On another board I was discussing the possibility of Original Sin with a Catholic tripfag. I promise this is /sci/-related so hear me out.
For some context, the RCC affirms that Original Sin entered the world through a transgression made by two humans at some point in early history (Adam and Eve), which was then passed on to their descendants to cover the whole of humanity. It is helpful to think of original sin as a super dominant but invisible 'gene' present in anyone who can trace their lineage back to Adam or Eve.
Now the traditional interpretation of how this played out is strict monogenism, i.e. Adam and Eve were the first ever humans. There is no evidence for this and isn't worth entertaining.
The new, competing interpretation is that Adam and Eve were the first humans to be given a 'rational' soul (and original sin along with it), and that they were NOT the only anatomically modern humans around at the time.
The new interpretation states that Adam and Eve acquired original sin, then through their descendants spread it to the rest of the 'pool' of early humans over the course of following generations. One such descendant could have been one of humanity's Universal Common Ancestors, or the MRCA before humanity branched out and spread all over the world. If I'm not mistaken, in order to cover the entire human race this MRCA would need to have existed about 65,000 years ago; any earlier would imply that, to this day, there are isolated pockets of people on earth who don't have rational souls.
Now this is not a parsimonious explanation nor is it intended to 'prove' Adam and Eve but it is a decent attempt at clearing away the contradiction between Catholic doctrine and human evolutionary origins. I'd be interested to hear what /sci/ thinks.
My biggest objection is related to the emergence of the 'rational soul'. I cannot find any reason why only two humans out of a pool of thousands of anatomically identical contemporaries would somehow qualify for this. Furthermore, behaviours associated with rational thought and a 'soul', e.g. art and religious practices, developed 500,000 years ago and were even commonplace amongst neanderthals, which implies that Adam/Eve may not have been human.
>>7838204
>This is /sci/ related
>>7838204
The Catholic Church officially believes in evolution through mutation and natural selection.
Sage on this shitty brainstorming.
>>7838212
They also believe that Adam and Eve were historical figures. The Catechism is quite clear on that.
>>7838216
"Historical" in an allegorical fashion... if the Old Testament was perfect, there would be no need for Christ nor the New Testament
>>7838219
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution
Catechism 390
The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.
"When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own" (Humani Generis 37).
>>7838204
Would people with severe mental illness be ones without souls?
>>7838225
How could someone write about Adam and Eve if they weren't there as witnesses nor received the information? No reason to build your house on sand and defend this nonsense. The Genesis is itself made by many authors.
>>7838225
Christ doesn't go about the "Original Sin", I have actually read the Gospel, unlike many Catholics.
>>7838206
That statement about the age of art is quite a stretch of the imagination. Everything past 50,000 years ago is sketchy at best, for the simple fact that shit get's buried and destroyed over time.
Also, isn't the whole point of evolutionary theory as it stands today the idea that a very select few individuals of a species develop a beneficial mutation, which then gets passed on and spreads due to how helpful it is in allowing greater survival of the new breed?
>>7838204
>operating under the assumption that this silent, hidden "gene" somehow makes its recipient more fit than others, despite being made of invisible catholic magic
Seriously, it's like you've never studied fixation
Why is this garbage on /sci/?
>but it is a decent attempt at clearing away the contradiction between Catholic doctrine and human evolutionary origins. I'd be interested to hear what /sci/ thinks.
For what purpose? What do you hope to accomplish by this?
I'm sure you can invent an interpretation of Catholic doctrine that matches pretty much whatever set of facts you want if you are sufficiently desperate and/or sufficiently liberal in your interpreting. But what does this accomplish?
>>7840075
This.
OP and literally everybody else in this thread seem to think that genes (or any heritable information, in this case "original sin") can somehow magically grow to fixation in the population when they offer no benefit or change whatsoever.
Here's a tip for you uneducated morons: If the "original sin" gene doesn't confer an advantage, why should IT be the one that gets spread to every single descendant, rather than, say, the people who were coloured Pink or Orange on the chart? If they all have the same chance of survival, then the chance of any one set of ancestors at the top of the graph being the origin of any particular gene or set of genes in all mankind is exactly equal.
