Home The Absurdity of Original Sin
Articles by Brother Mark  

 

It's almost a shame that the foundation of the church that so many millions have bought into over the centuries can be so easily destroyed, but it can.  The entire Bible is built upon this one event: The first people -- Adam and Eve -- ate a piece of fruit that God told them not to eat -- thus committing the first sin.  Humankind, who was meant to live in perfection, in a world where even the animals lived in complete harmony was now doomed.  Only God sending his son to die on a cross could correct this grievous act and set things right again.  Darn Adam and Eve, they really screwed up, didn't they?  War, disease, famine, tsunamis, death itself, all befell us because of their stupidity.  Let's take a realistic look at this story.

There's God, surrounded by nothing.  He decides to make the universe, stars, galaxies, planets, plants, animals, and finally people.  He makes every single thing, every atom, every subatomic particle, the laws of nature to guide their behavior and every part of everything  -- there was absolute nothingness before, and nothing came into being except by God.  Now, these two people whom he made -- completely of his own design -- are warned to not do just one little thing, to not eat fruit from the "Tree of Knowledge," which he placed in the middle of the beautiful garden he gave them   Well, wouldn't you know it, that's just what they did!  They ate some of the fruit - damn! 

Now, we are told that God himself had nothing to do with this.  The two people he made from nothing, the two people of which he personally made every neuron in their brains, the two people who received their intellect directly from God, the two people who experienced only what God himself created, the two people who received their very intellect from God were somehow able to act in a way completely independent from him; so the sin was only their fault -- not God's. 

It's a logical contradiction to say a design requires a designer, but then say the function of a design is not dependant upon the designer – a human’s complex operating system is what you say the designer is required for in the first place  -- it had to be designed – oh, but functions on its own?  Is not a reflection of the designer?  Just developed its attitudes on its own!  How?  It didn’t design itself!  It wasn’t even around to ask to be designed.

Well, of course, there's a perfect answer for this -- free will.  Oh, ok, Adam and Eve had "FREE WILL"!!!  So, that explains it.  Let's see, what exactly is this thing called free will?  Adam and Eve could have obeyed God or they could have chosen not to; it was just their choice.  God didn't make them do one or the other.  Ok, but what is supposed to have influenced their choice?  Wasn't it their level of intelligence that God gave them?  Wasn't it their reasoning ability that God gave them?  Wasn't it anything about any influences from their environment or their own physical beings that God gave them?  Apparently not; it was just their free will.  They just decided to sin completely on their own, and it had absolutely nothing to do with any attributes that God himself gave them, including their own physical beings and minds.  They just happened to turn out to be sinners, but that had nothing to do with anything that God did, or made, though God made everything -- every atom, every molecule -- everything.

It this for real?  Do people really believe this story is fact?  All decisions require antecedent factors -- reasons.  No will is free from the factors that bring about any particular decision.  No one just makes a decision on his own -- a completely autonomous decision is not possible, and that's all there is to it.  Original sin is utter non-sense.  God MADE Adam and Eve, so he would have been responsible for how they operated, how they thought, and how they made decisions.  There is absolutely no conceivable way God could not have been responsible for original sin or anything else that they did.  He made all everything that could be affected and all things that could do any affecting, thus he would be responsible for all effects -- bar none.  Everything that Adam and Eve were, including any traits or predispositions they had, and all antecedent factors that would have influenced any and all decisions they could have made, were given to them directly by God.  A designer is always responsible for how a design operates, and this designer designed everything:  space, time, matter, everything.     

The story is one-hundred percent myth at face value anyway, but to many not even the above inescapable logic will make a difference in their belief of it.  It is just too fulfilling to live a fantasy that promises you heaven and too convenient to just have to read a book for all your answers and not have to do any real thinking.  The Bible is myth and just happens to be the one that has been handed down to us.

Is reality really so unappealing to people that they are willing to give up all sense of reason to escape from it?  

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