There's many reasons history isn't taught to people much anymore, but one sinister reason is that people who seek to lord over others in a feudal fashion know their history of philosophy and so they know that any people who themselves don't have a rich, diverse understanding of the past are very easily sold falsehoods. Lies. And lies help people looking to lord over others do so more easily. It is how dictatorial schemes play out 100% of the time. So says history.

We know that history has a way of sorting out lies and exposing them as lies, but when we don't know human history, we suffer from a type of "illusion of originality" and think very highly of our human ways and in that human wonderment glow we're most prone to repeat the mistakes others have made throughout the ages.... over, and over again.

Modern day philosophy doesn't teach and doesn't remember two important philosophical (discussion of knowledge) and theological (discussion of God) streams which are ages old, but we may live them out all the time whether we know them or not. We'd benefit from knowing them so that people "perhaps" wouldn't live such broken lives, but those who seek to lord over others know that people who are desperate will tolerate evil things done to them much easier, because their lives are a mess and they hope their mess will be washed clean by those who are promising things to them who are in power. Modern lingo calls these aids "free stuff," or "handouts" but are they aimed at compassion or control? Or both? It's hard to answer sometimes. Most times.

But we can know history. Like the two important controversies in the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries which are still with us. Yep, we still live them but do we know them and understand how their can shape a married couple, a family, a town or a nation? Not too much anymore because history isn't taught. The first controversy in the Roman Empire was called Pelagianism. But it didn't start then, it was just promoted more then by a British theologian named Pelagius who taught in Rome (what would ultimately become a heretical position) that denied Adam’s transmission of Original Sin. Did we know that we are teaching a techno modern version of Pelagiansim today in our educational system? Whereby “the individual is improvable beyond the limits of a fallen condition through education." In other words, Pelagius “began to teach that it was possible - and therefore mandatory - that human beings strive towards and achieve perfection in the Christian life in the present." Now we are a post-Christian culture in 2023, so God isn't in the picture as much as He was in time of Pelagius, so humanism is the modern version, whereby the individual's behaviors, a result of their actions according to psychology, are best formed by education. But what education? We see that in action all around us don't we?

In a similar way, secondly, the pagan philosophers Aristotle and Cicero argued that humankind obtains the highest good in their existence through the public activity of politics - the highest good for these philosophers is human flourishing. It's also the goal of modern day Artificial Intelligence for some who haven't kept current on where AI wants to lead humanity. Human flourishing. It's been the goal of the heart for countless people for as long as man has been on earth. Each generation suffers from the illusion of originality that they alone have the keys to the locked box.

So, both Pelagius and philosophers and Pelagius deny the transmission of original sin insofar and so the limits placed upon humankind by sin are disregarded by both camps

Pelagius, like modernists and humanists today, explicitly denied the effects of sin, while the pagan philosophers have always seemed to be oblivious to it. Pelagius preached that man himself do things to such an extent that he can overcome a sinful nature and philosophers simply don't consider that a god would be involved at all.

Saint Augustine would spend 13 years in the writing of his rebuttal of Pelagius and the pagans in his "The City of God"; and this theological work came at time when the Roman Empire admitted that 4 centuries of persecution had only made Christ's Church flourish further and allowed bishops to openly engage in debate.

Those who seek power seek to end debate and we also see that becoming more commonplace in our lifetimes (those of us old enough to remember a few decades ago) and to know history we realize debate isn't a bad thing.... it's a very good thing. This nation was formed by great debaters and those who spoke daily of politics and religion.

So I won't stop talking politics and religion because that thinking is not of God.
Debate is ok. Arguing is actually ok. Anger isn't. There's a difference. That difference is impossible to discern on a tech device.

But please let's simply know a little history to keep our human awe and grandeur in check while those who don't know history tell us how they have a "new" plan.
I am from... and of.... Adam and there's nothing I can do about my parents.

Blessings!
Mark

Yep people in trouble look to gods. Romans did it Greeks did it Jews did it American Indians did it. Wont work for us either.

P.S. Rome collapsed AFTER Constantine created Christianity/Catholicism and made it the official religion of the empire

Amen Mark. I’ll keep talking to my neighbor that agrees with me but doesn’t speak up or pay attention to politics and the news. Everyone needs to talk to “Norm the normal neighbor” and wake them up. Norm is a good dude that agrees with my conservative views. He just hasn’t realized the other side is try to destroy his values and his Nation.

