Posted: May 02, 2017 9:38 am
by Agrippina
John Platko wrote:
Agrippina wrote:No original sin, then also no eternal life. If sin can be forgiven simply by asking for forgiveness, then every single human every born is eligible for eternal life simply by saying "I'm sorry, please forgive me".

How many here would take such a deal?

No thanks. I'd rather live this life, and when it's done with me, go back to the stars from whence I came.

That makes eternal life into a seriously crowded space, and completely ridiculous. Why not simply allow humans to live here, forever?

The concept of original sin is trying to communicate something deep about human experience. Something that the free will thread in the philosophy forum has been tossing around. The idea that we are strongly, perhaps completely impacted by what has happened before us. That past initial conditions and laws of motion, or using a higher level mode of explanation: deeds of our ancestors, effect us.

They only affect us to the degree that they determine where we are born, what language we speak, and what religion is forced on us. Otherwise, we are responsible for our own lives. We make choices sometimes without having any knowledge of the outcome of those choices, but with experience, we get better at making choices, and even then fall down flat sometimes. I don't think we should be responsible for what our ancestors did, except to the degree that we don't perpetuate any harm they may have done. We don't choose to be born, that we are here is an accident of when our parents copulated. It is up to us to make the most of the chance that we attained through that accident. I don't believe in predestination, or that I am to blame for my parent's deeds, or that I should feel a duty of having to do something simply because of where I was born, and to which family. This is my life, it's mine to do with as I choose, but not if that choice causes harm to another person. When I die, I'll be as dead as I was before my mother was born with the egg that became me.