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I don't believe in sin either. The concept of sin is basically from pre-Christian guilt mentality.
Judaism was an orthopraxy (right practices) rather than an orthodoxy (right beliefs) meaning, if you did things wrong, you were a sinner or evil or whatever. Interestingly, after the death of Jesus, and for 40 years until the temple fell, certain miracles wouldn't work.
This is because Jesus, and not right actions, became the new sacrifice for atonement of sin. Given this, unless we believe that a Messiah is to continually be sacrificed, your sins are forgiven. That means sin is kinda moot.
So from what I'm reading so far, it seems that Christianity is the only religion that has this 'original sin' concept? ie guilty before being proven innocent. Is that right- can anyone fill me in?
Thanks.
So from what I'm reading so far, it seems that Christianity is the only religion that has this 'original sin' concept? ie guilty before being proven innocent. Is that right- can anyone fill me in?
Thanks.
Original sin is, so far as I know, uniquely a Christian doctrine. It was first known to be promoted by Iranaeus in the 2nd century. The notion of collective punishment for national sins as well as for ancestral sins is largely Hebrew in origin but there's some evidence of it in Greek mythology. Some Greek writer in the same time frame as Iranaeus produced an anti-Christian polemic and claimed that in ancient Greek religions Zeus supposedly said words to the effect that the wheels of the gods grind slowly, even to those who are born after. But I don't think that's been independently reported.
So from what I'm reading so far, it seems that Christianity is the only religion that has this 'original sin' concept? ie guilty before being proven innocent. Is that right- can anyone fill me in?
Thanks.
I don't know of any other religion that believes this. It's not universal within Christianity, either. Never has been.
LOL. Not a chance.
Although, I think the idealized, liberal Jesus - the rebel with a cause who promoted love, tolerance, forgiveness etc. is not a bad role model for folks to follow.
I just don't believe he worked miracles or was any more godly than any of us.
Well, as you know, i am not proselytizing. That is actually the whole point, Trout, He wasn't. That is why He matters. As for miracles, we do not know the full power of our human consciousness. But we have tantalizing clues, like the placebo effect, Home Game bias, mass hallucinations, parapsychological phenomena, etc.. If a fully evolved human consciousness exists in Jesus, what might it be capable of????
I don't know of any other religion that believes this. It's not universal within Christianity, either. Never has been.
Hinduism almost believes in "original sin" in that we "exist as such" because of our "mistake" of "originally separating" our atman (psyche, soul, spirit, voodoo, etc) from the Brahma (Creator, God, Diety, etc).
It's not really seen as something to feel guilty about or be punished for, just a matter-of-fact "reason" for the existence of inequities.
Yes, it's a concept I've been mulling more and more often of late.
But I don't see it as having any connection at all to that ridiculous deity conjured up in the bible. Or any deity described anywhere.
I think it more and more likely that this "growing collection of consciousness" is unaware of itself as a separate being from anything else - perhaps because it is not apart from anything.
But everything is a part of it.
Maybe.
Ish.
So, each of us is a sort of incarnated train of thought in the mind of God?
So, each of us is a sort of incarnated train of thought in the mind of God?
No. At least that's not what I was grappling toward.
I just have a sense that everything that exists is connected. And by more than sub-atomic particles/stardust. And that the sum of those connections may be God. And I'm just mulling the possibility that because it IS all, it may have no sense of an individual self.
And because the universe is expanding as is our population, adding more consciousness to the "pile," perhaps God is still growing too.
I've only been considering this line of thought for a few months. Mebbe I'll be able to find better words when I've mulled more.
Hmm.. surprising to read that at least a slight possibility of something keeping connecting the universe apart from subatomic particle is opening in your mind. God is indeed the sum of all existence, in Him we live and move and have our being. I think that song 'love is the answer' was still not a coincedence - Jesus Christ is that Light of the World they sing about.
Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Hmm.. surprising to read that at least a slight possibility of something keeping connecting the universe apart from subatomic particle is opening in your mind. God is indeed the sum of all existence, in Him we live and move and have our being. I think that song 'love is the answer' was still not a coincedence - Jesus Christ is that Light of the World they sing about.
Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
I knew Christianity held no answers for me by the time I was 14.
Their god is too small.
Although, using the idealized Jesus as a role model, rather than the bible, is understandable.
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