And this is the thinking that falls short of human understanding of justice causing people to throw Christianity in the garbage can. It is why many are turning to the less Biblical answer of universalism, because calling it justice to punish the finite misdeeds of human beings with eternal torment sounds more like insanity than justice. This is made even worse with the idea that all have sinned and that sin poisons everything they do making it impossible for any good they do to be worth anything but damnation for all time.
This makes Christianity sound like pure psychological poison and we see these deranged examples of parents telling their young children that they are evil and must be punished. The only thing that seems good for, is raising your children to be serial killers with no respect whatsoever for human life. NO! This theology is WRONG!
The answer is that heaven, hell, and salvation has nothing to do with being good enough. Yes by the time we can speak we have learned some of the self-destructive habits of sin (and so none can say they are without sin). But the reason why this dooms us is not because we are made evil and worthy of eternal damnation but because it is the nature of sin to grow and destroy everything that is good. Thus the difference between heaven and hell is not about those who are worthy but about those who are willing to change.
NO! Children are not evil. And no, children are not worthy of eternal punishment. And Jesus says we should become like children because children are the most willing to change, spending all their time learning new things and trying to become more and better at everything. This is why I donât need this âage of accountabilityâ Band-Aid that many come up with to soften their theology in regards to children. The need for arbitrary fixes like this should be telling people that something more fundamental is wrong with their theology.
Human justice is the cause of most abhorrent theology. We seem to need wrongs to be punished. The whole concept of forgiveness seems to stick in the craw.
God claims not to think as we do so to impose human justice on God is futile.
It is humans trying to emulate God that claims all the depravity and evil. And the upshot of this is eternal torment.
It strikes me that nowhere is it written that âHis justice endures foreverâ but it is written that His mercy endures forever. That should tip the scales towards mercy!
It also sounds contrary to the scripture that decrees an eye for an eye. On that basis I could see punishment lasting however long it took to make a person relive all his/her offenses against others from the side of those others, but anything longer than that violates the principle that the punishment cannot exceed the crime. So the objection against eternal torment arises out of the changes that Christianity brought to Western civilization.
I remember in an educational psychology course it was noted that in English-speaking cultures parents tell children âYou are bad!â while in Germanic and Latin cultures the statement is âYou did a bad thingâ. So kids in English-speaking cultures end up with a built-in guilt trip and thus a psychological deficit. This matched a study I read about a few years ago that was looking at why the U.S. has such high levels of mental illness compared to other developed countries and tentatively concluded that people in the U.S. have been burdened by guilt since childhood.
True â they are broken, but broken does not equal evil. If youâre broken, that suggests you can be repaired, but if youâre evil you can only be punished or at best be burned to get rid of the evil.
I remember encountering that idea for the first time and finding it revolting. The difference between children and adults doesnât lie in some contrived legal patch but lies in the children and the adults themselves: we are in essence âprofessional sinnersâ while children are mere dabblers or amateurs.
Later I encountered the âage of accountabilityâ idea in a Lutheran context, but it was a very different thing: it referred to when someone has grown enough they can start taking responsibility for their own spiritual life. That made it a positive thing, a step forward, not an excuse to rescue God from Himself.
That is an oversimplification. The truth is more that theology clings to archaic ideas of justice while the ideas of justice in human society has greatly improved. That is one of the reasons I am skeptical of St. Roymondâs claim that these improvements come from Christianity. It is more reasonable to credit God with that, where even the work of secular societies on these improvements might ultimately come from God.
People can project anything on to God and call that Godâs idea of justice. But the point is that this theology which says it is justice for finite misdeeds to get an eternity of torment will no longer be accepted. It doesnât make sense. My resolution is different than the universalist one, which is to reject the notion that heaven, hell, and salvation has anything to do with justice and what we deserve, and is instead about the destructive power of sin and the need to change.
I donât think that is necessary. If a religion helps people build a relationship with God and a reverence for what He has created they might develop an affinity for eternity which transcends the need for their own physical or psychic immortality. Such a perspective could enable anyone to elaborate or reformulate âthe rulesâ and would go a long way toward improving our life here and now.
Apparently Richard longs for âthe good olâ daysâ in hunting-gathering cultures, where children and the elderly were abandoned and forced by need or desire to forage for food and seek shelter wherever they could find it as long as they had the physical strength to do so. Where reality screams: âWhere is your god now?!â
So it is your claim that a child is born knowing the concept of ownership and the word âmineâ.
I donât think so.
You may not be aware of how the child was taught such things but I am quite convinced that it happened somewhere from someone. It is our nature biologically that we learn by imitation. And children learn far far more that way than by parents intentionally trying to brainwash their children into behaving the way they prefer them to behave.
Iâm not a child behavioral specialist, but I think you have a good point there. Looking at my youngest grandson, his default is that everything he can reach is fair game and finders keepers, whether it be a toy or antique vase. He is constantly reminded that âThatâs not yoursâ and âGive it back.â He soon learns that you have to stake a personal claim on stuff you want to keep.
Nature v nurture. The oldest of debates, corrupted by the notion that the nature is already damaged or sinful.
Is self preservation a sin? Is learning possessions a sin?
At what point do we understand morality?
Adamâs sin was disobedience. And possibly self interest over obedience. How can a child with limited or no understanding be responsible for their actions or decisions?
