original sin

[greenfairy]

Yes, Eve understood what she was doing when she ate the fruit, as did Adam. She may not have fully anticipated the consequences of choosing to disobey God, but there was no question about whether her choice was right or wrong in God's eyes. The only connection I can see between their sin and sex is that part of the curse after they left Eden was that her pain in childbirth would be increased. Still, that's a pretty far reach to equate that and sex being wrong.

Hey, wait a minute. If they didn't have kids before they left the garden, how would the pain be increased? Wouldn't she not know any difference if she hadn't done it before?

 

[Thalassa]

Ah, yeah, that makes sense. We don't have so much of that where I'm from. Or if we do, I've missed it. You defend your mother whether she's an angel or not because she's your mother. It's like family in general. You (and sometimes other family members) can say what you want about them, but nobody else better say anything that about them.

Yeah it was something so matter-of-fact when I was growing up that women were responsible for the upholding of moral fortitude or whatever, I mean it just seems like an exaggerated extension of the practically world-wide "women are supposed to be nice" idea; maybe my family was just really old fashioned, but there's that whole idea that Southern women are supposed to be ladies, and that ladies don't drink in bars (and they need to keep men from doing that), they usually don't even smoke...it's all an extension of that.

But it's also present in a lot of country music I've noticed, the mother as saint idea.

However, I think many protestants interpret the Bible that MEN are supposed to be the leaders, and that if men don't set a good example and set the tone for society and for the marriage, that women can't be blamed, because their men aren't being moral and aren't being loving husbands etc.

It's like a husband is supposed to be kind to his wife so that she'll be happy to obey him, not demand her to obey abusively or with some kind of sinister dominating attitude.

I actually think in the Bible a lot of responsibility falls upon men to be good leaders for women, and that particular interpretation of holding Adam accountable and Eve not so much would go hand in hand with that.

But I've noticed in my upbringing that there was like this really obvious unspoken understanding that women were supposed to be "good."

It's like bad men are expected, but bad women are some kind of abhoration.

 

[cafe]

Hey, wait a minute. If they didn't have kids before they left the garden, how would the pain be increased? Wouldn't she not know any difference if she hadn't done it before?

Maybe she'd seen animals give birth? That's the only thing I can think of. Or maybe they did have kids before they left the garden. Now I'm going to have to look to see if Cain is explicitly called their firstborn son.

You guys should take a look at this, talking about Christianity being paternalistic, I collected this from Torah 101, about the role of women in Judaism:



So is Christianity or the Bible really paternalistic, or is that just the Roman interpretation? Western culture and ancient Rome are very paternalistic societal structures. A lot of what we interpret in the West as being Christian is through a Western lens.

That could very well be the case. There are prominent women in the New Testament as well, some of them in leadership positions.

However, many of the OT laws treat women as the property of their fathers, brothers, and/or husbands. For example, in Numbers 30, if a woman makes a vow her father or husband can nullify her vow if they do so as soon as they hear of it. If they hear of it and say nothing, they are giving implicit consent. This treats women as though they are legally incompetent. However, if they are widowed or divorced (no one's property?), no one can nullify their vows.

The texts on a lot of things can go either way. I've gotten to where if one doesn't seem more credible than another, I pick the one I like better.

 

[Fidelia]

Whoops - this is why I like these conversations - makes you go back and double check. Here's the quote indicating what would change for her (and subsequently for women to come):

Gen 3:16
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

So it's not saying that the pain would be increased, but rather that now there would be pain when giving birth to children.

One of the commentaries I read suggested that as she had acted independently of Adam in being in the first to sin, now part of the punishment would be that she would now be subject to him in a way that she wasn't previously. They say that the record of human history has confirmed the accuracy of this prophetic judgement - Woman's lot has been one of pain in many forms - physical, mental, spiritual, and especially in her experience of conception and birth. Generally speaking, man has subjugated woman with little regard fro her own personal feelings and needs. Henry Morris suggests that in non-Christian cultures and religions, such subjugation and humiliation have been almost universal, until very recent times her husband often having even the the power of life and death over her. He goes on to say that such harsh rule went far beyond God's intention. Though the husband was to the be the head of the house, he was to love and cherish his wife, considering her to be one flesh with himself, clinging to his wife.

