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For example the nature of sin and how it 'accumulates'. Most protestant denominations take a stance that humans are evil by nature and, in order to enter the Kingdom of God, one must strive against that. Many will fail in this striving but for those who persevere there is a great reward at the end.
Where are you getting your information regarding "in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"? Because what you have here is wrong.
Unless I'm not actually considered a "protestant"?
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Also, what was god afraid of? Why were humans denied knowledge? If humans were meant to be special, then why make them no better than the average beast?
What you wrote here I find odd. Since we are talking about Biblical stories, what is the passage that says that God was afraid? Or the passage that said that man was no better than the average beast?
What exactly do you really think the "choice" that Adam and Eve had was? And what exactly was the consequence of the "sin"?
What you wrote here I find odd. Since we are talking about Biblical stories, what is the passage that says that God was afraid?
Genesis 3:22-24 looks like a pretty frightened reaction to me:
22Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of (X)Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from (Y)the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"--23therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
24So (Z)He drove the man out; and at the (AA)east of the garden of Eden He stationed the (AB)cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to (AC)the tree of life.
For example the nature of sin and how it 'accumulates'. Most protestant denominations take a stance that humans are evil by nature and, in order to enter the Kingdom of God, one must strive against that. Many will fail in this striving but for those who persevere there is a great reward at the end.Where are you getting your information regarding "in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"? Because what you have here is wrong.
Unless I'm not actually considered a "protestant"?
I'm getting well out of my depth here as we are getting past the point in which I have solid scholarly knowledge but very roughly I think it follows from the nature of Evil. Now when I say Protestant I mean 'those things in which Calvin and Martin Luther agreed'. Its not a perfect representation of Protestantism but its usually close. So, again roughly, Protestants believe that Evil is real it has a kind of 'substance' and it is in human nature.
For Catholics, and by Catholic I mean generally the view points held by Thomas Aquinas - here I think this is much more accurate then calling Protestantism what Martin Luther and John Calvin hold to be true, Thomas Aquinas is a Saint in large part because it is held by Catholics that he more fully understood Gods will and intent then anyone before or sense and was able to, through succinct explanation, bring the rest of the faithful that much closer to God.
For Catholics Evil is not a real thing. God is perfectly good and one does not get evil from such a source. Instead evil is a lack of grace, a failing to find God. For Catholics if you can get to the point where you are once more in grace with God then the evil ceases to be.
Its overly simplistic but Protestants are forgiven sin while Catholics are absolved of sin.
Additionally, if you subscribe to the POV of an omnipotent, omniscient god, then god knew what the result was going to be before Eve took that bite. Why not give the knowledge so they would know good from evil and would know not to eat it. By denying them that information, they were guaranteed to fall and be cast out.
As an aside I don't believe this was originally part of Christian thought/doctrine. The philosophical stance that God stands outside of time and knows how things will end is actually Islamic in nature and I doubt would have been discussed in say the 4th century by Christian Theologians. In effect the Old and New Testament, where they touch on the topic at all (not often), seem to presume that once God made time he then existed within it. He can modify it at will of course and we all know how the world will end but knowing what an individual will do next does not seem to be one of his abilities.
The story of Job, in particular, hinges on God not actually knowing in advance how Job will behave. Note also that much of Christian thought (not all) does not really posit an outside heaven. Its earth itself that will become Heaven and until then the spirits of the dead await Judgement Day.
My suspicion is that this Islamic viewpoint got backdated into Christianity very late. I bet you rarely see it at in any writings before Einsteins Theory of Relativity, that is really the point in which western thought must grapple with the idea that we exist in a single space time continuum and therefore an entity such as God probably exists outside of it.
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Genesis 3:22-24 looks like a pretty frightened reaction to me...
What you wrote here I find odd. Since we are talking about Biblical stories, what is the passage that says that God was afraid?
Really quick, I'm planning on addressing this in the next day or two. (Kind of busy right now and I need to do a little research.) And I'm planning on giving Xpltvdeleted more of an answer than rhetorical questions as well.
Really quick, I'm planning on addressing this in the next day or two. (Kind of busy right now and I need to do a little research.) And I'm planning on giving Xpltvdeleted more of an answer than rhetorical questions as well.Genesis 3:22-24 looks like a pretty frightened reaction to me...
What you wrote here I find odd. Since we are talking about Biblical stories, what is the passage that says that God was afraid?
Cool.
If it's helpful, I'm not saying that the Bible spells out that God is afraid there, only that the passage reads that way to me. It has a sort of "Cheese it; it's the cops!" vibe to me.
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Really quick, I'm planning on addressing this in the next day or two. (Kind of busy right now and I need to do a little research.) And I'm planning on giving Xpltvdeleted more of an answer than rhetorical questions as well.Genesis 3:22-24 looks like a pretty frightened reaction to me...
What you wrote here I find odd. Since we are talking about Biblical stories, what is the passage that says that God was afraid?
Cool, I'm always down for new information.
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I’m not sure if I have enough information to actually be correct, but I’ll give it a shot. (This may be a little long, so bear with me…)
OK, so maybe I muddied the waters of my intent by introducing original sin. What I was getting at is that if one believes the story of Adam and Eve, regardless of why they ate the forbidden fruit, they could not have known that doing so was bad UNTIL they ate it. Leaving original sin out of it, how could any being (deity or otherwise) justify punishing someone for something they had no clue was wrong?
