On Tue, 2004-04-20 at 15:57, Daniel Crookston wrote: > ... > This hinges on the assumption that humans are basically good (which I think > is a conversation we had on this list a few months ago,) and would not sin > if we weren't tempted by Satan.
I think this is a very bad assumption. There are probably people (Adam) who really would keep all of God's commandments unless they were properly manipulated into it, but on the whole humans are basically undecided, but mostly leaning toward good. This may be the result of our upbringing in a world full of temptation and sin, but I don't believe all temptation and sin comes from below. Kind of like the warning that we should be careful when casting out devils lest we cast the spirit out of the man we think we're exorcising. Some people, a lot of people, all people to some degree, are familiar enough with choice that we will choose to sin without any external help. I think Lucifer probably made up his own mind. Why should he need help? If I were hungry and saw some bread that wasn't mine, would I need someone to tell me to take it for me to want to all on my own? Eventually we all have to learn to act, rather than be acted upon. This is part of evil as much as it is part of good. Granted, of course, Satan and his followers do an awful lot of work here, but I'd rather believe that man is capable of tempting himself than believe that Satan is capable of entering a Temple. We blame far too much on him, we ought to accept responsibility when it's our own. ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
