What is sin?

Ethics, Morality, and Sin

Moderator: Moderators

ProphetTom
Banned
Banned
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2019 8:28 am

What is sin?

Post #1

Post by ProphetTom »

Is it sin when a man goes out doing kind things?

If that same man spoke kind words that lead to sin has he sinned?

If he was innocent of knowing the sin he lead you to and so were you was it still a sin that he lead you to it?

Most of us believe that a child that has done a great sin like murder playing with Dad gun should be forgiven?
For innocence knows not the sin they have done. So you make a lesson and amends and move on?

The sin was real but was the child to be considered sinless? Or just forgiven?

If that sin passed down from generation to generation. Was it those who know and never taught you better that are to blame?

Is the father that taught you wrong first a sinful one?

Or was he the wise one that knew to teach sin first by example?

Is that abuse sin?

User avatar
amortalman
Site Supporter
Posts: 577
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2016 9:35 am
Has thanked: 25 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post #31

Post by amortalman »

ttruscott wrote:
amortalman wrote:
2ndRateMind wrote:
Love is never wrong, because God is love*, and He is perfect. Only lovelessness can be imperfect and ungodly. So I conclude that sin is lovelessness, and lovelessness, sin.
*1 John 4:8 KJV and 1 John 4:16 KJV
We know from the Bible that God is NOT love. 1 Cor. 13:5 says: (Love) does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (emphasis mine)
You miss the mark by accepting the false premise that GOD is love is the definition of HIS whole emotional state.
First of all, I gave up the premise that God is love several years ago. I was simply responding to what the Bible says God is and what I've heard out of Christians mouths all my life, including 2RM. But true, the Bible does give many glowing descriptions of God's character. Too bad it fails to give just as many very unpleasant ones..

User avatar
2ndRateMind
Site Supporter
Posts: 1540
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:25 am
Location: Pilgrim on another way
Has thanked: 65 times
Been thanked: 68 times

Post #32

Post by 2ndRateMind »

amortalman wrote:
First of all, I gave up the premise that God is love several years ago. I was simply responding to what the Bible says God is and what I've heard out of Christians mouths all my life, including 2RM. But true, the Bible does give many glowing descriptions of God's character. Too bad it fails to give just as many very unpleasant ones..
I don't deny it. But the Bible, and its constituent books, were written over a period of 2500 years, beginning 4000 years ago. Doubtless where it is dependent on oral tradition that predates even the earliest books. It would be a shame if, despite the prophets and the messiah, and more latterly the church, humanity had made no social or moral progress since then. Many of traits we now consider as vice would have been considered virtue in those earlier, tougher times. And much of what we consider virtue would, in primitive times, have been considered vice. So we should not be too surprised if the ancients had a different conception of God than ours. They looked at God with an entirely different world-view.

I think the Bible should be taken with a very necessary pinch of salt, and not considered a wholly definitive guide to God's nature.

Best wishes, 2RM.
Non omnes qui errant pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

Gracchus
Apprentice
Posts: 181
Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:09 pm
Has thanked: 19 times
Been thanked: 22 times

Post #33

Post by Gracchus »

Many decades ago, when I was attending a Catholic school, the nuns told us that "sin" was an "offense against God" I couldn't help but wonder how an omniscient God could be offended. He must have known how I would behave when he created me.

I have finally decided that to "sin" is to offend my own self. This would fit the findings of neuroscience that the nodes of the brain that are activated by the idea of God are the same nodes that are activated by the idea of self. Thus, "God" is just "me", only able to take revenge on those who hurt me and promising to grant all my wishes. The religious person isn't agreeing with God, but agreeing with themself. That is why they never disagree with God.

This also explains the "mystical" experience of non-separateness, and the answer the to the question that Moses asked the burning bush: "Who shall I say has sent me?" (Who are you? Which god?) As Alan Watts remarked in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, this is the "touchstone" of madness in western society but a rather commonplace claim among "enlightened" Hindus (and some unenlightened Buddhists).

:study:

User avatar
2ndRateMind
Site Supporter
Posts: 1540
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:25 am
Location: Pilgrim on another way
Has thanked: 65 times
Been thanked: 68 times

Post #34

Post by 2ndRateMind »

Gracchus wrote:

I have finally decided that to "sin" is to offend my own self.
Certainly, if you offend against your own conscience, you can be pretty sure you are sinning.

Best wishes, 2RM.
Non omnes qui errant pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

User avatar
Dimmesdale
Sage
Posts: 776
Joined: Mon May 29, 2017 7:19 pm
Location: Vaikuntha Dham
Has thanked: 28 times
Been thanked: 89 times

Post #35

Post by Dimmesdale »

I don’t believe in “sin� in the way Christianity (as I understand it) teaches. There is so much baggage that goes into this word that it takes a lot more unpacking than many people realize.

For example, “sin� seems to demand punishment. That’s what’s tied up in this word, not just the idea of “bad behavior.� Why should this be so? One can look at it a number of ways. One can see it neutrally, that punishment automatically follows sin as a necessary consequence - and one may leave it at that. But no, instead of seeing it neutrally this way we are told that we ought to “beat our breast� to do penance to a God who eyes us intimately with this sin in view… We are taught to make a big deal out of it and to feel stress, to introduce shame and guilt and fear and all other such negative emotions, that it is the mark of a “true Christian� even that to have these affections is a mark of spiritual progress… I don’t see how feeling the “crushing weight� of sin should lead one to a higher spiritual platform. It is in a sense pathetic even, that one “calls out the name of the Lord� in a desperate, feeble way; that one has left all his sense of healthy pride and self-possession and become “born again� believing that even for the slightest sin he deserves to die eternally…. None of this seems healthy to me. It seems artificial and a ghettoization of the interior life, not an advancement in spiritual maturity. Actually, it seems more like a debasement to be perfectly blunt. Nietzsche was on to something when he railed against "bad conscience"…

True conscience and accountability DOES take into account a real estimation of his or her moral status. But self-evaluation need not imply self-debasement. Humility yes, humiliation not at all. That’s what I think.

Post Reply