Can someone intelligently explain Christianity to me, specifically Original Sin and repentance...

That's a silly claim, we have over 2,000 years worth of Tradition and philosophical writings on the subject. Feel free to read St. Aquinas for a meeting between Greek philosophy and the divine revelation of God, revealed through Christ. :)

God was crucified because I touch myself? Compelling. I want an intelligent defense of the necessity of Christ’s work, not some Catholic school-tier triviality.

Will is not a matter of desire, it is a matter of conduct. All men desire truth, goodness, and light, yet without God they will inevitably search for those things in the wrong places, leading to harm to either themselves or others. If you truly willed goodness, you would be spending all your time on earth aiding the poor and correcting the errors of the world, and the simple fact is that, even while idolizing those who follow that path, very few of us do that ourselves. Will is not desire.

Catholic schools are notorious for not having the very best catechism, but the Catholic teaching on the subject is the correct one.

See, when Adam and Eve fell, we all fell from God. Rather than doing the Divine Will, we followed our own will, which is always imperfect, because it is in itself not part of that Perfect Will, being God Himself.

Man, being separate from God, cannot reach God on his own. God Himself had to meet man again, and all of the OT is a prophecy of this. What made the Jews chosen? They were literally the "chosen", because God would send His only Son, the second-person of the Trinity, to come on Earth and die for our sins, that through this holy and unblemished sacrifice, we may once again reach God.

I desire no goodness, nor light. In fact, I think I hate the light.
Will is definitively desire. Stop trying to redefine things. Will is the force behind action, not action itself. Actions cannot be will.

oh kinda got ahead of myself, the Jews were "chosen", because God would send His only begotten Son through the medium of the Jewish people. Once Christ arrived, lived, died, and resurrected into Heaven, all of man-kind was redeemed, and no longer was God only meant to be the God of the Jews, but all man-kind.

are you a member of KoRn?

no, you just want to be a false witness faggot

This is the definition that has been used philosophically since the time of Plato. Desire is the aim of an action, not the action itself. Will is the force, i.e. the action itself.
Then what do you desire?

Maybe don't drive a lost sheep away from the flock, tying a millstone around your neck in the process.

if he wanted to understand christianity, he would buy a bible or read some stuff online and not shit up a christian imageboard full of retards who have no idea how to do christianity right. he's just here to shitpost

In every moment I feel I obey Christ’s greatest commandments perfectly (Mt. 22:35-40). It’s unfathomable to do anything else, it’s just how I operate. Therefore I don’t feel guilty for his crucifixion or for what Eve did.

I didn’t mention desire, you did. I will truth, goodness, and light in every moment. In every moment I seek God. Romans 3:11b doesn’t apply to me.

So the whole of Christianity boils down to the “children in Africa could be eating your compost” concept? Rly? Disappointing.

FALSE. I’ve been studying Christianity in-depth since late 2016, alongside Judaism and Buddhism. I’ve devoted all my mind to God, alongside my entire soul and heart. I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND.

So he slaps your right cheek, and you believe Christ wants you to slap him back?

I’m not slapping anyone’s cheek. This thread is part and parcel of me loving God.

You're probably lying, you shouldn't make grand sweeping claims you cannot back up :)

Perhaps, you should list them out one-by-one and re-affirm them for us? The greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and soul, but you seem to love yourself the most!

You don't need to necessarily feel guilty for the crucifixion, but you should love God with all your heart. The sorrow for your sins shall come afterward.

Because you refuse to understand! All you have said before is "I do everything right!". Who can take this seriously?

try devoting your heart to him and stop being overly autistic

what, you want me to suck his dick instead?

If the true means of willing truth, goodness and light is disappointing to you, then that says a lot about what you truly will. Unless you have obeyed not just Christ's greatest commandment, but every one of his commandments, then you're simply lying to yourself. And if you don't even understand that you aren't supposed to feel guilty for Eve's sin, then I have a hard time believing that you've been devoting your entire heart mind and soul to God for over two years.

