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¶ … man is born with a sinful nature? Why or Why not? If you do believe this, what is the solution to man's sinful nature? If you do not believe it, what do you believe and why?
What constitutes a 'sin,' versus a character flaw or a violation of human law, is defined as the absence of good, and what is absent of good is absent of God. When a human being sins, he or she turns away from his or her true nature. To sin is to resist God, which is why the first sin is said to be eating from the Tree of Knowledge. It is not that eating fruit is 'bad.' What was sinful about Adam and Eve's action was that it resisted what they knew was God's will. However, if we are to accept that God's punishment was just, we must also believe that the first humans had the power to choose to either obey or resist. To suggest that man is born with a sinful nature seems to suggest that we are powerless. Defenders of the concept of Original Sin would say we cannot resist evil, unless we accept our need for the guidance of God. We have two parts to our nature, one which tends to self-will, the other which tends to want to obey God's will.
In terms of my own beliefs I believe that human beings are endowed with certain tendencies,...
Some of those tendencies may be positive, such as altruism, while others may be negative, like a tendency towards addiction. What is considered wrong varies from society to society. In times when warfare was common, having a violent nature may have been regarded as positive, if aggression was directed towards a righteous cause. Now, aggression in daily civilian life is considered to be a negative aspect of the human character.
If the question is: is humanity born imperfect, I suppose the answer is 'yes.' However, standards of what constitutes spiritual perfection have changed greatly over the course of history. If by perfection, the question is if human beings ever perfectly live up to any standard they set for themselves, the answer is 'no' since even the most moral people often fall short of their own spiritual standards. But fundamentally, although humans are imperfect, I believe that most human characters strive naturally to do 'good' rather than towards 'evil,' and the concept of Original Sin suggests a fatalistic tendency to resist, rather than accept God's plan.
PART TWO: Do you agree that Jesus is the one and…
References
Russell, Bertram. Why I am not a Christian. 6 May 1927. [26 Mar 2012]
http://www.users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html
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