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
Divine Insight
Savant
Posts: 18070
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 10:59 pm
Location: Here & Now
Been thanked: 19 times

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

Semantics is always open to subjective opinions. :D

However, we can also turn to various dictionaries. I found the following definition on the Google Dictionary. This is clearly a theological definition:

Sin - an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.

Notice that according to this definition there must be "divine law" before a sin can exist.

So by definition, sin is transgression against divine law.

The next question then becomes, "Who has the ultimate authority to define what constitutes divine law?"

In the Abrahamic religion divine law originated by the writings of the ancient Hebrews in a collection of tales that proclaim to speak on behalf of a divine deity. There was something like 600 divine laws contained in these ancient doctrines.

As time passed people began to argue over these divine laws and thus modern day Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were born. All of which lay claim to different divine laws. Thus each of these major factions of the Abrahamic religions view different things as being "sins" since they are basing this on different divine laws.

Not only did the Abrahamic religions fracture into three disagreeing sects, but each of those three sects continued to fracture into even more disagreeing factions. Each faction laying claim to different "divine laws" and thus each having different things that will be considered "sins".

In Christianity the Catholic church tried to set up "Papal Authority" where a single individual was chosen to become the "Pope", and the Pope would then have the final say in what does or doesn't constitute "Divine Law". So in Catholicism the Pope basically decided what is and isn't a "sin". This was all supposed to be based on both "Holy Scriptures" as well as "Divine Inspiration" given directly to the Pope from the Divine Authoritarian (i.e. God).

However, the masses got fed up with this arrangement and decided to rebel against "Papal Authority" and to instead pretend that they are all "Popes" and that God can tell them directly what they should and shouldn't do.

Thus Protestantism was born and all Protestants began to treat the whole shebang like a bunch of individual "popes" each one having the same independent authority to decide what constitutes "divine law".

Because of this, in modern day Christianity the concept of sin is totally flexible and open to individual subjective opinion (supposedly inspired by the divine authority).

