Original Sin--Born with the sin nature...

John K said:
@just me it's with some hesitation that I'm making this comment, but I'll have a go.

It seems to me that you feel you have a very deep commitment to Christ. I think the problem you are facing is that you are bringing yourself to these discussions in a way that can't appeal to dominant intuitives, and that is so sad because you very likely have valuable things to say. It's as though you are trying to get through a wall that has no door in it, but you keep on knocking as though there was one. Maybe you need to think about going around the wall instead? To put it explicitly, Ni dominant people build very complex inner models of the world. With something as profound as a spiritual perspective they will have spent a lot of time and energy on this - they won't modify their views quickly and easily when new input is at variance with their insight and will react defensively if pushed too hard. I know this is the way I am - perhaps you are like this yourself too?

What dominant Ni's do very well – again, this is what I do - is to suspend judgement, listen, express their own ideas non-judgementally, clarify through discussion, throw in some humour, and over time all these new ideas help their inner vision to grow, often in ways they never expected. It is a rare privilege to find a group of people like we have in this forum who see and think about the world in our own kind of way. At our best we tread lightly on other people's visions when we are on their territory and treat others as guests when they are on our own.

When I look through this thread I can see almost as many views on the topic of original sin as people who have posted, and they all seem to have been listened to courteously and considerately in the main. My own views are different from those of many others in the forum on religious topics - this is great because I can learn so much from what they bring to any discussion, and I hope others can gain something from me. I'm new to this particular the thread and in just a couple of days it has given me much food for thought and a far better feel for the topic than I had before.
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THIS!!!
 
The Catholic church would not help Constantinople unless they payed homage to the Pope, so it fell to the Muslims in 1453 on May 29. It is difficult to grasp how Christianity can be so blind to their brothers and sisters.

I will not answer those type questions. I far too well remember "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." My relationship with Christianity is personal with Jesus Christ. The scriptures say greater is the damnation of someone who would teach wrongly. Also,

Romans 14 speaks to me clearly in regards to many things.
4 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

and again:

13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
 
just me said:
The Catholic church would not help Constantinople unless they payed homage to the Pope, so it fell to the Muslims in 1453 on May 29. It is difficult to grasp how Christianity can be so blind to their brothers and sisters.

I will not answer those type questions. I far too well remember "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." My relationship with Christianity is personal with Jesus Christ. The scriptures say greater is the damnation of someone who would teach wrongly. Also,

Romans 14 speaks to me clearly in regards to many things.
4 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

and again:

13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
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But are you not bound by the Great Commission to answer our questions openly and honestly? This is a scriptural commandment.

Your replies seem overly obfuscatory and obtuse.
 
James said:
Trumpet Sounds

Ok @just me and @Skarekrow

This is god's deputy Kayne West. God is away on a couple's retreat (he and Mrs God are trying to work out some issues).

I think it best to let things go for a while, and move onto other subjects.

Also Jimmy Kimmel cut me short. I was about to quote Chaucer, but I never got the chance.

Don't tell God I said that. He hates Chaucer.
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Piss on this hippie crap!

Hi @James ! Good to see you!
 
Bound? Do you bind me? What was the GC you speak of? Matthew 28? He sent his disciples on a mission. Nations and peoples stand in line to hear about all kinds of religions. Jesus sent them as witnesses to His life and His ways. First-hand witnesses
he told all power had been given to Him. He taught them to be teachers, but how did Jesus teach? How did Jesus answer the questions he felt were questions that would be twisted and turned?

Let every person be fully persuaded what is that good, and perfect will of God. For one that taught to pray in the closet to God instead of in front of men, I would speak more clearly if I felt God wanted me to. This isn't about me, or is it? Did Jesus hide the truth with His answers? I grasp His answers made men to think. Example: the coin and taxes. He asked what coin they had. It was Ceasar's. He was not hiding the truth. How many a man would have given the same answer? The question was not about truth, but the answer was filled with it. The mentality? Let us see if we can make Christ say something against the law. Please do not tempt me. I do not enjoy what Satya used to always think we were doing: debating....on the WWW.

I think the Catholics finally admitted all the sexual molestation. I do not know their rules and their ways. I have spoken with those forbidden to speak to. They are people like me, and I know the scriptures well enough to talk to most any of them. I answer them the same way and never drew a problem.
 
just me said:
Bound? Do you bind me? What was the GC you speak of? Matthew 28? He sent his disciples on a mission. Nations and peoples stand in line to hear about all kinds of religions. Jesus sent them as witnesses to His life and His ways. First-hand witnesses
he told all power had been given to Him. He taught them to be teachers, but how did Jesus teach? How did Jesus answer the questions he felt were questions that would be twisted and turned?