Additionally, if you subscribe to the POV of an omnipotent, omniscient god, then god knew what the result was going to be before Eve took that bite. Why not give the knowledge so they would know good from evil and would know not to eat it. By denying them that information, they were guaranteed to fall and be cast out.
Also, what was god afraid of? Why were humans denied knowledge? If humans were meant to be special, then why make them no better than the average beast?
You have a lot of stuff/questions here. I’m going to try and answer them all to the best of my ability, but if I miss something or if you have further questions, please let me know.
First thing I’d like to say is that I believe that the Adam and Eve story to be MUCH more allegorical than literal. After doing some research with some commentaries, it looks like I’m far from alone in this. However, most commentaries that I saw don’t come out and say this – they just strongly hint at it saying things like “this symbolizes…” or “this shows…” and so on.
Anyway, (I feel) that the story of Adam and Eve is about God giving mankind a choice and what mankind chose.
First question – Did God know ahead of time what we/Adam & Eve would choose? “Ohh, what’s really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?” Personally, I don’t see why this is such a big deal. Either way, the choice was made. Trying to figure out something that is impossible to determine one way or the other seems fruitless to me. It’s not really written out – and anyone that thinks that they are somehow smarter than God because they obviously thought of something that God didn’t seems silly to me. If God did know ahead of time how we would choose and decided to do his thing anyway – his reasons for this are also not written. So trying to fill in the blanks and passing judgment on God for something where you don’t have all the information also seems fruitless.
But that leads me to the next question – What was the “sin”? It was not simply eating some magic fruit. The sin was simply going against what God intended/wanted for us. To better understand this, it’s important to understand what the choice really was. Notice that there were two “magic” trees in the garden. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These essentially demonstrate the two choices we were given. In non-magical terms (and as near as I can figure this stuff out) the choices were either to live forever in God’s presence or to have the ability to figure out how to do it without God. So from a literal point of view, Adam’s “sin” was disobeying God and going against what God intended. From a more allegorical point of view, mankind’s “sin” was turning our back on God.
Was this “fair”? I’m not sure about you, but if I were given the same choice right now with what I now know – I would still have chosen things the same. I like to know things. I like to be able to choose – and sometimes poorly – things for myself. Maybe you would have chosen differently. But regardless, this is who we are/I am. I guess that we can blame God for giving us brains.
What was the “punishment”? This seems to be where everyone cries “foul”. But look at the “choices” again. One choice was to live forever with God and the other choice was to be separated from God. Our “punishment” was also our “choice”. There are also other punishments – painful childbirth, mankind will forever “labor” to eat, etc. – but the primary one (as near as I can see) is being kicked out of the Garden – essentially no longer living in God’s presence.
The further interesting thing about this is that even though we turned our backs on God, this is the passage that begins the whole prophecy about Jesus and giving us an opportunity to still “live forever” in God’s presence. In a way, we still have access to the “magic” tree of life.
Then we come to this…
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
It wasn’t easy figuring this out. And I’m still not sure if I have the “right” of it. I was having a great deal of difficulty trying to get a commentary on the Hebrew meanings in the passage where I feel some of the confusion may be. When asking myself “What is God afraid of?” I kept thinking that this felt similar to a parent with a child. Not “fear” in a way like “he may usurp me” or something similar, but more like “now he has this tool, but he has no idea how to properly use it.” But that still doesn’t seem to fit with the passage. I’m not sure. I may have part of it, but I still think that some has to do with mistranslation or at least an uncertainty with the translation. The part that says “has now become” seems to be better translated as “was” as in past tense, but then it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the passage without some additional “filling in the blanks”.
On all hands this text is allowed to be difficult, and the difficulty is increased by our translation, which is opposed to the original Hebrew and the most authentic versions. The Hebrew has hayah, which is the third person preterite tense, and signifies was, not is. The Samaritan text, the Samaritan version, the Syriac, and the Septuagint, have the same tense. These lead us to a very different sense, and indicate that there is an ellipsis of some words which must be supplied in order to make the sense complete. A very learned man has ventured the following paraphrase, which should not be lightly regarded: "And the Lord God said, The man who WAS like one of us in purity and wisdom, is now fallen and robbed of his excellence; he has added ladaath, to the knowledge of the good, by his transgression the knowledge of the evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever in this miserable state, I will remove him, and guard the place lest he should re-enter. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,"
I found a couple of other commentaries that seemed to imply the same thing, but this worded it a little better.
The story is full of symbolism. The fig leaves (nearly every commentary I found agreed with this) symbolize how we try and cover up our sinfulness or bad deeds with each other by doing (more?) good deeds and how that seems to be “good enough” for us, but that the only way for it to be good enough to be in God’s presence is for Him to give us “proper” garments. (Sacrifices and ultimately Jesus.)
Ok, I need to be done with this. Did this help or just muddy the waters further?
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Moff -
Trying to figure out something that is impossible to determine one way or the other seems fruitless to me. It’s not really written out – and anyone that thinks that they are somehow smarter than God because they obviously thought of something that God didn’t seems silly to me. If God did know ahead of time how we would choose and decided to do his thing anyway – his reasons for this are also not written. So trying to fill in the blanks and passing judgment on God for something where you don’t have all the information also seems fruitless.
