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Author Topic:   Christianity is Morally Bankrupt
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2096 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 23 of 652 (694095)
03-21-2013 8:17 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by GrimSqueaker
03-20-2013 4:29 PM


On original sin
5 - Original Sin and Sins of the Father.
Returning to the opening post, Ayn Rand has the following to say about original sin:
A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man’s nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code.
Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a tendency to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.
What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledgehe acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evilhe became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his laborhe became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desirehe acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joyall the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man’s fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he wasthat robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without lovehe was not man.
Man’s fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he’s man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.
—Ayn Rand Lexicon
Personally I think the concept of original sin is one of the most evil ideas ever cooked up in the fevered minds of shamans. And I don't doubt that it was designed primarily to increase the control that shamans had over their subjects. I reject that concept completely.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by GrimSqueaker, posted 03-20-2013 4:29 PM GrimSqueaker has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by Faith, posted 03-21-2013 8:40 PM Coyote has replied
 Message 37 by Phat, posted 03-23-2013 4:13 AM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2096 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 32 of 652 (694192)
03-22-2013 10:12 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Faith
03-21-2013 8:40 PM


Re: On original sin
I got a sense of the concept of Original Sin sometime during the period when I was becoming a believer, back in the 80s, and far from Coyote's take on it for me it was like a brilliant light went on that illuminated this dark world. I felt that finally I had an explanation for the evils in this world that otherwise have no explanation. To my mind the doctrine is essential and precious for that reason. It takes a chaotic world in which people do horrible things to each other and makes it understandable.
Unlike you, I do not consider myself or my species to have been born evil, nor do I consider that we require the intercession of a shaman to cure this inherent (but nonexistent) evilness.
But I can see why shamans would want to promote this doctrine, as it empowers them and puts grits on the table.
"Do what I say or you'll be forever damned. But for a small fee..."
Bah!

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Faith, posted 03-21-2013 8:40 PM Faith has not replied

  
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