Catholic guilt is a myth

Only if you believe in the holy ghost, though, lily. I don't have room for ghosts in my life.

Bags, I am of the same mind as you on this issue.

Doesn't matter if you don't believe in the HG, Bags.

Oh. I'm so glad. Does that mean I'm on the "Safe Side"?

You do know I'm taking the piss, don't you, lily, though out of amusement rather than unkindness

Doesn't it bother you, lily, that the whole idea of sin being visited onto further generations is actually completely immoral?

BTW, was it Ratzinger or the previous chap who abolished limbo? Good marketing strategy in Africa where lots of babies die young and where the competing Abrahamic religon (Islam) allows that newborns are innocent and not tainted with original sin so if they die they go straight to heaven.

Wonder where all the limboese went? I hope they got a proper upgrade without any delay.

Stop prodding, Bags! No, it doesn't bother me because that's not what original sin is.

I'd be glad of an explanation of what original sin is, lily, should you feel inclined. You can pm me if you prefer, or explain on this thread. I may ask questions but I will try not to 'prod' (too much ).

Have to go and make some cheese sauce the noo.

You know, it is really only older folks like most of us who really think about religion. I'm an atheist, but I know my bible stories and fully understand the ideas I've rejected through science and logic. I never felt much guilt, even when I was trying to be a believer, unless I'd done something to hurt someone. But I guess that is a sort of secular guilt.

Many, of not most younger people around here (Australia) are non-theists. They would not understand our discussions because they know nothing about religion and are not remotely interested. In my last job I remember being surprised that a young woman there did not know that Jesus was a Jew. I mentioned this to someone else, and they had no idea either.

Of course, a few folks join the happy clapper versions of religion, such as the Assemblies of God, because these churches use effective marketing strategies. But the old churches are being sold off for business or other uses. Daft as it seems for an atheist, this makes me sad. I might not be a believer, but I respect tradition and history. I'd like to see them used for Sunday Assemblies, as in that former London church, which has philosophy and music instead of sermons and hymns.

Sorry -I'm rambling off subject again.

Joan you're absolutely right that Christian activity in Western Europe and you say, in Australia as well, has declined since the mid 20th century. It isn't in decline in Africa, for example, or possibly the USA as well and there is little evidence of other world religions being in decline. There is some evidence of what they call 'new religions' being on the increase and of certain kinds of Christian sects, as you suggest, doing rather well. It seems to me that Western Europe (big revival of Orthodox Christianity in Russia, for example) is going through the same kind of upheaval as we had in the 15th and 16th centuries in terms of theology and philosophy. Interesting.

Assuming that the enquiry about 'original sin' is just that, and not another pop at the perennial aunt Sally of this forum, aka the RCC, and with the caveat that I'm not in any way attempting to persuade, change or alter anyone's belief I'll attempt to provide a little enlightenment.

The key is understand is the word reatus. It doesn't mean sin or even guilt in the sense of personally responsible but rather in the sense if 'being liable' for the consequences of a situation. The Tridentine doctrine is about protecting the notion of the necessity if baptism to remedy the effects, rather than to assert a personal culpability.

But - there has been four hundred and sixty odd years of theological development since the Tridentine synthesis and one of the defining characteristics of the call to theologians at Vatican II was to try to recover the Chistocentric heart or purpose of Christian theology. This area was one in which there had been a great deal of work even enforce V II. Important among those working in this area was the German Jesuit Karl Rahner.

Rahner's contribution here is to offer a synthesis which accepts the authority of Scripture and the tradition of the church while taking into account the understanding of human origins as understood according to modern scientific models.

This attempt is heavily dependent upon being able to produce a new vocabulary to express those tings which the church hold to be true. He demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to see human descent fromasallgroupof tee arrest human beings but still hold to the sin of Adam (the very word means not one man, but mankind) had damaged original justice once and for all. Our participation comes about by the very fact that each individual is a human being born into a single closely united race. The aboriginal assertion of human free will against the will of God, determines the whole of human future in which each individual participates by preventing human nature from being the very vehicle through which zgod's grace is mediated to each new human being by their generation as was, in Rahner's view, the original plan. This approach preserves the key element of St Thomas' theology of original justice in a way that understands that humans are not simply a biological reality with a biological inheritance but a social reality with a social conscience. A key insight that is entirely congruent with the current understanding of te development and function of the human genome.