What I get out of this bit is "God is unknowable". This is a meme that's always bugged me, mainly because the people who say that God is unknowable, and has a greater purpose in mind, and we shouldn't fault him for things we don't fully understand...are the same people who then go on to claim that they know God's opinion of this or that, and that X, Y, and Z are good/bad according to God.
Which is it? Is it possible to know God's thoughts or isn't it?I find it ironic that you specifically say that it's "fruitless" to try to "fill in the blanks", and then later in your post you go on to do precisely that, thereby changing the meaning of the passage in question.
Of course, it's fine to say "this is the translation I follow" or "I believe the Bible is allegorical" or "I choose to only follow the good parts of the Bible, and ignore the morally repugnant stuff".
However, all that tells me is that you aren't an arse-hole like Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps or [insert fundagelical prick here]. But I already know that!
I'm kind of rambling and not making my point too well, but here's the gist I guess:
Who's to say your interpretation is the correct one? All I see when I read your post (or any other post like it from someone else) is a really nice guy trying to wrestle his religious text into a position where it doesn't contradict his own morals.
EDIT: In rereading my post, it sounds a little more hostile than I meant it. Sorry about that. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to attack you. But just as you consider it fruitless to ponder the implications of the impossible, I consider it fruitless to try to reinterpret and redefine an archaic text for the purpose of using that text to define morality, especially when (in my not so humble opinion) the text is largely false and should never have been used for that purpose in the first place.
What I get out of this bit is "God is unknowable". This is a meme that's always bugged me, mainly because the people who say that God is unknowable, and has a greater purpose in mind, and we shouldn't fault him for things we don't fully understand...are the same people who then go on to claim that they know God's opinion of this or that, and that X, Y, and Z are good/bad according to God.
Which is it? Is it possible to know God's thoughts or isn't it?
It's possible to know what God tells us; that doesn't mean it's possible to also know what God doesn't tell us.
My dog doesn't pee on the carpet. She doesn't understand the concept of stains, or cleaning bills, or the social rules of your house's appropriate condition when you have company over. My dog doesn't understand my thinking or the universe of things that concern me, and can't predict what I think with respect to things in general.But my dog can understand when I yell at her for doing something I don't like, and she understands that peeing on the carpet is bad. She understands that whether or not she understands the why behind it, or really anything else about me -- because I've chosen to communicate that to her in a way that she can understand.
I'm not intending to imply that we are to God as dogs are to us -- I'm simply pointing out that general ineffibility as to the nature of God does not imply specific ineffibility with respect to parts of God's nature, or morality, or whatnot that God has chosen to share with us directly.
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What I get out of this bit is "God is unknowable". This is a meme that's always bugged me, mainly because the people who say that God is unknowable, and has a greater purpose in mind, and we shouldn't fault him for things we don't fully understand...are the same people who then go on to claim that they know God's opinion of this or that, and that X, Y, and Z are good/bad according to God.
Which is it? Is it possible to know God's thoughts or isn't it?...
Who's to say your interpretation is the correct one? All I see when I read your post (or any other post like it from someone else) is a really nice guy trying to wrestle his religious text into a position where it doesn't contradict his own morals.
Hmmm. With regard to the text in question, we (others) seem to be taking one very small portion and then passing judgement on God. That seems wrong to me. Especially when talking about something that simply is and talking about how wrong God was for doing it that way. It just feels like we might as well be arguing about how the sun should have been made blue instead of yellow.
A lot of the discussion along this thread boils down to "free will". We've been down that road. Either we have "free will" and we choose to be bastards (or not) or we are predestined to be bastards (or not) or some combination of the two. Discussing the "right" or "wrong" of it doesn't end up going anywhere and in the end it doesn't matter.
Outside of that, I don't see a problem with "filling in the blanks" -- at least to the best of our ability. That includes looking at the Bible all together, looking at the different translations/meanings, history of the people of the time and so on to better understand what the passage(s) was saying. The Bible doesn't have answers on EVERYTHING -- such as the evils of the microwave oven -- so filling in the "blanks" is good and necessary.
I'm not saying that my interpretation is the "correct" one. I still have issues with the passage in question -- namely that it implies that we can become equal (?) in ability/power to God -- and I still feel that we aren't seeing the passage as was intended. I'm just trying to make it fit with what I know.
(And I don't "ignore the morally repugnant stuff". I see the challenge there to see why it was written down. Sometimes it's not too hard to figure out and sometimes it is -- but I generally feel that it's there for a reason.)
Messiahs were pretty much a dime a dozen during the time that the Nazarene lived. Hebrew cults in fact were quite fashionable throughout the Roman Empire as the Classical gods had fallen out of fashion and many Roman intellgentsia did as their predecessors had done in the past... shop around for foreign gods to worship, especially if they were better developed than than the ones they had.
Or had happening private parties.
First thing I’d like to say is that I believe that the Adam and Eve story to be MUCH more allegorical than literal. After doing some research with some commentaries, it looks like I’m far from alone in this. However, most commentaries that I saw don’t come out and say this – they just strongly hint at it saying things like “this symbolizes…” or “this shows…” and so on.