 

[cafe]

Yeah it was something so matter-of-fact when I was growing up that women were responsible for the upholding of moral fortitude or whatever, I mean it just seems like an exaggerated extension of the practically world-wide "women are supposed to be nice" idea; maybe my family was just really old fashioned, but there's that whole idea that Southern women are supposed to be ladies, and that ladies don't drink in bars (and they need to keep men from doing that), they usually don't even smoke...it's all an extension of that.

But it's also present in a lot of country music I've noticed, the mother as saint idea.

However, I think many protestants interpret the Bible that MEN are supposed to be the leaders, and that if men don't set a good example and set the tone for society and for the marriage, that women can't be blamed, because their men aren't being moral and aren't being loving husbands etc.

It's like a husband is supposed to be kind to his wife so that she'll be happy to obey him, not demand her to obey abusively or with some kind of sinister dominating attitude.

I actually think in the Bible a lot of responsibility falls upon men to be good leaders for women, and that particular interpretation of holding Adam accountable and Eve not so much would go hand in hand with that.

But I've noticed in my upbringing that there was like this really obvious unspoken understanding that women were supposed to be "good."

It's like bad men are expected, but bad women are some kind of abhoration.

I've definitely heard the saying "Men give love to get sex and women give sex to get love" and stuff along those lines. I was raised to not look 'easy' or desperate. Girls were not allowed to call boys, for example. I know plenty of women who believe they can change their men. And of course we have the typical double standard for promiscuity. Oh, and anything that is the least bit wrong with a kid is the mother's fault. Like, if they have their shirt on backwards or a dirty face, you feel like a bad mom. If the dad so much as picks the kid up and shows affection in public, let alone take the kid to the doctor, he's like some kind of benevolent God.

I don't think it's quite the same thing as you're describing in the south.

But there is definitely the idea that the man is supposed to be the spiritual head of his house (at last in Protestant circles I've been exposed to). He is most definitely supposed to provide for his family and provide leadership. It's kind of shameful for the wife to 'wear the pants.'

I get in trouble for that because my husband is even more introverted than I am so I try to pick up the slack by doing the talking when we're out and about. People sometimes try to bypass me and deal with him like I'm some kind of harpy. I also do almost all of the driving when we go places together and generally pay for everything because he hates driving and handling money and those are kind of considered masculine things here.

 

[Thalassa]

I've definitely heard the saying "Men give love to get sex and women give sex to get love" and stuff along those lines. I was raised to not look 'easy' or desperate. Girls were not allowed to call boys, for example. I know plenty of women who believe they can change their men. And of course we have the typical double standard for promiscuity. Oh, and anything that is the least bit wrong with a kid is the mother's fault. Like, if they have their shirt on backwards or a dirty face, you feel like a bad mom. If the dad so much as picks the kid up and shows affection in public, let alone take the kid to the doctor, he's like some kind of benevolent God.

I don't think it's quite the same thing as you're describing in the south.

But there is definitely the idea that the man is supposed to be the spiritual head of his house (at last in Protestant circles I've been exposed to). He is most definitely supposed to provide for his family and provide leadership. It's kind of shameful for the wife to 'wear the pants.'

I get in trouble for that because my husband is even more introverted than I am so I try to pick up the slack by doing the talking when we're out and about. People sometimes try to bypass me and deal with him like I'm some kind of harpy. I also do almost all of the driving when we go places together and generally pay for everything because he hates driving and handling money and those are kind of considered masculine things here.

Yeah everything you say here, and lol at "wearing the pants." You go girl, with your bad pants on.

