Psalm 51:5;
"Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."
The Jews believed this long before the catholic church was around.
ya well the Jews were divorced and scattered too, i don't care what belief unsupported by any other witness the Jews believed. If your quote is true then
we are sinners from our youth cannot be true, right? We sin from a young age, yes, but not from birth. Newborns do not sin, and it is recognized that you cannot sin without being "accountable," iow knowing the law, knowing the difference between good and evil. What you have dug up here is a reflection on willfullness, which is not the same as sinning.
There's always someone who comes along to give it another meaning to fit their beliefs.
Yes, and we have established means to test them with Scripture, first and foremost a "witness" another Scripture that supports the meaning, and you are welcome to list yours and i will list mine, if you think it will forward your opinion here, BAM do so, and we will see. The doctrine of Original Sin is crap, and contravenes the Law of sin and death, as many Doctorates of Theology have already argued better than me; even Catholic ones,
"The doctrine of Original Sin is not found in any of the writings of the Old Testament. It is certainly not in chapters one to three of Genesis." Herbert Haag, former president of the Catholic Bible Association of Germany,
Is Original Sin in Scripture?
"The concept of Original Sin is alien to Jewish tradition." Elie Weisel
sorry i don't have a...more respected source for that, i guess i need to go find one, but imo perhaps you might quote a respected Jew that disagrees here, and we'll see.
You are a sinner when you sin, and not before.
- It is well known that the Council of Trent insisted on the doctrine of Original Sin; yet the doctrine of Original Blessing is a far more ancient and Biblical doctrine. The Council did not deny this (nor could it); nor did they ever say what Original Sin even means.
- Understand how this doctrine disagrees with so much of the rest of the Bible; the 'age of accountability', etc., and see that you are responsible for your sins, and that it isn't possible for a baby to sin.
- What does God say? "...the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth." Genesis 8:21
Which may sound like a condemnation to someone unfamiliar with God's condemnation; but the important part of this verse for us at the moment is the from his youth part. You are not "born a sinner" in the sense that Western Christianity teaches; and it doesn't matter if you are an atheist or have never been in a church, this founding premise has become baked into your assumptions.
- "The harm that has been done to souls during the centuries of Christianity, first by the literal interpretation of the story of Adam, and then by the confusion of this myth, treated as history, with later speculations, principally Augustinian, about Original Sin, will never be adequately told."Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil
- This is "dualism", recognized by sages from Eckhart to Daly as "the sin behind all sin." Separation. Subject/object relationships.
How to Recognize the Fallacy of Death Centric Western Christian Models
All you have to do is look at a child.
The first thing they learn to say is "NO!".
and it is acknowledged that that is because that is what they hear the most, the first thing they are
taught is "no," they are trained into sin iow, and copy their parents' willfullness first, but in ignorance, as they have no concept of law yet. If you suggest that a parent's word is law, well, just try it and see what happens, it fails too.