[kuma]

**For instance, Kass’s chapter on the story of Cain and Abel, “Fratricide and Founding,” is a powerful antidote to our culture’s sentimental and even utopian view of human nature. Genesis’s account of how pride, jealousy, and anger cause us to prey upon one another is much more true to life than what we hear from contemporary “experts.”**

But this is precisely the reason why everyone has abandoned Genesis (including many self-professed Christians). It so adequately points out that, Oprah is wrong, we are not basically good.

[Mr. Silverback]

True.

[MHGinTN]

The heart of man (small "m") is desperately wicked. Humankind, in their desire to be self-judged as good enough, are dispalying the very thing first tapped by the serpent in the garden, namely, the pride of being equal with God, to KNOW good and evil and be their own bosses. That first failing is the key to all sin separation from God, IMHO. How else can one explain the rejection of so great a gift as God's Grace in Christ when there is no loss if the gift could not be given by God for the human to accpet ... if there is no Grace then accepting the Grace offered by God in Christ couldn't harm the receiver! Yet humans reject the gift in favor of their own lordship, using all manner of reasons to assauge their guilt, their arrogance. [Is there a lesson to be seen in the Islamic condemnation for anyone who accepts the Grace of God in Christ?... I think there is, and the author of such hates most the contrite spirit that bows to Christ's Lordship ... contrition and pride are at opposition, eternally.]