I'm very different than many members of my family. In my family there are a lot of tee totalers, I didn't really see alcohol at all growing up, except among severely alcoholic relatives. No one drank wine with dinner. I was shocked one time when I was sixteen to see a (one,1) beer in the fridge that was used to marinate the steaks my grandfather and his wife were grilling.

There was also this kind of attitude that "women are smarter than men, but we let them believe they're smarter" wink wink nudge nudge.

It always seemed really disgusting to me, like I didn't want a husband, I didn't want to have to play that game to let somebody think he was smarter than me if he really wasn't ... and I think that kind of attitude creates a lot of "baby men" who never quite grow up or take full responsibility for themselves, in the sense that women expect men to be bad or fuck up somehow or that they "save" them upon their wedding day or some such.

That's why I always am taken aback when men say that old-school or patriarchal ways actually let women get away with murder or "do nothing" because as far as I knew growing up, if men worked hard to support women, it was because women did every other damn thing, including pick up their husbands dirty socks, clean his toilet, make excuses for his emotionally crippled behavior, and potentially save him from a life of debauchery or just quietly tolerate his meanness.

I did see good men growing up, don't get me wrong, I saw great men, old-fashioned men with ideas about things like God and glory and love and honor...but erm yeah.

It still exists in Latino culture as well, I see a lot of parallels of the two, the Latina women are uber-Catholic and good wives and in Mexico in some small towns the women don't drink, but the men do, and mothers may favor or spoil their sons, but expect more responsibility from their daughters.

 

[Totenkindly]

Please elaborate on this concept. I have my own pagan interpretation, but I don't really know any others, other than what I hear the fundamentalists say.

I'm not sure what you mean by elaborate.

Look at the mythologies in different cultures. Especially the native/nomadic tribes (such as AmerIndians) had their own myths and legends that very much seem like some of the earliest writings appearing in Genesis. They're just meant to explain why things are the way they are, to create a common bond among the people that serves the kind of values and concepts the tribe wanted to embody and preserve.

Some of the later writings in the Bible have other tones and forms to them (vs the mythical tones of portions of Genesis).

 

[Coriolis]

However, I think many protestants interpret the Bible that MEN are supposed to be the leaders, and that if men don't set a good example and set the tone for society and for the marriage, that women can't be blamed, because their men aren't being moral and aren't being loving husbands etc.

There is much support in the NT for such an interpretation, including injunctions for women to be silent at worship, to be submissive to their husbands, and not to be in positions of authority over men. Many churches and people take this all very literally to this day.

It's like a husband is supposed to be kind to his wife so that she'll be happy to obey him, not demand her to obey abusively or with some kind of sinister dominating attitude.

Yes, this is the basic rationale in all religions of the book. At best, it produces a kinder, gentler sexism.

 

[Sniffles]

Oh that's interesting. Kind of like the Buddhist idea of suffering arising from attachment to desires, which arise from mortality.

Yes it's a variation of the same concept. There are other parallels between Christianity and eastern religions. Such as the practice of Hesychasm, which you could say is a form of Christian yoga. What's usually called "meditation" among Eastern traditions is referred to in Christianity as "contemplation"(meditation has a different meaning in Christianity). Tao could be argued to be an Eastern parallel to the Christian concept of the Logos. I've read Chinese Bibles actually translate "Logos" as "Tao".

 

[greenfairy]

I'm not sure what you mean by elaborate.

Look at the mythologies in different cultures. Especially the native/nomadic tribes (such as AmerIndians) had their own myths and legends that very much seem like some of the earliest writings appearing in Genesis. They're just meant to explain why things are the way they are, to create a common bond among the people that serves the kind of values and concepts the tribe wanted to embody and preserve.

Some of the later writings in the Bible have other tones and forms to them (vs the mythical tones of portions of Genesis).

Oh ok, just like mythology. That makes sense.


