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Yeah, very true. And I think that is one thing that is... kind of unfortunate about the woke perspective. One of the things that (to me) makes Christianity not horribly oppressive is that hey, we don't have to try to atone for this inherent sin we can never get rid of. Not that we aren't expected to try to do right (grace isn't a license to go out and willfully sin), but the price has been paid. Good news, as the kids say.
Honestly, there are a couple of really wonderful things in Christianity that I appreciate now which I didn't as a teenager growing up in a Christian environment. I used to worry so much about sin, and whether I was irreconcilably screwing up by continuing to struggle over and over and over with the same things (like lustful thoughts or looking at porn). But the things that didn't really sink in for me then are a couple of big ones. First, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". Yeah, I am a sinner (boy am I), but so is everyone. Even the people in church who seem like they have it all together and never sin? Yeah they're sinners too. I'm not uniquely bad, and shouldn't beat myself up as if I were.
Second, "if we confess our sins, he is faithful... and will forgive our sins". That is a verse that gives me a lot of comfort now, and I wish I had found it sooner. Yes, it's bad when I sin. No, I shouldn't do it. Yes, I should work to do better. But I also should take comfort that God is going to forgive me if I confess my sins. And not only is he going to forgive me, we have reason to believe he will forgive me a whole lot of times! Even us mortals are expected to forgive wrongs done to us "seventy times seven" times, so one can safely assume that God is going to forgive at least that many times (and more likely he's going to forgive a whole lot more times than he expects us to).
So when I was a teenager beating myself up because I couldn't stop sinning in the same ways, I really shouldn't have. Because I did truly regret those things and try to stop doing them, so God is going to forgive me. And while I had those struggles, I wasn't like the worst person or anything like that. I was just another flawed human being who had, like everyone else, missed the mark and was trying to do better. And after all, if my father here on earth loves me enough to forgive me even when I make mistakes (even repeated ones), why wouldn't my Father in heaven love me enough to do the same?
That assumes that becoming Christian isn't itself horribly oppressive. I mean, you're telling me that in order to get rid of this original sin I not only need to convert out of Judaism, but I have to accept a whole bunch of doctrines that seem to be intellectual nonsense, such as transsubstantiation, the Trinity, and the doctrine of original sin itself. Then I need to accept what God says about gays, birth control, abortion, and every other issue that your church is stuck with.
Atonement would be nicer than that.
Really? The guy coming from the religion that believes in Eruv wants to criticize intellectual nonsense?
Infinity can be divided into multiple sets, so the Trinity makes perfect sense. Hanging a line around a city to try and trick God is literal nonsense. Does God believe in the rules you have for the Sabbath or not?
This is based on a misunderstanding of the Eruv. In Jewish law, there are public domains that are biblically forbidden from carrying in. An Eruv does not work to let you carry in those. There are other semi-public domains that the rabbis categorized which they said must also not be carried in. Those same rabbis said that their prohibition is lifted if an Eruv is in place.
This is a little bit of an oversimplification, but if you want to take a deep dive, you might start here.
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If the rules allow you to do something, following them isn't "not believing in the rules".
Saying that the rules are divine commands and then trying to hack them so that they are effectively rendered null is not believing in the rules.
Hanging a line around an area is purely a hack for convenience, not a principled distinction. Hanging a line around an entire city is a hack of a hack for convenience.
If the law is a divine mandate, you should actually follow it! Creating your own loopholes and then acting like observing the Sabbath is still somehow sacrosanct is pure intellectual nonsense
You are still describing following the rules as not following the rules.
I'd like to know how you define "effectively rendered null". Just because a rule is easy to follow doesn't make it null.
I'd also point out that plenty of religions do this sort of thing. Using annullments because your religion doesn't allow divorce, for instance.
I'm describing not following the rules as not following the rules. Men introducing exceptions to divinely ordained rules and then following those rules is very much breaking the rules.
That would be fine if you were still actually following it. But the entire point of eruv is making it so you don't have to follow onerous rules anymore because they are hard.
