Importance of Original Sin

Without addressing the idea of whether Adam was real, I've never seen the point of the doctrine of original sin. I've never met a single adult who even attempted to indicate that he had always behaved exactly as God required of him. So the need for salvation is universal even without blaming Adam and Eve.What does the doctrine of original sin add that personal responsibility for one's own sins does not already cover? Why does the captain get blamed when the ship goes down, even if he's asleep at the time someone else messes up?My wife explained to me that Adam was off naming the animals when he should have been hitting the snake with a shovel. Adam was the one who got the original instructions from God, and he apparently failed to effectively get the word to Eve.But my take on this Genesis story is that humans inherited free will (from Adam?) and are inevitably going to use that power to be disobedient to God. It is not literally true that when parent's eat sour grapes, their children's inherit teeth set on edge. Edited by NoNukes, : Removed bad apostrophe. Gotta quit doing that.

Not sure about that. Most churches that I've attended don't take baby baptizing seriously. Are you sure about this? Doesn't original sin mean that the need for salvation attached without any evil actions on your part. If it was instead about lack of control, wouldn't that undercut the need to baptize babies. Did anyone ever believe that babies acted better after being baptized?

The doctrine of Original sin is not about who broke God's rules first. It has to do with whether any bad karma has attached or whether man is otherwise in a fallen state directly because of Adam's wrong doing. I think it is pretty clear that Judaism does not honor the concept, so simply citing the Genesis story would not seem to be enough. The Biblical support being cited here comes from the New Testament.

That is the way you would understand it if you subscribed to one particularly silly version of the original sin doctrine, and you were a particular type of inerrant literal fundy. You could also chose to read it that way if you wanted to demonstrate that Christians were idiots. I don't see the inconsistency you are trying to point out.Convicts are responsible for their own crimes, but they have no legal way to escape the state's punishment without following the state's rules for doing so.

Aren't all of the above examples of fakery? I'm not familiar with the talking mule, but I do know that no horse ever talked on the Mr. Ed show and that ventriloquist dummies don't really speak. On the other hand, the Bible describes the serpent as a clever talking animal.Genesis 3:1 (NIV)

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Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?

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After his deception of Eve, God curses the serpent. I don't see any indication in Genesis that an evil being was using ventriloquism or fakery to make the serpent appear to talk.

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So the LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this,

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Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

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It could have been, but eating the fruit appeared to have magical effects on Adam and Eve.Genesis 3:6

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When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

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Maybe the serpent wasn't being controlled by anyone or anything. Who was Eve being controlled by when she talked with the serpent? Who was she being controlled by when she got Adam to eat the fruit. Yes. You seem to be arguing my case for me. Isn't that "only thing" something that never happened any other time Adam and Eve looked at themselves or each other? Are you suggesting that Adam and Eve never saw each other before Eve ate the fruit?The gaining of the knowledge after eating the fruit was inexplicable, even if the knowledge itself seems mundane. What's magical about making a coin appear? Aren't coins ordinary, everyday objects? It is the sudden appearance that appears magical, and not the coin or knowledge itself. Aptly so given the serpent's actions in the Garden of Eden. Doesn't mean the devil is the serpent from the garden.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes, but of the translations in your link, none of them rules out a possible gap in time between Genesis 3:5, where the serpent does the talking, and Genesis 3:6, where Eve decides that the fruit is good to eat, and does so.And at least a few translations do not say that Adam was with Eve during the deciding process.My wife insists that Adam was there while the snake was talking. I think the strongest argument in favor of Adam being there is that Eve should reasonably have formed the conclusions about the value of the fruit described in Genesis 3:6 immediately after listening to the serpent.After all, Eve already knew that the fruit was pleasing to the eye, and the suggestion that the fruit was good for obtaining wisdom came straight from the serpent's mouth.Still could Eve have been more deliberate in her thought processes given that she understood that God had said not to eat the fruit. I'd be suspicious of any religious dogma about the details of when Eve did what.

There is indeed an explanation in Genesis 3:22-3:24. The problem is that it does not resemble anything you've said. The kindest thing I can say about your statement is that it is of "extra-Bible" origin.

Given that no fornication, murder, or idol worship had ever occurred at the time, the failure to mention those "typical" sins is hardly surprising. Are you suggesting that breaking of the commandments did not separate the Jews from God? Don't see that gambling sin there though. Are you mocking me ... or God?What I see in Genesis 3:22-24 is that God is concerned with future men eating of the tree of life.I can also find any number of verses instructing us to repent and offering forgiveness of our sins. Don't see any telling us to repent of Adam's sins.

