Admitting You're a Sinner

[drfuzzy]

The way I was raised is that EVERY human being ever born (except Jesus, of course, because there was no human father) is born evil.  Due to original sin.  Because of a human choice - original sin - , every human ever born deserves eternal punishment simply because they were born human and evil.  Every human soul is so despicably filthy that God cannot even look in its direction - unless that soul has been "washed clean".  And the only way a soul can be clean is by blood sacrifice - the special blood sacrifice of a God, who loved our hideous filthy selves so much that he chose to be tortured to death to shed that special blood.  (And earn humans a place in heaven.)  And ALL you have to do is tell God that you're a horrible sinner and accept his beneficent, wonderful, glorious, loving sacrifice!  Isn't it great?  Now you're not disgusting anymore!  Now you won't burn forever after you die!  And you have to keep praying, keep trying to live right and HOLY and separate from the evil world, keep "washing yourself" in the blood of the lamb.  

And I just accepted this as the glorious "good news".  Now it's . . . mind-boggling, it's absurd, it's ridiculous and illogical and nauseating.

And, of course, there WAS no "original sin".  No Adam and Eve.  And certainly no need for a blood sacrifice.