rift, Desert_Rat and Travlling Fool explained it much more eloquently than I could have. I'm also a Christian and none of the Christians I know think that mankind is inherently evil, inherently sinners absolutely, but not evil.

Evil is a fruit of sinfulness. You're splitting hairs here. If a man is sinful, he is evil. There aren't shades of good and bad. There's God and there's Satan. There's good and there's sin. There's no sorta-sin category, and there's no third entity. Little white lies are a creation of man trying to make ourselves feel better about our sinful behavior by categorizing our sins, giving them lesser or greater value. Only man does that. God does not. Sin is sin to Him. And man gets all pissed off because God's not abiding to his man-made scale of right and wrong, sin and goodness.

Cue the angry, critical responses.

Sin = human nature
Evil = willful, intentional sinning.

Just because evil is the fruit of sin doesn't make every sin evil. Here's why, and I'll do it using your analogy. Since we're on a fruit kick, sin is the seed of evil (I'll even agree with you on that one) but not every seed grows to produce fruit (evil). So while sin is a part of evil it is not, in and of itself, evil.

Rift....

Just because mankind is capable of sin, that doesn't mean mankind is inherently evil.

Sin and evil are not necessarily the same thing. Because someone may commit a sin, doesn't make them evil. There are different types of sins and degree of sin.

Maybe the reason why you "born again" Christians are looked upon as a bit zany by mainstream Christians and others is because you twist and bastardize Christianity.

Your bible quotes don't even back up and substantiate your arguments.

Mankind is NOT inherently evil. There is evil in the world and there are evil people, but the basic nature of mankind is not evil.

If you think the concept of man as evil is some construct of original sin passed down from the fall of man, I would have to say that is wrong as far as most mainstream Christians are concerned. Most believe man is born weakened and inclined to sin because of that inherited original sin, but not inherently evil.

The concept of Christ's sacrifice, dying for man's sins, and his resurrection is redemption.

To claim that the basic nature of mankind is inherently evil kind of seems, well, inherently evil.

The concept of Christ's sacrifice, dying for man's sins and His resurrection is not just redemption. It is salvation. Redemption happens through salvation. A person cannot receive redemption from God unless he accepts Jesus as His Lord and Savior. Savior. See that word? It's monumental. Yes, Jesus is called "Redeemer". But again, redemption happens as a result of salvation.

Luke 19:10
"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

I'll reiterate. Evil is a fruit of sinfulness. If you have sin in you, you have evil in you. "Sin" means "to miss the mark". It is implies that we miss God's intended target for us in a given situation. Sometimes that's intentional, sometimes it's completely accidental. But our propensity as imperfect human beings to screw up again and again, day after day, often in the same screw-ups, is a direct result of the "fall of man" a.k.a Adam and Eve (see Genesis 3).

Before the fall, man had perfect communion with his Creator, literally walking with Him daily. As a result of the fall, we are separated from Him by our own choices. God loves us enough to allow us that distance. To do otherwise would be dictatorship. Even though God, the Creator, has absolute right to insist and force us to follow Him, out of the depths of His love and grace, He allows us to not.

rift, I'm confused...you say mankind is evil...and I take it you've come to this conclusion through discussion of the bible with members of your church, am I right? If so, you must live a miserable life knowing you're a horrible person (evil people are horrible people at least everyone I know agrees with me there), but you seem relatively happy and content with your life. How can you go on knowing you're a horrible, evil, person?

I know that the only good to be found in me is the presence of Jesus. And I know that by His sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection, defeating death itself and reconciling me to my Creator, I am redeemed and guaranteed eternal salvation.

Jesus bled so I don't have to. Jesus made it possible for me to commune with God. Jesus saved me from the penalty of eternal death that I deserve...that we all deserve. If all there was was the knowledge of my sinfulness and evil heart, I would hang myself. But I have joy and peace because I am saved from destruction. And I don't and can't ever deserve it. Amazing grace, friend. That's why I have joy.

with all this talk of fruit and seeds and sinning i think im going to go watch brokeback mountain

Have fun with that.