What did photons ever do to you user?

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Generally speaking, you don't win over Christ's enemies by calling them faggots and autists. Breaking pride is one thing, mockery is another.

yes you do, ever heard of peer pressure?

It’s notable that nowhere in the Bible or CCC is self-love (alongside love of God) a sin. As a member of the Trinity, even Christ loved himself.

I’m not here to prove my righteousness. I’m asking from an epistemological standpoint, if I’m a perfectionist and give life (=Jesus?) my ALL, where is the need for Christ’s atoning work?

By the way: it’s not to say my heart is uncircumcised. I do have a GENERAL feeling of penitence — I come from a “good family” after all, am well raised with a strong Presbyterian cultural inheritance. So a guilty conscience is in my genes. My question is formal and doctrinal. If I can’t find any specific thing that requires Christ’s atoning work, that seems puts me at odds with the Christian mainstream. Surely Christian sin isn’t the same as having a contrite spirit and circumcised heart, otherwise Jesus himself would be called a sinner in the Pauline sense.

What part of “all the laws and the prophets hang on these two commandments” don’t try understand? Also, it is my understanding that Original Sin merits repentance per de, at least in theory. Why not, if we all inherit it. What are you, Mormon?

newadvent.org/summa/2082.htm
newadvent.org/summa/2083.htm

Where did I call self-love a sin? You just keep saying you are perfect, you are perfect, over and over! That isn't self-love, this is narcissism!

Because it's impossible for you to, but you claimed you were righteous anyway!

What you think you are means squat. You're only perfect if God, who is outside of yourself, says that you are "perfect". It's impossible for man to reach God, man cannot reach outside of himself. Man is only playing catch-up with God.

explains a lot, sounds like you are dealing with the illogical doctrine of calvinism.

Look in the mirror!

Do you have an email I can write my objections to these points to? It will take awhile.

you can try to do air-mail to Thomas Aquinas in Heaven

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 2 Timothy 3:1-5
First among these sins is narcissism.
The part where "hanging on" means negating.
The three effects of original sin are the introduction of death and suffering, the introduction of disordered, sinful appetites, and the loss of sanctifying grace. We have never claimed that the guilt of one person's sin should be felt by another, merely that the effects of the introduction of sin into the human race have been catastrophic beyond measure.

Threads are super slow to die here, you should be fine.

Let’s get down to it. What is so hard about loving the creator with all your might and loving the other as yourself, really? I’m not saying I’m perfect, I’m saying that nothing else has ever occurred to me.

Which is saying that you are perfect. Who is God? What is perfection? You say you follow the greatest commandments, but if you loved God, you would follow them all.

Have you never had/encouraged an abortion, never committed adultery, never insulted God or used God's name in vain, never cheated, never committed acts of violence, never lied, never stolen, never committed perjury, never worshipped any other than God, never raped, never murdered, never gossipped or detracted from, another's reputation, nor encouraged another to do any of the above? If so, then other things have certainly occurred to you.

Strong post! But 2 Timothy 3:1-5 doesn’t prove that self-love is a sin. Are you prepared to argue that the Trinity doesn’t love itself? If I were secretly channeling the Spirit, what would I have typed differently in this thread? I love Jesus and myself, and Jesus AS myself. I want to follow Paul’s doctrine, but I genuinely struggle with it.

Why would it mean negating? They are concordant, in the same way Christ’s fulfillment of the Law is concordant with and doesn’t end the Law.

I wasn’t born into a religiously observant, and yet have converged towards the seam connecting Christianity and Judaism, critically researching which laws apply and which don’t. This thread is part of that. Sorry I wasn’t baptized in the Catholic Church as an infant!?

