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>concept of original sin Personally as an atheist-ish / lapsed Catholic, original sin is just about the only thing I've never actually doubted, Chesterton put

>concept of original sin Personally as an atheist-ish / lapsed Catholic, original sin is just about the only thing I've never actually doubted, Chesterton put it very well: “Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin – a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philospher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”

thevardanian 5y ago
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- poulsbohemian 5y ago
  This is at least a philosophically interesting perspective worthy of contemplation and conversation.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    Pure negation.
    - poulsbohemian 5y ago
      The parent changed what they originally wrote, not sure why.
lisper 5y ago
> the fact of sin Yeah, there's your problem right there. At the risk of stating what should be painfully obvious to any sane person, there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin. It's a completely circular argument. Garbage in, garbage out.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  > there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin. So, what do you call me the thing that drives otherwise reasonable humans to hate each other?
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    Genetics, cultural values, chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses, all conspiring to create the illusion of objective morality
    - hitekker 5y ago
      We pretend to seek out reasons, when we're actually just looking for excuses. "I didn't actually do anything wrong, something outside of me made me do wrong, you can't prove it wasn't chemicals" "There's no such thing as a shared moral code ,it doesn't exist, unless someone hurts me and then suddenly, they did something horribly wrong" Our ancestors are fortunately a bit wiser than we are, they know there are things that cannot be excused, swept under the rug of moral relativism. They can only be "forgiven" as C.S Lewis explains in https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/111 https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/111
      - sam0x17 5y ago
        Thinking all there is is moral relativism is a tiny baby step in the long journey of deriving your own objective basis for making moral judgements, and C.S. Lewis's works are essentially religious allegories but with better character development, so hardly a reference that carries rhetorical weight here.
ajuc 5y ago
The problem is that Catholics treat sin as a static field and any sane person treat it as an instance field. Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because Adam and Eve sinned and their sin is shared with all of humanity. How are we responsible fot their sin? We aren't but God still had to kill himself to forgive us. Cause reasons. It gets more stupid the more you try to explain this absurd away, and the mess of a quote by Chesterton showcases that. It conflates the original sin with regular sins of adults. Which BTW according to Catholic doctrine aren't universal "facts" at all - because some people are saints and have no instance sins, just the static (original) sin shared from Adam and Eve. And Saint Mary had neither for some reason (probably because Christ multiple inherited from Human and God and something would break if he inherited the static field). I was a very religious Catholic for about 20 years and it never made sense to me. If it makes sense to you you probably never thought about it much.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  > Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because the idea of original sin doesn't, or only superficially, has anything to do with wrongful acts. What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. Or if you want a secular version call it injustice, or the ethical and the unethical, but certainly I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. If there was nothing to the idea of humans being sinful, then living a moral life would not be a struggle, we'd be 'divine' by nature and as Chesterton says just walking across the street rids most people of that idea very quickly. >If it makes sense to you you probably never thought about it much. Pretty much the other way around. When I was 15 it made less sense to me than it does now exactly because I hadn't thought about it much. Part of having a proper and mature understanding when arguing about religious issues is to learn to take things seriously and not as literally as many people do today.
  - ajuc 5y ago
    > What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. This is the kind of poetic language behind which people hide confusion so that they can still believe in this. I did the same. I understand the reflexive "let's not think about this too much in case we stop believing". What does it actually mean to be "confronted with evil" and why is it a problem requiring Christ to die before people with no personal sins could be admitted to heaven? > I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. Clothes by virtue of being clothes are not "dirtless". Dirt exists in the world. Does it mean that before any clothes can be worn to a ball we need to metaphorically wash the generalized dirtiness out of everything? Or do we wash the clothes that are actually dirty and don't wash the clothes that are actually clean? This confusion of static and instance fields is the main issue with Catholicism.

thevardanian 5y ago

poulsbohemian 5y ago
This is at least a philosophically interesting perspective worthy of contemplation and conversation.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Pure negation.
  - poulsbohemian 5y ago
    The parent changed what they originally wrote, not sure why.

lisper 5y ago

> the fact of sin Yeah, there's your problem right there. At the risk of stating what should be painfully obvious to any sane person, there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin. It's a completely circular argument. Garbage in, garbage out.

skinkestek 5y ago
> there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin. So, what do you call me the thing that drives otherwise reasonable humans to hate each other?
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Genetics, cultural values, chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses, all conspiring to create the illusion of objective morality
  - hitekker 5y ago
    We pretend to seek out reasons, when we're actually just looking for excuses. "I didn't actually do anything wrong, something outside of me made me do wrong, you can't prove it wasn't chemicals" "There's no such thing as a shared moral code ,it doesn't exist, unless someone hurts me and then suddenly, they did something horribly wrong" Our ancestors are fortunately a bit wiser than we are, they know there are things that cannot be excused, swept under the rug of moral relativism. They can only be "forgiven" as C.S Lewis explains in https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/111 https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/111
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      Thinking all there is is moral relativism is a tiny baby step in the long journey of deriving your own objective basis for making moral judgements, and C.S. Lewis's works are essentially religious allegories but with better character development, so hardly a reference that carries rhetorical weight here.

ajuc 5y ago

The problem is that Catholics treat sin as a static field and any sane person treat it as an instance field. Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because Adam and Eve sinned and their sin is shared with all of humanity. How are we responsible fot their sin? We aren't but God still had to kill himself to forgive us. Cause reasons. It gets more stupid the more you try to explain this absurd away, and the mess of a quote by Chesterton showcases that. It conflates the original sin with regular sins of adults. Which BTW according to Catholic doctrine aren't universal "facts" at all - because some people are saints and have no instance sins, just the static (original) sin shared from Adam and Eve. And Saint Mary had neither for some reason (probably because Christ multiple inherited from Human and God and something would break if he inherited the static field). I was a very religious Catholic for about 20 years and it never made sense to me. If it makes sense to you you probably never thought about it much.

Barrin92 5y ago
> Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because the idea of original sin doesn't, or only superficially, has anything to do with wrongful acts. What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. Or if you want a secular version call it injustice, or the ethical and the unethical, but certainly I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. If there was nothing to the idea of humans being sinful, then living a moral life would not be a struggle, we'd be 'divine' by nature and as Chesterton says just walking across the street rids most people of that idea very quickly. >If it makes sense to you you probably never thought about it much. Pretty much the other way around. When I was 15 it made less sense to me than it does now exactly because I hadn't thought about it much. Part of having a proper and mature understanding when arguing about religious issues is to learn to take things seriously and not as literally as many people do today.
- ajuc 5y ago
  > What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. This is the kind of poetic language behind which people hide confusion so that they can still believe in this. I did the same. I understand the reflexive "let's not think about this too much in case we stop believing". What does it actually mean to be "confronted with evil" and why is it a problem requiring Christ to die before people with no personal sins could be admitted to heaven? > I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. Clothes by virtue of being clothes are not "dirtless". Dirt exists in the world. Does it mean that before any clothes can be worn to a ball we need to metaphorically wash the generalized dirtiness out of everything? Or do we wash the clothes that are actually dirty and don't wash the clothes that are actually clean? This confusion of static and instance fields is the main issue with Catholicism.