Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!magnesium.club.cc.cmu.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!news.cs.jhu.edu!jyusenkyou!arromdee
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Is it good that Jesus died?
Message-ID: <C64CCH.EEy@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
Sender: news@blaze.cs.jhu.edu (Usenet news system)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
References: <C5yMIr.FnE@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> <1993Apr25.194144.8358@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <C62Ar1.LDt@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> <1993Apr26.215627.24917@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 01:33:53 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <1993Apr26.215627.24917@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> brian@lpl.arizona.edu (Brian Ceccarelli 602/621-9615) writes:
>A baby's innocence has nothing to do with whether the baby
>is a sinner.  Innocence and the sin nature are two different attributes. 
>The baby is innocent, yet the baby is a sinner.   
>You have two arms and two legs?  Why?  Because your parents did.
>Why? Because their parents did.  Etc.  Did you do anything to get them?

The thing is, I know what arms and legs are.  It's therefore generally easy to
tell whether or not someone has arms and legs.  This "sinful nature", since it
does not require that the baby actually perform any sins, seems to be totally
invisible.  As far as I know, maybe half the babies have a sinful nature and
half don't--it'd look exactly the same, since there is no way to tell the
difference.

>We are born sinners.  We are born sinners because our parents
>were born with it.  We got it from them.  We did nothing to earn
>the title "sinner".  We get it because our parents had it, their
>parents had it, their grandparents had it, etc, infinitum.

So what's so bad about a sinful nature, then?  I could understand it being
bad if it always results in people committing sins, but babies can have it,
never commit sins, die, and they still have it.  So the bad part about can't
merely be that it results in people committing sins--so what _is_ bad about it?
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