Back in the old days before philosophers became the scientists of today, the Aristoteles taught that if you couldn't be made to believe the Greek way you were a barbarian to be enslaved or slaughtered. Alexander was a student of that day and soon capitalized on getting to the top by cheating (for lack of a better word). By swaying the gods in his favor by cutting the knot and not counting the cost that he himself might be lost in his campaign to own the world. All went well while his underdogs fought his fight, but as we know followers can become fickle. Something about a drunken elephant with sharpshooters on their backs can change a persons attitude, esp. when they are miles from home and tired. A hard lesson was learned even from the original sin of taking a shortcut by cheating and whacking the knot with a sword.

Even several hundred years later in a slave revolt the authorities crucified some 6000 of those barbarians over a 130 mile stretch of the Appian Way as an example to others not to follow suit. We are seeing slaves put under submission today in the name of science and taxes for it. The middle class is left to scrounge for food while exporting the better part of their living for taxes. Or supplying their own straw for making their quota of bricks.

What do you look to Danny?

I dont diggerman. Bad things happen to good people. Bad people often prosper. Little kids die from horrible cancers and people are cruel to each other. There is no supernatural power going to look out for your best interest. If your bored read about the ghost dance. Indians at the end of their ropes over being conquered came up with a new ritual instead of looking for new ways to survive. It did not end well. All you can do is keep striving till its your turn to die. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. There is no invisible baby sitter that will make things right.

Since we don't have Pelagius's actual writings, there's a lot of this that is speculation. Augustine had some flaky theology too. And Augustine's interpretation of what Pelagius was trying to say is all we have, correct?

What exactly is wrong with striving to overcome one's sinful nature? BTW, the term "sin nature" never appears in scripture. It never explicitly says that sin is our birthright. We are responsible for our own sin, not Adam's sin, not Eve's sin, not my neighbor's sin.
If Augustine's interpretation was right, Pelagius went too far in one direction, that is, in denying we need God's help to overcome sin, but Augustine went too far in the other direction by ultimately denying free will.

"It never explicitly says that sin is our birthright. We are responsible for our own sin, not Adam's sin, not Eve's sin, . . . "

Disagree: Romans 5:12

I think there is a switch in the line of thinking. Wasn't there two Adams?
Before someone gets their teeth set on edge please consider Ezekiel 18:20. The soul who sins is the one who will die. A son will not bear the iniquity of his father, and a father will not bear the iniquity of his son. The righteousness of the righteous man will fall upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked man will fall upon him.

PAskinner,

I thought all of us were born sinners due to our fallen nature? That is why we all need a Savior.

All of us are SIN positive. That's why we have to correct our children. They were not born without sin, they do it all by themselves; it was never taught.

Supposedly two Eves. The "other one" was Lilith.

I like where this is going, but it is not biblical.

"Two" seeds?

You can do your research on Lilith or otherwise if you wish . . . any Biblical Scholars on here can hash things out.

Fair enough. I hold all my Truth's up to what Jesus said and also the first 5 books. I try to get better understanding by reading the Septuagint on the Torah.

However, that don't mean that I don't find discrepancies and contradictions. When I do, I do chase them down and often leads me to the Apocrophya Books, Enoch, Jubilees, Jasher, etc.
By my own bias, the things that tend to make sense I side with, the other I steer away from. I'm praying that the Wisdom of God will lead me. However, there are several places that are a dead end, unless I change my understanding. Scary though, cause don't know what is Truth, Talmudic mysticism, or BS regarding some of these ancient texts

Some of these I've found can lead one straight to evil.

Proverbs 3:5–6 . . . enough from me :-)

I like having an escape route, lol. While the first Adam had an inheritance of sorts, the 2nd Adam had an inheritance too and left it in a Testament. The 2nd saves me from my sin and not in it. If I practice sin every day as the first Adams nature would prescribe , then poor me. Wonder when we will ever start teaching that a persons actions are a responsibility of the doer.

Sins are what we commit, sin is what we are.

Thanks for bringing that up. Just so we don't have a rehash of "Revelations" and/or "Walmarts" or even what the definition of what "is" is, here is an article.
https://kingdomoftheheavens.net/the-distinction-between-sin-singular-and-sins-plural-part-1/