Sadly JA, I haven't got time for a rerun of socratic dialectic to show that helping others can be an act of self interest in a purely human context irrespective of god, and that what one human may consider sinful another might consider an acceptable act.
But I am sure that you can agree that these situations are quite feasible?
D. Wood,
Sorry, D. I didn't meant to direct that last comment directly at you. I was still answering David's question about the definition of Original Sin and I used your name accidently.
As to your comment, I have to completely agree. All of what I just said, serves to put the entire notion of sin aside as something that is merely inevitable. This is what Paul is saying in Romans and elsewhere, is that under the old system of sin and religious law, the only recourse is guilt, condemnation, and death. This is a stupid way to run a universe, according to St. Paul then, and Martin Luther more recently.
Jesus spent most of his time making this point. He comes to advocate love of neighbor and a gut wrenching compassion towards those who are suffering as a much better framework for living, instead of following religious law dogmatically.
To your point, no one claims that humans acting altruistically out of love can possibly avoid some self interest, and in some cases they can't even avoid doing harm. But given the choice between dogmatic religious law, and acting out of love, Jesus advocates the latter. Anyone reading this would probably agree that love does a better job of guiding human altruism than does religious law.
Jesus even follows up his thesis on altruism with a parable involving a despised and certainly un-holy foriegner committing an act of Altruism, while the holy men, who are attempting to obey religious purity law (thereby avoiding what they think is sin), fail to provide essential service to the beat-up man lying in the road. The point is that law and obligation fail to motivate the holy men towards doing what truly pleases whereas love and compassion does do the trick. Pushed to its limit, Jesus is almost saying that even godless love and compassion (the heathen Samaritan) trumps religion itself (which is something that is often said in these threads.)
If sin is self-interest, and human altruism necessarily will contain some self interest, Luther responds that one should therefore "sin boldly" (meaning go ahead and address misery and suffering, and don't worry about perfection, since such is the human condition.)
So to those who say that all we need is "the golden rule", Jesus pretty much says yes that's right, except without the help of God, you won't be able to sustain it given the human propensity towards self-interest.
Anyway, I am not trying to convert you or even refute the things that are said against religion in these threads. I am just trying to point out the irony that most of the things that are complained about are beliefs and practices of religious fundamenalism and not mainstream Christianity at all.
Ironically, where fundamentalism harps on behavior, guilt, sin, and condemnation, Jesus recommends throwing out the entire rule book, to forget the notion of sin, and replace obligation to God and to Law with love and compassion. Who can argue with that?