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@Widdershins
I swear, when I look at Christian doctrine I don’t understand how the hell it caught on…
Most Christians, at least all I’ve talked to, will agree that it is impossible for man to live a completely sin free life.
Yep. Basic Christian doctrine. And the omnicient, omnipotent God, who created us and our brains,
cannot forgive us for not being perfect. Why not? How is this God "love?"
Calvinism, in the 15th Century, went even further with the Doctrine of Total Depravity:
When we describe man's sinfulness as depravity, we are not just saying that he is bad or wicked, but that he is rebelliously and deliberately evil, that he loves and delights in wickedness of every kind. He is not just passively overcome by sin but actively and willingly uses his strength, ability, and gifts to sin.
The idea is, then, that men are very wicked, much more wicked than they themselves would ever admit. Nor is this wickedness accidental, but deeply imbedded in what a man is, what we call his “nature.” In other words, his depravity is not something he has learned or that is the result of his environment, but he is by nature wicked. He does not just do evil but is evil. He is conceived and born a sinner.
The explanation for this is “original sin.” By original sin we refer to the sin of man in Adam and every man’s responsibility for the sin that Adam committed.
This is a horrifically dark view of humankind. (And in my opinion, just plain false.) Can you imagine telling your child,
“You are evil. It’s impossible for you to do good.”
Even worse, according to Calvinism, God decided who all would be saved & damned when he created the universe. And, everything that happens is controlled by God, from tsunamis to cancer.
So
A) You suck
B) God decided if you were saved or damned at the beginning of time
C) Anything that happens, good or bad, God did it.
And yet Calvinism had a huge impact on the US: The Pilgrims, Puritans, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, Anglicans, Southern Baptists, and Reformed churches are all Calvinist. Why? It’s awful!!
Moving on.
Only Jesus was able to live his entire life without ever sinning once, and he was a god with his life planned out for him before he was born.
Yup. Jesus was "fully god and fully man." Whatever that even means. He is part of the Triune God, with his mission planned right after Adam ate the apple. So it wasn't such a huge deal for him to not sin, IMHO.
When you sin it is an affront against God and you must beg his forgiveness for that sin.
This is one reason Christianity is unjust. If someone rapes or murders, the offense is against God, not the victim. That's kind of like our felony system. But if a person repents in Jesus name, Jesus forgives him, which does nothing to help the victim. It's like a criminal going free because he got a great defense attorney. And if the victim dies and isn't Christian, he goes to hell.
The obvious example is the Holocaust. A Nazi guard could have gassed hundreds of Jews, who went to hell, but if he repents on his deathbed he goes to heaven. What the fuck kind of “justice” is that.
Not only that, even if you are sin free you STILL can’t get into Heaven until you follow the instructions for the right religion to wash away “original sin”, the sin you are born with. The rules differ, but they all agree that you must be baptized to “wash away” your sin, whether your own or assigned to you.
"Original Sin," the punishment you are born with, is a Roman Catholic & Protestant thing. Eastern Orthodox Christians never accepted this. The Orthodox have "Ancestral Sin," which simply says you are born into the difficulties that come with being human, that life is hard and people imperfect. You are only responsible for your own wrongdoing, not Adam's. Baptism provides spiritual strength and protection, instead of washing the filth of sin away, like in Catholic & Protestant churches.
It’s not great, but it’s a bit better.
By the way, even though all this is based on Genesis, somehow Judaism never got that memo. Judaism doesn’t have Original Sin, nor hell. Their sin in the garden brought death into the world, and the story has generally been interpreted as metaphor.
…But wait! There’s more! The worst is yet to come …
(cont)