Consider also that while much of the Old Testament is, more or less, unique to the ancient Hebrews the story in Genesis itself in one form or another is older then dirt. The most literal and orthodox follower of the Old Testament would put the Exodus from Egypt at in and around 1400 BC but there are versions of this story that date back to 2100 BC and artifacts that might be related to this story have been found from as far back as 4000 BC.
EDIT: In rereading my post, it sounds a little more...
The fact of the matter is that we DO use texts to morality: texts of all manner. Newspapers, stories, novels, movies (in being a text in the not so literal sense, and so on....). The matter is, as far as I can see, and a big problem as far as I'm concerned, is that the Bible is given authority over all else, and is said to be an infallible resource for moral judgment by some. A greater problem being that some who assume this infallibility take it the good book literally.
My dot vanished. Bad dot.
My dot vanished. Bad dot.
My dot vanished. Bad dot.
If you find yours can you look around to see if mine is nearby as I lost mine as well.
My dot vanished. Bad dot.
If you find yours can you look around to see if mine is nearby as I lost mine as well.
What is religious freedom? I think that I have a pretty well-considered idea of what the concept ought to entail. It's the right of individuals to believe, practice, change, leave, and/or rejoin any religion of their choice. Of these, the first is essentially impossible to abridge in a meaningful sense. Belief goes on inside your head.
If you want to talk about it, that's freedom of speech just like any other expression of ideas. (Generally speaking and allowing for fire in a crowded theater and fraud sorts of exceptions.) It's only accidentally an aspect of freedom of religion since the freedom applies, in my mind, whether your ideas are religious or secular. It's not freedom of religion that saves you from being arrested for insisting Obama is a secret Muslim or the Fed is part of an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers.
Switching religions, joining new ones, or dropping them entirely is a freedom of association issue to me. I don't think that's particularly controversial. One has the right to join any club that will have you and leave any club one wants to leave.
Religious practice can be complicated. Consider the case of the Baby-Eating, Child-Raping Church of Samnell's Example. Obviously one has the right to join such an organization, and that joining up isn't in itself something that should be criminal, any more than joining the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi party is illegal. However there's clearly an excellent case to be made that raping children or roasting babies shouldn't be permitted to anybody. The fact that these are sacraments of the religion is simply irrelevant. We have decided for good, secular reasons to permit neither despite how awesomely cool it would be to follow Samnell's Example. Those activities are simply not the sort of thing we are obligated to tolerate in a decent society, just like firing an AK-47 into a room full of kindergarteners. So if the Church of Samnell's Example demands that its religious freedoms are being violated and it should be allowed to do these things, the proper response is to tell Samnell's Example and its prophet that they're being idiots, and probably criminals too, and refer the matter to the criminal justice system.
At one time I thought this opinion fairly uncontroversial. I was of course wrong.
This [corporate religious freedom] can't be the mere right of people to contract with each other in a way which provides that disputes, if they arise, will be settled according to religious principles. Again, this already exists; it's one of those freedoms you have under godless liberalism. (For instance, most multinational banks that do business with Muslim populations offer sukuk loans, a special kind of financial instrument invented to comply with the Islamic prohibition on charging interest). No, "corporate religious freedom" can mean only one thing: that religious communities should be free to create their own laws and apply them to everyone who lives within that community - including people who haven't agreed to be bound by them.[...]
This view which Fish so muddle-headedly advocates is full of huge, obvious problems. First of all, what defines a "community"? A geographic boundary? The membership rolls of a church? Baptismal records? Could I be inducted into a community against my will? Could parents commit their children, and if so, would those children be permitted to opt out?
Second, what would happen to people who break these laws? Would the ordinary police be tasked with arresting those heretics, thus putting the power of the state at the beck and call of churches? Or worse, would religious groups be permitted to create their own police, their own courts, their own prisons, their own ideas of due process that would deal with dissenters and offenders as they saw fit? And how would these laws be passed in the first place - by the majority consent of the community? Or by an unelected council of clerics?
This view of religious freedom seems purposely designed to eliminate religious freedom in the sense I described above. It looks like a paradox of tolerance in action: by extending tolerance to those who seek to undermine and destroy the open society, we are not in fact being tolerant but rather joining them in their intolerance. In this case it is not we who should bend and be accommodating, but the other guys.
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What is religious freedom? I think that I have a pretty well-considered idea of what the concept ought to entail. It's the right of individuals to believe, practice, change, leave, and/or rejoin any religion of their choice. Of these, the first is essentially impossible to abridge in a meaningful sense. Belief goes on inside your head.
I agree with all the stuff in your post (*yawn* how unusual).
What drives me nuts are the folks who think that "Freedom of Religion" doesn't include freedom from religion. Or, even worse, that "Freedom of Religion" means "You're allowed to be whatever kind of Christian you want to be."
What is religious freedom? I think that I have a pretty well-considered idea of what the concept ought to entail. It's the right of individuals to believe, practice, change, leave, and/or rejoin any religion of their choice. Of these, the first is essentially impossible to abridge in a meaningful sense. Belief goes on inside your head.I agree with all the stuff in your post (*yawn* how unusual).
What drives me nuts are the folks who think that "Freedom of Religion" doesn't include freedom from religion. Or, even worse, that "Freedom of Religion" means "You're allowed to be whatever kind of Christian you want to be."
I've never gotten a decent answer back when I asked if they approved of being forced to go to the mosque for prayer five times a day. Clearly they can't mean they have freedom from religion, so what's the objection?