This probability, of course, scales linearly with respect to population size, so the chances of ancient Adam and Eve passing on their "Original Sin" to the sum total of humanity by now is literally the inverse of the size of human population at the time.
That's exactly why, if you're a moronic Christfag like OP, the ONLY answer to "original sin" is for Adam and Eve to be the ONLY LIVING HUMANS. The inverse of 1 is 1, so the probability of their "Original Sin" gene reaching fixation in the pool is 100%. Any other humans, any other interactions, and you disprove the Catholic idiocy.
>christfags BTFO
>>7838204
Even if you back up your religion with things known from modern scientific discovery, you're just fitting your made up story to the data.
wow no
HEY RELIGIFAGS, ANSWER ME THIS :
if adam and eve were the only humans that god created to start the human race, then who their children have sex with to create their offsprings ? The answer is, they fucked their moms, which was the only female on earth at the time. Which means that God said let there be incest :^)
christianity = momfuck incest sex :^)
>>7840886
Strangely enough, not fully.
Adam and Eve were not the only people after ejection from Paradise. When Cain slew Abel, he went to the land of Nod to take a bride.
>>7840894
still, theres only one female to reproduce, hence incest sex :^)
>>7840904
>still, theres only one female to reproduce, hence incest sex :^)
Umm, no, still not. Sadly there's an actually correct way to say what you're trying to say, but you're too retarded to figure it out.
>>7840909
Who's the other female ?
>>7840918
Dunno, never named. The Land of Nod is fully populated though, which also implies the existence of other populated regions. Part of the problem with talking about the creation story beyond it being an attempt by people without the tools or knowledge to explain what came before is that the people of that era were extremely sexist and as often as not didn't bother mentioning women unless they absolutely had to.
>>7840933
So if they weren't reproduced from adam and eve then people don't have original sin, because they aren't their children. Because otherwise it would have to be incest c:
>>7840938
Original sin is a metaphor homie. You're not talking to a creationist. Hell, you're not even talking to a Christian, just someone who doesn't make idiotic statements about something he doesn't know shit about in a misguided attempt to be clever on 4chan of all places.
I mean seriously guy, you're trying to troll Christians on >>/sci/ of all places. That's like going to an abortion clinic and talking about how great abortions are.
>>7840974
incest confirmed =]
>>7838204
>The new interpretation states that Adam and Eve acquired original sin, then through their descendants spread it to the rest of the 'pool' of early humans over the course of following generations. One such descendant could have been one of humanity's Universal Common Ancestors, or the MRCA before humanity branched out and spread all over the world. If I'm not mistaken, in order to cover the entire human race this MRCA would need to have existed about 65,000 years ago; any earlier would imply that, to this day, there are isolated pockets of people on earth who don't have rational souls.
So this is how silly theology gets when you aren't able to burn people alive anymore.
>>7838204
Catholic Tripfag referenced here.
The church upholds monogenism only insofar as there was an "Adam and Eve" as historical people who committed a rebellion against their beatific vision. Given the genre of that part of Genesis, little else can be discerned as truth.
>For some context, the RCC affirms that Original Sin entered the world through a transgression made by two humans at some point in early history (Adam and Eve), which was then passed on to their descendants to cover the whole of humanity. It is helpful to think of original sin as a super dominant but invisible 'gene' present in anyone who can trace their lineage back to Adam or Eve.
This is a misinterpretation of Original Sin. Original Sin is the claim that, historically, the figures we will call Adam and Eve were given a gift specifically to them as representative to man as a whole - the gift being a beatific vision. However, despite that, they rebelled against it and lost such gift that, if they kept it, their descendants had. Thus Original Sin isn't a positive trait, nor innate damage done to us but a privation of what we could have had. You misunderstand the teaching to take it as a gene of any sort.
>rational soul
To briefly go over this again with you, OP, but I know very little of soul-talk in theology so I won't be much use here. I only know as much as to say the Catholic position of body and soul is a hylomorphic position - that all being is a compound of matter and soul.
