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To be fair, @thomasThePaineEngine didn't say "there's no way out of original sin", he said "one cannot cleanse oneself of" original sin. Which is technically true in Christianity, one can't cleanse oneself. Which is why Christ had to cleanse us from what we can't cleanse ourselves from.
Though on the other hand, it also isn't true that one must "regularly and harshly atone for" original sin either. That has been paid for, we don't need to keep beating ourselves up for it.
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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.
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.
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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