Adam's original sin could be seen as a metaphor for man's inherent sinfulness.

If sin is inherent, Christ isn't really necessary, though.

I don't see how, unless you're fixed on a strict literalist interpretation of the KJV.

I was thinking more Adam and Eve. It's literally impossible that we came from two people -- and if you don't take that story literally, then that would mean sin has always existed, making Christ's appearance later completely irrelevant.

Why the shit is this a thread with 176 replies

Who gives a shit about OP's life?

lemon, big boss and ushan cared like 2 weeks ago

i'm sure they still do but there haven't been enough developments to warrant an update.

Don't take advice from roman

I wasn't going to lol

While I have explained why I started to believe, I feel like I should expand upon it by explaining where I've been emotionally and philosophically in recent months, which has played a role in my enthusiasm for these things and may have spurred my shift in attitude in the first place. If anyone is interested I can post that.

I'd read it.

It has to do with the moral justification for controlling people, if there is not a good justification behind the control then it should not take place. For a religion to be successful it must have some level of control over it's followers, or else it will loose those followers and cease to exist.
Suppose there exists a religion that is false, then for the people leading that religion there are two possibilities. The first is that they are unaware that it is a false religion, their actions may be well intentioned but they are ultimately leading their followers down the wrong path, so their actions are immoral even if they do not realize it. The second option is that they realize their religion is false but continue leading it anyway, in which case the leaders have no moral justification at all, and are being deceptive on purpose. Now if their purpose is to be deceptive then they would wish to succeed at deception, and so every immoral act of control is now available to them, as they do not care about the consequences.

In the first case people leading the religion can be forgiven provided they change their ways, but in the second case they are simply con artists acting to trick people. In both cases the religion has no justification for it's actions.

Mate, this is some really shady rationality.

Now for determining the true religion, I do not believe my sense of morality is false, but I know that if I am not careful it can be corrupted however, so the true religion must be one that is consistent with this sense of morality and acknowledges it's potential to be corrupted. I find Islam and Judaism to be inconsistent with my morality, and Buddhism and Taoism to be more consistent, and Christianity to be both consistent and capable of explaining and dealing with the corruption of morality. I am not sure if any of that answered the question, and I feel that using process of elimination isn't enough to determine the truth, but it is the best I can do right now.

So you're saying it's sort of a "find the best fit for you"? Meaning, that your "true religion" couldbe someone else's "false religion"? I believe there can only be one correct answer; either you're wrong or the other person is, y'know? This "up to interpretation" shit is just... no.

In this case God says that morality is acceptable, which is why we all have a sense of it. Specifically I see morality as a natural part of being human, and religion to be, ideally, a means of facilitating that part of us.

Okay, let me get this straight. Religion is what we use to worship god. It guides our life based on God's principles and values. We can gather these values from the book he inspired. In that book, there are morally reprehensible things that the religion should condone if it follows God's word literally (as it should). This means, that God is either immoral (as he *officially* condones morally reprehensible things), being misrepresented (in which case, we can never truly know his nature and we have even less proof of his existence), or he simply doesn't exist. Which one is it?

All I know is that my sense of right and wrong doesn't stem from physical evolution, as immorality would be far more useful.

Simply not true. Empathy -- the basis of morality -- would be useful in tribal scenarios where we have to take care of our fellow man. Humans have always been pack animals.

I would not approve of an immoral religion, and if that were the true religion then I'm fucked, but I would go against it.

But all religions are immoral if you take them literally (as you should).

I simply don't believe I'm mentally strong enough to be a good person without something to guide me. If you're capable of doing that then I have to ask how you're capable of doing so, what standard you hold yourself to and where it comes from.

Like I said, I'm capable of being moral because I have empathy. Do my actions cause a net-positive amount of suffering? If so, they're immoral. It's that simple.

I don't buy the "I need God to be moral" meme because God isn't moral.

Like fuck, maybe I'm just too used to being around women who can drive stick, handle a gun, and have some fucking self-confidence.

these are teenager girls we're talking about

but the article was written by an adult, and my teacher's wife concurred with it. i haven't gotten to conduct an extensive investigation with other people yet, but i definitely plan on making it one of my priorities now.

I realized you got shaken up because you recently experienced something that hit close to home
But don't let that sway logical thought
If your wife didn't have that experience and you didn't have that dream, wouldn't what your teacher read sound like over the top feminazi propaganda?

Good point. I realised that some of what I'm thinking may be a bit emotionally-charged, but... idek.

I dunno man, I think that depends on where you grew up, where you are, etc. I don't know anyone that paranoid about anything.

The girls I talked to didn't live in bad neighbourhoods or anything.

I'm going to continue to wrestle internally with this meme for the time being.

They need to stop feeling that way.

Agreed. But right now, this is the reality.

That would be an entirely unfounded belief and displaying racist as hell tendencies.

Yeah, but the reality is that you still feel that way, regardless of how rational it is.

Uh, what happened?

Last week Tuesday, my teacher read an article about what it means to live as a woman... to always be scared of men. Putting keys in your fist to use as a weapon when walking to your car at night, or crossing the street to avoid walking next to a man whom you're scared of. At first, I didn't think much of it. I kinda assumed they were being dramatic. But a lot of the girls in my class were like "Oh my god, this resonates with me so much." At which point I started to consider it being maybe valid, but I basically chopped it up to people loving their victim complexes. And then, I was on the phone with the girl I love. She started freaking out about a car following her. And all of the things I had read came rushing back.

Luckily, she made it home safe. But the story doesn't end there. I ended up having a nightmare that night. My daughter was assaulted and raped. I woke up balling my eyes out.

So, yeah... I've become a bit more sensitive the last couple of days about this whole situation.

Believe me, I know.

If that religion is one devoted to God then yes, in addition to the purpose of making people behave better, it also has the purpose of making them worship God. But if that religion is false then worshiping a false god is just another means to cement control.

You need to clarify what you mean by this. If that religion (say, Islam) is worshiping a false god, it's another means to control people. But if they're worshiping the 'true' God (like say, Christianity), it's more than a means to control people? How do you decide which religion is true and which is false?

A religion should be founded on humanity's innate sense of morality, and that innate sense is derived from god.

1. A religion should be founded on what your deity says is acceptable.
2. There isn't a single deity that hasn't sanctioned reprehensible things, so to say that morality is based on God's is kind of silly. How do we know God is morally perfect when he allows his name to be tied to texts that condone stoning of homosexuals or slavery?

A religion should make people act in accordance with that morality, but there can exist religions that do not, they are perversions.

Sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy to me.

That's my point, you said science has disproved religion but that doesn't make sense since you can't disprove the existence of something that exists.

You misunderstood me. When I said "science has disproven religion", I meant, "science has disproven claims that religions make about the world", like the 7-day creation story, or the flood. Those things simply did not happen.

Conceding that something exists does not mean I approve of it's existence. I believe that those religions are flawed precisely because they lack an absolute morality to base everything on. The only way you could act morally without God is if your morality was logically equivalent to someone who was acting morally with God, which is a contradiction resulting from assuming you can have a morality without God.

You need to clarify this, also. How do we know which religion is 'true'? Additionally, we CAN act morally without God. 'God' doesn't influence my morality, and I'm the most moral person I know IRL.

Every time I make a mistake that just brings me one step closer to the truth.

I actually respect this. Good for you.