This post is really too long for a forum of this type and I shall not do it again. But as a response to what I hope was a genuine question and not a 'prod', I hope to show that the question is taken seriously, and that the primitive religious instruction of fifty or sixty years ago is really no guide at all to modern theology. Anymore than than studying the red map of the British Empire is a guide to modern historical or geographical realities.

There are some iPad word manglings here, but I think it's decodable.

Thanks, micelf. I get the bit about accepting evolution and other scientific discoveries, and the re-wording or re-interpretation of scripture based on new understanding of science. I think. (My father was brought up by jesuits).

So, essentially, my interpretation of that much is that the stories in christian scripture are to be taken literally until it is proved that they can't be taken literally and then they should be understood as allegory. OK. Fine with that. Sort of.

Regarding the bit about original sin, am I right in thinking, then, that the essential problem is deciding things for oneself without reference to god's will? That the idea is christians should always try to do what they understand as god's will rather than their own, even when their own will conflicts with what they (or some theologians somewhere) interpret as god's will?

Or am I way off the mark there?

Thanks, MiceElf. What you say!

Micelf did you teach theology at uni by any chance? My old head teacher was a MA oxon with a degree in theology.
She wanted me to follow in her footsteps. When I asked what would I do with a degree like that? Her response was to become a missionary.!
Moi?
The only missionary I'm likely to be is a position in beds,

Or any other county for that matter?

Typo. My aunt was CNO for Herts and Beds!

Bags, I think the scripture stories are always a means of understanding the truths of life. They were never written as 'history'. As people's understanding of science, or any other discipline, develops they understand great truths differently. But stories are a way of helping people to come to an understanding of deeper ideas if they cannot access philosophical or other 'technical' language.

I think your final paragraph is a good summary of the idea.

Galen. I'm no theologian. I wish!

Just a humble historian. Who likes stories...

Lucky you. I wanted to be an archaelogist I love ancient history.

"Regarding the bit about original sin, am I right in thinking, then, that the essential problem is deciding things for oneself without reference to god's will? That the idea is christians should always try to do what they understand as god's will rather than their own, even when their own will conflicts with what they (or some theologians somewhere) interpret as god's will?"

I understand the idea behind the above (Bags' interpretation with the agrement of lilygran), but not sure how that relates to ORIGINAL sin. The concept of sin as being going against god's will (or what an individual or religion thinks is god's will) makes some sense, but it does not tie in with the idea of sin as something inherited as part of the human condition.

My interpretation of the idea of original sin is that it is an attempt by religion to answer the entirely reasonable question - "If god is good, why is there eveil in the world?). It is a story to try and explain this paradox. And I agree with the importance of myths and stories as a way of explaining deeper ideas that are hard to find words for - the trouble starts when these are not recognised for what they are and are taken literally.

It also begs the question as to what is god's will - no agreement on that so far. Different religions have different ideas.

Matthew Fox wrote an interesting book called Original Blessing - worth a look I htink.

I have only just found this thread. I come from a good conventional catholic home and a predominantly convent education, including all my secondary education, but I never came across the concept of catholic guilt until I was in my early 20s and even then I think the subject was brought up someone who was not a catholic.

FlicketyB I posted the OP because I think the perception of the part played by guilt in Christianity is an misunderstanding on the part of the secular observer ('don't worry, there probably isn't a God') and the research seemed to bear it out. I suppose thinking seriously and regularly about the things you should not have done and those things you should have done is foreign to the children of the 1960s and their children and grandchildren, as Joan suggests.

I don't think that examining one's conscience about what you should/should not have done/do is solely the preserve of those who believe in god, or of particular generations. I do not think it is "foreign" to either group.

It is an interesting idea that catholic/Christian guilt is a secular construct - I am not sure that I or many others brought up in a Christian tradition would agree with that. I have vivid memories of chapel at school with gruesome carvings of the stations of the cross on the wall and being told that Christ's suffering was my fault. Boy was I scared!

I never took the concept of Christ suffering for our sins personally and despite attending 6 different catholic schoola, I cannot remember hell and damnation forming a signifcant part of my religious educaton. It was more being encourage to justify ones salvation by doing good in this world, which has certainly driven my social conscience. Hell and damnation only came to those who committed mortal sins, and we were always reassured that as it was unlikely we would ever do that the concept was nothing to worry us.

On a slightly different tack.. As a non-catholic I found it perplexing when I was helping to appoint a headteacher for a RC Primary School. Two excellent candidates were not able to be appointed because they had married non-catholics though they had married in a RC church! They ended up appointing a rather dull person who was an excellent catholic but a mediocre headteacher! Apparently the other candidates would not have been able to sign the bishop's letter!