Excellent discussion; I'm learning a lot. And enjoying the segue into sexism. I wasn't expecting my mischievous comments to be so productive. I like to take opportunities to learn more about Christianity when they come up; there seem to always be new perspectives. So thanks for the good responses.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I think I've heard or read a theory that original sin is passed down through men because Eve sinned because she was deceived, while Adam was not deceived and chose to sin anyway. That would make original sin transmitted via sex, but not because sex is bad, but because men are bad. I don't personally subscribe to that theory, but I have heard that or something like it somewhere. I have a mind like a steel sieve, so that's all I've got on that theory.

I think this might have started with Milton’s Paradise Lost (17th century, Milton was Protestant). He fleshed the story in Genesis out with a lot of exposition, giving a whole internal dialogue to what Adam and Eve went through (Satan too, possibly others, can’t remember)- whereas previously it was only a dry external account? Anyway, in PL, Adam claims to know it’s wrong before he takes a bite- but he takes a bite anyway because he loves her, and so supposedly he’s the worse sinner of the two.

Wiki tells me that PL is the first time the story is told where they are already in a “full relationship” (sex?) while still being without sin. If anyone cares.

 

[Lark]

I think this might have started with Milton’s Paradise Lost (17th century, Milton was Protestant). He fleshed the story in Genesis out with a lot of exposition, giving a whole internal dialogue to what Adam and Eve went through (Satan too, possibly others, can’t remember)- whereas previously it was only a dry external account? Anyway, in PL, Adam claims to know it’s wrong before he takes a bite- but he takes a bite anyway because he loves her, and so supposedly he’s the worse sinner of the two.

Wiki tells me that PL is the first time the story is told where they are already in a “full relationship” (sex?) while still being without sin. If anyone cares.

I love PL and alongside Dante I do consider it some inspired and inspiring spiritual writing.

Although I do think its all a species apart from the original source material and its context, I think a lot of westernised Christianity is a little like someone interpreting a text in German who only speaks French.

There's a lot, a serious lot, of Christianity, at least in terms of the new testament, which I can honestly say I only really appreciated properly after reading a lot of Jewish sources, not just religious but also historical and cultural sources too, such as collections of Jewish wit and wisdom, collected yiddish stories, the Jewish antiquites, including the history of the Jewish struggle with Roman occupation and the Jewish disaporia.

I think there's a lot of Christians are not keen on that, given the role of the pharisees as executioner in the new testament and also that the school of thought which prevailed eventually, Pauline Christianity, was the most focused upon a break with Judahism rather than continuity such as Matthew or Luke (although Matthew is accused of being anti-semitic, seems a bit mad to me).

Conversely there's some Jewish sources who would put Christians of thinking that way too in their appraisal of Christianity as nothing much more than age old anti-semitism. Reductive thinking isnt always a good idea I guess.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

What I liked about Paradise Lost is that Milton somewhat anthropomorphosized Satan- gave him a very human point of view, which made it almost compulsory to sympathize with him.

What I didn’t like about PL is that expounding on internal dialogue made this paradox even more blatant: if Adam and Eve didn’t have pride-if they felt completely secure and didn't want for anything emotionally- until after she bit the apple, then how could the serpent have lured her into sin by appealing to her pride in the first place?

 

[Totenkindly]

What I liked about Paradise Lost is that Milton somewhat anthropomorphosized Satan- gave him a very human point of view, which made it almost compulsory to sympathize with him.

What I didn’t like about PL is that expounding on internal dialogue made this paradox even more blatant: if Adam and Eve didn’t have pride-if they felt completely secure and didn't want for anything emotionally- until after she bit the apple, then how could the serpent have lured her into sin by appealing to her pride in the first place?

Yes, I think that is the Catch-22.

How could eating the fruit cause sin? They would have only picked the fruit if they were already sinful in nature. Hence, they weren't perfect to start with, and neither was paradise. Either they were perfect and wouldn't have fallen, or they were imperfect and already fallen; the whole bit with the fruit only clarifies it.

To me, this is because the story wasn't meant to make sense in that literal kind of way. The gist is that people had everything but chose to turn from God and thus lost paradise; this also explained the current to the social order, where men because the head of women (so the order is God -> men -> women and so forth), and why there was toil involved in tending the earth, and why women suffered pain in childbirth... you definitely see the "occupational categories" there for male and female roles. And so on.