Complete obedience does not guarantee a sinless result. It will depend on who is giving the instructions.
In the idyllic Christian environment there is no such thing as âmineâ
To be sure⌠not everything is learned from others. Hand grasping is something we know instinctually and if you stick your finger in the hand of a newborn, he/she will grasp it.
But language and social interactions are learned socially. This must be the case because these things change on a completely different time scale than evolved biological aspects of our functionality.
Sorting out these two is better left to science and hard evidence rather than the rhetoric of debates. We can learn a lot by comparing with other primates for the commonalities there are far more likely to be biological rather than social.
No and no. More importantly the âselfishnessâ of an infant is not a sin, but both natural and necessary. We can only be expected to call attention to our own needs at that age. Growing and learning the complete basics of life are all we can handle at that point. It is only when we grow in power and our capacity to do harm to others, do the questions of what is acceptable (ethical) interactions as members of a social group becomes relevant.
And even then it a bit nonsensical to make it about an accounting of our mistakes. Making mistakes is how we learn. And so the only really relevant question is whether we do learn from those mistakes. And that is when self destructive habits like blaming others can get in the way (not to mention that bad habits of some parents who try to insulate their children from consequences of the childâs actions).
Yeah⌠I donât even think that is true. God owns everything? That is a good example of a god modeled after a criminal like a mafia boss or dictator - âeverything you make belongs to me.â Disgusting! Goes one step further from the power freak who has to control everything to the greedy possessive who has to own everything. Sounds more like the devil and this is one of those types of theism where I would say that atheism is better.
The God I believe in comes from Jesusâ teaching that to be great is to be a servant even a servant of servants and Philippians 2 not grasping for power and adulation but always seeking to give of His abundance to others. To say we must be these things (humble and servant) because God is the opposite would make God the ultimate hypocrite which I can never have any regard for.
No this is another of those things most likely invented by a religionist to exaggerate his own importance vicariously â boasting âI work for the guy that owns everything.â I reject this as another poisonous element of religion which must be expunged.
Extra-ordinary! Has the creationist and evolutionist switched places?
Well⌠obviously @St.Roymond is speaking of death as a result of sin which if not a creationist would mean spiritual death or damnation, while @RichardG must be speaking of physical death (though I am surprised to hear him say this). But it means @RichardG is not responding to what @St.Roymond said which is that guilt and damnation is not the same thing. But then @St.Roymond was jumping even farther afield by equating a simple statement of social causality with something completely different.
Does @St.Roymond buy into an idea of original sin which means his god would condemn those who are not guilty of anything? His theism is sounding worse by the second.
I am reminded of the tv(web) series âThe Chilling Adventures of Sabrinaâ which I found hilarious because some sectors of Christianity sound a great deal like devil worship to me.
Well, only if death is supposed to be spiritual, not physical. I still reject it, even if it is spiritual.
I donât know why this should surprise you. Without death the world would either overpopulate or starve within a week or two. That isnât even controversial science.
The question remains, whether Godâs original creation of humanity could be corrupted by humanity. And/or whether future traits such as transgenderism, homosexuality, physical defects and so on are a direct result of Adam, or just part of Evolutionary diversification.
I tend towards the latter.
We are then left with how much God is involved in evolution, which becomes the million-dollar question that I cannot answer only speculate.
So⌠you reject all the Bible passages which says that sin brings death?
James 1:15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.
Romans 5:12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
etcâŚ
That is what I was referring to without giving an interpretation⌠@St.Roymond was speaking of whatever these passages are talking about â the âdeathâ which comes from sin. Those who accept evolution donât think this means physical death which is a part of the natural order, but something else. So you donât think sin has any consequences which might be described by the word âdeathâ in any way? You reject the idea that these passages can be understood in any way which would be true.
I certainly donât reject these passages and do believe some kind of death comes from sin. But⌠I donât equate sin with disobedience or mistakes. I define sin as self-destructive habits. Then having consequences which can be described by the word death follows quite naturally and logically. And it is necessary change and get rid of these self-destructive habits if we want eternal life.
Because at times you were arguing against evolution. So I guess I lumped you in with other creationists.
If God created and sustains everything, then basically by definition he owns everything, but he does not exert that ownership to override humans in everyday experience.
The only one who was not guilty of anything did get condemned, but for a different reason.
Sometimes I wonder about your Bible literacy, Mitch. And then there are your ill-considered mini-rants out into left field characterizing the God of your imagination which wind up being disrespectful of the God who is.
And more what? MORE passage which DO NOT say that God owns everything?
Just because you equate Bible literacy with knowing and agreeing with what OTHER people tell you what the Bible says rather than reading the book itself, doesnât mean I have to do that!
God created the universe to give rise to life, created organisms which create themselves and other things. God not only creates objects and things but brought into being entities which are capable of creation themselves. To extend what you said to the extreme which makes God the owner of everything is the same as pantheism as far as I can see, and so no I reject your premise. God is a true creator not just a dreamer. He makes real things which exist on their own without having to âhold them upâ like a carpenter who doesnât know how to make tables and chairs which stand up by themselves. And God is one who gives to others truly and not one who gives with one hand and holds onto them with the other hand. Just because the religionists use God and religion in their grasping of all things in this way does not remake God in THEIR image.
Most little kids donât need to be taught to grab a toy from another and say âMINE!â