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Wait,so he was in heaven? Didn't God notice about that?

2000+ years later and we're still being compared to being as terrible as Adam and Eve.

Humanity's come a long way in logistics, reasoning, and morals. Isn't it quite a stretch to say that we're still all entirely sinful and horrible creatures? Granted I'm not saying every single one of us is/ends up inherently good, but even so, that's no reason to punish everyone including the righteous.

Yeah, I have to agree with Harm on this one. I've never been a fan of the whole concept of Original Sin. I never liked the idea that because of a sin Adam and Eve made at the beginning of human history, a baby fresh out of the womb will go to hell, if not baptized as soon as possible. The poor thing hasn't had a single chance to be mean or violent to anybody. That's not fair at all. That was, in fact, one of the breaking points for me, when I decided to not be a Christian any more.

While I agree that blaming God for such things is useless, I similarly feel that blaming two idiot humans from deep in the mists of human history isn't fair either. That includes the interpretation that the story is really about the two primates that decided to come down from the trees to grasp at the blossoming flower of full sentience and evolve into the first humans, who gave up the idyllic life of being animals living up in the trees. I hardly see that as a sin, much less one I have to pay for.

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And as for the angel wars, surrounding Satan, that's a fascinating read, and not wholly contained in the Bible. Here's the short version. The Angels were god's first creations, and were faithful followers, with unquestioning loyalty. Lucifer, morning-star, bright one, a heavenly general and most beautiful of God's angels, became jealous that the Humans, which were created in God's image, did not love God perfectly, and were still somehow God's favorite above the Angels. This became an argument between him and God, resulting in Lucifer falling from Grace, and being kicked out of heaven. Some of the Angels that he commanded, and a number of others that felt the same, followed him to Earth, and together they actively started working against Heaven, starting a battle that rages to this day, and in response, God exiled them from Earth entirely, creating Hell. I don't know how much of it I could believe, but it makes for a good story.

The pre-cursor to the Jewish religion was actually one of the Mesopotamian Angel Cults (worshiping angels), and that's where some of the details of the story come from. Here's some starting place for that: Ancient Mesopotamian Religion (Wikipedia)

So basically, we in modern times are still getting blamed because two people got tempted to take an apple that they weren't meant to get. If there's a god throwing stuff like that at us, I certainly don't want anything to do with it.

Vesoralla wrote:Here's the response I got from her:

Great question! First he is wrong for blaming God...Tell him to read Genesis.....Adam and Eve chose sin (including disease) over God when they ate from the tree of Good and Evil! And cursed the human race with Sin....Which leads to death. God is our only way out from diseases and sin....He sent His own Son to die for everyone so that they can have a second chance away from sin....Disease

What I got from that is it was NOT God's fault for allowing disease to get to us. It's from Adam and Eve eating that fruit from the tree that we are now vulnerable to disease, sin, and death. Now we just have to pray that God will protect us. Once we get to heaven, we won't have to worry about being sick or dying anymore.

Just do what you think is right, but blaming God really doesn't solve anything worthwhile. Blaming God is like losing a match in Super Smash Bros and than calling your opponent a "spammer" or a "camper": you don't gain anything good out of doing that.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the pourpose of sending Jesus to Earth to wash away the original sin? I mean around 4th grade or so, in the religion class we were told that after the Adam and Eve incident, the Heaven's gates were closed, so nobody was getting in, no matter what. That until God decided "Ok, y'all mofos need Jesus" and when he died on the cross, he went to resque some poor souls from hell and took them to Heaven's gate which was now open. Again, I think most of the mythologies (Christian included) are a little illogical by today's thinking and I personally don't believe in them.

PurpleYoshi wrote:I wish more people actually read the bible.

Go read the bible, and find out.

I tried to, but rather than actually finding out from it, it felt more like asking someone a question to which you are not sure the answer and then use pompous and poetical phrases in the hope you confuse him and will have no further questions. Probably a lot of Bible's stories are pure legends, which would rather imply something, rather than giving a straight answer.

I'm still working on my faith in God, so I really don't know how to answer that.
I'm done. I've pretty much given up at this point. Maybe I shouldn't believe in God. I don't know.

Nobody in church has brought up sickness. All they've talked about was Jesus and "Preach the word of God to everybody on Earth".
I've tried, and it failed. So I'm done.

I don't care what two people did, I care that God still clearly doesn't care about us enough to get rid of disease even though he is a god and can do it at his will, just because two people out of a race of (now) billions chose sin.
Now, maybe he DOES care about us, but he doesn't show it. I don't care what happens in the bible, it's just literature to me, the time is now.

Well, now that we've hashed the flaws of the modern practice of Christianity and the Bible out, let's move on to religions that DO work. I hear Shinto is quite nice, though it has its brutal moments. I've never heard any real complaints about Buddhism either. I'm personally a pagan, so let's just say, I was more interested in a buffet, than anything gourmet.

I've done some research on other religions, and I've come to three conclusions about religions in general: 1) Humans benefit from having something to believe in. That can be God, that can be family, that can be themselves, but there are definite benefits to believing in SOMETHING. It gives us motivation and dedication. 2) The universe is too big and weird for us to understand it all, and we need some way to interact with the sum total of that other, and it's convenient to have some construct to handle all that in your mind's eye. That can be God, that can be government/science, or whatever, but as long as SOMEBODY knows about all that other stuff, we can relax a bit. It gives us comfort. 3) Especially being the provenance of "other" it provides an opportunity to give guidance on things that the law of the land doesn't cover. People usually refer to this as morality, and others refer to it as common sense. It's a deeper layer of rules that cover the absolute basics, like don't kill, and don't steal. Stuff like that SHOULD be hard-wired, and religion provides the framework for establishing that. It gives us guidance. Any good religion should provide all three, and indeed, all of the surviving modern religions do exactly that.

Then, it becomes a matter of drawbacks. To accomplish those three things, what do you have to give up? In some cases, it's a lot, but not all are like that. Ultimately, if you are dissatisfied with your current religion, you very next task should be getting educated. Learn about as many as you can, and shop around for the best fit for you. Maybe the Great Spirit sings to you and you are humbled by the Native American's simplicity, or you find courage in the battle gods of the Vikings, or you are entranced by the mysteries of the Egyptians, or you like the flexibility of sampling from everything as a pagan, or you find a passion for serving the great Spaghetti Monster. It doesn't matter, as long as it delivers all 3 benefits to you, and has an acceptable amount of drawbacks. Then, all you need to do is buy your peace pipe, Mjölnir, Ankh, Pentacle, or whatever, and settle in for a lifetime of enjoyable interaction with your deity of choice.

Maybe I haven't given up entirely.
Yeah, okay. Christianity may have its own flaws, but not everything's perfect. If we didn't have these sicknesses and whatnot, I guarantee that this world would be perfect. We'd have nothing to worry about.

This sounds like it's veering into a "denounce your faith" thing. Just a head's up from my perspective