Let every person be fully persuaded what is that good, and perfect will of God. For one that taught to pray in the closet to God instead of in front of men, I would speak more clearly if I felt God wanted me to. This isn't about me, or is it? Did Jesus hide the truth with His answers? I grasp His answers made men to think. Example: the coin and taxes. He asked what coin they had. It was Ceasar's. He was not hiding the truth. How many a man would have given the same answer? The question was not about truth, but the answer was filled with it. The mentality? Let us see if we can make Christ say something against the law. Please do not tempt me. I do not enjoy what Satya used to always think we were doing: debating....on the WWW.

I think the Catholics finally admitted all the sexual molestation. I do not know their rules and their ways. I have spoken with those forbidden to speak to. They are people like me, and I know the scriptures well enough to talk to most any of them. I answer them the same way and never drew a problem.
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OK, I get it, you really don't want to tell us.

We just wanted to know if, in your view, the unbaptised were condemned to Hell. I thought it was a simple question.
 
just me said:
There is nothing simple about hell or heaven. Jesus holds the key. I always heard God judged the hearts of men.
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OK, I'm going to take that to mean that you don't think baptism is essential (if God judges men's hearts), but you didn't quite want to admit to it.

That's interesting; it's the conflict between native belief and doctrine.
 
How many doctrines are there out there? I believe I am Christian. I do not believe I am Baptist, though I was baptized a Baptist. I am not Catholic, Presbyterian, Seventh Day, Methodist...do you understand this? It is personal.

To a man that feels or thinks baptism is essential, it most certainly is. There is no conflict.

The Bible speaks of physical things we might understand, often revealing spiritual things to those that can see. I have also been baptized in the Holy Spirit of God.

You ask a lot. How do you believe regarding this? Why was Jesus baptized?
 
just me said:
Bound? Do you bind me? What was the GC you speak of? Matthew 28? He sent his disciples on a mission. Nations and peoples stand in line to hear about all kinds of religions. Jesus sent them as witnesses to His life and His ways. First-hand witnesses
he told all power had been given to Him. He taught them to be teachers, but how did Jesus teach? How did Jesus answer the questions he felt were questions that would be twisted and turned?

Let every person be fully persuaded what is that good, and perfect will of God. For one that taught to pray in the closet to God instead of in front of men, I would speak more clearly if I felt God wanted me to. This isn't about me, or is it? Did Jesus hide the truth with His answers? I grasp His answers made men to think. Example: the coin and taxes. He asked what coin they had. It was Ceasar's. He was not hiding the truth. How many a man would have given the same answer? The question was not about truth, but the answer was filled with it. The mentality? Let us see if we can make Christ say something against the law. Please do not tempt me. I do not enjoy what Satya used to always think we were doing: debating....on the WWW.

I think the Catholics finally admitted all the sexual molestation. I do not know their rules and their ways. I have spoken with those forbidden to speak to. They are people like me, and I know the scriptures well enough to talk to most any of them. I answer them the same way and never drew a problem.
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I was under the impression that The Great Commission referred to the commandment made by God that we are to spread His word to every corner of the Earth. Therefore, you are bound by God because it is He who commands it. That is just what they taught in the churches I always went to. (Baptist)
 
Have I not spoken the word of God?

A church is not a building made by hands. It consists of people with different spiritual gifts. Some have the gift of preaching and are chosen to do so, and they usually do the baptizing.
When Jesus asked to drink of His blood and eat of His flesh, He told the chosen 12 what it meant.

I feel the road from running cross country a few years. "I have to go home now. I'm tired." Forest Gump
 
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just me said:
You ask a lot. How do you believe regarding this? Why was Jesus baptized?
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I think it's a symbolic allegiance ritual; open and public to serve proselytic ends for an incipient cult in that Judaic world (for the cult to spread, it was important that conversion was seen).

To have to submit to all of this symbolic magic has always been problematic for Christian authorities. As a religion, it actually has very little ritual and magic encoded within it - it is to a large extent a religion of ethics and spiruality, and yet has these difficult elements of magic.

Here's why I'm interested. The last major schism in the Church was the Reformation, which was largely brought about by a distaste for magic and ritual.

People used to sow eucharistic bread on their land to improve their crop yields, which was very troublesome for priests. Things like this certainly fed the fire of the Reformation (even if its real cause was more about the growing power of nation States, and especially the authority of their kings).

Now, with Pope Francis asserting that the non-baptised could go to heaven, this last element of magic (baptism) could be severed from the core of Christian belief; we may very well see a schism in the Catholic Church which will resonate throughout Christendom. We may not, because ultimately doctrinal questions are less important now, but this is why I'm interested.
 
just me said:
Have I not spoken the word of God?

A church is not a building made by hands. It consists of people with different spiritual gifts. Some have the gift of preaching and are chosen to do so, and they usually do the baptizing.
When Jesus asked to drink of His blood and eat of His flesh, He told the chosen 12 what it meant.

