Free For all - Open Discussions and DebatesSin nature?Aineo wrote:Alpha wrote:If I manifest some uncontrollable urge that's sinful, it's because I gained that habit willfully by accumulated acts.
This statement ignores nurture as well as societal mores, customs, and etc. Genesis 8:21
21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
NKJV
OT:5271
na` uwr (naw-oor'); or na` ur (naw-oor'); and (feminine) ne` urah (nehoo-raw'); properly, passive participle from OT:5288 as denominative; (only in plural collectively or emphatic form) youth, the state (juvenility) or the persons (young people):
KJV - childhood, youth.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
Children are innately self-centered, hence sibling rivalry and the cause of tensions where children gather.
When you say children, who are you including? For example, when you look at infants and the way they cry for everything, that does not show selfishness. That shows a need that they have in which they cannot help themselves to fulfill. Selfishness can only be directed to someone that has the ability to choose. And please, I hope you do not throw a dictionary definition of selfishness at me (your usual M.O.). Sometimes those definitions do not convey the true meaning of a word, especially in context of a certain discussion.
If you are not talking about infants, then selfishness is only because of lack of discipline by parents or willful disobediance by children.
The main point is, I cannot see how we are born with a sinful nature.
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