Why don’t people believe that the sins or wrongs of the father can passed on to the children for generations?
Posted by adminSep 1
The wrongs or bad choices that a great-great-great grand parents did 100s of years ago can still be felt today. Everything from abuse, alcoholism, picking of bad relationships is passed on. Take the Hemingway and the Barrymores for example.
So do you believe in the sins or wrongs of the father and mother?
Why can’t they still be felt? As that of someone who lives in a family where alcoholism is in their family for generations.
Okay, you don’t have to call it sins. Still even those who break away from the cycle are still effected by it.
22 comments
Comment by Unknownymous on 09/01/2010 at 11:58 pm
Genetically speaking, NO…
“The wrongs or bad choices that a great-great-great grand parents did 100s of years ago can still be felt today.”
“Passed on” and “can still be felt” are two different things…
Comment by Erashiknabad _Mighty Psychic_ on 09/02/2010 at 12:27 am
“Sins” ?
You mean like crack babies?
It’s not sins, its just the crack yo
Comment by DNaRules on 09/02/2010 at 1:07 am
That is how the religious virus is spread.
Comment by europe on 09/02/2010 at 1:37 am
these sins do pass from generation to generation creating doomed families – look around you and you will surely find examples. God says this can last even 7 generations in a row.
Comment by Mommy on 09/02/2010 at 1:53 am
everyone is going to sin…….you know why because we are not jesus/God.
Comment by cx329 on 09/02/2010 at 2:02 am
I believe parents can pass bad habits onto their children (such as religion). Ultimately we are our own people and should not be held responsible for the actions of others regardless of our relationship to them.
Comment by Fred on 09/02/2010 at 2:32 am
On the face of it, this sounds pretty silly. On deeper inspection, it still seems silly.
Comment by Cookie Boy on 09/02/2010 at 3:03 am
Call me sacrilegious, but I’m not the superstitious type, and I do not feel guilt for someone else’s mistakes. But then, I’m not a Christian, nor am I associated with any religion.
And no, I’ve seen people grow up to be nothing like their parents.
Comment by LeeLee on 09/02/2010 at 3:45 am
Eze 18:2 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?
Eze 18:3 [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have [occasion] any more to use this proverb in Israel.
Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Eze 18:19 ¶ Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, [and] hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live.
Eze 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Eze 18:21 ¶ But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
Eze 18:22 All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.
Eze 18:23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: [and] not that he should return from his ways, and live?
Comment by ashmarie321 on 09/02/2010 at 3:48 am
I believe that. Some of it may be genetics, but some is learned behavior that has been passed down for generations. I was the same way my parents were before I got saved. I’m still not perfect, but I have better control. And their parents were the same way. It goes back generations in my family.
Comment by WonderingLyrics0615 on 09/02/2010 at 4:04 am
If the sins of everyone before us came to us, we’d all probably be dead by now, thats how bad the build up would be
Comment by arklatexrat on 09/02/2010 at 4:40 am
Yes, but it’s not as much like an actual curse as it is the natural consequences.
In other words, it is passed along because of the environment (nurture) rather than by nature (genetic).
Just like the examples you cited, children who grow up exposed to these negative sins will have baggage and residual damage that will affect how they perceive the world, how they learn to cope (or not) with stress and how they function in relationships.
Another way of putting it is the old adage “You will pay for your raisin’.”
Comment by Miss Dee on 09/02/2010 at 5:28 am
Well, it does say that in the Old Testament…
Comment by ANDRE L on 09/02/2010 at 6:00 am
It makes no more sense to apply such “guilt” down the generations, than it makes sense to declare people guilty who live on the same street as a criminal, just because they live there.
The whole biblical notion of passed down guilt is EVIL and stupid in the extreme. It likely hails from a time when kings liked the idea, so as to keep the ignorant and illiterate slaves docile.
Its Good that we’re now far freer, and far more enlightened and educated, so that that insane and horrid custom now appears, correctly, to be insane and absurd. Which is it.