Very against
No, I love women for their platonic beauty, and even then I can count those I’ve felt attraction towards on one hand
God, no! Oops
No, no
I’ve told white lies to protect others’ feelings as per Jesus instruction to treat others as yourself. Never gratuitously lied, no
No
No
I recently smashed a portrait of the Buddha to show my devotion to YHWH, and got glass all over my floor
No, no
I HAVE “played along” with gossip, as a part of fitting in with a highly gossipy culture (East Coast Canada), as a conversational courtesy to my counterparts, so as to create awkwardness (again, Mt. 22:39). It’s NEVER something that would spontaneously arise in my mind
No

*so as NOT to create awkwardness, or so as to avoid awkwardness

there is no seam connecting the two. Christianity is built upon the Word of Christ, whom the Jews reject.

we share the same "old testament", but they do not understand their own teachings without Christ.

Which is fine with me, but you need to do your research into what the apostolic Churches actually teach.

The relationship between Judaism and Christianity is pretty orthogonal to what I’m trying to get at in this thread. But I have spent many hours and days and weeks giving serious consideration to the “apostolic” (Catholic) Church. Surely it is the religious organization that Christ loves the most…

Satanist like fan fiction.

Moving the goalposts isn't going to convince anyone that narcissism is a good thing, or that sarcastically boasting of a flawless moral character that nobody here (especially when you poke fun at God three times in this post), even you on the inside, believe you have, is self love.

I genuinely don’t understand your accusation. I was accused of loving myself, and I don’t see that as valid. Love loving itself loves all things — basic Trinitarianism. I don’t know what narcissism means, and I hope you don’t think I would come to a Christian board to boast of my works. :) I’m here seeking God, your way.

I'd hope you wouldn't, I just have to watch you do it anyways.
You were not accused of self love, you were accused of narcissism, in that you refuse to admit any fault in your own moral conduct whatsoever. How is that not narcissism?
There is a world of difference between God, the infinite and perfect, loving the infinite and perfect, and you, loving the inherently flawed and chronically imperfect. Self love becomes a sin when the good in yourself causes you to turn a blind eye to the good outside you and the evil inside you. If you're comparing yourself to the Trinity while claiming that you do nothing but love God and neighbor that's indicative of some serious narcissism.

...

Yes I was, in
That’s what started this sub-thread.

FALSE. I don’t refuse. I WANT TO BE CHRISTIAN. That’s why I started this thread.

The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, and you’re a Pharisee. You do understand that the primary revelation of Christ is the spirit of the law, right? (Literally the Spirit?) If you will accuse me of processing something factually incorrect for with my mouth for the sake of preserving others’ feelings that I will accuse you of violating the 613.

*If you will accuse me of professing something factually incorrect with my mouth for the sake of preserving others’ feelings then I will accuse you of violating the 613.

reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/aeq95l/orthodox_catechisms_on_what_we_need_to_be_saved/

reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/aid25i/orthodox_catechism_pt_8_what_is/

I posted these. I translated them from French Orthodox catechisms. It's better to link to them than to try to reword it myself.

Very well, in that case, to end this discussion, why don't you start by listing off any sins you are comfortable with listing in this thread.

Not the Mosaic Law, correct, because the Bible is clear that the Mosaic Law no longer applies to jews or gentiles.
He…can't. It dosen't apply to Christians.

And feel free to read the other threads that are linked, particularly on Baptism and the Eucharist. It's relevant to what you're asking.

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You realize gossiping is a form of lying right? If you "play" along with their gossip all your doing is being untruthful what you believe in. Unless you believe in gossiping as a proper thing to. To call me a Pharisee over this is laughable.

Maybe I don’t know what you mean by gossip. I am extremely careful about never hurting anyone’s feelings, because I know what it’s like, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Period.

Yes, but you are not absolutely perfect. Nothing with any imperfection can aver approach perfection, how any number, now ever large, can never approach infinity. All are worthy of the wrath of God, the absolutely perfect being.

If you say so. But if you openly brag about it, you've already proven yourself wrong.

