Was Jesus born with Original Sin?
Was Jesus born with Original Sin?
If so, then he could not be the perfect sacrifice.
If not, then he had no human side and was pure god, and god cannot die which, makes the sacrifice a lie.
Could these facts be why the Jews have no Original Sin concept in their religion?
Is that also why Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah, or did they just recognize the immorality of anyone using a scapegoat and the abdication of one’s responsibility for their actions, which is against all moral legal systems?
Why have Christians embraced such an immoral and illegal concept?
Regards
DL
If so, then he could not be the perfect sacrifice.
If not, then he had no human side and was pure god, and god cannot die which, makes the sacrifice a lie.
Could these facts be why the Jews have no Original Sin concept in their religion?
Is that also why Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah, or did they just recognize the immorality of anyone using a scapegoat and the abdication of one’s responsibility for their actions, which is against all moral legal systems?
Why have Christians embraced such an immoral and illegal concept?
Regards
DL
Comments (108)
Yeah, exactly.
That is indeed the crucial question. and the answer is 'no one'. It was an immaculate conception and no one gave a fuck, and that is why Jesus was born without sin. But he was born of woman and thus also fully human. As the op well knows.
But this is the triviality of such discussions, one takes a metaphor and a psychological insight as literal and then claims that magic is impossible. Not even stupid.
I await your close questioning.
No one should care...
...BUT...the Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with Jesus. (A common mistake made by non-Catholics and sometimes by Catholics also.)
It is a Catholic bit of dogma about the birth of Mary...mother of Jesus. SHE is the Immaculate Conception.
I bow to your superior knowledge on the terminology, but...
It has to do with the notion of original sin. See the op, question, was Jesus born with original sin?
If you buy original sin as something literal, then you need the literal [s]immaculate conception[/s] virgin birth to allow Jesus to evade it in order to be literally, the perfect sacrifice. The whole doctrine makes sense in its own terms, so the argument of the op fails. They've had 2000 years to work these things out, and unsurprisingly, some random poster is not going to trip them up now. If on the other hand, your translation of the relevant verse is "and the bullshit of the fathers shall be visited on the sons unto the seventh generation" all you need is that Jesus was born metaphorically deaf.
Where/when/by whom was the concept of original sin first developed?
True, but it was only in 1854 that Holy Mother Church got around to settling the matter for those creepy old-line Catholics who buy the idea of papal infallibility (which in itself is not an ancient doctrine--it came out of Vatican I, 1869-1870):
,
Apparently annoyed and feeling the need to nail this question, Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception in Bernadette's vision at Lourdes in 1858 which put the stamp of God's (or at least the BVM'a) approval on the doctrine.
By the way, Martin Luther was enthusiastic about the Immaculate Conception, etc.
And the beat goes on.
The sin of Adam which all people inherit, is balanced by the Christ's sacrifice to save mankind.
It seems to me that the core of the idea of original sin -- that people generally can't go very long without doing something awful to each other -- has been abundantly proved.
A fresh quip I have not heard before. Adding it to my repertoire of irrelevance.
All those negatively effected by Christianity.
That would include all gays and women who are denied equality by their homophobic and misogynous religion.
If you are not fighting that immoral thinking, you are not much of a man.
Regards
DL
Read my reply above and the same applies to you.
Regards
DL
That is what Christians say, while also saying that all humans are born with Original sin.
Which is the lie?
Regards
DL
+ 1
We must suffer neophytes.
Regards
DL
Nobody wears a stamp "Born with the original sin" or "born without the original sin" on their forehead or on any other parts of their body.
I think Christians are prepossessessessed by this idea. I am sure I was born without the original sin. I ain't Jesus, but you don't have to be. Just don't believe in the crap, and all of a sudden you are born back for the first time when it happened, not again; AND without the sin.
I don't call this God, and I know morality properly.
God is not the same as creator, I even doubt the word 'creator' as the right word (referring to a more specific word - like "builder" - or, creatively, 'manifer').
God is an artisically characterized creator.
Sorry for my insult, I'm tired of God.
How do you make sense out of a god that cannot reproduce without a human female?
How do you morally justify god coveting Mary and breaking his own commandment, cuckolding Joseph, producing a chimera half breed god and then becoming a deadbeat dad by dropping the kid and taking off?
Regards
DL
Then how did it become a part of Christian teachings? I mean, sure, I get reasons why people would want to justify sin and the inevitability of it. But it seems like it's become quite an integral premise to the whole narrative of salvation despite having been designed outside of original scriptural literature. I've always thought the idea of original sin is weird (unreasonable) with respect to common sense reasoning but, it's even weirder now that I know it's provenance. It's like, so much of Christian belief is based on simulations such that it is almost impossible for that faith to be reasonable.
Atheists would be right, FTPOV, and Christians would be wrong unless they hide behind their supernatural shield and poor math of Jesus being both 100% man and 100% god.
They stupidly break the law of the excluded middle and are to stupid or uncaring to repent and think correctly.
Regards
DL
By hypothesis, I don't need to, since he produced the first woman anyway. But alas I, a mere mortal, have no cure for literalism. You don't even want to understand, and I am not a Christian, so I'll leave you to your knockdown defeat of whatever you think you are defeating.
I have not looked that up and do not really care.
It is the reverse of the Jewish tradition and does not follow their thinking.
They see what they call Original Virtue and both god and man as successes coming out of Eden and not Original sin which makes both man and god losers coming out of Eden.
Christian also have a glitch by calling Adam's sin a happy fault and necessary to god's plan.
It looks like they prefer that man fell, while saying that the falling had to be as it was necessary to god's plan.
Stupid is as stupid does and Christians stupidly contradict themselves.
Regards
DL
That is not the core idea.
The core idea, and the need for baptism, is that we are all born in sin.
That core does not exist in Judaism. It makes god look like a poor creator who cannot get creation right and has to later destroy the vast majority of us after suitable eons in hell.
Regards
DL
I am a Gnostic Christian.
We have rejected the crap and retained the good. That may be why some say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.
Regards
DL
In case you want to expand.
I would say self created from a big bang.
Do you give sentience to what you call creator, and was that entity created?
Regards
DL
That is why it grew through inquisitions and murder as it could not argue for itself in a cohesive manner.
The same applied to Islam. They share the same DNA.
Regards
DL
My idea is that an ancient species used certain resources from their environment to create[replace with proper word] the specimen/bonding, of resources, which reacted and 'big banged'.
That's if it was a big bang, I'm not saying it was; other theory: giant volatile clouds.
So, to answer your question, yes, my current belief, and hypothesis of such (and that's all it is), is that the creator was sentient.
Nor I except to point out the idiocy of reading myths like history and thinking a god created women.
Regards
DL
Gnostics have rejected such thinking because, like fractals, it becomes a never ending story with, as the ancients even said, one turtle standing on another and on and on and------
You get the idea and that is why I reject such thinking as a cop out.
That scenario has been used by Hollywood quite a bit. It is defined ad Gnostic thinking.
Regards
DL
Good luck in your thought-process.
Ditto.
Regards
DL
Well, people like Irenaeus and St. Augustine (and numerous others) were intimately involved in building up the Christian community, and teaching what the Gospels and St. Paul meant. Christianity didn't spring from Jesus' head like Athena did from Zeus's head. It was built up on a gospel foundation, and it was taught to people, and teaching involves elaboration. It wasn't created in a vacuum; there were various varieties of Christian thinking, some of them doctrinally incompatible with each other. There were also influences from the culture in which Christianity was developed.
Quoting BrianW
Well, I don't think its fair to say "outside of original scriptural literature". Rather, it was based on the scriptural literature. Look, the crucifixion was 'scandalous'. Here you have this man, Jesus, getting nailed up and killed. The scandal is that Jesus was thought to be God incarnate, (an idea worked out after his death), so an extraordinary scandalous event requires an extraordinary explanation, The solution was the Lamb of God sacrificed (like lambs were sacrificed in the temple) to redeem a sinful world.
All this may be frustrating, because people tend to think there was a straight line from Jesus to the Church as they know it. There is a line, but it isn't all that straight forward.
Over time, the Church elaborated its theology. That's what normally happens in religion -- theology is developed over time.
Isn't basic Christian doctrine that Jesus was without sin?Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Jews believe people are intrinsically good but can be misled to evil. At least that's what I was taught. I think Jews don't subscribe to Christian doctrine for the same reasons Christians reject Hindu doctrine.Quoting Gnostic Christian BishopJews generally believe the resurrection story is horseshit, so for that reason they reject that Jesus was the Messiah. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of Jewish horseshit too, from the ark to the splitting of the sea, but the Jesus thing I suppose was just a bit much.
This Jesus mania
Miracle wonderman
Hero of fools?
No riots, no army,
No fighting, no slogans?
One thing I'll say for him:
Jesus is cool.
--------------
I read this above page of posts, and it turns out, that the men and persons who created Christianity, were just as much inept at creating it as God was in creating the world.
So in a way the Fathers of Christianity were consistent in complying with the scirptures: Man WAS created in the image of god. Both man and God are lousy planners and even worse than that at executing the plans.
Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of What is Good and What is Evil. It’s been a debate for millennia what this means. Personally I think it was the realization that humankind could modify nature to our own liking, setting down roots in particular settings, and starting civilization. Just look at the mess this has gotten us in (not to mention the fall of every other empire in history). We think we can tame nature, but we were always meant to live in the Garden of Eden (from which God expelled us, or rather we expelled ourselves).
Well, I don’t think the ancient Hebrews were genius philosophers. There is wisdom in the myths, but don’t expect them to be ironclad.
Also, Nixon was more of a liberal than Obama.
FYI.
The original Jewish messianic myth did not include anything about the forgiveness of sin.
The sacrificed angel/Jesus was to return and lead the people out of bondage. That was it.
Regards
DL
It depends on which denomination, but basically, yes. That condition is negated though when they say that all humans are born with Original Sin, and they say that Jesus had a human side. That contradiction is what I am trying to get past.Quoting Hanover
A good and true teaching, although I would not say mislead. I would say that we must do some evil as we evolve. We must both compete and cooperate and when we compete, we create losers and victims.
Competition and ironically evolution is the root of all human to human evil. That evil is a small part of the greater good of man continuing to evolve.
We are collectively mitigating those evils nicely.
Quoting Hanover
You prover that Jews are more intelligent thinkers than the average Christian literalist fool.
That is why Jews, wisely, follow the oral traditions and put man above god. It continues to strive both for and against god.
If Jesus would have followed the actual Jewish myth and returned to lead Jewry, all Jews would be Christian.
Regards
DL
Make him human because as a god, he was ruined the moment the Trinity concept tied him to a genocidal son murdering prick of a god.
That bond must end before Jesus becomes half way worthy of us.
We would still have to tweak some of his more immoral tenets but at least a new Jesus archetype could then be followed. Rome created the one we know and we can improve on that immoral archetype.
Regards
DL
That does not follow. Three other humans are said to have been born without original sin: Adam&Eve (who committed the original sin) and Mary (mother of Jesus).
Since Eve was deceived into eating from the tree of knowledge, god exonerated her and the Original Sin was cause by Adam accepting knowledge from Eve.
Poor thinkers say they ate an apple, which is a simplified version of, ---- they did not obey.
Regards
DL
And as the legend goes, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. It could be argued that this is how he was without sin. Mary, on the other hand, is just said to have found favor with God. Adam & Eve were created innocent, then thought they knew better than God. If there is a God (I believe so), then most of us are guilty of this. My conception of God is quite different than what’s portrayed in most of the Bible, though.
??
What mess?
Is a populations first duty not to reproduce and grow the population? Is that not what we have done?
Sure we might have done it in a better way but as far as a natural species goes, we are doing great.
If you look at the stats for the world, you will see that most of the markers for evil are down and that things are going great.
Global climate change will be our Rubicon and will determine our collective fate in theses days of mass extinctions.
Regards
DL
We are the cause of the current mass extinction. Sooner or later, the ecosystem will fail to sustain us. I’d certainly call this a mess.
The first disobedience we see in the bible is A & E not reproducing way back in Gen 1. They disobey and consume knowledge in Gen 3.
Paradoxically, they could not obey in god in Gen1 because they were too stupid to even know they were naked or how to reproduce. They needed the knowledge that got them kicked out of Eden.
God had them coming and going and that is why many see Eden as a set up by prick of a god.
Regards
DL
The non-literalist ancients were brighter than the literalist fools that now populate Christianity and Islam.
They were a damn site more moral as well.
Regards
DL
I have not come to bring peace, but war. I adlib Jesus and thus refute your statement.
He was also against the divorce laws of Moses and would have implemented an even more disgusting no divorce policy.
Some of the moral tenets put into Jesus by Rome were ok. Many were not moral tenets at all.
Regards
DL
I think you’re the one who is taking the myth literally. Ancient people had an oral tradition, myths that taught through metaphor and morals. The smart ones certainly didn’t take their stories literally. Likewise today. They were most likely passing down a history lesson before there was written language (illustration of truths through fiction are easier to pass down through oral tradition than brute facts). They were telling a story from their hunter-gatherer history (Garden of Eden). Perhaps the dumb ones thought that the original sin was sex. The ones telling the stories? I believe most of them had more insight than you give them credit for.
I will give you A & E, of course, as they were the originators in the Christian concept of Original Sin that reversed the more correct Jewish view of Original Virtue.
As to Mary, she was not even a virgin if the translators are correct and if wrong on that, they are likely wrong elsewhere.
Get the appropriate quote please as I do not recall Mary being named an exception to what is otherwise a universal condition.
Regards
DL
You really have no imagination. As @StreetlightX once said, you’re a “fucking retard.”
Of course the Roman Catholic Church, and by extension all of the sects that followed their example, is self-serving and corrupt. I don’t think there are many people here who would deny that. Who is your audience exactly?
Where is it written that they thought they were better than god?
I see them more as following scriptures, which you should see as a good thing.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
They tested/thought about god command and decided that they did not want to remain stupid and with their eyes closed and wisely chose education over stupidity and innocent ignorance of most things.
They chose to gain the knowledge of reproduction.
They, as Jewish traditions say, graduated from school as we all should want to do.
Regards
DL
No argument my friend.
A mess that only world unification can cure.
Way too many are still fighting a NWO but if planet ship Earth does not elect a Captain, I cannot see us as able to stop the damaging habits we have collectively allowed ourselves.
We have to get mad and elect a climate Czar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KvZI8BsSxw
Regards
DL
I’m sorry but no one knows how to fix our problems. Perhaps an alien race will save us (or enslave us).
I give them a lot of credit and only go into literal use to engage the fools who are literal readers of myths.
I seek the foolish literalists, as the non-literalists are, as you seem to know, a lot brighter and mostly do not need the correcting that would have them stop using homophobic and misogynous teachings the way immoral literalists do.
Regards
DL
I quote you the bible to refute your idiocy and you get upset.
Fuck you.
Regards
DL
That’s good. I just don’t think you have an audience here. I also think your approach is all wrong.
We’re all already fucked.
I thought you did not like literal reading. Are you a hypocrite or a liar?
Get the quote.
Regards
DL
I’m not taking it literally. What makes you think I am?
Yes we do.
We do not have the political will.
Regards
DL
Really? Explain. I think we all would love to hear the solutions.
They crucified Jesus for his goodness. They crucify me for telling the truth.
If you have a tried and proven method that gets better results than I get, and I do get positive results, while knowing that most believers are too obtuse to admit they are stupid or wrong and just run away.
Then again, you are a believer in a god without proof, so I see you as one of the stupid ones.
Who is your God? The genocidal Yahweh?
Regards
DL
The quote and lie.
Regards
DL
??
I have no solution to our lack of a political will.
If the U.N. can't get the world to fly right, I sure wont have the idea to unite the world.
Regards
DL
Obviously you’re not familiar with me. Maybe if you would branch out from your own inane threads, you would learn something. Yes, I am stupid... along with the rest of humanity. You seem to be the only smart one. Are you Jesus returned?
No. But following his esoteric ways and having suffered my apotheosis, has given me a Christ consciousness.
The fact that you will not name your imaginary god tells me a lot.
Regards
DL
I didn’t realize I had to give God a name. I guess I will call Her “Bertha”.
Clearly.
If that is your name, good.
If not, see ya elsewhere as it looks like we are done here.
Regards
DL
Son-of-a-gun!
Are you sure you’re not Jesus? You’re so wise and messianic.
This thread is led by a Christ-like consciousness. How dare you judge!
Perhaps it appears I’m guilty of this? Perhaps I am, but I don’t think so. My interpretations are merely my own. To determine what was “meant” by the text is to understand the history that ancient peoples had an oral tradition that culminated in the written word. It is likely that they were recalling their more ancient past. At least it seems obvious to me.
So?
That may very well be true, but the early church did not adopt the Jewish messianic myth as whole cloth. In the theology and liturgy of the church Jesus became the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world...
Not in Catholicism, for example. Chritianity is a bit like saying 'asian culture is....' and one must ask `´then 'which one?'Quoting Gnostic Christian BishopThe way I got it growing up was not that he was the perfect sacrifice because he ended up killed. In fact I never heard the phrase 'perfect sacrifice'. The idea was that God made himself vulnerable, in the end to torture, but even to human things like desire and guilt and doubt. And when Jesus was crucified he suffered human agony. I suppose it was obvious to me, even as a child, that some people have been tortured much longer than Jesus was, so it wasn't the most horrible suffering even. But it was a deity willing to enter into manifestation, when this deity did not need to. And I suppose I got the idea that perhaps his suffering became universal, like he allowed it to encompass mankind in some greater way, like suffering more that the exact torture and this was the sacrifice. But we all knew he was going to actually die, in fact that's how the story is presented.
So, I wonder if 'perfect sacrifice' is a strawman. It doesn't fit what I was taught. I am not Christian now, nor was I really then either, but how you are presenting it does not fit my experience.Quoting Gnostic Christian BishopI think the differences around Original Sin in Judaism and Christianity are nicely explained here....
https://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishopit seems to me this is assuming that the human side is Original Sin, period. The human side does have this aspect, but also other aspect, some of them I mentioned above.
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Some rejected him. Some accepted him.Quoting Gnostic Christian BishopThis is binary. It's not binary. Obviously Christianity considers people responsible for their actions. Just because there is something that contradicts this, in relation to a phenomenon, does not mean all the other parts of Christianity where one is, clearly, responsible no longer apply.
I could see saying that the idea of Original Sin seems to contradict other ideas about personal responsibility, but it doesn't simply erase them. Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Most organized religions have contradictions. But here's the rub....
whatever the truth is, it will likely seem contradictory, confusing, paradoxical. In science, in spirituality.
Whatever is going on, deep down, in the universe, from any angle, is not going to be set up in some grid like tic tac toe with rules that are easy for
we
fallible
creatures
to just understand.
I hate the concept of original sin, and I could give my take on why it arises. But I also understand why humans are open to these kinds of things.
But was he sinful in life? According to himself, he was.
"Those who never committed the same sin, should throw the first stone."
Nobody threw a stone. They were all sinners.
Jesus ditto. If he REALLY was into law and order, and sinless, he would have thrown that cobblestone.
As for whether Jesus was born with Original Sin, the answer is of course no. Because God, that's why.
The first intelligent humans were likely advised by some governing being.
Of course I am joking, but if I was going to believe in the unlikely, it would take more this format.
What I don't get is, if Jesus can easily be traded for Mike, why are Christians so strict about the name Jesus?
Perhaps it could be rationaled by assuming the Original Sin gene is on the Y chromosome. Jesus didn't get his Y chromosome from a biological human.
Thanks for a related message.
Regards
DL
As Jesus asked his disciples, who do they say I am like.
Titles and comparisons are given. It is not something I can claim.
Are you ready to make a claim?
Regards
DL
As an esoteric ecumenist, I agree.
Regards
DL
I agree. Christianity ruined a rather progressive toward equality religion for their rather backwards thinking homophobic, misogynous and genocidal using god.
Evil adores evil and Yahweh is evil.
Regards
DL
“Are you ready to make a claim?“
My claim is that you are delusional in a way that far surpasses my so-called delusions that I have been gaslighted about for many, many years. Were you abused, too? Or is it a genetic predisposition? Or both?
I did not see anything about the Jewish view of Eden as Original Virtue, which changes the whole moral to the Eden story.
If Adam, would you have educated yourself or would you have remained with your eyes closed and unable to reproduce?
