Original Sin @ MindSay 
A conversation I've been having on someone else's blog has gotten me thinking about something...
Christianity has been criticised for creating a culture of guilt, and using guilt as a means of controlling its "believers." In some cases, this might be true, but I don't think that that is what Christianity is supposed to be about. In fact, I believe the opposite, that Christianity is supposed to be about freedom from guilt.
But this got me thinking about what I believe about original sin. The general belief amongst many Christians is that because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, all the descendants of Adam and Eve, that is, the human species, bears original sin from the moment they are conceived that they need to be forgiven for.
Now, I certainly understand why this seems unfair. Should I be punished for something that happened before I even existed? Should I need forgiving becase my parents are humans, which is something I've never had any control over, nor my parents, for that matter? Is there really such thing as original sin? Do I bear personal responsibility?
Then I thought, the answer to that last question, might be no. I don't bear personal responsibility. I don't bear personal responsibility.
I thought about our aborigines. For many years the Australian indigenous population has been asking our government to apologise for the way our ancestors treated them, which today many aborigines are still suffering from. Our previous Prime Minister, John Howard, from the Liberal Party, thought that although the way the were treated was terrible, he should not be the one to apologise, or bear moral responsibility for. After all, everyone who was involved in those acts towards aborigines were dead, and he wasn't even born at the time. Although some Australians agreed with him, he was rather unpopular with a large number of them, aborigines and white people alike. We all felt a national guilt that, even though none of us were personally responsible, we should bear the responsibility of the actions of our forebears. In our last election, John Howard was voted out and Kevin Rudd from the Labour Government was voted in, and one of the first things he did as Prime Minister was make a public announcement on behalf of the Australian people, apologising to the indigenous Australians.
I also thought about the African slave situation in America. Although slavery is now illegal, and Americans of African descent have as much rights as any other American in America, many white Americans still feel white shame, and I have met a few over the internet that have felt ashamed of being born white because of the actions of their ancestors, even though they had nothing personally to do with it. And even though some might not feel it as keenly as others, there is still a "sensitivity" between the races.
Do any Germans feel ashamed that theirs was the nation that produced the Nazis? I don't know a lot about the German mindset, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Anyway, this got me thinking. Maybe original sin is simply species shame. Eating a fruit from a tree versus crimes against humanity? Okay, not quite the same ball park, I'll warrant, but this story is full of symbolism. The seven days of creation? Science tells us how unlikely it is that the universe was created in seven days, but the number seven itself was highly symbolic to the Hebrews, a number representing wholeness. The fruit that they ate wasn't just any fruit, God didn't forbid it for just any reason; it was the fruit from the knowledge of good and evil. There's some symbolism right there.
So people use the story of Adam and Eve to make people feel guilty for something that happened before they were born. But maybe it's not about having personal guilt, because it's not our personal sin. But maybe it's the responsibility we all have as human beings, to be resonsible for each other and not to seperate ourselves from our shared past. Maybe us Australians do bear some responsiblity for the actions of our ancestors. The consequences of their actions are still existing, after all, and they're not around to fix it, so maybe it's not enough for us to say, "tough luck, I feel bad, but it's nothing to do with me." Do I feel personally guilty for the way our aborigines were treated? Of course not. I had nothing to do with it. Do I think I should share at least some moral responsiblity? Maybe so.
There is a resonsiblity we have as humans towards other humans, when we see one part of humanity committing atrocious sins, even though we are not a part of that "part," maybe we, as humans, need to take action, and not just sit back and do nothing; because maybe the acts of one human reflects on all humans. Maybe, I thought, this is what original sin is about. Not personal guilt, but shared responsiblity.
And as for Christianity? I mentioned before, is about freeing us from the shackles of guilt. All types of guilt, whether guilt that we feel we deserve when we don't, guilt that we don't feel when we do deserve to, and guilt that we feel that we rightly deserve. Whether that guilt is our personal guilt, or the shared guilt of humanity. Responsiblity will still be there, though, of course.
Anyway, this is just a thought, nothing more, nothing less. Chances are, I'm way off.
