Original sin

[Creation]

The Bible was a creation of the early Catholic church at the "Council if Nicea". A lot of letters were put together in a political framework to give power to the church!

For the life of me I cannot understand why people always say this.

 

I'm told it was in The Da Vinci Code. I don't know if Dan Brown made it up himself or if he got it from someone else like the rest of that book...

 

There is absolutely no historical record of the canon of scripture being discussed at the First Council of Nicea. I will grant that it represented a huge change in Christianity, and set the precedent form theological disputes being settled by imperial power, which would be very harmful to Christianity in the future. But it was all quite inevitable in a sense...

Edited March 1, 2010 by Creation

[MBZ]

For the life of me I cannot understand why people always say this.

 

I'm told it was in The Da Vinci Code. I don't know if Dan Brown made it up himself or if he got it from someone else like the rest of that book...

 

There is absolutely no historical record of the canon of scripture being discussed at the First Council of Nicea. I will grant that it represented a huge change Christianity, and set the precedent form theological disputes being settled by imperial power, which would be very harmful to Christianity in the future. But it was all quite inevitable in a sense...

Whether or not it happened at Nicea, it seems logical the church did some editing at some point in time!

 

BLESSINGS!!!

[Dreamingawake]

For the life of me I cannot understand why people always say this.

 

I'm told it was in The Da Vinci Code. I don't know if Dan Brown made it up himself or if he got it from someone else like the rest of that book...

 

There is absolutely no historical record of the canon of scripture being discussed at the First Council of Nicea. I will grant that it represented a huge change Christianity, and set the precedent form theological disputes being settled by imperial power, which would be very harmful to Christianity in the future. But it was all quite inevitable in a sense...

 

I was actually aware of this LONG before dan brown came along and put it in a book. Saying that it didn't happen because the book was fiction is like saying the holocaust never happened because Schindler's list was a work of fiction, or that london is fake because Harry Potter is just a movie. Lots of things from history get mixed into works of fiction. There are lots of scholarly works explaining how the catholic church invented (and heavily edited) the bible. Or at least there were back in 2002-03 when I learned about it. You just have to do some research.

[MBZ]

I was actually aware of this LONG before dan brown came along and put it in a book. Saying that it didn't happen because the book was fiction is like saying the holocaust never happened because Schindler's list was a work of fiction, or that london is fake because Harry Potter is just a movie. Lots of things from history get mixed into works of fiction. There are lots of scholarly works explaining how the catholic church invented (and heavily edited) the bible. Or at least there were back in 2002-03 when I learned about it. You just have to do some research.

I actually learned of it from "Holy Blood Holy Grail" which is where Dan Brown got his stuff from.

 

BLESSINGS!!!

[Creation]

I actually learned of it from "Holy Blood Holy Grail" which is where Dan Brown got his stuff from.

 

BLESSINGS!!!

Right, that's what I figured.

 

There are two issues here: Did the Church ever modify the Bible, and Is the New Testament a complete fabrication (in particular, was the fabrication perpetrated at Nicea).

 

I think the answer to the first is probably yes, and the answer to the second is probably no.

 

Sure, secular scholars are always saying "They just made it all up" about religious texts, but I am skeptical of the skeptics

Edited March 1, 2010 by Creation

[altiora]

For the life of me I cannot understand why people always say this.

 

I'm told it was in The Da Vinci Code. I don't know if Dan Brown made it up himself or if he got it from someone else like the rest of that book...

 

There is absolutely no historical record of the canon of scripture being discussed at the First Council of Nicea. I will grant that it represented a huge change Christianity, and set the precedent form theological disputes being settled by imperial power, which would be very harmful to Christianity in the future. But it was all quite inevitable in a sense...

 

 

You are acorrect regarding Nicea: that Council was about the Creed (which became the Nicean Creed) not the Bible. And you are correct about all these people who think Dan Brown et al are reliable historical sources.

 

But to return to the subject matter of this thread, the doctrine of Original Sin has been badly misinterpreted -- both by people in and outside the churches. The Roman Church, and also the Protestant sects, tended to treat Original Sin as some sort of "guilty as charged" verdict, and ignore the fact that Christ came to show the way to overcome the Original Sin.

 

Some Eastern Orthodox thinkers have a bit more of a sophisticated view of the doctrine: to them Original Sin reflects that a lot of our estrangement from God or the Divine is the product of cultural and social conditioning of our predecessors. These writers also view Adam and Eve's eating of the apple as a metaphor that of how our consciousness works: we don't obey God or the Divine, but rather follow our own ego with the result that we do not enjoy God/the Divine's presence constantly in our daily lives. Instead of residing in the Garden of Eden, which is our birthright, we reside in a world in which time and physical objects constrain usthereby preventing us from living as the Children of God.

 

Understood in this way, the Doctrine of Original Sin is very similar to concepts of Maya and igonorance and Self-Remembrance found in many eastern philosophies.

Edited March 1, 2010 by altiora

[Creation]

The doctrine of Original Sin has been badly misinterpreted -- both by people in and outside the churches. The Roman Church, and also the Protestant sects, tended to treat Original Sin as some sort of "guilty as charged" verdict, and ignore the fact that Christ came to show the way to overcome the Original Sin.

