Does Christianity make sense? (Pt 2)

Again, great questions! You really seem to know a lot about Christianity! 1. I will try to answer it to the best of my knowledge, again you quote the letter of St Paul to the Galatians: "for each one should carry their own load." (Galatians 6:5) Want to make it even more complicated? Just a couple of lines above he says this: "Carry each other"s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2) Has Paul gone crazy? What on Earth are we supposed to do? Carry our own burden or carry each other's burdens?I would say, just as Paul said to the Galatians, we are supposed to do both! We as Catholics believe that, as Paul rightly points out: " each one should carry their own load", what does this mean? It means that we get to heaven through our own decisions, not through the decisions of others, just like you fail an exam because you didn't study, not because your friend didn't study, what your friend did or didn't do is meaningless to your result, it is exactly the same for salvation. But what about carrying each other's burden? We are called by Jesus not to be greedy, individualistic, etc. On the contrary, we are called by Jesus to love each other and care for each other, so we should also help others carry their burden! However (and this is the part where it gets tricky) we can't carry their burden for them, we can only HELP them carry their burden themselves, how? Giving support, love, good advice, etc. Think about the school exam again, you can't get an A for your friend, she has to take her own exam, but you can certainly HELP her get an A, how? You can study with her, encourage her, help her understand some topic she didn't quite get, etc. So both things Paul advices the Galatians are correct, he correctly points out that we are to carry our burden ourselves, however, Jesus calls us to do even more, to love our neighbour and do our best to help him carry his burden without forgeting to carry our own! "But what about original sin commited by Adam and Eve? Are we supposed to carry that burden too?" The answer, as you rightly point out, is NO. Jesus carried this burden for us in the cross, what Paul is talking about in his letter to the Galatians is personal sin, not original sin, we are not supposed to carry the sin of Adam and Eve since God carried this himself for us, in fact Jesus is the only one who can carry the burden of original sin for us. "But why did Jesus have to pay for original sin? Shouldn't it die with Adam and Eve?" Not really, just like a monetary debt is inherited, original sin is inherited too, and this question is very complicated, I don't know if I can fully answer it but I will try my best: Adam and Eve were indeed the first human beings, and being the first themselves they were pure, however they became impure when they commited the first sin (original sin), and as you rightly point out: "Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!"(Job 14:4) Thus we are all born impure because the source from which we come is impure, yet in order to get to heaven we must be pure... but we are born impure!! how can we become pure again?? It is kinda like if you were making pancakes with a broken mold, all of the pancakes will turn out just like the mold, broken. God is caught with his back against the wall here, His justice demands that a price should be paid for this act of disobedience that affects all of us since we come from the same "mold", yet there is a problem, no one of us humans is completely obedient, not even one of us is perfect, we are born impure (original sin). So who can pay the price of this desobedience? Only God himself, which is why he is just and merciful, he didn't just ignore the debt (which would be unjust), he paid it for us (which is merciful). So in summary, it goes like this: God is the source of Adam and Eve, thus they are pure, however they sin and become impure, thus making all following humans impure since all following humans come from an impure source, therefore no one can gain heaven since one must be pure to get there. What does God do? He can't just forget about Adam and Eve's sin because he is just, but at the same time he can't just let us all go to hell because He loves us; So He bears the burden of this impurity for us in the cross. So, since God bears the burden of this impurity for us, now we just have to "bear our own burden" as St Paul rightly points out. What if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned? Well, probably someone else would have sinned along the line, so Jesus would have to save us anyway! 2. There is a big flaw in your question, we do not consider Jesus to be merely a "pure person", He is God incarnate, and therefore He is pure, we could say He is His own source. He does not descend from Adam and Eve, He created them, and even though he came to the world through Mary, He was not conceived by her, He existed before Mary did. Yet Jesus is also human, and you rightly point out "Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!"(Job 14:4), so how can He come to the world if no woman is pure enough to bring him? I must say your last opponent was right, Mary was conceived without original sin (the Inmaculate Conception). But... why? Jesus is pure, but he also needed a pure "channel" to get into this world. So Mary was preserved from original sin by God himself, why? Because she was chosen to bring God into the world and, most importantly, because she accepted this mission. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. (Luke 1:28) She is not just a regular woman, she was chosen by God, favoured by Him in order to bring Jesus to the world and save all humanity. I would explain it like this: Jesus needs to come to the world to rid humanity from original sin, but there is no pure "channel" to get here since we all have original sin and are impure, so humanity is doomed unless He suspends original sin in one of us (Mary) in order to come to the world and save all of us! Could He have come to the world in some other way? For sure! Did He need the consent of Mary to save us? Not really. But why did He do it this way? 56. The Father of mercies willed that the incarnation should be preceded by the acceptance of her who was predestined to be the mother of His Son, so that just as a woman contributed to death, so also a woman should contribute to life. (Lumen gentium, 56) So, just as sin came to humans through a woman's disobedience, salvation came to us through a woman's obedience. I hope this explanation is understandable, this topic you have raised is very complex! This is my first time using this website and I am not sure if there will be more rounds to this debate or not, yet I am very interested in your stoy and the questions you bring to the table, I would like to give you my e-mail so you can ask me any questions you like and debate at any time, also I would love to see how this story unfolds! If you find my arguments good or not and if you convert to Christianity or to Islam. My e-mail is: ropacordo@gmail .com (without spacing) I hope we can keep in touch! Let me just give you one last piece of advice, even though you may think differently from your parents, never forget to honour them and love them while you search for God, like St Josemaria said: "You will be a good child of Christ in the same measure as you are a good child of your parents." My best wishes, and God bless you, Fede