The Fall of Man, the Expulsion from the Garden. Original Sin.
Click the link below. On the left, note the serpent wrapped around the Tree of Knowledge, tempting Eve. And on the right, the expulsion from Eden.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Michelangelo_Sündenfall.jpg
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I've always wondered why social conservatives love to say that man is innately "bad" (or "evil"). The concept of man being "good", for them, or "just" or "moral" is an oxymoron, because all goodness must come from God.
Never mind that Sokrates was Good and Just and Moral 400 years before Christ and probably had never read the Jewish myths of Creation and died before the christian Original Sin mythology was created. Christianity's message to you is that you are born sinful, bad, depraved, and with a propensity toward evil.
This is a perfectly insular example of circular religious thinking: That man might be half-way decent and good on his own, by instinct, means that their in no need for the christian idea of Redemption. Christianity, BY DEFINITION, must see man as intrinsically bad and IN NEED OF REDEMPTION, the godhead tacked to the Cross, bleeding for you --- because, if you are good all on your own, Jesus on the Cross becomes irrelevant. The New Testament House of Cards falls down.
Christians interpret Adam and Eve in the Genesis myth as the doctrine of Original Sin. Eve ate the forbidden fruit angering the Deity; they fell from God's grace and can only now be redeemed by God's grace, and ALL GENERATIONS afterwards shall be born into this state of original sin. You cannot escape it. The Christians have this deck of cards perfectly stacked. You are sinful (through no fault of your own). Only through God's grace can you acheive goodness and morality. Only through the Son, Jesus Christ, can your innately sinful nature be redeemed and transformed.
This is a perfectly corrupt, immoral teaching. And it should not be taught to children.
Click the link below. On the left, note the serpent wrapped around the Tree of Knowledge, tempting Eve. And on the right, the expulsion from Eden.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Michelangelo_Sündenfall.jpg
--------------------
I've always wondered why social conservatives love to say that man is innately "bad" (or "evil"). The concept of man being "good", for them, or "just" or "moral" is an oxymoron, because all goodness must come from God.
Never mind that Sokrates was Good and Just and Moral 400 years before Christ and probably had never read the Jewish myths of Creation and died before the christian Original Sin mythology was created. Christianity's message to you is that you are born sinful, bad, depraved, and with a propensity toward evil.
This is a perfectly insular example of circular religious thinking: That man might be half-way decent and good on his own, by instinct, means that their in no need for the christian idea of Redemption. Christianity, BY DEFINITION, must see man as intrinsically bad and IN NEED OF REDEMPTION, the godhead tacked to the Cross, bleeding for you --- because, if you are good all on your own, Jesus on the Cross becomes irrelevant. The New Testament House of Cards falls down.
Christians interpret Adam and Eve in the Genesis myth as the doctrine of Original Sin. Eve ate the forbidden fruit angering the Deity; they fell from God's grace and can only now be redeemed by God's grace, and ALL GENERATIONS afterwards shall be born into this state of original sin. You cannot escape it. The Christians have this deck of cards perfectly stacked. You are sinful (through no fault of your own). Only through God's grace can you acheive goodness and morality. Only through the Son, Jesus Christ, can your innately sinful nature be redeemed and transformed.
This is a perfectly corrupt, immoral teaching. And it should not be taught to children.
