Blameshifting

[JadedAtheist]

Trying to get Christians to understand the foolishness of the Bible is often a battle lost from the start. There will always be an explanation that they can delude themselves with, and there will always be passages that they'll need to trust God with until they get to heaven in order to understand. No matter how concrete the evidence, there will always be an excuse. Anyways, I've been thinking the last few weeks over the whole absurd concept of sin, the punishment for it and the solution to it. Most of these ideas are probably not unique to me and may have even taken some from here but regardless I thought I'd share them with you now.

 

The first and foremost issue with sin is that well, Adam and Eve were punished for disobeying God when they did not know the difference from right and wrong was. As we can see here:

 

 

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” - Genesis 2:16–17

 

And after they've being tricked into eating it God says:

 

 

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” Genesis 3:22

 

So, assuming one can't tell the difference between good and wrong as in the case here; doesn't it seem unjust to punish someone for it? It would be like giving a cat a prison sentence for "rape". Such a thing is ludicrous , but anyways let's let it pass. At least we know God won't punish us for Adam and Eve's sin right? It tell's us clearly here after all:

 

 

“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin. - Deuteronomy 24:16

 

 

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. - Ezekiel 18:20

 

Yet, hold the phone...we also have these verses:

 

 

 

You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts, - Jeremiah 32:18

 

 

Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” - Exodus 34:7

 

They seem clear as day to me, both sets do. Yet, they offer completely contradictory teachings. So, this is weird...if we are to assume Deuteronomy and Ezekiel are correct then we can deduce two facts:

 

1. We are not born in sin as some would suggest, and are not held responsible for Adam and Eve's transgression.

2. Christ couldn't have died for us.

 

The second point is quite potent. You see, if those verses are true it is quite obvious that those who commit wickedness must pay for it and no other person can be held liable. If that's the case, how is Christ expected to take on a debt which he himself said is impossible to take? It would be unjust for a father to pay for the sins of his children, how much more would that be the case when the father of mankind is held liable? It doesn't hold up.

 

If however the later is true, and fathers and sons can each be punished for the sins of each other than this God has no concept of justice. Just consider for a moment what kind of world it would be like living in where people could take the blame for the actions of others as scapegoats in the justice system? It's sickening. Yet the fact is, it's not an either/or situation here. Both sets of verses were taught to be true and that is the final reason why we should realize how silly the Bible is. It is not divine, it is not inspired it is not holy. It was written by fallible men for a society and moral system we have long since evolved beyond. We should leave the Bible back there where it belongs.

[mcdaddy]

Ditto.

 

I don't have a laptop or pc at home anymore, just have my iPhone. So unfortunately my responses won't be a fraction as long as they used to or could be, I hate typing on this thing.

[Eugene39]

You make a great point with this post. If memory serves me correctly, Thom Stark in his book "The Human Faces of God" says that the Bible is an argument with itself. That statement seems far more accurate than the fundamentalist view of the Bible.

 

One point though is that Judaism would never consider a human (demi-god) to be a sacrifice for sin. The more I study, the more I realize how at odds with each other Judaism and Christianity are.