On that point, I'm convinced it was a peach, far more enticing to me than an apple

"...my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me." He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face: "That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave"

General "Stonewall" Jackson

Skypilot provided a good titbit about sin.

"We all have a choice to sin or not, however our pre-disposition is towards sin, I look at it like a teeter totter with the fulcrum off center, there is a tendancy to lean one way." 

We are predisposed toward sin is a good way to define our 'sin' nature - mankind's inheritence because of the fall. Because of that predisposition, when faced with decisions concerning behavior, unless we know it's wrong (by the Holy standard of the written word) we make wrong decisions. It's the old 'ignorance of the law' thing. I can think of 'behaviors' in my own life that I continued as a believer and then came across scripture that told me it was sinful. Smoking might be an example. Not a specific 'thou shalt not' but sufficient word to tell me it is a sinful practice. There have been others.

That's why I love 1 John 1:9. "If we confes our sin (when we realize it is sin) He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness." I might think I need forgiviness for a few things and He makes me clean through and through.

And concerning judgementalism, if we share what God says about a thing to a fellow believer, or share a principal for behavior we have gleaned from the Word because we love our brother or sister, the Holy Spirit will take care of the judging and bring a heart to repentance. My part is intentionally NOT being judgmental concerning the truth. The Apostle Paul (I think) mentioned in one of his letters to churches the principal of sharing the truth in love. The love part is the key.

I have felt judged by believers and I have felt loved by believers who have brought the word to areas of my life. I hate getting hit by 'friendly fire'!

Have I made any sense?

In His Toolbox,

B4B
http://mypeoplepc.com/members/dcartwright/CMF_FortCarson/

"Cold" isn't a thing. It's a way of describing the reduction of molecular activity resulting in the sensation of heat. So the more heat we pull out of a system, the colder it gets. Cold itself isn't being "created." Cold is a description of a circumstance in which heat is missing. Heat is energy which can be measured. When you remove heat, the temperature goes down. That condition is "cold," but there is no cold "stuff" that causes that condition.

Here's another way of looking at it. Did you ever eat a donut hole? I don't mean those little round sugar-coated lumps you buy at (Krispy Kreme!). I mean the hole itself. Donut holes are actually what's left when the middle is cut out of a donut. There's a space called a hole, a "nothing," the condition that exists when something is taken away. Same thing with a shadow. Shadows don't exist as things in themselves; they're just the absence of light.

Evil is like that. Evil isn't like some black, gooey stuff floating around the universe that gloms onto people and causes them to do awful things. Evil is the absence of good, a privation of good, not a thing in itself.

So donut holes don't exist; they're just the absence of donut. Shadows don't exist; they're just the absence of light. And evil doesn't exist; it's just the absence of good.

The next question is, if God created everything good, why would He allow evil to infect His creation?

Satan would be the first example of an independent a source of evil. Adam and Eve would also be a source of evil with regard to the human race. They didn't get Satan's evil; they initiated their own. Satan influenced them--he made his own hole in goodness--but Adam and Eve made their own holes in goodness. They're responsible for their own evil.

It isn't that Satan did something bad and passed that stuff on to them, because evil is not a stuff. This is a key point. They cannot "dip into" evil because it's not a thing to dip into. When we make a shadow, we don't do it with shadow stuff, but by blocking existing light.

In the same way, evil doesn't cause our actions. In fact, it's the other way around. Our actions are what cause evil-or the loss of goodness-in us, and that loss of goodness does have an impact on future actions, giving us a predisposition to cause further evil.

"Let's Go Downtown" - Flight of the Intruder
 

http://www.327infantry.org/second/c_co 

Same Mud Same Blood - NBC documentary filmed 1967 RVN, chronicle Frank McGee

You remarked:

"Our actions are what cause evil-or the loss of goodness-in us, and that loss of goodness does have an impact on future actions, giving us a predisposition to cause further evil."

It sounds like you are saying that our actions cause the loss of goodness in us and that loss of goodness leads to a predisposition to cause further evil. If my understanding of what you said is correct it means that we are born good, commit evil, lose some of our goodness, commit more evil some sort of cycle.

Is that what you are saying?

Current thinking is that the red fruit referanced in the earliest scripture was actually a pomagranate... it became an apple in translation to Western cutures becuase it was a fruit they were familiar with.

 

"The degenerative and loony should never be denigrated but, rather, thanked. In their absence, the rest of you would be obliged to fill congressional seats... positions naturally unsavory to the sane and honorable."

Thorax

Understanding predisposition as it relates to religion has opened a few can of worms in my lifetime.  I wouldn't say it is cyclic as much as it more of a commitment and sticking with a decision based on effective learning of the scripture and life itself. 

"Let's Go Downtown" - Flight of the Intruder
 

http://www.327infantry.org/second/c_co 

Same Mud Same Blood - NBC documentary filmed 1967 RVN, chronicle Frank McGee