We are not guilty for His crucifixion (it was His victory anyway) or for Adam and Eve's sin.
But read the stories of the saints. If you feel you are doing well, good! Keep doing well. But do not let it rest in your heart and turn into pride, because you "possess" nothing, everything is a gift from God and your own "merits" can do nothing.

Are you poor in spirit, that is, do you tolerate the fact you have more belongings than your neighbor does? Do you mourn for a suffering humanity? Are you meek? Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Are you merciful, pure of heart, a peacemaker? Are you persecuted, be it by the infidels or by the demons, for the sake of Christ?

Do you reject idolatry, that is, do you put God absolutely above all other things? Do you worship anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you speak His name in vain? Do you remember Easter and therefore go to Church to receive communion? Do you honor your parents? Do you reject killing, including hating, which is killing in spirit? Do you reject fornication, including lustful thoughts, which are fornication in spirit? Do you steal, which also means keeping your goods when they properly belong to others? Do you covet anything that your neighbor possesses?

I of course do not wish to disparage you, but have you seriously thought about these questions? Remember Luke 18:9-14:

Again note I am not saying this to accuse you of sins I would not even know, or worse, to imply that a Christian necessarily cannot be righteous. But read the Scriptures more carefully. Read the Psalms in particular, maybe. But read also about the saints, our forefathers who have finished their race. You will find that only very few of them, such as St. Paul, recognized that they were holy and righteous people, and even Paul himself is able to say that he is the king of sinners and that he is not justified until he finishes his race.

You're mistaken. "The Trinity" is not a monad. Our God's name is not "Trinity". "Trinity" is a description of the eternal relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Is it correct to say "the marriage loves itself"? No. In the marriage, the husband gives himself up entirely for his wife, loving her unconditionally, and the wife does the same for her husband.
The idea of an eternally loving God who really just loves Himself as a monad is not Christian, but Muslim at best.

Linked at the end of the first thread. I'm not done sharing the catechisms for all the sacraments, but at least read up on Baptism and the Eucharist.

So we've established, after 15 posts, that you, in fact, have sinned. By the laws of any kingdom, willingly sumbmitting yourself to a rival king, especially one who has the polar opposite intentions and values as yours, and who has contributed nothing to you but ruin, is cause for death. Even if you did so out of curiosity and jest alone, that implies an openness to whatever consequences you signed up for, and as a man you have to abide by your actions. This treason, at best, is deserving of death.
Now, clearly you are more concerned with sins that you view as benign, such as lying to preserve anothers feelings. In short, we consider lies for the sake of preserving the good to be venial sins, meaning they are not so abhorrent that they cut one off from God. It is worth noting that protecting one's feelings is not necessarily good, as it may be causing them harm or be motivated simply out of selfishness, and it is always a sin regardless, yet your example is not what God would find hellworthy. Let's, then, say that you lied purely to cover your own wrongdoings.
As we see here, the clearest takeaway from this verse is that God loves each person as he loves himself. In that regard, if you were to lie to anyone, it would be tantamount to lying to God himself. Now, if you lie to a person, then the action, the one you acting towards, and the law violated (presuming it is a crime, as is the category of action we are dealing with) itself, are all temporal. As such, the punishment is temporal too. Mankind lives and breaths in the temporal, and it only takes true religion or philosophy to see beyond that in even an intellectual sense. If, however, the one offended is eternal, then his laws are eternal, and the action, to one outside of time, is eternal to him as well. In that case, in lying to God, you have eternally marked yourself as one who's will is contrary to the eternal and ultimate good. What do you think that kind of a crime is worthy of?

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Playing along with gossip isn't being truthful to God and you know it.

Not bragging. Made this thread to learn to be a normal Christian as opposed to an innerly conflicted one.

