Since this is my first Saturday writing this blog, I thought that on the weekend I would take some time to discuss other topics related to the bible, religion, or even myself. Sometimes there will be a connection to the parts of the Bible I posted about in the past week, but it’s going to be whatever enters my heathenistic head. Since I used to go to church on Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning, I will be calling this feature, Saturday Sermons.

Since I just posted my take on Chapter 3, I thought I would take this Saturday Sermon to talk about the concept of Original Sin. That is, the stain put upon all of mankind’s souls because Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. According to the story, everyone born after them will be born with their sin and would have to be baptized to rid themselves of it or they will be cast into hell.

As an addendum to the previous post (chapter 3), I would like to ask a question. Was it even possible for Adam and Eve to knowingly disobey God when they ate the fruit? The fruit is what would give them the knowledge of good and evil, that is I would assume, knowing right from wrong. If they didn’t already know right from wrong, how would they know that disobeying God is wrong?

As will be a common mantra throughout this blog, I was raised Catholic and learned all about Original Sin and heard the justifications from priests, nuns, and lay pastors for this concept. The idea that my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., could have done something before my birth that I would have to pay for makes absolutely no sense. Even if one of my relatives committed a murder doesn’t mean that I’ve committed a murder, which means that I should not have to be punished for it. I might certainly feel some burden of guilt and would want to reach out to the family of the victim, but that would be more in line with saying, “I am not my relative.”

The crime that we’re talking about here is not even akin to murder. It’s nothing more than being caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar. Maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to have anymore cookies for a week, but to be damned to an eternity of torment in the Lake of Fire? That’s a bit excessive.

Announcements:

I am going to start posting larger sections of my Bible commentary to the blog. I will try to keep the reading at a reasonable length, but I also don’t want to pile too many topics on top of one another.

As always, I welcome discussion and disagreement. I only ask that you keep the discussion civil. Address the message and not the messenger.