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stuff
Thanks for the input, but it doesn't really answer the main portion of my question. The thing that trips me up the most is this:
Lacking knowledge of what is good or evil (and by extension right or wrong), did humans really have the capacity to understand that what they were doing was wrong? Can you really go against somebody/thing if you don't really know you're going against them/it?
It boils down to this for me:
God: "You can have anything in here but the food off of this one tree."
Adam: "Why can't we have that food?"
God: "Because I said so."
later that day
Eve: "Hey Adam, this other talking thing said that we can eat the stuff, we're kinda dumb so we have no way of telling which talking being we should be listening to and it looks good so let's eat it."
Adam: "OK"
eat fruit
Adam & Eve: "Oh s**%, now that we know what is right and wrong we realize we shouldn't have eaten that...we're f&*!ed now, aren't we?"
BLUF: They had two sentient beings telling them what to do (whether allegorical or literal) and no way of knowing which they should be listening to. As far as they (didn't) know, both choices were both right and wrong (or had no significance whatsoever).
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Atheist Ministers Struggle With Leading the Faithful
Interesting read, not too much substance to it, but interesting nonetheless.
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Anyone else ever get burnt out on being civil, and you just wanna scream "you're wrong, and you're ruining everything!"
And then you realize that you're still an oppressed minority and you'd just make things worse?
And that makes you sad so you eat a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's?
As long as it's Americone Dream.
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As long as it's Americone Dream.Anyone else ever get burnt out on being civil, and you just wanna scream "you're wrong, and you're ruining everything!"
And then you realize that you're still an oppressed minority and you'd just make things worse?
And that makes you sad so you eat a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's?
I prefer Chubby Hubby - I'm a sucker for truth in advertising.
Anyone else ever get burnt out on being civil, and you just wanna scream "you're wrong, and you're ruining everything!"
Usually only for about an hour, about every hour or so.
And then you realize that you're still an oppressed minority and you'd just make things worse?
That's not necessarily true. Pride Week started out as a celebration for militant gay liberation folks. Labor Day started as a celebration of murdered strikers. Doctor King made a lot of progress while being pretty damned scathing to white moderates, and with the obvious fact that if they didn't deal with him then they might find out that Malcolm X was the guy they'd have to deal with instead.
People don't like to admit it, especially not the self-consciously moderate, but if it weren't for the screamers, the flaming queens, and the like nothing would get done. The other guys aren't going to roll over just because you ask nicely and by so doing you can end up only buying into the existing oppressive power structure.
Which doesn't mean that every radical or militant group is great to have around, of course. There's a lot to be said for a comprehensive rejection of, for example, homophobia or misogyny in society and there's everything right with being brutally honest in that rejection. But that's not the same as blowing up buildings, driving planes into them, shooting doctors, and the like.
Labor Day started as a celebration of murdered strikers.
That's completely wrong, which is what I get for posting in a hurry and not rechecking. May Day is an international day of labor solidarity declared in memorial to the Haymarket victims.
That's completely wrong, which is what I get for posting in a hurry and not rechecking. May Day is an international day of labor solidarity declared in memorial to the Haymarket victims.
Labor Day started as a celebration of murdered strikers.
Well there is a connection, Labour Day is a throw away holiday that exists almost solely so that one does not get workers celebrating on May Day.
Where are you getting your information regarding "in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"? Because what you have here is wrong.
Unless I'm not actually considered a "protestant"?
{Topic is Original Sin}
So I've been flipping through texts on the History of Protestantism to see what more on this I could find. As is the nature of this sort of thing - once you find it you can then look it up on the internet and Wikipedia probably has an entry.Augsburg Confession
Key points on sin
- Original Sin: Lutherans believe that the nature of man is sinful, described as being without fear of God, without trust of God and with concupiscence. The only 'cure' for sin is to be reborn through Baptism and the Holy Spirit.
- Justification By Faith: Man cannot be justified before God through our own abilities; we are wholly reliant on Jesus Christ for reconciliation with God.
- Of Confession: Lutherans believe that private absolution should remain in the church, though a believer does not need to enumerate all of his sins as it is impossible for a man to enumerate all of the sins for which he should be forgiven.
- Of Repentance: Repentance comes in two parts: in contrition for sins committed according to the Law and through faith offered through the Gospel. A believer can never be free from sin, nor live outside of the grace of God.
- Of the Cause of Sin: God does not cause people to sin — sin is instead the work of the 'ungodly and the devil'. (i.e. our selfish concerns of this world)
Hmmm...just when I think Wikipedia has everything I'm proved wrong. It has an entry on the Helvetic Confession but not much of one. I found another website with a good translation on it. The Helvetic Confession is similar to the Augsburg Confession but for Calvinists.
Oh yeah...Helvetic Confession
Here are the main points I could find on Sin.
- THE FALL OF MAN. In the beginning, man was made according to the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, good and upright. But when at the instigation of the serpent and by his own fault he abandoned goodness and righteousness, he became subject to sin, death and various calamities. And what he became by the fall, that is, subject to sin, death and various calamities, so are all those who have descended from him.
