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Author Topic:   Is it egotistical to think that a God would die for you?
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2134 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 68 of 169 (701935)
06-27-2013 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by Faith
06-27-2013 9:48 PM


Re: The Fall and "original sin"
Those of you who are promoting belief in these concepts might enjoy another viewpoint. (Or probably not.)
From Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand:
The name of this monstrous absurdity is 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 knowledge - he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil - he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor - he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire - he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy - all 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 was - that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love - he was not man.
I consider the twin concepts of 'the fall' and 'original sin' to be the most evil concepts ever concocted in the fevered and duplicitous minds of shamans. The quotation above is a good summary of why.

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 67 by Faith, posted 06-27-2013 9:48 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by ICANT, posted 06-28-2013 1:28 AM Coyote has not replied
 Message 163 by Greatest I am, posted 07-08-2013 3:23 PM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2134 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 151 of 169 (702481)
07-07-2013 10:39 PM


Wimpy
Remember Wimpy:
"I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
Wimpy has nothing on the various shamans throughout history, down to the present day:
"Pay me now and I'll get you eternal life when you die."
Pretty close to the biggest scam every perpetrated on humankind. And there is no shortage of eager buyers.
But just call it religion and the Consumer Protection Agency can't touch it.

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

  
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