Agreed! It occurred to me in an epiphany at age 16 that every particle of my subjective experience is purely the result of a higher power’s grace. Again, I am ACTUALLY trying to be a normative Christian, yet unfortunately can’t help but secretly feel morally coequal with Christ, which I DO know is heresy (I’ve even been lured by Mormonism, studied it, and deemed it heretical!). This inclination towards coequality itself makes me feel bad, and is the problem I’m trying to resolve.

Nice poetry, all of it. I do crave the good and of course of course crave it for everyone. To me it’s obvious, who wouldn’t?

I have suffered greatly. Whether that’s for the sake of God or for the sake of evilness, that’s what this thread is here to determine!

No, I wasn’t raised religious. That’s another of my obstacles to normative Christianity: my mom is utterly areligious and non-observant, yet to me, apart from the New Testament, she is my moral standard, like Christ’s surrogate in the flesh, or another Mary. So how can I feel anything when accused of not receiving communion? Remember Luke 18:9-14.

All clear (not to clear on that last point tbh…)

I covet beauty and the good, so to the extent that my neighbour possesses these things, YES. I even feel competitive with my mates when it comes to certain sophist pursuits — is that sinful? To me, no, competition is part of God’s creation (although this is an interesting Christian topic, Jesus’ view on sports and the generic desire to win)

BUT: Do I waste time cursing my neighbour for having things that I don’t have? No.

I know all that about the Trinity. My language was crude, I respect that it’s a delicate and exquisite doctrine.

I’m going to stop you there. If I agreed with you, would I have been so casual about admitting it? Lest you forget that Christ knew all of Satan’s ins and outs (as his creator) and submitted to his will in going willingly to the cross. There is an interesting parallel between God and Satan that can be and has been explored. It’s controversial, I know, but in an informal, poetic sense (the only sense I’m using) letting yourself be vulnerable to evil is possible in whilst still IN Christ, and if you disagree you aren’t thinking big enough.

But I didn’t say that?

It’s like masturbation — I don’t see the significance. LUST is self-evidently unholy, but jovial banter is not.

Well then why don't you believe that treason against the highest and eternal source of good for the source of all evil is worthy of death.
If by that you mean suffering then yes, it is the most laudable thing imaginable. If by that you mean submitting yourself to evil, which is what you did, then what the hell are you talking about? Christ submitted to the cross so that he could pay for all of the sins of mankind, and utterly obliterate Satan's will. Satan attempted to drive Christ away from the cross in the desert, not drive himself to his own defeat. If you are a prospective christian then you have absolutely no reason to be defending yourself here, and you never will be a christian until you stop.

Yes, obviously, I'm taking a hypothetical example.

to assert that you are perfect, over the claims of God, is self-love over love of God. which is a narcissism, to be quite clear.

what you don't seem to understand is that when you accept you are a sinner, that you are not perfect, then you can finally comprehend the love of God, even up to the foot of the Cross.

Is not the same as "gossiping"

Your mom is a sinner as well all are.

I will be there only in your thoughts.

Right.
I'll be there only in your thoughts.

Hell will never be tolerable.
What?

Really sorry for all the deletions, you are replying too fast haha. As I was saying, let’s discuss this point further, because it’s really the crux of it: Is there any non-Christian in your life, perhaps someone with a Marian-presence if you are a Catholic, that you would consider God unjust for condemning to Hell, the same as I think of my mother?

Original post:

We are coming up against the limits of language here, so rather than getting bogged down, I think it would be more fruitful, and classier, to shift the conversation to being about my mother, whose sinlessness poses the same problem, and indeed is an even bigger obstacle to normative Christianity than my own (“alleged”).

She IS sinless, divine, truly pure, NEVER thinking of herself and ONLY thinking of others, almost as if she doesn’t exist, and instead exists to be a mirror of perfect empathy. That others, inspired by Saint Paul, would call her a sinner, DOES fill me with a holy rage…

(An interesting fact is that I don’t know my father, I don’t even know what he looks like, and he’s never even been discussed in the house, so it’s even as if she’s a virgin too, though we all know that’s impossible)
Now, if you knew her as well as I do then you’d know she has an unspoken reverence of Christ, but on the surface is utterly irreligious, and no one would call her Christian. She is filled with awe at the beauty of a church, but never goes inside… If you ask her what she believes in, she denies charges of nihilism, and mysteriously says only that she believes in “life.” She IS going to Heaven.