>>7838228
There is no "without souls" in the Catholic position.
>>7840094
As I said in this post, the OP mistakes original sin as a positive trait.
>>7840938
>So if they weren't reproduced from adam and eve then people don't have original sin
This is correct.
>>7841015
>>7840978
Don't be stupid.
>>7841056
>>7838235
Adam and Eve's story exists as a traditional story or "myth" when written down. This is the official label of the genre of that part of the text to the Catholic Church historically. However myth is not to say entirely fictitious but rather a story based on some historical elements.
Genesis is made by many authors in the respect that Genesis is a compilation of texts and some texts were traditional stories (which is to a degree poetic in nature), such as the entire creation narrative.
I'm out for Super Bowl stuff. I'll be back later to respond to everyone jumping on me.
>>7841197
Through our free action, of course.
>>7841233
Thanks 4chan.
>>7841056
>This is a misinterpretation of Original Sin. Original Sin is the claim that, historically, the figures we will call Adam and Eve were given a gift specifically to them as representative to man as a whole - the gift being a beatific vision. However, despite that, they rebelled against it and lost such gift that, if they kept it, their descendants had. Thus Original Sin isn't a positive trait, nor innate damage done to us but a privation of what we could have had. You misunderstand the teaching to take it as a gene of any sort.
I see. But how does this 'transmit' down the line to descendants, if not as a positive trait?
Where is the blue race now ?
>>7842707
There is no blue race now. They are assimilated and lost their racial identity.
>>7840103
>Even if you back up your [theory] with things known from modern scientific discovery, you're just fitting your made up [theory] to the data.
lel double standards
>>7842742
Wat
>>7842742
Try again, friend
>>7838204
OP what the fuck is a rational soul? As opposed to what? An irrational soul? This is not worth discussing. Misdefined concepts, broken logic.
>>7843008
A theory is nothing more than a story
>>7838204
There's such thing as 'mitochondrial Eve' and 'Y-chromosome Adam', but last I checked their timing didn't overlap in the slightest.
The whole thing about a "super-dominant invisible sin gene" is pretty far-fetched and fruitless speculation at best. Aliens, though.
>>7838204
Original Gin
dafuq am I reading? Why /sci/ why?
>>7843828
OP misunderstood the whole original sin thing as a gene when it shouldn't be.
>but last I checked their timing didn't overlap in the slightest.
And thats fine. The argument is only to talk about a common descendants, not the most recent common ancestor to have produced a common chain of y chromosome between all people.
>>7842698
In the respect of not receiving something we would have had otherwise. Our "fallen state" is us without the assistance we would have had.
>>7838204
But wasn't the sin *eating the fruit* *of the tree* of the knowledge of good and evil?
Also, what was a sin for Adam and Eve may no longer be a sin. In the story God tells them not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but that was then, this is now. God never told me not to eat any fruit.
Also there is no literal tree of the knowledge of good and evil I ever saw, let alone fruit.
If you start going in for metaphors ( and metaphors are literally lies ) then you have to imagine what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil might be a metaphor for. Also do they literally mean good and evil, or do they just mean things in general? Does this metaphorical tree of knowledge differ from knowledge itself?
And the fruit... Without literal fruit, then we might mean benefits.
Adam and Eve die in the day they eat the fruit ( partake of the benefits/produce ) of this metaphorical tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If good and evil are scams, then is the fruit the benefits of running a religion?
If it is knowledge in general, then maybe the benefits kill Adam and Eve?
They didn't literally die in the day they ate, so maybe it means they die as a true lifeform. Maybe they foreclosed their continued evolution, sealing their fate as an evolutionary dead end?
Maybe depending on knowledge limits your species continued evolution?
As Gods?
>>7838204
Haven't read through the entirety of the thread yet, and even though I'm quite interested in the subject and the way you're tackling it I must ask, what kind of possible insight are you looking for with this discussion?
>>7844561
OP said he wanted to hear our thoughts. I think he really meant could we either prove it or debunk it.
It's not even wrong and doesn't really belong on this board.