- SIN. By sin we understand that innate corruption of man which has been derived or propagated in us all from our first parents, by which we, immersed in perverse desires and averse to all good, are inclined to all evil. Full of all wickedness, distrust, contempt and hatred of God, we are unable to do or even to think anything good of ourselves. Moreover, even as we grow older, so by wicked thoughts, words and deeds committed against God's law, we bring forth corrupt fruit worthy of an evil tree (Matt. 12:33 ff.). For this reason by our own deserts, being subject to the wrath of God, we are liable to just punishment, so that all of us would have been cast away by God if Christ, the Deliverer, had not brought us back.
- DEATH. By death we understand not only bodily death, which all of us must once suffer on account of sins, but also eternal punishment due to our sins and corruption. For the apostle says: "We were dead through trespasses and sins...and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, who is rich in mercy...even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" (Eph. 2:1 ff.) Also: "As sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned" (Rom. 5:12).
- ORIGINAL SIN. We therefore acknowledge that there is original sin in all men.
- ACTUAL SINS. We acknowledge that all other sins which arise from it are called and truly are sins, no matter by what name they may be called, whether mortal, venial or that which is said to be the sin against the Holy Spirit which is never forgiven (Mark 3:29; I John 5:16). We also confess that sins are not equal; although they arise from the same fountain of corruption and unbelief, some are more serious than others. As the Lord said, it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for the city that rejects the word of the Gospel (Matt. 10:14 f.; 11:20 ff.).
- GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF SIN, AND HOW FAR HE IS SAID TO HARDEN. It is expressly written: "Thou art not a God who delights in wickedness. Thou hatest all evildoers. Thou destroyest those who speak lies" (Ps. 5:4 ff.). And again: "When the devil lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). Moreover, there is enough sinfulness and corruption in us that it is not necessary for God to infuse into us a new or still greater perversity. When, therefore, it is said in Scripture that God hardens, blinds and delivers up to a reprobate mind, it is to be understood that God does it by a just judgment as a just Judge and Avenger. Finally, as often as God in Scripture is said or seems to do something evil, it is not thereby said that man does not do evil, but that God permits it and does not prevent it, according to his just judgment, who could prevent it if he wished, or because he turns man's evil into good, as he did in the case of the sin of Joseph's brethren, or because he governs sins lest they break out and rage more than is appropriate. St. Augustine writes in his Enchiridion: "What happens contrary to his will occurs, in a wonderful and ineffable way, not apart from his will. For it would not happen if he did not allow it. And yet he does not allow it unwillingly but willingly. But he who is good would not permit evil to be done, unless, being omnipotent, he could bring good out of evil." Thus wrote Augustine.
- WHAT MAN WAS BEFORE THE FALL. There is the state in which man was in the beginning before the fall, namely, upright and free, so that he could both continue in goodness and decline to evil. However, he declined to evil, and has involved himself and the whole human race in sin and death, as has been said already.
- WHAT MAN WAS AFTER THE FALL. Then we are to consider what man was after the fall. To be sure, his reason was not taken from him, nor was he deprived of will, and he was not entirely changed into a stone or a tree. But they were so altered and weakened that they no longer can do what they could before the fall. For the understanding is darkened, and the will which was free has become an enslaved will. Now it serves sin, not unwillingly but willingly. And indeed, it is called a will, not an unwill (ing). [Etenim voluntas, non noluntas dicitur.]
- MAN DOES EVIL BY HIS OWN FREE WILL. Therefore, in regard to evil or sin, man is not forced by God or by the devil but does evil by his own free will, and in this respect he has a most free will. But when we frequently see that the worst crimes and designs of men are prevented by God from reaching their purpose, this does not take away man's freedom in doing evil, but God by his own power prevents what man freely planned otherwise. Thus Joseph's brothers freely determined to get rid of him, but they were unable to do it because something else seemed good to the counsel of God.
- MAN IS NOT CAPABLE OF GOOD Per Se. In regard to goodness and virtue man's reason does not judge rightly of itself concerning divine things. For the evangelical and apostolic Scripture requires regeneration of whoever among us wishes to be saved. Hence our first birth from Adam contributes nothing to out salvation. Paul says: "The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God," etc. (I Cor. 2:14). And in another place he denies that we of ourselves are capable of thinking anything good (II Cor. 3:5) Now it is known that the mind or intellect is the guide of the will, and when the guide is blind, it is obvious how far the will reaches. Wherefore, man not yet regenerate has no free will for good, no strength to perform what is good. The Lord says in the Gospel: "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin" (John 8:34). And the apostle Paul says: "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot" (Rom. 8:7). Yet in regard to earthly things, fallen man is not entirely lacking in understanding.
- THE FREE WILL IS WEAK IN THE REGENERATE. Secondly, in the regenerate a weakness remains. For since sin dwells in us, and in the regenerate the flesh struggles against the Spirit till the end of our lives, they do not easily accomplish in all things what they had planned. These things are confirmed by the apostle in Rom., ch. 7, and Gal., ch. 5. Therefore that free will is weak in us on account of the remnants of the old Adam and of innate human corruption remaining in us until the end of our lives. Meanwhile, since the powers of the flesh and the remnants of the old man are not so efficacious that they wholly extinguish the work of the Spirit, for that reason the faithful are said to be free, yet so that they acknowledge their infirmity and do not glory at all in their free will. For believers ought always to keep in mind what St. Augustine so many times inculcated according to the apostle: "What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?" To this he adds that what we have planned does not immediately come to pass. For the issue of things lies in the hand of God. This is the reason Paul prayed to the Lord to prosper his journey (Rom. 1:10). And this also is the reason the free will is weak.
