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[gennimom]

Exactly. Which is what makes the Catholic Church's about face this week so amazing. They stated they no longer uphold the belief that unbaptized children automatically go to limbo or hell because of original sin.
Original sin covers the "all people are bad" problem. We are all born sinners (according to Christianity).

Personally, I alway had a problem with condemning children just because they had the misfortune of not being baptized.

[case_insensitive]

So many issues to comment on in your post, gennimom, but I don't think this thread is the place for it. :o)

[gennimom]

You are probably right. Just ignore it!

For future reference, ignore post #450! I was distracted and not thinking at all at that moment!

[helpful]

I said I cannot know whether he was mentally ill, brain damaged, etc.  All people are bad, by their nature.

That is a pretty pessimistic view of humans. Therefore I take it you are in favour of state intervention to prevent all people (who, by your definition, are bad) from owning guns?

I won't speak for kay, helful.  However, most religions related to Christianity (and a number of others, perhaps?) believe that humans are inherently sinful (bad is a euphemism for that, perhaps?).   That fact has no relationship, necessarily, to behavior, since being sinful doesn't translate directly to being violent.

I don't know that it is a case for all religions. Maybe someone in religious studies can tell us.

[husqvarna]

I said I cannot know whether he was mentally ill, brain damaged, etc.  All people are bad, by their nature.

That is a pretty pessimistic view of humans. Therefore I take it you are in favour of state intervention to prevent all people (who, by your definition, are bad) from owning guns?

I won't speak for kay, helful.  However, most religions related to Christianity (and a number of others, perhaps?) believe that humans are inherently sinful (bad is a euphemism for that, perhaps?).   That fact has no relationship, necessarily, to behavior, since being sinful doesn't translate directly to being violent.

I don't know that it is a case for all religions. Maybe someone in religious studies can tell us.

I saw the bat-signal and came running.

It seems that case_insensitive was just talking about religions related to Christianity... in any case, this is where I am most at home.  I'd mention that within Christianity, humans are seen as "good" on some level, even a more basic level than their sinfulness.  The reason why they are all sinful is because of the Fall... a decidedly secondary event in the sequence of things compared to the goodness of Creation.  You will get some who emphasize sinfulness to such an extent that the pre-lapsarian state is forgotten.  You will also find others, though, who have a fairly high view of human nature.  Pelagius, for example.  His condemnation obviously says something about the issue for Christian orthodoxy, but he's worth bringing up, both because he could be considered under the title of "religioins related to Christianity" and becasue many Christian traditions will lean in his direction, hence the accusation of "semi-Pelagiansim" within heterodoxy, if not orthodoxy.  But even in orthodoxy, original sin does not mean that people are sinful creations- it means that the good creation of humanity has been stained in a way that now preceeds and instigates any actual act of sin.

[j_source]

I said I cannot know whether he was mentally ill, brain damaged, etc.  All people are bad, by their nature.

That is a pretty pessimistic view of humans. Therefore I take it you are in favour of state intervention to prevent all people (who, by your definition, are bad) from owning guns?

I won't speak for kay, helful.  However, most religions related to Christianity (and a number of others, perhaps?) believe that humans are inherently sinful (bad is a euphemism for that, perhaps?).   That fact has no relationship, necessarily, to behavior, since being sinful doesn't translate directly to being violent.

I don't know that it is a case for all religions. Maybe someone in religious studies can tell us.

Both Judaism, Islam, and Baha'i  explicitly teach that God's creation, including humanity,is inherently good.  Humans certainly sin, some more than others, but there is no original sin in these traditions.   Buddhism and Hinduism also see humanity as essentially good, although badly mistaken about the nature of reality.

[spork]

And this relates to Virginia Tech how?

[rodentmind]

I said I cannot know whether he was mentally ill, brain damaged, etc.  All people are bad, by their nature.

That is a pretty pessimistic view of humans. Therefore I take it you are in favour of state intervention to prevent all people (who, by your definition, are bad) from owning guns?