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I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

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I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

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And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

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The doctrine of original sin is completely absent from Genesis 3. You have to torture the text to provide even an entry point for the doctrine, and you have to ignore every verse in the Bible that suggests personal responsibility for your own sins in your attempts to find the doctrine elsewhere. You are a bit full of yourself, aren't you? I can read at least as well as you can when you bother to do so. Independence was part of Man's nature before Eve picked any fruit. Free will was in fact a desirable trait God deliberately gave to man. It was not Adam's nature but Adam's act that drew punishment. And it was similar acts that God acted to prevent in the manner described in 3:24. Yes, I can see exactly how you start in the text and then depart from it. A "vine tree" you say? The metaphor in Chapter 15 is that Jesus is the vine, while God is the husbandman who trims or purges the vine as needed. Or at least that's what the Bible actually says until your numerology is applied to make the vine the same as God's life in the Garden.Way before you get to saying "in symbolic form" you are nowhere near the text of the Bible. You are into doctrine.

Okay. Not described anywhere in Genesis 3. If you want to offer something some reason to believe the Bible says this elsewhere, your going to have to make a case for it.But you don't do make a case for any foreign element in this post which is full of jaywill and some condescension but devoid of any citations from the Bible that even attempt to make an argument. The few quotes you offer don't even address your "injection".In fact I see very little addressing anything I wrote in my post.

God created humans capable of sin, but that capability apparently did not make them guilty. Were Adam and Eve incapable of sin, their obedience and love would have no meaning. Yet Job tells us that God does indeed value unconditioned love and obedience. It is, in fact a contradiction to say that God gave man free will and did not leave them with the capability to sin.So why is it not rational that God valued love freely given and called that "very good". Isn't "very good" what he called his creation with all of elements in it that produced Adam and Eve's actions. In any event, perhaps less preaching and more of Paul style reasoning might be effective here. I find your railing about how people don't read the Bible as you do to be quite off the mark.I'm not moaning about original sin. I'm questioning the truth and Biblical support for the doctrine and even its value. There is not a man walking who does not have enough baggage of his own.

Except that what Paul says does not require inherited sin.We know enough about the history of Paul to know that he was originally a Jew who worked as hard as anyone to stomp out Christianity by persecuting its followers and even contributing to the death of Stephen. We don't need to look to any inheritance from Adam to figure out that Paul had sinned. A question well worth asking, but a question that you ought to address to the author of Genesis rather than to us. Yes it does seem strange, but being like God is exactly what the text of Genesis states that the serpent says in Genesis 3:5 and what God Himself confirms in 3:22 happens as a result of eating of the tree in the midst of the Garden. Even harder to understand is the language about living forever by taking hold of the tree of life. I can understand denying what the serpent said as a lie, but that leaves you to deal with God acknowledging the same thing.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I think it is pretty obvious. "indwelling sin" does not mean that Paul has a sin organ that actually houses iniquity in his body. It means that like everyone else on earth, Paul has sinned and is subject to temptation.But certainly, it is not true that the only possible interpretation of his words is that he caught a sin germ from Adam. And even literal expressions of that might well be figurative speech.The fact is that Genesis 3 says nothing about any such thing.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Where did I suggest anything like that? Apparently you have me confused with someone else you are arguing with. Whether or not the snake told the truth or part of the truth, the snake's intent was clearly to mislead. But don't worry, this is my last post so you wont' have to bother keep straight who is who. Neither do I. I find the account quite confusing when read literally, and in fact, I'm only entertaining a literal reading for the purpose of this discussion. I don't believe a reading where abstract concepts like evil and disobedience are taken as physical entities is likely to be a correct reading. I suspect you believe otherwise, but surely there is some figurative speech present in this story. Because it is only the literal readings that have these kind of intractable problems.On the other hand, I highly doubt that the way to enlightment is skipping over the parts of the text that you find confounding. And I don't believe assuming that every tree and vine you find in the New Testament is the Tree of Life is helpful either.

Isn't that what dispensationalism is all about? Ignoring all of those red words in the Bible? Repentence, turning the other cheek, loving thy neighbor as thyself? That stuff's for Jews. You aren't Jewish are you?