Original Sin?

Quote: Evenbob

It's only important because you think it
is. No one thing is more important than
any other one thing. You are the one
that makes it so. You create your own
reality, how else. If you really think about
that, you know it's true.

You're a priest because you created that
reality for yourself, nobody else did that.
You serve your god because you want to,
you want that reality. I do not, so that reality
doesn't exist for me.

Bob, I think in responding to Face a while ago I addressed a little bit of why I am am priest and it has little to do with me. I did not create or dream of this reality for me. I am responding to a call from God. A call I am eternally grateful for, but it is not something I wanted to do or created for myself.

I wonder if this idea that we can create our own reality arises from one of our more fundamental disagreements. You believe that we can determine for ourselves, based on our wants and desires, a moral system of right and wrong. I believe that right and wrong are objective truths that are not determined by us nor changed by our circumstances, wants, or desires. You shout what you want and I choose to listen to what He wants.

Quote: FrGamble

Bob, I think in responding to Face a while ago I addressed a little bit of why I am am priest and it has little to do with me. I did not create or dream of this reality for me.

So you think we are all god's puppets,
then, we just dance around on strings
to his will?

Which is it, we create our own reality, or
we just blindly do god's will, it can't be
both ways.

Quote: FrGamble

I believe that right and wrong are objective truths that are not determined by us nor changed by our circumstances, wants, or desires.

That is remarkably correct.

Or it would be if:

Quote:

You shout what you want and I choose to listen to what He wants.

Which means you either regard God's whim as objective good somehow, or you have discarded objective good for a deity's whim. And I mean this if the Bible's God were real.

This is funny. I'm listening to a book called
Double Down, about two professors who
got addicted to gambling. They blame it
in part on their Catholic school upbringing,
where their main course was being schooled
in Catholic Guilt.

One brother distinctly remembers going to
his sisters room to borrow a pencil. As he
was using it, he realized this could be considered
stealing and was a sin. But then it hit him
that he was also guilty now of the sin of Prideful
Worry, which means worrying too much about if
you're sinning or not. He said it was a treadmill
you could never get off of; when you weren't
sinning, you were worrying about it, which in
itself was a sin.

Doing this kind of thing to innocent children is
the real sin. When you lay guilt trips like this on
kids, you create neurotic adults. But they keep
going back to church, which is rather the point,
isn't it.

Quote: Nareed

Which means you either regard God's whim as objective good somehow, or you have discarded objective good for a deity's whim.

They are one in the same.

Quote: Evenbob

So you think we are all god's puppets,
then, we just dance around on strings
to his will?

Which is it, we create our own reality, or
we just blindly do god's will, it can't be
both ways.

We can try to create our own reality, but it is a constantly frustrating process. Why doesn't this person do what I want or need them to do for me? Why did this tragedy occur? Why did I get this diagnosis? How come this happened? So much beyond our control that creating our own reality seems like attacking a windmill.

We also cannot blindly do anything, much less God's will. This is what radical fundamentalist use to blow up abortion clinics or slaughter innocent men and women in the streets of Paris. We need to think and use our mind, heart, and our will to first prayerfully discern God's will and then to follow it.

Therefore I would choose an option you did not present - reasonably doing what we have discerned is God's will. There is no blindness in praying about and listening attentively to the will of God in our lives and following it. There is also a responsible use of great gift of freedom the good Lord gave us.

Quote: FrGamble

We can try to create our own reality, but it is a constantly frustrating process. Why doesn't this person do what I want or need them to do for me? .

So you think creating your own reality
means you create somebody elses for
them? Or the worlds? You create YOUR
reality, everybody else creates their own.
You constantly make choices whether
you know it or not.

Quote: FrGamble

They are one in the same.

Whims? Absolutely.

God don't have no whims.