I agree Gibbo, for many weeks now I have been challenging people to PROVE that Harry Potter is not a real person and that we a not surrounded by a world of magic, witches and wizards.
I challenge you to PROVE that my deeply held belief in Harry and his friends is not true.

Similarly a friend of mine is convinced the the world is surrounded by UFOs. Can you PROVE it is not?

Gibbo, you have a right in this country to be deluded about anything.

Don't expect people to waste their time trying to prove to morons that they are pathetic ignorant fools, devoid of independent thought. These people prove it every time they open their mouths.

David, I don't think you can argue that because one authority doesn't mention Paul, that you can therefore proceed on the basis it wasn't his idea. Wikipedia does mention Paul in its entry on original sin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin, and gives a reasonable, although occasionally uneven, run-down on the issue.

At the stage when Paul was writing Christians considered themselves as Jews, so I think one can conclude that it has a Jewish origin, even if it isn't mainstream Jewish.

I don't have a problem with the proposition that Paul owes a lot to Plato. It would have been strange if he didn't. But the idea of the community being punished for the sins of others, as well as the concept that man cannot be made perfect by his own actions alone, are both endemic in the Bible. Take the stories of the Flood and the Tower of Babel.

Early Christians also thought they were living in another time when the earth was to be destroyed because of the corruption of creation, and that after this event Christ would return in glory. This is intrinsic to the concept of original sin.

Also notice that Paul equates death with sin and almost tautologically declares that because we die we are sinners. This also has overtones of the story of Pandora.

BTW, I'm not one of those who suggests that the events in Genesis are anything but myths. These are imaginative ways of addressing intellectual concepts.

Gibo

People will continue to believe the evolution myth simply because they deny the obvious (the adamic nature in their lives). No honest scientist could hold to a theory like evolution with numerous holes in it. You are 100% correct in stating that no one has been able to disprove the bible. In fact the weight of scientific evidence favours the biblical account of creation far more than any other made up myth. The story of evolution continues to change while the account of creation remains obvious to anyone seeking truth.

When the first geological evidence came in showing that the earth was much older than was indicated by a strict interpretation of the bible one bishop explained the discrepency as follows: the earth was created at a time indicated in the bible - God merely planted the evidence to test people's faith. Bertrant Russell agreed with the Bishop with one slight modification. he suggested that the world had in fact been created five minutes ago and that all the data suggested a much earlier point in time was merely a test of our belief.

Paul was educated at the feet of the GIANT of Jewish scholarship Gamaliel.

ACTS 22:3
3"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today

I hardly think Paul 'owes' anything to Plato nor had any need to use his ideas.

EVIL =vile
vile=veil [over good]
[we were 'sewn into skins' by gods hand ,alone]

none 'live' [evil/vile/veil] but by gods will alone ,
our living spirit is of god thus eternal

our skins VEIL our living incarnate holy spirit [materialised]INTO flesh ,[the skins ; we as adam before us was 'sewn INTO skins before us ]

as well recall the deciever [who's realm this is]who offered the christ to rule these [material] realm , but which jesus knowingly declined [thus he has no need to return to 'rule' over]

jesus died and was born [reborn] again [as we thus all will [like he proved] become born again [once our life term is expired]

he advises us the wheat and chaff [sheep and goats ] are sorted into his [our] fathers house THAT we are informed has 'many rooms'[the chaff get their room [the wheat get theirs etc

so how was satan sewn into the skin of a serphant? [he fell FROM HEAVEN],as we all must to 'get sewn into gods special skins' [and ebnter into this place of the orifgonal fall [sin]

ie its how sin /satan got here
[as did adam ]as did we

;sin [satan's'in' satans inn?]satan is in this realm]
he is said to have taught mosus [in the quran]
and was no doudt editing gods good words
even as mosus was scribing them into stone

[adultery means NOT to ADULTerate gods [good ] word.
there is one good [ie GOD]

we chose to serve the life GIVER
or the deciever [the life taker][vile/veil/evil/live]
will to be hearing the voice of your master
love god or vile
but its your own life choice [good /bad fruits]