I won't speak for kay, helful.  However, most religions related to Christianity (and a number of others, perhaps?) believe that humans are inherently sinful (bad is a euphemism for that, perhaps?).   That fact has no relationship, necessarily, to behavior, since being sinful doesn't translate directly to being violent.

I don't know that it is a case for all religions. Maybe someone in religious studies can tell us.

Both Judaism, Islam, and Baha'i  explicitly teach that God's creation, including humanity,is inherently good.  Humans certainly sin, some more than others, but there is no original sin in these traditions.   Buddhism and Hinduism also see humanity as essentially good, although badly mistaken about the nature of reality.

This all seems quite off-topic, but, you know, Buddhism is not a religion in the proper sense of the word.

[husqvarna]

And this relates to Virginia Tech how?

Insofar as it can help us understand the events at VT as evil and allow us to think and speak about them more meaningfully, I think the side-issue remains helpful.  Your point is well taken, though- we shouldn't get too far off track in discussing this.

[j_source]

I said I cannot know whether he was mentally ill, brain damaged, etc.  All people are bad, by their nature.

That is a pretty pessimistic view of humans. Therefore I take it you are in favour of state intervention to prevent all people (who, by your definition, are bad) from owning guns?

I won't speak for kay, helful.  However, most religions related to Christianity (and a number of others, perhaps?) believe that humans are inherently sinful (bad is a euphemism for that, perhaps?).   That fact has no relationship, necessarily, to behavior, since being sinful doesn't translate directly to being violent.

I don't know that it is a case for all religions. Maybe someone in religious studies can tell us.

Both Judaism, Islam, and Baha'i  explicitly teach that God's creation, including humanity,is inherently good.  Humans certainly sin, some more than others, but there is no original sin in these traditions.   Buddhism and Hinduism also see humanity as essentially good, although badly mistaken about the nature of reality.

This all seems quite off-topic, but, you know, Buddhism is not a religion in the proper sense of the word.

Yes it is.  While religious studies scholars don't agree on a single definition of the word they generally do agree that a deity figure is a common but not necessary criterion.  Many forms of Buddhism have developed boddhisattvas, saint-like figures, or subsumed pre-Buddhist deities into the Buddhist pantheon.  While these entitites are no more real than the rest of everyday reality, they are useful as a spritual aid for some people.

[husqvarna]

This all seems quite off-topic, but, you know, Buddhism is not a religion in the proper sense of the word.

Right, j_source.  The problem with this statement is that there just isn't a "proper sense of the word".

[john_proctor]

This all seems quite off-topic, but, you know, Buddhism is not a religion in the proper sense of the word.

Right, j_source.  The problem with this statement is that there just isn't a "proper sense of the word".

I could not, possibly, begin to disagree more.

Buddhism is a religion.  There is no "sense of the word" - other than definitions which demand a Judeo-Christian definitions of "God" - that would not apply to Buddhism.

Anyway, no need to derail - hijack further.

[husqvarna]

This all seems quite off-topic, but, you know, Buddhism is not a religion in the proper sense of the word.

Right, j_source.  The problem with this statement is that there just isn't a "proper sense of the word".

I could not, possibly, begin to disagree more.

Buddhism is a religion.  There is no "sense of the word" - other than definitions which demand a Judeo-Christian definitions of "God" - that would not apply to Buddhism.

Anyway, no need to derail - hijack further.

Sorry, I don't know if I'm following... I was disagreeing with rodentmind's assertion that Buddhism wasn't a religion in the proper sense of the word- indeed, I was disagreeing with rodentmind's confidence that there WAS a proper sense of the word, and in doing so I was agreeing both with j_source's aknowledgment of the word's contested state and hus support of Buddhism as a religion.

So I think we're agreeing, john_proctor... am I right?  I've posted before on the importance of atheism to judeo-christian thought, so I certainly wouldn't argue with you about the fact that we need to think more broadly about what "religion", or any particular religion, is.

[john_proctor]

We're making the same point about rodentmind's comment. 


I quoted your quote rather than his/her original because it was shorter.

[spork]

One year later.

Safety Net

I certainly don't feel any safer.