You're just taking the way the culture already works, and trying to explain it in a way that makes sense by using this story. Kind of a montheistic way of explaining, "How the Leopard Got His Spots," so to speak.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

I haven't read the whole thread, but it seems kind of moot, because if the priest's remarks are as reported in the OP, he's simply wrong. That's kind of disturbing.

He appears to be confusing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception with virgin birth and original sin. Original sin in Catholic doctrine (in this I don't believe it deviates from other Christian denominations) is about human fallibility, about the impossibility of perfection as demonstrated originally by Adam's and Eve's rebellion in the Garden of Eden. The OP was right.

The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that Mary was conceived by her mother free of original sin so that she would be a holy enough vessel to give birth to Christ. That might be where the priest confused original sin with virgin birth. It's bad enough when non-Catholics ignorantly bitch about things that aren't even part of Catholicism. It's even worse when a priest gets it wrong.

 

[greenfairy]

Adam claims to know it’s wrong before he takes a bite- but he takes a bite anyway because he loves her, and so supposedly he’s the worse sinner of the two.

Wiki tells me that PL is the first time the story is told where they are already in a “full relationship” (sex?) while still being without sin. If anyone cares.

That's messed up, that he gets punished for doing something because he loves her. Of course, I think it's messed up that it was wrong in the first place. You could also say she shouldn't have made him feel like he had to, but maybe she didn't on purpose.

I haven't read the whole thread, but it seems kind of moot, because if the priest's remarks are as reported in the OP, he's simply wrong. That's kind of disturbing.

He appears to be confusing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception with virgin birth and original sin. Original sin in Catholic doctrine (in this I don't believe it deviates from other Christian denominations) is about human fallibility, about the impossibility of perfection as demonstrated originally by Adam's and Eve's rebellion in the Garden of Eden. The OP was right.

The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that Mary was conceived by her mother free of original sin so that she would be a holy enough vessel to give birth to Christ. That might be where the priest confused original sin with virgin birth. It's bad enough when non-Catholics ignorantly bitch about things that aren't even part of Catholicism. It's even worse when a priest gets it wrong.

I could have been misunderstanding, but I was pretty darn sure that's what he said. In any case, it just didn't make sense to me, and led to amusing (to me) conclusions in my mind, so I thought I'd start a thread to get clarity on things.

 

[Thalassa]

That's messed up, that he gets punished for doing something because he loves her. Of course, I think it's messed up that it was wrong in the first place. You could also say she shouldn't have made him feel like he had to, but maybe she didn't on purpose.

I could have been misunderstanding what he said, but I was pretty darn sure that's what he said. In any case, it just didn't make sense to me, and led to amusing (to me) conclusions in my mind, so I thought I'd start a thread to get clarity on things.

I hate Milton's Paradise Lost. It's a lot of sexist tripe.

 

[Mole]

I believe it generally refers to Adam and Even believing the serpent that through eating the fruit they could be like God.

Since, "The Origin of Species", and confirmed by, "The Double Helix", and subsequent sequencing of the genome, we know for certain there was no Adam and Eve.

And there being no Adam and Eve, there is no Original Sin and no need for Redemption.

 

[cafe]

I hate Milton's Paradise Lost. It's a lot of sexist tripe.

I think I was supposed to read at least part of it for a class and it just made my eyes cross.

Of course, I'm convinced that they are purposely trying to make you hate reading with most of the reading assignments they give you from at least middle school on.

 

[greenfairy]

I think I was supposed to read at least part of it for a class and it just made my eyes cross.

Of course, I'm convinced that they are purposely trying to make you hate reading with most of the reading assignments they give you from at least middle school on.

Yeah. I never had to read PL, but we read part of Dante's Inferno, which I thought was one of the most ridiculous things I'd ever read. He must have been an unhappy person.