the first humans, along with every other trillion humans to follow (except Jesus Christ) have all failed the test? We're not therefore dealing with an anomaly. We're dealing with 99.99999 rate of failure. So who's to blame? The product (which didn't create itself) or the manufacturer?
The story is all one, big set up.
It doesn't strike me as odd, no. It strikes me as a pattern, and it's not because of souls and shit. It's because of evolution.
But the point of the story is that the blame rests with the person that commits the immoral act because they are ultimately capable of freely choosing that. I don't think it serves as a sufficient hypothesis (for exactly the reason you outlined). But I'm not exploring if it's a good explanation - just what sin is in relation humans according the bible.
I'm assuming we are using the bible as the guide. Since you mentioned Paul's understanding, we're looking at it from that perspective. If we're to analyze the bible from a literal perspective, then death entered the world as a consequence for Adam and Eve.
Which doesn't say they are incapable of conceiving of not being what they were (aka alive). We create new things all the time: The printing press for example. Are you saying that before the person that built it, brought it into the world - he didn't understand it?
If you are suggesting that it would have been better had Yahweh not bothered in the first place, you are making assumptions into the reasons behind Yahweh's act of creation which aren't explained in the story.
No it isn't. That's the one question never answered by the bible.
Yes, that's what I said. They aren't explained.
All it means is that God holds all the cards. Any perception of good and evil is directly attributed to God on the basis that he is God.
Yep - and now, if you trust he'll play his cards right you'll escape from sin and death.
However, seeing if God remains true to his own standard is much easier. For instance, if God's law is absolute, is it ever acceptable to lie?
Yahweh's Law says that he will protect the Israelites and give them trinkets if they don't bear false witness.
It seems strongly implied that lying is sinful, it may even be explicitly mentioned somewhere.
Whether or not it is acceptable is up to Yahweh. He does give latitude on the issue.
That's because you have to read behind the lines. The undertone running through the whole series of books leads to one conclusion.
Yes, that Yahweh is a living god who over time works out a personal relationship with another free agent that he created. Sure - a lot of the later people may have said this was all part of god's ultimate plan, but as I said earlier - that makes him out to be a bumbling idiot or a monster or both.
. I am asking you if human beings have instincts, and not your interpretation of whether or not the bible thinks humans have instincts.
Oh, well yes, obviously we do. And more to the point I was raising: we have moral instincts. Honed by evolution.
That being the case, then you should concede the point that death entered the world as a result of A&E's sin.
It is after all, what I've been saying all along.
That being the case, my point that they could not understand the consequence of death invalidates the premise of the caveat altogether
And I agree that if you are right in your assumption - it would.
Some aspects of the bible are true. Most of it is likely an embellished adaptation, though.
Well trivially so. There is an earth and humans live on it, for example. But I don't believe in any of the stuff we're talking about here in the non-trivial sense.
The point is that you and I would probably agree that from a literary perspective, there is a "moral of the story." We agree upon that, but the conclusion is faulty when juxtaposing that with the real world.
It certainly contravenes the evidence. But we were talking about 'sin' and 'talking snakes' so...you know.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Hyroglyphx, posted 06-07-2010 12:01 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by Hyroglyphx, posted 06-07-2010 2:57 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 64 of 139 (563948)
06-07-2010 1:03 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by Phage0070
06-07-2010 12:45 PM


Re: How's my apologetics?
How would he have had free will if up to that point he was completely subject to the will of another being?
He wasn't. He was created and then told he could eat of the fruit. He chose to obey.
Then later he chose to disobey.
Miracles are events that contradict the established functioning of the universe.
Agreed. But the established functioning of the universe and the way the universe works according to ancient Israelites are very different things.
If the laws of the universe are occasionally mutable then the miracle is no great occurrence; the assumption must be that miracles are conventionally impossible.
Miracles require an act of faith or an act of god (or possibly in some cases, both). Thems the rules. With those things, people can raise from the dead, walk on water, impregnate virgins without 20th century equipment.
If you think trusting Yahweh so strongly that you can water is of no great occurrence, that's your call. I think it would be a miraculous feat.
Oh really? He said that Adam would surely die. He then turned around to not only fate Adam to die, but to labor in working the earth and to eat dirt for the remainder of his life. Furthermore, he also fated all of Adam's offspring to the same fate.
Thats more than he threatened.
He warned of immediate death. He intervened and gave them a stay of execution and hard labour instead. If you think that labouring for a finite amount of time and then dying is worse than never existing (which would have been the case if Adam was killed right then), you should probably kill yourself now and save yourself any further bother.
But the wages of sin is death. That's just the way it is. Yahweh couldn't change that. So he withdrew the Tree of Life and used that as a means to pay off the wages of sin. Then he cursed everyone cause he was pissed off.
How easily you ignore what Matthew says in favor of Paul; why not ignore Paul in favor of Matthew? Or them both in favor of neither?
Then why don't you expand? I haven't got the whole bibila committed to memory for Dawkins' sake!
You would be better served to address the reader's concept of Yahweh, as Paul's concept varies by the reader.
Fair enough - since I'm the reader here, why don't we address me?
Free will cannot be exercised in a void of understanding. Someone with free will but lacking any method to sense reality cannot be blamed for any immoral action committed in reality. Similarly, someone with free will yet no concept of immorality cannot be blamed for immoral actions.
Indeed. But a being that knows that the being that created it said don't do something or you will die, has access to all the information it needs. If it chooses to disobey it suffers the consequences.
Too late; even having them makes you guilty according to Matthew.
That's exactly right. Or more specifically: by the time you feel lust - it's too late. Sin has entered into your heart. Sin is everywhere pluck out your eye if it shows signs of sin! etc.
Isn't he supposed to be omniscient?
No - that was the point. They write him as explicitly not being omniscient. Concluding that he is, is reading something into text that isn't there and concluding it makes no sense. No shit.
The entire story is designed to make people guilty and inherently in need of the religion, but its presentation is morally flawed. That is the point I am getting at.
It's religion - I already assumed your conclusion Nah moral relativism dude - murder and crime were much more prevalent back then. They didn't have the technology. So they had to put the willies up people and trigger their obedience modules to stop society breaking down. If that is true, I can't condemn them. If they thought that was true (regardless of if they believed the bullshit) I can't condemn them. I wasn't there, man. I didn't see my best friends dying all around me. It was hell! And so on.
I was just explaining that sin doesn't get inherited even if we take what the Bible says at face value.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Phage0070, posted 06-07-2010 12:45 PM Phage0070 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by Coyote, posted 06-07-2010 1:10 PM Modulous has replied
 Message 69 by Phage0070, posted 06-07-2010 2:11 PM Modulous has replied

  
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