Editor’s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au.
Dear Editor,
Paul Monk, in his piece It's time to abolish the erroneous idea of sin, states that teaching about 'sin' and the 'fall' has all sorts of pernicious consequences. He says that these notions are utterly without credibility and that to teach that we inherit a fallen and sinful nature is odious. He maintains that such teachings should be rejected root and branch and that to do so would pull the rug from the whole edifice of revelation and salvation.
Monk is correct in everything he says. What needs to be stressed, however, is that to reject these teachings would do much more than pull the rug from the edifice of revelation and salvation.
Rejection of these concepts goes to the core of Christian belief – the belief in Jesus. Jesus, the saviour and son of God, came to earth to have himself sacrificed so that all those who believe this story can have their ‘sin’ cancelled and go to heaven. If there had been no original sin, then there would have been no need for God to have impregnated a betrothed Palestinian virgin in order to give birth to Jesus.
Rejecting the absurdities of original sin and the 'fall' is equivalent to rejecting Jesus. No Jesus equals no Christianity. Rejection of these beliefs is, therefore, a rejection of Christianity.
Michael Meyerson
Dear Editor,
On reading Paul Monk's article on sin where h...
