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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.
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?
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.
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