Original Sin”
The knowledge of good and evil is what separates us from God. A sin is a sin is a sin in the sense that all sin results from free-will or, what you might call, the right to be a fool. Free-will is what makes us sinners. It is to blame for everything we do and not just those things we would normally consider sins. What most people don’t realize is that even our good deeds come from the knowledge of good and evil (which is what separates us from God).
A person who successfully surrenders the knowledge of good and evil will achieve Nirvana in a sense. They will become at one with God and serve Him like our arms and legs do us. Those of us who choose Utopia (which some people will eventually call The Land of Oz) over paradise will not get to experience Gods will as their own but that does not mean God won’t be in control. God has created Utopia with us in mind and it can be a place of suffering and torment for some while a pleasant experience for others. This comes from Perfect On-going Justice determined by the Holy Spirit. People will get what they reasonably and truly deserve for as long as it takes for justice to be served. Let it be known that forever will be based on forever and not a human lifetime. Everyone will be given a Permanent 2nd Chance to surrender the knowledge of good and evil and join those already in the presence of the Lord. Actual Free-will (or the absence of any demonic or psychic influences) is Gods way to ensure that Perfect On-going Justice is fair and accurate. It will allow us to control what happens to our spiritual environment and hold us directly accountable for the outcome. We will no longer be able to blame other people for influencing our psychic condition in ways that inhibit or destroy our character. Actual Free-will along with Perfect On-going Justice and a Permanent 2nd Chance will put people at the helm of their destinies because that’s the way it should be and the way God wants it to be.
There’s no way for a human being to fathom what it’s like to be at one with God but one thing is for certain and that’s, that Gods love does not end there. Utopia involves free-will which necessarily sets us apart from God (in the sense that Gods will is all there is to choose from) but that doesn‘t mean God wants to punish us so severely that it lasts for eternity. The right to be a fool may not appear, at first, to be a very good idea but you have to realize it’s actually a persons right to be themselves and that may even be worth dying for.
I went to Starbucks last night and the barista asked "white chocolate mocha?" Great, order a drink twice in a row and all of the sudden you're "that white chocolate mocha guy." Typecasting.
I watched the movie Original Sin today. Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas. I enjoyed it....and no, not just the steamy sex scene. Although I did enjoy that quite a bit. Now I want a cool Spanish accent like Antonio Banderas. From the one picture that I've seen of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt (isn't that a mouthful?) I can say that she definitely has her mother's lips. Angelina Jolie has definitely grown on me recently.
I've now moved on to the movie Pride & Prejudice. I'm hoping my testicles don't fall off. There are many "chick flicks" that I do enjoy, but I have a feeling this might be a bit too much. But since it's Pride & Prejudice and I am an English scholar, I thought I should probably see it. Maybe it'll be better than I think. Or maybe I should've just read the book.
A fellow teacher died Thursday night. I just found out about an hour ago. I'm not sure what the cause of death was, but he apparently had a short illness. It's just so weird....I saw him just over a month ago, right before school got out, and I never would've guessed there was anything wrong with him. I don't even know that there was. To go from appearing to be perfectly healthy to being dead in the span of a month is very scary.
I am in love.
satisfied
I have long thought that the apple has just been a metaphor for teaching reproduction. The apple being a fruit and fruit being the way a tree procreates. Eve had sex with Lucifer and then Eve had sex with Adam, and that's why they covered themselve. They were covered in nasty sex goop.
But now I have taken that a step further. The cardinal sin is reproduction. Original sin is being born. It's a sin to exist. God did mean for us to keep going. That's why we're destroying the world. We're a plague. A problem that god didn't anticipate. He didn't expect we'd ever figure it out, but Satan ruined it for us. Adam and Eve were supposed to tend his garden, but he never intended for their descendants to exist.
We're a destructive plague. We are the only sin upon the world. We're the only creatures that can sin. We are the sin. So the only way to be forgiven is to die. Jesus was the example. Originally all the descendents of heaven were doomed to hell, but Jesus changed to a positive rewards system. The only way to heaven is through me... which is to say to die.
So a good genocide would be a genocide of the whole race. He wants us to kill ourselves off. The Apocolypse will be the day that he wipes all of us out. Maybe some of us will get to heaven, but most of us are going to hell.
These are not my specific views, but they are a view of nihilism that I came up with and thought that I'd share.