Original Sin?
May 5th, 2015 at 7:35:23 PM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
Type away it will at least keep the discussion going and call my bluff that I don't think you really have an answer at all, except of course in coming to grips with the reality of sin.
You can very easily become a slave to your own selfishness and desires and mistake this for freedom. “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
May 5th, 2015 at 8:49:44 PM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
And you can just as easily not become a slave to them. Tons of good Christians are complete slaves to their selfish desires, rehabs are full of them. There are so many Christian men addicted to porn that they have special rehabs just for them. Religion seems to be no deterrent at all for keeping people away all the desires people want to wallow in. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
May 6th, 2015 at 4:25:51 AM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
You need to rethink this statement and try again. By the way still no answer? “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
May 6th, 2015 at 11:44:07 AM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
I was pretty clear. With or without religion, people will still wallow in overdoing their desires if they want to. We've had just as many wars with religion than without. Probably more.
Why bother. You already gave the retort I said you would give. I'm always wrong. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
May 6th, 2015 at 1:56:56 PM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
That is much more nuanced than what you said earlier. Surely even you must acknowledge the role religion plays in helping people not to overdo their desires.
The devastation that wars without religion have wrought on the human race cannot even be compared with those so called religious wars. The 20th century was the bloodiest century ever and more people died at the hands of officially atheistic regimes than all the religious wars combined. Maybe this harkens back to the point above that religion has a way of helping people not to overdo things.
I promise I won't say you are wrong. I would be curious to hear another explanation besides sin that makes sense. “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
May 6th, 2015 at 2:18:35 PM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
Surely you must acknowledge it works as often as it fails.
But were the people and soldiers in those countries atheists just because the regime said it was? Hell no, they were 95% god fearing Christians who were prevented from going to church. The same Christians who fought war after war all thru Europe for over a thousand years. Just slapping a new name on them doesn't change their beliefs or the way they were raised.
As to why we struggle to improve ourselves and our condition of life? People get tired of living in squalor, and working from dawn till dusk. They get tired of the gov't stealing half their crops and livestock for 'taxes'. So they gradually pull themselves out of poverty and work together to make society run better. It has nothing to do with sin, which doesn't exist. It's about eating better, living longer and in better circumstances. How you get sin out of it is a mystery, sin has nothing to do with anything. How could it. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
May 6th, 2015 at 2:32:08 PM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
I absolutely deny this.
There was a hell of a lot more than this. They were brainwashed, bullied, and cajoled to not believe in God. God was removed from the government, you were ridiculed for your faith, ostracized, atheism was taught in the schools and removed from secular culture. Those who persisted in their faith and resisted the brainwashed were sent away or killed.
Specifically the question was why we find it so hard to improve ourselves? As you show persuasively we all want to improve and make society better, but why is it such hard work involving staggering failures, blood, sweat, and tears? Why is something we want to do and know how to do, namely becoming the person we want to be, such a struggle at times for us? “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
May 6th, 2015 at 3:08:24 PM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
It takes generations for this to take hold. Hitler didn't have time to change anybody's mind, he was in power for only 12 years. By the late 30's Russia had only been Communist for 20 years, the vast majority of people were still Russian Orthodox, with a few hundred active churches left. The Russian people never were atheists. After the war 22,000 churches were active, and even after Kruschev started closing them, there were still thousands left open. To say the German and Russian soldiers were atheist is ridiculous.
You ever try and invent something when most of the work hasn't been done by somebody else? The inventor of the mouse trap had to do it from scratch. First he had to realize he needed a trap, how long did that take. Why do you think any of that would be easy. Or that it has anything to do with offending a god. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
May 6th, 2015 at 7:09:27 PM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
I think you are greatly underestimating the power of fear, violent oppression, propaganda, and ridicule.
Not quite clear about what you just spoke. The question is why is it difficult to do the right thing? We don't have to invent the notion that we should tell the truth, we know that already. Why do you think that doing something we know we should and that we know will be good for us would be difficult? “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
May 6th, 2015 at 8:03:17 PM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
It takes generations to get rid of what took generations to instill. You think some oppression and ridicule for a short 12 years really made people forget god and Jesus? What a weak religion it is if that was the case. In Russia, it never really left. There were always hundreds and thousands of Orthodox churches in the country. You don't turn people into atheists that quickly. They've been brainwashed for too many centuries.
I'm totally confused now. You mean like eating a whole chocolate cake when we know we shouldn't? I don't care, eat the cake if you want. Or don't. I'm not understanding the question. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |