Honest question. I just heard a minister at the Newtown vigil

EVIL I TELL YOU!!!

Anyway, that's my take on it.

Can't think of ay other explanation.

the doctrine that human nature was corrupted by the Fall. Catholics call it original sin. I believe Calvinists use the term depraved.

But that is not evil. If anything, it is a tendency to sin, to accept evil. Again, that does not make humans evil.

The whole story after Adam is the effort to return to that state in which we were created. The sole purpose of a church is to pave that road, no more, no less.

It's quite easy. There is an acrostic, TULIP, that sums up the major points of Calvinism:

T - Total Depravity. Humans are unable to turn to God on their own, and are unable even to perform any good works at all. See Romans 3:10-18

There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one. Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of vipers is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

U - Unconditional Election. God chooses those whom he desires to save. This election is without regard to the merit of the individual so chosen. The converse is that God chooses some to be eternally damned, again without regard to the merit of the individual.

L - Limited Atonement. Christ died only for the sins of those he has unconditionally elected.

I - Irresistible Grace. If you are among those chosen to be saved, God's grace is irresistible and you will come to a knowledge of God. In other words, God is like the Borg, "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!"

P - Perseverance of the saints. Once you are saved you cannot lose salvation. Interestingly, this doctrine also embraces the idea of a life-long sanctification process.

One of my professors, a Baptist, summed it up as:

T = We're scum.
U = God chooses which scum goes to heaven and which to hell.
L = Jesus died only for the heaven-bound scum.
I = God doesn't give the heaven-bound scum a choice in the matter.
P = Nor does he allow scumminess to interfere with the process.

This makes a bit from Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience to run through my mind:

Take of these elements all that is fusible,
Melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible,
Set them to simmer and take off the scum
And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!

I'm sorry, but I just can't buy this stuff. I felt myself leaving in my 20s and am now 60. I try to keep an open mind, but it is closing more and more on organized religion. I can't love a God who would be this arbitrary. Or for that matter would kill little kids because people didn't pray enough, or because of all the other horrible things the likes of huckabee and the others are saying, and I don't want to "commune" with those that accept this either. I guess I'll stay home and think about things by myself.

While it may seem naive, I do believe that people can be good. Admittedly, not all people, not all the time.

I have a real problem with what is called "double predestination". This has God arbitrarily choosing some to be save;, while others are condemned, apparently just for the hell of it. As Albert Einstein said (albeit in another context), "God may be subtle, but he is not malicious."

I believe that Christ came to save all of humanity, not just some of humanity. "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." -- John 12:32

Irresistable grace and unconditional election seem to rule out free will; and if you rule out free will, then you rule out sin. After all, every version of Christian moral theology I am familiar with has "full consent of the will" as a necessary constituent of any sinful act. (As George Carlin put it, "Ya gotta wanna!"

Perseverence of the saints, AKA "Once saved, always saved", does not work for me. I see gaining salvation much in the same way I see marriage. You don't just have a wedding and then coast smoothly on. Living happily ever takes work. And just as indifference and neglect can ruin a marriage, the same is true of salvation -- and one big mistake can ruin either one.