bahman wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:13 pm
Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:05 pm
bahman wrote:
This I know. But this obviously wrong since we are also causes of some events too.
Yes, but we did not originate all the events of which we are agents. The originator of all events, events which all link together in a great network , is what is variously called "existence itself" , "nature", "the Absolute", "the absolute", and "God".
The originator is uncaused and is alone in being uncaused. We men are incapable of pure origination, and to presume that we are capable of pure origination is hubris, dangerous hubris, that justifies evaluating other men.
If what you do is not originated from you then it is originated from God! So our sins also originated from God. Why does God keep us responsible for our actions?
Sin is a human idea. The going ons of the natural world are just the way they are. Sin is a Christian idea, whereby god laid down rules to live by. What I think is, man discovered god in himself, or rather, not separate, and realised to keep in touch with god, he/she had to maintain certain ideals of purity, that is, the body and mind needed to remain pure enough for god to “enter”. Over time, these rules became written in stone, that is, they became cultural norms. But rather than being rules, they were “conditions” for gods appearance in man.
It also happens that, many of those sins were also important for larger groups and societies to survive without unnecessary conflict and infighting. Therefore such groups would have been stronger, more stable and long lived compared to others. Having rules to ensure stability allowed the continuation of culture, which also contains collective knowledge and tech-knowledgy.
Once those rules became cultural norms, they were imposed on others by an external governing and judging body, and thus, the impetus to self govern was taken from people, instead of those rules being for the purpose of inner spiritual work, they became a way for people to judge others, and by extension, the man made idea of God, the creator of these rules, or the one who seemed to care about them. The funny thing is, one of the very rules was, do not make an idol or image of god. The very thing man was doing in the Christian religion was forming a mental image of what god is. And so, slowly they lost touch with gods reality, being replaced by their mental image of god. The very condition for knowing god, was “sinned” against by Christianity. And so, their religion was stillborn.
Of course over years, individuals regained touch with the truth of the religion, but those individuals tended to keep that truth to themselves, while handing out the stillborn version to the common folk. It became more about controlling the laypeople and not about the truth of god.
