'The hand wringing about evil, and its source, is almost a non issue for the evolutionist and non duelis'

That is obvious in the way you can murder the unborn and somehow justify it. It is also obvious that you can a justify every evil deed by employing a few Phd students to write a paper confirming your dogmas. Just look at the cronies who leapt to the defence of an artist exploiting young kids recently by photographing them nude.

The bible is the most truthful and accurate decriptor of the human heart. If evolution was half true we would see evil decreasing in the world. Instead the human race is becoming more godless, blasphemous and immoral. Christ is still the only answer for sick hearts. The problem is that most go to the wrong place for a diagnosis. The belief in the evolution myth has allowed many to actually think that they are good people. This would be rather comical if it was not so sad. All who don't turn to Christ will die in their sin and go to eternal torment.

David F
Finally, somebody recognises me.

Yes, they did burn me at the stake for heresy but I've learned a lot important lessons since then.

1. Heresy and wisdom have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Heresy is simply contradicting the prevailing opinion (all religion is (usually some other person's) opinion).
Wisdom is the result of good information.

2. Doubt has no sanctity, it is a state of remaining unconvinced

3. Beware the fatuous platitude.

4. Don't ever try and attempt more than 2 posts per 24 hours and...... never write your fatuous platitudes in numbered point form.

The doctrine of original sin goes back to St Paul. I have no idea why anyone would want to blame Augustine for it. It also goes hand-in-hand with the concept of grace - another Pauline thesis. Perhaps these things go back to the teachings of Christ as well, given that Paul's letters predate the Gospels and were accepted as significant by the early church.

Grahame - you attributed the doctrine of Original Sin to Paul and said: -"I have no idea why anyone would want to blame Augustine for it. "

Were you not perhaps being a little disenguous in the latter part of that statement given, as one poster remarked, a fairly wide acceptance of the concept as Augustinian, and the wealth of material available which supports this acceptance?

As to why anyone would believe it? I can't speak for anyone else and am not a theologan, but my understanding has always been that the attribution to Paul was only made AFTER Augustine's doctrine was disseminated. Further, that Paul did not present an actual Doctrine of Original Sin: - this was a meaning extrapolated from his writings and is therefore posited upon individual interpretation in the light of Augustine?

As I said, I am not a theologan, but perhaps this answers why indeed someone/anyone would have accepted Original Sin as an Augustinian concept?

Original sin can be seen in the children.

They all need to be taught the right way...showing that they/we are a fallen species.

The consequences of the Original sin (and subsequent sin) can also be seen in the environment.

Everything that was PARADISE has mostly gone. The peaceful relationship Adam and Eve had with Creation (all of the little animals etc) and the earth, has gone...to be replaced with the weeds and the hard toil to bring forth mans food (Genesis 3:17-19).
*
Todays chemical industries spend billions just to keep those weeds at bay.

Now the animals, in their fallen-from-the-Original-state, hunt each other to live.
Many men hunt other men with carnal hopes of overcoming and dominating.

Gone also is the covered sky (the upper water canopy that surrounded the earth and made it a warmhouse) and the springs (mist) that once watered the earth before the great rains of The Flood (Genesis chapter 6).
Now the canopy is gone and the UV pours in and we have deserts and storms.

The Original Sin and its consequences are as clear as day.
You need to read Genesis.
Its all there.

Romany, I'm not sure why I should accept something just because someone says it is widely accepted. If you go to Romans and read Chapter 5 you will find this at verse 19 "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." The first "one man" is Adam, the second "one man" Jesus. This clearly looks to me like a theology of original sin. Paul is full of it. His view is that we have all died to sin, and that we are rescued from it by the sacrifice of Jesus, but that because of our sinful nature we cannot grasp salvation for ourselves but come to it via the grace of God.

The reason that many try to load Augustine up with the invention of the doctrine is it then allows them to argue that it is not authentically Christian and to then try to substitute another doctrine for it.