- WHAT IS REPENTANCE? By repentance we understand (1) the recovery of a right mind in sinful man awakened by the Word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit, and received by true faith, by which the sinner immediately acknowledges his innate corruption and all his sins accused by the Word of God; and (2) grieves for them from his heart, and not only bewails and frankly confesses them before God with a feeling of shame, but also (3) with indignation abominates them; and (4) now zealously considers the amendment of his ways and constantly strives for innocence and virtue in which conscientiously to exercise himself all the rest of his life.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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I must say, that idea is so offensive to me its hard not to type something really nasty. The idea that 3/4 of the world's population is condemned for failing to believe in one particular book or the words of on particular man makes me want to puke. If god were so great, you think he'd give a damn about the rest of the world, particularly those who died after Christ was born but before the bible was available to them, but I guess not.
And yet God's communication to us makes it very clear he is concerned about the rest of the world. He was active in human history for the purpose of bringing about a saving event. He planned for word of that salvation to reach the rest fo the world.
He offered prophecy by which we'd kow a supernatural God accomplished our salvation. He moved in history to make His word to us available and reliable. The Bible itself says "God loved the world so much He gave His only true son so whomever believed in him would not perish..."
In fact, I (and most on this site) am not of Hebrew descent, and but for the sharing of the gospel by other nonJews, I would not ahve heard or known about Christ. Ergo, He had a plan to bring me an oportunity at salvation.
A lot of rejection of the Gospel comes from a very humano-centric place. If you are able to understand and critique a creator God, sure, on that equal footing you can judge God as unjust or uncaring. I mena, insofar as the universe has to answer to you, what you say goes.
But it's not that way, is it? The question should never have been, does God make enough sens that you, in your widsom, choose to accept Him. The question should always be, is there a supernatural creator, and if there is, how do I please and worship Him?
Those who say "That doesn't make enough sense to ME, so screw that hypothetical sky-fairy, are failing to honestly address the question of whether there is an actual od who can command their obedience. If there's no god, you can say what you want and twist any argument by a believer into something ridiculous. If there is a God, the best answer is to step lightly and look honestly. Making yourself a grand part of the equation in that case is a little silly.
Note also that God tried to commuicate the need of humanity to admire and obey Him wihtout a specific savior. ALthough these measures were more intended to show that no mater how hard we try, we will still fal short of perfect. In the beginning, we only had one rule to follow. And Adam and Eve couldn't do it. Adding a few more rules, folowed by hundreds of rules, followed by a king and a priest to exercise authority, followed by the supernatural acts of prophets.
Human history is an exercise in the lengths we'll go to to not belief if it requires something of us, and in the lengths God will go through to redem a people He create both to love and to afford his adversary an opportunity to heap damnation on himself.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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BLUF: They had two sentient beings telling them what to do (whether allegorical or literal) and no way of knowing which they should be listening to. As far as they (didn't) know, both choices were both right and wrong (or had no significance whatsoever).
UNless you are intentionally oversimplifying, what you suggested above betrays only a cursory understanding of the story in the garden. Read the story brand new one more time. Note first that Adam knew God on his first day and had a relationship with Him. Walked with Him all the time. He never even saw the Serpent. Note secondly what Eve says to the Serpent is not what God says to Adam. Eve tells the Serpent, we aren't even supposed to LOOK at that fruit or we'll die. But God never says that. You can argue that there's danger in eisogesis - putting something extra into a statement to justify a conclusion or behavior. Maybe Adam didn't want to put the same effort in guarding Eve that God put into guarding him (we see that behavior later in Abraham). But if Adam said "Look, Eve, don't even look at hat fruit over there. Bad jujus.", it leaves the door open for Eve to be deceived. "Really?" says the serpent. "But you are ooking at it and you're NOT dead. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Just take oooone bite..".
ANd so we have a great allegory for how sin works, in our lives. But it isn't like Adam wasn't given every reason to trust God and it isn't like the two wise beings had equal shares on Adam's trust. Note that Adam took it on himself to hide from God. He didn't say "You two need to get your issues straightened out." Adam knew who was Boss before, and the sin confirmed it.
So it is with me. I know not to sin. I know every time. Sometimes it slips from abd habits of old, sometimes I reluctantly give in like an alcoholic staring down a bottle of Scoth with no hope. But I know before and after who my God is, and I can't blame anyone but me when I give in.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Again, you infuse what you want the story to say. The story doesn't say, even one time, that God was lonely and needed company. Nor does it say, even one time, that God planted the tree in the garden to see whether or not Adam would follow the rules. Indeed, an all-knowing God who creates the whole universe would know in advance, yes?
Milton said God created man to justify free will, and so that Lucifer would 'Heap damnation on himself'. Maybe Milton pegs the point of it all, or maybe theres more to it. Either way, creation serves the purposes of a Creator, and for one of those created to start saying "well, that just doesn't make sense to ME" is to place your terms over God's terms. That's only safe if there absolutely is no such God, which is not the same as if you don't believe in said God.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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I find this funny...