If you think that the division between public and private is entirely nonsense and a misinterpretation of the law, that's fine. Totally legitimate.
If you think that the traditional view is correct in its interpretation of shabbat, that's fine. Entirely consistent and expected.
But what isn't legitimate is coming up with an interpretation of the law, deciding that is sacrosanct and correct, and then, later on when that process turns out to be onerous, deciding that God really views some string wrapped around a space of, really, any size, as a way to entirely neutralize that interpretation of the law. Divinely ordained deontology that you introduce weird little hacks into is pure nonsense. Are you supposed to take things out into public or not? And if it's really about the spirit of the law, not the letter (not really something I have ever heard from a Talmudic scholar, but let's say for the sake of argument), then the line isn't necessary at all.
And if you'd said that you prefer your religion's weird nonsense over other religion's nonsense, that would be one thing. Requiring Hail Marys as penitence is entirely nonsensical, sure. But you acted like your religion is different. It's not. You're just used to it.
The rule isn't about "taking things out in public". It's a specific set of requirements. "Take things out in public" is an approximation.
I'm not actually religious and don't follow the eruv. (I do know what it is, of course.)
And there's a difference between "isn't a legitimate interpretation of the law" and "isn't logically coherent". I can understand an eruv. I can't understand the Trinity, and I don't believe there's any substance there for me to understand.
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It wasn't oppressive for me. So, YMMV and all that. I mean, being raised in the faith means no culture shock for me, which helps. But on the other hand I would point out that there are people all the time who convert to Christianity and don't find it oppressive. On the contrary, they find it beautiful and freeing. So like I said, YMMV.
As far as doctrines which seem like intellectual nonsense, it really depends on your perspective. From a materialistic standpoint, yeah those things are absolutely bonkers. But... I also don't think that the material universe is all that exists. I believe that there's a spiritual component to our existence, and as such the things you mentioned aren't actually that hard for me to accept as reasonable.
Those things aren't bonkers because they're not materialistic, but because they make no sense. They are incoherent.
If you told me that ghosts could fly, I find the concept "ghosts can fly" to make sense. Ghosts aren't material and I don't believe they exist or can fly, but I can make sense of the concept "ghosts can fly"; it's false, but it's logically coherent.
Many of the things Christians want me to believe don't make sense. I don't mean I think they are false, nor do I mean they're not material; I mean that they describe no logically coherent concept.
Transsubstantiation is literally nonsense.
Then don't be Roman Catholic.
If I think the Trinity and original sin are nonsense too, is the answer "then don't be Christian"?
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I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here. Transubstantiation is neither nonsense, nor incoherent. But I also am in no way a skilled enough writer to make an argument better than what the various theologians and apologists have had to say over the years, so I will simply have to refer you to them. And if you still think it's incoherent, then we will have to agree to disagree.
I'm also not sure why you are picking on transubstantiation in particular as a flaw of Christianity in general. That is not a doctrine shared by all Christians, it's just Catholics as far as I'm aware. So at worst it's a flaw in Catholic teachings, not Christian teachings as a whole.
The problem is that this isn't just some academic thing. Remember why I'm pointing it out--you made the argument that it's not oppressive to avoid original sin. If I have to believe nonsense in order to avoid original sin, and I'm unable to believe the nonsense, that's pretty darn oppressive. It's not like not understanding calculus.
Because it's probably the most well known example of Christianity requiring belief in nonsense. Yes, only some Christians believe it. If you are not one of them, I'd be happy to discard the example while talking to you, and use the Trinity instead. If you are one of them, however, I think it's fair to bring it up even if other Christians don't believe in it.
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Narrowly defined as the aristotelian explanation for the eucharist, yes, it is only catholic (although most catholics don't even know this). But the belief that the eucharist is some real magical thing and not merely symbolic is patristic and exists in almost all christian denominations, although there are theological differences between catholic transubstantiation, orthodox transubstantiation, consubstantiation, sacramental union and whatever else protestants have come up with. I would agree with characterising all of them as nonsense, however.
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