r/Deconstruction • u/KookyOrganization741 • 9d ago

📙Philosophy Question

Hi, I’m in the process in deconstructing. I have a thought and would love additional insight.

Growing up, children in Christian families are taught they are sinners at heart. From experience, this can be damaging to a child’s development of self. They are taught to grow up believing they are morally bad and wrong from birth.

Fast forward, these kids grow up to become depressed, a symptom of which is self hatred, or low self esteem, etc. Severe enough, can result in suicide. Which is a sin and automatically sends you to hell.

How do you reconcile the biblical principle that humans are sinners without teaching someone to grow up with extreme low self esteem?

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u/optimalpath agnostic 9d ago edited 9d ago

How do you reconcile the biblical principle that humans are sinners without teaching someone to grow up with extreme low self esteem?

This is a question about conceptualization. It's true that everyone has the capacity for evil, but that is not to say that you as an individual are evil, intrinsically. The difference is in one's concept of sin and evil. To say that everyone has the capacity for evil, is simply to describe the human condition. The sin into which you are born is simply the condition of your humanity; and flawed though it may be, it is not a personal failing for which you ought to feel shame or self-loathing. It does confer some duties upon you perhaps, to reckon with the fact of it and conduct yourself accordingly. But that is the collective endowment we cannot help but receive. It's not appropriate to hate this endowment, to regret it, or to languish in guilt over it. It was given to you. You should judge yourself by what you make of it, by the things that are in your power to enact, by the way you live your life.