Now, passed on genetic traits is another issue; Thats real, because it is genetic. Its no nicer a thing, but its real. Its NOT an excuse to use that to try to stick innocent descendants for things that have nothing to do with them.
Comment by jojokeeper on 09/02/2010 at 6:27 am
Because they do not understand science.
All sin is passed on in the form of DNA mutations and epi genome changes.
Science does not disprove God, science proves God.
Have a nice day.
Comment by problem JPAS on 09/02/2010 at 6:58 am
I don’t think that God will hold sins from one generation to the next, but you are right dysfunction and disease do get passed down.
Comment by KiraX on 09/02/2010 at 7:52 am
Because it’s unfair
Comment by euhmerist on 09/02/2010 at 7:57 am
There is even scientific verification of your statement. There are sins that alter brain chemistry and that chemistry is passed on giving one a “dependant personality disorder”.
Lee Lee overlooked a relevant verse in Exodus.
Exo 34:7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
The meaning of this verse is that even though we will be forgiven, the consequences of sin will remain.
Comment by Ambivalent Bittern PJA on 09/02/2010 at 8:40 am
As a psychotherapist, I certainly believe that the actions/behaviour of our parents has a big impact on us and who we become. Sometimes, one can trace how a particular trauma from several generations back has played out among the descendants, impacting on their lives. But I most definitely am not calling these things ‘sins’ and they are mostly not ‘wrongs’ either – they are the results of powerful experiences. Addiction, for example, is (almost) always the result of experiences which lead to awful internal feelings that have to be blocked out and the addict finds a drug which helps them block things – often it’s alcohol and its effects that they stumble on. Being brought up by alcoholic parents or having one alcoholic parent has a massive impact on a child – who often becomes an adult who has difficulties with trust, with entering fully into real relationship etc. But to call the addiction a ‘sin’ misses the point that it is a result of trauma. That does NOT mean that I condone alcohol or other drug misuse – on the contrary, I think each individual is responsible for their actions and behaviour – but it’s not what I would call a sin.
EDIT: maybe I should add – we grow according to the nurture we get. And we nurture according to the growing we’ve experienced. So if our parents weren’t able, for whatever reason, to meet our needs, love us unconditionally, offer us security, then we become the sort of people who find it hard to give to others, love unconditionally and feel secure enough to make someone else feel secure. Alcoholism is only one version, just a graphic one.
Comment by elaine 30705 on 09/02/2010 at 8:57 am
No because God said we are no longer to be guility of our
fathers sin,s,,,now we only are judged for our own.
Comment by Gary Oster on 09/02/2010 at 9:04 am
I believe there’s some truth to that, but “sins of the father being visited on the son” is simplified and somewhat dangerous thinking.
In the past 100 years, we have come to understand a lot about family dynamics, the influence of nature and nurture, which fits in well the inheritance of sin.
However, the simplified “sins” statement puts it in the mystical realm of fate, and doesn’t arm us with knowledge and understanding of how to break cycles — the “sins” statement is, IMHO, a warning to watch out for repeating the mistakes of your ancestors, and avoid doing things which you would not wish upon your children.
That’s good and wise.
But as it is put in the terms of spirit, there is the tendency to seek only spiritual help, and missing out on help from psychological research and practice, which can really help in understanding how and why destructive cycles tend to repeat in families, and how to break those cycles.
I must say I’m dismayed that I’ve never heard, in the Christian doctrine, that the good of ancestors is visited upon descendants — only the negative and fearful.
Comment by Shuggoth on 09/02/2010 at 9:31 am
There’s definitely a segment of christianity that believes unborn generations should suffer for the sins of their forbears, if that’s what you mean. I think that’s just wretched and mean spirited.
Oral: We’ll have to imprison a whole lot of atheists to catch up with the overwhelming proportion of good christians who can’t seem to stay out of jail.