How am I supposed to make sense of orthodox Christian doctrine growing up with such a mother?

Asserting that your mother is sinless is asserting that you are in the position to know both everything about her moral character and everything about morality in general. The simple fact is that you do not, and if you were to neglect the simple task of bringing her to Christ out of reverence for her, then you would be committing the single most harmful act anyone has ever committed against her. If, as you say, you believe in God, this is not something to mess around with on the basis of emotion. You would not get into heaven if you were negligent in getting her in as well, and if, against all reason, she chose not to follow you and resisted all God did to save her at the behest of your prayer, then that is her choice and, as God respect's all choices, you must as well. It is not easy to say this; for me, knowing that my mother is a sinner, she is greatest fear and my greatest task, and you will not understand it until you truly come to love God, but the pain of that love is knowing that not everyone around you will follow in it.

I can only go by my conscience? I can’t imagine improving her moral station in any way. Maybe we are a Satanic family and you should stay away…

No.

She isn't.

By the way, “bringing her to Christ” would be laughable. She grew up in a picture-perfect 1950’s upper middle class WASP family, white gloves on Sunday and all. My grandmother was a hyper-religious Christian when she was alive, and my mom was the one sibling to care for her in old age and see her to death. All her siblings roll their eyes at Christ, but my mom doesn’t. But I wouldn’t be able to “bring her to Christ” even if I tried. It’s LAUGHABLE.

How do you get off uncritically affirming that my mother has a mean bone in her body and not it not occurring to you that you might be a brain dead moron?

your mom is woman right? she's probably sucked some cocks in her day, don't be so naive

I have no evidence of that. If my mother did, then the mother of your man-God did too, don’t be so naive, cuck.

mary wasn't born in the 20th century

You're a troll.

Never said she did.
Grow up.

Enjoy your ban retard

Moral perfection may be achieved by grace. But once sinned always sinned even if God forgives.

You're a troll.

You speak out of spite and hate, you love no one but you and your mother Mr.Oedipus

I literally said it's possible. You're being ignorant or you don't have the ear to hear truth, either way you're a fool.

We are born with a sinful nature.
Do you have a father?

What you need to understand is that human beings, even the best of us, are fundamentally broken morally as a result of original sin. All of our faculties are given over to wild variation from what they were originally intended to be, and as such even those who are able to maintain a relatively straight moral compass, which is only after years of discipline and an understanding of either natural law or divine law, are subject to this variation, which we call concupiscence. None but the fixed point of God and submitting to his unbending moral standards can orient one towards a total good. You know nothing of your mother's interior life, and, if we're being blunt, the fact that she was willing to have sex outside of marriage, which resulted in your father, who was uncommitted to her, being able to leave her (his crime, and a far worse one, but one she failed to account for and protect you from) is sin in and of itself. I take absolutely no pleasure in telling you this, but as such you should be man enough not take any anger in accepting it.

How on earth is that laughable if she's even closer to being a christian than most moms?

.

Ok YOU are just acting like an inconsiderate jerkoff.

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Stop speaking ill of other people's mothers.

Are their fathers fair game?

Read "Mere christianity" by C.K Chesterton
It's a short book and literally answers all your questions and more.

C.S. Lewis? Or G.K. Chesterton?

No

Original sin doesn't mean that you feel guilty for existing, it means that we know we are imperfect, that our imperfection is our own fault, and that as a result, whether the story of Adam and Eve is literally true or not, we must be reconciled to God because we are imperfect. Original sin is a verbal shorthand for this state of affairs.

ur mom is a fagot

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