 

Some Eastern Orthodox thinkers have a bit more of a sophisticated view of the doctrine: to them Original Sin reflects that a lot of our estrangement from God or the Divine is the product of cultural and social conditioning of our predecessors. These writers also view Adam and Eve's eating of the apple as a metaphor that of how our consciousness works: we don't obey God or the Divine, but rather follow our own ego with the result that we do not enjoy God/the Divine's presence constantly in our daily lives. Instead of residing in the Garden of Eden, which is our birthright, we reside in a world in which time and physical objects constrain use and thereby preventing us from living as the Children of God.

 

Understood in this way, the Doctrine of Original Sin is very similar to concepts of Maya and igonorance and Self-Remberance found in many eastern philosophies.

Wonderful!

Edited March 1, 2010 by Creation

[ralis]

Wonderful!

 

 

 

Why believe and burden yourself with any concept of sin or error! A real time waster! LOL!!

 

ralis

Edited March 1, 2010 by ralis

[shaolin]

The idea of original sin is full of contradictions as is the Bible from where it originates.

The Bible is a selection of writings by unknown authors and has been complied and re compiled several times.The council of Nicea being the main moment of selecting what should be rejected and what should be included in "The bible".

It even contains letters from one person to another ie Paul to Timothy and then it is claimed that this is the Word of God. If this is not blasphamy then I dont know what is, especially given the fact that Paul was originally called Saul and he used to hunt followers of Jesus and kill them. He then saw "the light" and became a christian himself and made new additions to the bible and quotes sayings of Jesus when he never met him in his life. He then introduces the notion of God being a human, and three in one whilst before him and through out the whole of the Old testament God was One.

 

Ok , the bible says Adam and Eve comited a sin and were punished and now every descendant of Adam and Eve are guilty and being punished for sins that they didnt commit. The punishment is that man must work for his sustinance and get it from the sweat of his brow and that women will suffer great labour pain during child birth. Now we are all sinners and are punished in the same way, even though we didnt commit that original sin. Is this a just loving God?

 

Then, the only way to be forgiven is to believe we are sinners and that to be forgiven God had to have a son, who was actually God on earth and he had to die on a cross, or was it a tree? while the god in heaven was watching and he didnt want to do it and asked for the "burden to be lifted", even though this was his purpose.

And then if we believe this we are forgiven.

 

If we are forgiven by believing this story, then why are christians still being punished? Why do they still have to work and sweat from their brow? Why do christian women still suffer labour pains?

 

Why cant you just be accountable for your actions yourself and if you do wrong simply ask for forgiveness?

Why the son dying on the cross and believing it is the only way to repent? Cant God simply forgive you when you ask?

 

The Bible doesnt contain even one word of Jesus, who christians claim to follow. It is at best a third or fourth hand story that can not be varified. Ie an anonymous author says, Paul or Matthew says, Jesus said.

 

Its authors want total comitment from blind faith. People are still being conned and abused to this very day.

[Birch]

Snake = kundalini?

Apple? Hum, no idea. Anyone?

Tree = tent pole like in Taoism? Tree of life?

Man & Woman = Yang and Yin (Shiva and Shakti)?

Knowledge of good and evil = naming the things?

Multiply = ten thousand things?

 

I'm guessing away here.

 

Symbols. That book is full of them. Maybe some recipes as well;-) I think worth digging deeper if you have the time and the inclination. But there are other works that many folks will be able to come "fresher" to than the bible given it's (mis)use over the years.

[Iyoiyo]

There are a lot of ways that original sin makes no sense to me, but the most obvious one has always been the ridiculousness of punishing children for the crimes of their parents. What kind of being does that? A bad one.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Iyoiyo

[Dreamingawake]

Right, that's what I figured.

 

There are two issues here: Did the Church ever modify the Bible, and Is the New Testament a complete fabrication (in particular, was the fabrication perpetrated at Nicea).

 

I think the answer to the first is probably yes, and the answer to the second is probably no.

 

Sure, secular scholars are always saying "They just made it all up" about religious texts, but I am skeptical of the skeptics

 

they undoubtedly heavily edited the bible to suit their own purposes. There is still a copy in Vatican records of an entire chapter telling a story of Jesus teaching lazerus which was excised for political reasons. It seems lazerus was instructed to visit jesus' room at sundown wearing only a lion cloth. My guess is some sort of meditation but the church feared this could be misunderstood/misused so they ganked the whole chapter.

 

I've also read letters between early bishops describing hell as a useful lie. They said even though there was no hell, if it helped bring people to god then surely they would be forgiven. While I don't have links anymore ( All this was YEARS ago) I can't imagine all that info just dissappearing so if you do your homework it shouldn't be too difficult to find for yourself.

 

P.S. Please excuse my grammar/typos/spelling as I'm posting this from my phone =)

[shaolin]

Jesus had 12 disciples according to Christianity. why do we not have accounts for all 12, but we do for people who never even saw Jesus?

 

The Bible is one of , if not The most corrupted book ever. Even the most recent one "The newely revised king James version" is heavily edited by King James who alterd it to suit his own aims. Its been altered by many powerful leaders before him too , such as Constantine The Great who was a Roman pagan who altered christianity and used it to seal his authority with "Devine authority". It was heavily influenced by ancient roman paganism which he allowed to prevent rebellion in the Roman empire. It was also edited and altered by Jerome and at Nicea and by Marcius even before that.

 

Its all based on the authors being "inspired by God", but that leaves the door wide open. Who decides who is inspired? Can people still be inspired today and alter the bible as it is now?

Did Jesus say who was inspired? Thats why Paul can write what he wants about a man he never met, and who is not present to defend these claims.

 

Pure corruption.