Original Sin: A Really Bad Idea!

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The whole idea of sin is really a bit strange. Sin is defined as something that goes against the word or law of God. What is the word or law of God? Where do we find it? Since we're talking about original sin, which is a uniquely Christian idea, I guess we must look to the Bible. The laws of God are primarily contained in the Old Testament so we must defer to that bloody, old genocidal tyrant. I hear you out there, you're saying look to the Ten Commandments, they aren't so bad. You're right; five of them aren’t bad at all and can be found in most religions. But there are more laws than the ten. If we are going to observe the laws of God we have to look to Leviticus. When we go there we find that we are required to stone people for some offenses so things start to get more than a little bit extreme. While sin itself is a weird concept, if we really want to get into the realm of the strange we need to look at original sin. Original sin did not really make its entry into Christianity until the second-century Bishop of Lyon, Irenaeus, made it the centerpiece of his struggle against Gnosticism. He was a great one for finding and defining heresy. With the concept of original sin he condemned all of humanity to hell if they did not accept the help and guidance of the clergy. He was a bit of a control freak and seemed to think that by expanding the concept of sin from the idea of personal responsibility to something that was unavoidable he strengthened the church's control over the people. The fact that this pretty much invalidated the rite of baptism; the idea that it could wash away a person’s sin, and did away with the whole idea of free will seems not to matter to him. The whole concept of original sin presents a rather gloomy picture of mankind. It looks at human nature and says that it is inherently bad. How much better is the doctrine of Pelagianism that man is not evil by nature, that he is good, and has free will? It held that man can become evil but he is not born that way. We need to free ourselves from the guilt imposed on us by original sin. The whole concept is repressive and decidedly unhealthy. Original sin is a very bad idea that was not a part of the original concept of Christianity. It is a dogma that was imposed in the second century CE as a means to eliminate people who were seen as heretics. It's about time we got rid of this old outdated concept. Even people who are devout Catholics have freed themselves from the total domination of the priests. It's time to get rid of this remnant of the priestly casts desire to control the masses. It's time to restore free will to Christianity.