If you understand why people are open to such things, what is your take on why people are willing to believe supernatural statements of all kinds as real, without evidence or proof?
Even talking serpents and donkeys.
Regards
DL
To an eternal being who has never felt anything, even as scriptures say that god never changes or learns anything, a bit of pain would be like a breath of fresh air.
God would have ever so grateful for any new input in his never changing personae.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj-qBUWOYfE
Regards
DL
I do not agree.
What do you think he wrote in the sand?
Likely, it take two to fornicate and I cannot judge half a case.
That or, if an eye for an eye is the usual measure of justice, a measured response IOW, killing someone for screwing is overkill and unjust.
Regards
DL
It is an interesting point to ponder, I agree.
To your first, yes, the church has been able to have many part with their cash thanks to their lies.
To your last, what about Jesus' human half. Was it somehow exempt and why ?
After all, sin is a good thing to Christians, given that they sing that Adam's sin was a happy fault and necessary to god's plan. Jesus would maintain a sin nature so as to not derail god's plan.
Regards
DL
I don't know. They sure are not strict about following his tenets.
Mind you, given that so many of his tents are immoral, that could be a good thing.
The name "Jesus" is used quite liberally in some countries.
Regards
DL
Your first is correct as they are charged, Adam alone really, with doing the first/Original Sin.
Thanks for checking that Mary thing. My memory worked well this time.
You make a good point in seeing our genes as responsible for the sins and evil within us.
All human to human evil is generated by our instincts and if we did not follow those, we would go extinct.
Regards
DL
If you think you can know that kind of thing...
Me I have no idea what an all powerful being would enjoy.
Neither do but scriptures say god never changes. He, if ignorant of pain, could not gain that knowledge as it would belie the WORD of god.
Regards
DL
Quoting Gnostic Christian BishopWhy do people think 9/11 was carried out by some Saudis with box cutters after seeing the videos of, amongst other things, Building 7 going down? Why do people think the US is a democarcy? People will believe things that feel right or where they get the information from peopel they want to believe. Of course some people do have evidence of things that get called supernatural, but that's another kettle of fish. Why does anybody believe that their experiences make them sure what other people can know? We tend to be very conservative creatures.
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishopi have no idea what it would like being in the Garden of Eden with a deity that spoke directly to me and presumably perfect food and water. I've seen many interpretations of that story, including ones where it was meant to be that they chose what they chose - though we should give Eve credit, Adam just went along. And I've come up with some of my own.
Certainly there are confusing and contradictory things in scriptures. I am not fond of the Abrahamic scriptures, but, then, they are NOT math books. IOW taking them apart as if they were a thesis in math or something doesn't really end up demonstrating anything except, perhaps to those Christians, say, who think everything in there is perfect and makes sense. But those people are not going to listen anyway. A bunch of different people wrote the Bible. Even if many of them were, say, 68 percent right - just throwing out a number - there would likely be confusions and contradictions. Especially if some of the language was meant literally and some metaphorically. Perhaps some of the things meant literally are true, despite their being 'supernatural' (a mess of a word). Even then, there would be issues. It's not a tome from analytical philosophy or natural science. Some people want a yes, no and want their texts or other people's texts to be another kind of text or only another kind of text. As if humans suddenly were always AIs.
Thanks for your insight in both posts.
This, your statement, is mostly correct but as the adage goes, for evil to grow all good people need do is nothing. I am trying to be good and even if my interlocutor is brain dead, my hope is that lurkers will get it.
I get more converts, so to speak, from the lurkers than the, usually obtuse and belligerent poster.
Regards
DL
I'm not suggesting you do nothing. I think there are side effects of taking religious writing in the way you have and also in what I considered a binary approach. Those side effects I consider both easily avoided and problematic. I certainly did not mean that one should accept the giant guilt trip of Jesus' crucifixion as it is presented in some versions of Christianity.Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Of course. But I am not saying you should make the obtuse happy or treat them with kid gloves. My point was that those who are not obtuse will probably be better served by more nuances, less binary, approaches. The obtuse deserve that kind of approach, but we both seem to agree they will not be changed by that either. My point was precisely NOT for you to come up with an approach that is better for the obtuse.
Thanks for this.
Regards
DL