I feel the road from running cross country a few years. "I have to go home now. I'm tired." Forest Gump
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I didn't say you weren't speaking what you think is the Word. But I do encourage you to think about how Christ would have done it. He would do so by example, love, mercy, and grace. And, humility. If one says, "What I spread is the Word of God and those who don't believe me will go to Hell" then he is seen as presumptuous and arrogant and that turns people away. I would also encourage you not be be so stressed out. I know it's hard to be slow to anger and quick to love. But His greatest commandment of all is love. A kinder, gentler, but intriguing, and intellectual approach is what i have always seen that makes the "seed" of the gospel root deep, where the rains cannot wash it away.
If it is properly nourished with love kindness compassion etc, then it will grow. But weeds take on many, many forms, and an angry or judgemental Christian can be a weed that prevents the growth of this seed.

I know how you feel, and I know that it is exhausting. But instead of anger, feel empathy, instead of wrath, show kindness. You will show more people who God is. They will come running to you and seeking to know more. <3
 
April, I have nothing else to say to you. Are you accusing me of anger? Wrath? At least you have a more subtle approach, but I don't buy into it.
 
Pardon me, but right now I must indulge in my favorite pastime - quoting Bertrand Russell, here on Saint Augustine. (Note: Russell deeply respects Augustine as a philosopher).

“Saint Augustine taught that Adam, before the Fall, had had free will, and could have abstained from sin. But as he and Eve ate the apple, corruption entered into them, and descended to all their posterity, none of whom can, of their own power, abstain from sin. Only God's grace enables men to be virtuous. Since we all inherit Adam's sin, we all deserve eternal damnation. All who die unbaptized, even infants, will go to hell and suffer unending torment. We have no reason to complain of this, since we are all wicked. (In the Confessions, the Saint enumerates the crimes of which he was guilty in the cradle).”

"It may seem odd that the damnation of unbaptized infants should not have been thought shocking, but should have been attributed to a good God. The conviction of sin, however, so dominated him that he really believed new-born children to be limbs of Satan. A great deal of what is most ferocious in the medieval Church is traceable to his gloomy sense of universal guilt."

“It is strange that the last men of intellectual eminence before the dark ages were concerned, not with saving civilization or expelling the barbarians or reforming the abuses of the administration, but with preaching the merit of virginity and the damnation of unbaptized infants. Seeing that these were the preoccupations that the Church handed on to the converted barbarians, it is no wonder that the succeeding age surpassed almost all other fully historical periods in cruelty and superstition.”
 
Ren said:
Seeing that these were the preoccupations that the Church handed on to the converted barbarians, it is no wonder that the succeeding age surpassed almost all other fully historical periods in cruelty and superstition.”
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Eh, nah...

The Catholic Church did a pretty good job of reigning in an insane and bloodthirsty nobility with the threat of eternal damnation (of which original sin was a key component).

More and more medievalists (especially 9th-12th century) are coming to the view that a lot of doctrinal points in Christianity were more to do with controlling secular power than with actual theology. Or rather, the two were indistinguishable.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
Eh, nah...

The Catholic Church did a pretty good job of reigning in an insane and bloodthirsty nobility with the threat of eternal damnation (of which original sin was a key component).

More and more medievalists (especially 9th-12th century) are coming to the view that a lot of doctrinal points in Christianity were more to do with controlling secular power than with actual theology. Or rather, the two were indistinguishable.
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Wow, that's a really interesting correction! I did not know that.

That you for enlightening me. :smiley:
 
Oh yeah, people need to realise that the Church was essentially at war with secular powers (even though they were of the nobility themselves).

For instance, kings and Lords had a legitimate fear of excommunication, since the Church could rule that their successors were thus illegitimate, ruining the dynasty. Things like this.

The Church tried really hard to insinuate itself into secular power structures to maintain its own power.
 
Deleted member 16771, we can continue discussing this. You must acknowledge I do not believe the way Catholics believe. I haven't read up on Martin Luther in decades. " In his Address, Dr. Luther calls upon the German Nobility to intervene in this struggle between biblical Christianity and antichristian abusive power, declaring how the papacy has lived untruthfully and unbiblically, yet protected with great power to achieve their diabolical schemes of greed, corruption, immorality, and lies." I did write my church and tell them it was time to let that go and move into the Preparation, but that was in the eighties and they were nothing more than amused and distanced. I will study up a bit. Interim, I understand many things in the texts to be a shadow of things to come. Baptism is not magic, Christianity not a cult, and baptism was a shadow of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Baptism in real life is a public showing of giving up an old life into the renewal of a new one. We wash away the old and are reborn new. Catholics turning their backs on Constantinople over the Pope is all I need know of their leaders.

Isaiah says we all have turned to our own way. New Testament says in Romans chapter 8, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." One of the best chapters in the Bible. For a Pope to make a worldly statement about the scriptures that can contradict so many things and cause so many questions, he will surely destroy himself. He is no leader or speaker of God. His mind will cause him delusions and his heart too many questions to answer. Once again, a person must know for his own self what God wants him to do.

In closing, churches will most always need to be reformed and corrected. He that does so is usually cast out. We should be Preparing to meet our maker.
 
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