Chapter 51
ARE PEOPLE REALLY SINNERS?
Why would someone who doesn't believe in sin carry an anti-war, anti-pollution or pro-peace sign? If war and other human oppression is just part of a larger “natural selection” process, why do such people consider themselves more righteous than many other people? If there is no evil, why is it considered morally “wrong” to harm and morally “right” to help our neighbor?
Why are Rosa Parks and Albert Schweitzer considered morally superior to Bonnie Parker and Adolf Hitler? Why would all four arise in the same “advanced” modern species? Why is it called “justice” when people imprison other people? Who gets to decide and, why?
If babies are born moral and pure, why do we need to be taught how to morally behave? Why is there a concept of “hatred”? If we change the word “sin” to “social maladjustment” or “seething mass within”, does it lessen the pain and suffering people inflict on other people? Does changing terminology change the reality of what men and women do?
Why do we lie to each other? Why are there laws against murder, theft and false witness? Why are there university ethics classes? Why don't we automatically love our neighbor as ourselves? Why did we crucify our greatest moral teacher? ¹ Why is there human oppression? Why is there a civil rights movement and a song entitled “We Shall Overcome”? What is it we're trying to overcome?
If people are born morally “blank” with no predisposition towards evil, as Freud assumed, why are we so self-destructive? Why do we eat and drink what we believe is harmful? Why do we abuse both ourselves and other people, often in the face of severe social rejection, lengthy incarceration and even execution? ² Why is there a “Nobel Peace Prize”? Why are adults rewarded for behaving like we believe we all should behave?
Why is it so difficult to teach children to be what our conscience dictates as “good”, while they are what we consider “bad” quite easily on their own, without any parental reward and, often in spite of repeated punishment? ³ If it's against human rights to murder, steal and lie, why do we do so? If this is not against our reproductive survival, why are Jesus and Gandhi considered exceptional people?
After thousands of years of education to the contrary, why do even our most educated people continue to add to the pile of global mass pollution, bilk the common masses with complicated financial schemes and, continue to create horrific weapons, even after the horrific evidence of the Great Depression and WWII? Why didn't an “Age of Enlightenment” result in peace on earth, instead of even worse wars?
According to modern science and the Bible, our underlying motivations are deceptive and often different than we perceive in our own conscious awareness. Is it true we “all have sinned” and fall short of moral perfection? Are people really sinners? You decide.
NOTES:
1. The fact that human beings crucified Jesus throws a Darwinian monkey wrench into any foolish notion that people are born either morally good or morally blank, as well as it seriously challenges modern Darwinian evolutionary claims of reproductive survival being the sole fundamental drive of our species. If the sole driving motivation of our species is reproductive survival, why are celibate people like Jesus, Paul and Mother Teresa revered by millions of people? Why are some of history's martyrs like Isaiah, Jesus, Gandhi and King still quoted today and considered to be among the best our species has to offer? Why would historian Will Durant, perhaps human history's most educated man, state that Jesus was far more intelligent than any other human being known in history? How do the life and teachings of Jesus demonstrate reproductive survival? If morality is essential to our reproductive survival, why would human beings crucify our greatest moral teacher?
2. So where does it leave "natural selection" and the fact that educated human beings commit suicide? Why would an educated human being deliberately end their ability to reproduce, often during the prime reproductive window of their life and, even when a suicide is not caused by a loss of or lack of finding a suitable mate? Why would an already wealthy and educated human being leave all hope of reproduction far behind in the dust and venture out where no suitable mate is likely to be found and, often engage in war and commit great violence and otherwise risk life and limb, at the mere wisp of a hint of a few gold or other dollars more? Why do billionaires often spend a lot more time earning billions more than they do attempting to fulfill their evolutionary reproductive destiny?
Is reproductive survival really the sole root motivation of human beings, as the theory of evolution by natural selection has long assumed? Why do some of our most educated modern human beings continue to create weapons of mass destruction, pollute the habitat of their own offspring and use their education to bilk the common masses out of their life savings which deceptive financial schemes? How could Joseph Stalin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Kate "Ma" Barker and Mother Teresa, all arise in the same modern “advanced” species? How can the known history of Cortez, the American West and the Klondike Gold Rush be rationally explained by modern evolutionary theory? After thousands of years of moral education to the contrary, why are scientists, lawyers and politicians on the corporate payroll here in the 21st Century, pretending there is no such thing as global warming? Since the technology has existed since the 1980's, why aren't millions of Americans already driving inexpensive automobiles that get 100+ MPG? How does any of this insure the reproductive survival of our species?
3. Modern science and education sometimes loses sight of the most obvious of forest information within the trees of often irrelevant details. The simple fact that children need to repeatedly be punished, cajoled, begged and enticed into being what our own consciences dictates as "good", while they are easily "bad" without any such encouragement and often in the face of repeated punishment, very clearly demonstrates that human beings share a significant innate obedience problem. As the Bible says, God did not give us his laws in some naive expectation that we would obey them but rather, he gave us his laws to demonstrate a point, that we are sinners and are unable to live up to the dictates of our own conscience.
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