I think you misunderstand. I don't think there's a lack of evidence for my faith, and I don't tell people they don't understand because of 'x'. What I said was that a lot of people don't try thinking from a perspective outside their own, which can only be acurate if they are right.
If you say, "that's not fair, to allow people to go to Hell jsut because they didn't worship you. How arrogant!", your perspective is that no one can ask for your worship and it's smug of anyone to do so, or unloving for any god to punish you for failing to do so.
But if we were created for the purpose of worshipping God, and we continually choose not to, what happens to us is on God's terms, not ours. Our self-importance has no jsutification in His presence. Lucky for us that He loves us and has made a way for our imperfection to be reconciled with His expectations.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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I would say your idea of how Christianity has changed over time is very revisionistic. Befiore there was a Europe, the Bible remarked that a monarchy was inferior to free people worshipping God. No passage inthe Bible suports slavery as it was practiced in colonial AMerica, in fact, the sin of selling one man to another is condemned redunantly in the Bible.
I wish you'd reconsider the statement that a God who creates you for worhsip doesn't deserve it. God isn;t the old guy down the block who tells your mother you've been bad. He'd be alien and sovereign and not subject to your or my ideas. By definition, He wold not be equal. SO unless you are willing to say that you have learned with absolute certainty there is no god of any kind, I'd consider your statements pretty hubristic.
I implore you to spend more time understanding Scripture and Christianity, and less time mischaracterizing it. No one would support the kind of faith that people who have no faith accuse Christianity of. But then again, Christianity is hardly the same thing its opponents say it is.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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If some God created me for the express purpose of worshipping him, then such a God is not worth worshipping - he's a.) a fool for creating me with the ability to think of not worshipping him and b.) largely lacking in self respect to feel a need to be worshipped.
It's the same thing as if my mom gave birth to me in order to worship her and, when I didn't, locked me in my room saying that the reason I was locked in my room was my fault.
You seem willing to say the same thing repeatedly, but you don't seem willing to address or consider an entire post. The Bible doesn't say God was lonely or had low self-esteem. It says He made us, and that all of creation is made to glorify Him. It doesn
t say we can't be ourselves or that we have to be some retarded zombie. I want my kids to honor and respect me, I don't want them to be robots who say "I love you, Daddy". Any reasonable person can see the connection. It takes a willful act of incolence to cal God a drama queen for the same sentiment.I don't mean to sound combative, I sut feel my point was (perhaps intentionally) not received the first two times. SO I hope the illustration works better.
I would say your idea of how Christianity has changed over time is very revisionistic. Befiore there was a Europe, the Bible remarked that a monarchy was inferior to free people worshipping God. No passage inthe Bible suports slavery as it was practiced in colonial AMerica, in fact, the sin of selling one man to another is condemned redunantly in the Bible.
Historically people have taken different views of their relationship with God. Picking one that is hopefully less contriversial, during the Dark Ages, between 600 AD and 1000 AD people saw God or the Devil in everything. If you tripped on a stone that was the Devil's work - he put the stone there for you to trip on. The Devil had a great deal of power (just like God) and expending a tiny amount of that to trip you was just the sort of thing he did.
It does not really square with our current views of the nature of God, the Devil and their interaction with the universe but that is, in part, a product of our changing views. Today's God is mostly seen as non-interventionist and today's Devil does not go out of his way to trip people or make their cow go barren because we have chosen to regulate these activities to the natural world and outside of the day to day concerns of God and the Devil.
In essence we see the earth as a kind of biological machine akin to all the machines we have created and knowing that the the controller of most machines don't really sweat the small stuff we attribute to God the same sorts of characteristics. We now have a more distant God and Devil and their intervention is more calculated. It was not always so.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Wow. You are really wrong about this. I am happy to help. FIrst, surely you will recognize the immense difference between a few representatives of "Christianity" making it into something it has never been or never meant to be. For example, while you will find several verses condemning the sales of one person to another, as was the custom in European and American slavery, you won't find any verses in the Bible condoning that behavior.
Your use of the three verses above is fully devoid of cultural context. The first verse speaks more to arranged marriages than actual slavery. It has absolutely nothing to do with sex slavery. You fully misunderstand the differences between Hebrew and neighboring slavery, the use of the word, the nature of Jubilee, or the context of an honorific society competing to outbreed the people nearby, whom in some cases raped and pillaged at will and ate their captives. Selling yourself - ie working to pay off debt - came with a cap on your "ownership" and was considerably more bearable than living as a slave among the people who actually traded in human beings. That behavior was always punishable by death in the OT.
The second verse is the first time in recorded history a punishment is ascribed to injuring a slave. So Biblical Hebrew culture was the most forgiving in terms of slavery, indentured work, women as property, etc. It would not be especially snarky to counter that all early cultures before Christianity practiced a more abhorent version of slavery. Ever heard of heimin? Not even people?
Finally, you claim to know something about Christianity, but then you are willing to ignore an entire New Testament about love, and independence before God and about viewing the Kingdom first, in order to pull oe verse out to justify your eisogesis. You'll even ignore the treatment of Philemon's slave buddy as a fellow minister and go right on thinking that Jesus thought it was okay to beat slaves, because you would rather insert your belief into the text than extract timeless principles or look at relative context in a document that predates such self-serving conventions as the Divine Right of Kings.
You actually know very little about slavery in the Bible, and I once again ask you to look more closely.