We have been at this for about a year, and we've finally gotten our first comment. I am pleased to introduce Susie Scarfe, a friend of mine from Ipernity and, before that, Multiply. She is an excellent writer, and I hope she decides to join us here at the Institute. Susie lives in The Republic of Ireland, so her participation would make this an international forum. How about that!
All that stuff I wrote about sin is not necessarily my own belief, it was kind of a sarcastic interpretation of the classic Judeo-Christian obsession with guilt and forgiveness. A lot of people think that religion is all about following the rules and, if you do that, you're okay. Truth is, there is no way you can be good enough to get into Heaven on your own merits. Well, the early Jews didn't even believe in an afterlife, but they did believe that, if you're good enough, God will reward you in this life. Jesus put a different spin on it when He said, "God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike." which is closer to what really happens.
I believe that the Law of Moses was an honest attempt to define a code of conduct that would forge 12 tribes of raggedy desert nomads into a mighty nation. It soon became apparent, however, that nobody could possibly obey all of those laws all of the time, so there had to be a way to make it right when you screwed up. Animal sacrifice had been practiced by other cultures in the region for a long time, and the Israelites adapted it for their own purposes. I think that, originally, sacrificing animals was a lot like putting money in the collection plate at church. Most of the wealth in those days was tied up in livestock, so it wasn't so much about killing animals as it was about kicking a portion of your wealth back to the god from whence it came. Moses wanted the Israelites to distinguish themselves from the heathen tribes they were about to conquer, so he had them do their sacrifices a little differently. For one thing, they could only sacrifice in the Temple which, at that time, was a tent, while the other cultures sacrificed on any convenient mountain top. For another thing, the Israelites were to pour the blood of the sacrificial animals on the ground, and not divert it for human consumption. They were also not allowed to consume the blood of the animals they slaughtered for their own use. From this we can deduce that blood was something special to those people, I suppose because it represented the life force, or something like that.
One of the names for Jesus is "Lamb of God", obviously an allusion to the practice of sacrificing young lambs, which had become a symbol of innocence and purity. The shedding of innocent blood for the atonement of sins was a familiar concept to the Jews, so the idea that Jesus died for our sins wouldn't have seemed all that far fetched at the time. Most of us who accept it today, whether or not we really understand it, grew up hearing about it over and over again, so it is familiar to us, at least as an abstract concept. I don't remember when, but at some point I came to the conclusion that it just doesn't make sense. I suppose I imagined trying to explain it to somebody from another planet who had never heard of it before, and realized that it would be hard to justify.
I don't know a lot about the concept of Original Sin. I never took much stock in it myself. It's hard enough staying out of trouble for my own screw ups without worrying about being blamed for something Adam and Eve did thousands of years ago. If God judges me for that, then so be it.
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