So today everyone has their own personal opinion of what constitutes divine law and/or a sin. Each individual has become the divine authority of whatever divine laws they would like to imagine.

~~~~~~~~

A Secular Definition of Sin

Caveat: Not all secularists will agree with the following definition. Some secularists simply prefer to the stand that since no divine authority can be shown to exist, then the concept of divine law is meaningless, thus there is no such thing as "sin".

However some secularists simply drop the requirement that any "divine law" need to be included in the definition and may define "sin" as follows:

Secular sin - A notion of doing something wrong or immoral, where "wrong" and "immoral" are secular ethics that are open to individual subjective opinions.

Of course a large group of secularists in a society may create secular laws that convey the basic consensus of what the bulk of the society subjectively agrees upon. Although breaking these laws aren't typically considered to be "sins". They are just considered to be "breaking the law". No moral judgement required.
[center]Image
Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
of how well they believe they are doing
relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
[/center]

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

NOW I UNDERSTAND

Post #3

Post by ProphetTom »

BOY BE CAREFUL MY FRIEND.
THE STAFF AROUND HERE KEEPS TRYING TO BAND ME FOR PRESENTING FACTS. I know how crazy that is but that is frowned on around here.
the preferred method of discussion up in here is just saying what ever you want with out facts. because when you point to the things that you need to use to make those statements factual to inspire debates that can lead to better answers the gastopo police up in here, place your posts under rants ramblings. Say this is not a place to preach. I mean I am a prophet as such i am warning you the staff thinks since quality responses with well thought out documentation about how you came to this conclusion WILL NOT BE ALLOWED! LOOK OUT IF YOU PRESENT YOUR ANSWERS AND POST THIS WAY! BABY HITLER WILL COME AFTER YOU> HEIL HITLER!!!! Fuck you green punk
I do not mean the author thank you for a well thought out response.

Bust Nak
Savant
Posts: 9855
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 6:03 am
Location: Planet Earth
Has thanked: 189 times
Been thanked: 266 times

Post #4

Post by Bust Nak »

ProphetTom wrote: THE STAFF AROUND HERE KEEPS TRYING TO BAND ME FOR PRESENTING FACTS...
I mean I am a prophet as such i am warning you the staff thinks since quality responses with well thought out documentation about how you came to this conclusion WILL NOT BE ALLOWED! LOOK OUT IF YOU PRESENT YOUR ANSWERS AND POST THIS WAY! BABY HITLER WILL COME AFTER YOU> HEIL HITLER!!!! Fuck you green punk
:warning: Moderator Final Warning

Do not portray yourself as speaking a special messenger of God.
Profanity are not allowed.
Personal attacks of any sort are not allowed.
Do not post frivolous, flame bait, or inflammatory messages.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator final warnings serve as the last strike towards users. Additional violations will result in a probation vote. Further infractions will lead to banishment. Any challenges or replies to moderator warnings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

Anomaly
Student
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:09 am

Post #5

Post by Anomaly »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]
Because of this, in modern day Christianity the concept of sin is totally flexible and open to individual subjective opinion (supposedly inspired by the divine authority).

So today everyone has their own personal opinion of what constitutes divine law and/or a sin. Each individual has become the divine authority of whatever divine laws they would like to imagine.
I think the above could use some amendment. I think the first sentence is a statement of opinion based on personal observation. I'd offer that the concept of sin just appears to be flexible and subjective because terms like sin, evil, etc. are effects. Sin is like pornography: everyone knows what it is, but few can articulate it. That that sin is an effect in need of an explanatory cause would naturally produce the sort of "subjectivity" you contend for.

The second sentence makes me wonder if you aren't trying to soft peddle atheistic relativism on gullible Christians. God knows there are plenty around.

My hypothesis is the cause of sin is a specific, inert quality--falsity--that endues information as an ontological feature of reality. [yes, I'm aware that the popular stance is to refuse authenticity to abstractions. I don't concur, obviously) In this case, the information or essence of the soul is falsified, passing causally to the mind. Sin is thus caused as a disease of a fragmentally defective soul.

User avatar
Divine Insight
Savant
Posts: 18070
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 10:59 pm
Location: Here & Now
Been thanked: 19 times

Post #6

Post by Divine Insight »

Anomaly wrote: My hypothesis is the cause of sin is a specific, inert quality--falsity--that endues information as an ontological feature of reality. [yes, I'm aware that the popular stance is to refuse authenticity to abstractions. I don't concur, obviously) In this case, the information or essence of the soul is falsified, passing causally to the mind. Sin is thus caused as a disease of a fragmentally defective soul.
Since you stated this as a hypothesis, am I correct in then concluding that you are stating this as a subjective personal opinion of what you personally think about this concept called sin?

Or are you stating this on divine authority proclaiming it to be an absolute irrefutable truth?

If the former, then of course you are entitled to your own personal subjective opinions just like everyone else.

If the latter, then where's the evidence for the existence of this supposed divine authority?
[center]Image
Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
of how well they believe they are doing
relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
[/center]

Anomaly
Student
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:09 am

Post #7

Post by Anomaly »

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]
Since you stated this as a hypothesis, am I correct in then concluding that you are stating this as a subjective personal opinion of what you personally think about this concept called sin?
Hello DI, thanks for responding. You are correct in your assessment.
Or are you stating this on divine authority proclaiming it to be an absolute irrefutable truth?
As to divine authority, I [again] believe that to the extent any prescriptive truth is uttered by any human, it’s done so because of an appropriate [truth-Truth] union between the mind of person involved and absolute truth.
If the former, then of course you are entitled to your own personal subjective opinions just like everyone else.
Thank you for graciously allowing me this freedom. I actually didn’t—and don’t—argue against the claim that human beliefs, including our prescriptive, normative or religious beliefs, are subjective. To argue otherwise is foolish, wouldn’t you agree? What I said is that the subject matter—sin—merely appears to be flexible and subjective. I’d argue that subjectivity of belief is due to a hindrance to full knowledge of the subject matter. The evidence for this also applies to our beliefs about factual reality. Scientists of like persuasion have all kinds of disagreements. Those disagreements aren’t, one would likely argue, about whether or not the facts of science exist, but about how to interpret them given whatever the true knowledge is we have of them. My hypothesis is aimed at the idea that if we had perfect knowledge of all things—factual and supernatural—our knowledge of them would itself also be perfect and disagreements about the various states of affairs and beliefs we now wrestle with would vanish. We’re imperfect; this is hardly a controversial issue. The point is, almost all beliefs are subjective. Scientific veracity is evasive too.

My caveat to the Christian reading is to be aware of the tendency of atheists to attempt to throw a relativistic blanket over all reality, sneaking things like beliefs into that worldview. That beliefs are subjective is not proof that absolute truth doesn’t exist, it’s only proof that human beliefs are subjective about things that are true.

My hypothesis of value also offers an explanation for motive—for why one takes one side or the other for belief systems designed to either affirm or refute the possibilities of anything supernatural. The same hypothesis that provides an explanation for sin contains within it a logical reason for our subjectivity.
If the latter, then where's the evidence for the existence of this supposed divine authority?
I have no interest and little time to get involved in arguing for God’s existence. These debates go on all over the place ad infinitum with little new stated, and few minds ever changed. In the end, the atheist perspective is and always has been, in one form or another, that the theist is not justified in her beliefs due to evidential inequality, and has no warrant for her religious beliefs. So be it. From this side of the fence, though, the atheist performs his usual circularity: “Come, let’s argue our case together,� he says to the theist. “The only rule for argument is that only things in time and space are real. Now, come tell me all about your God.� If you can set the parameters for winning before the game, you’ll win every time. The Christian who uses doctrine as the standard of truth by which to judge other doctrines does exactly the same thing. Just visit any theology board--95% of Christians abuse truth the same way the atheist does, and they, too, call it "righteousness". So what’s new under the sun, DI?

User avatar
Divine Insight
Savant
Posts: 18070
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 10:59 pm
Location: Here & Now
Been thanked: 19 times

Post #8

Post by Divine Insight »

Anomaly wrote: So what’s new under the sun, DI?
Apparently nothing.

Some people apparently view the world from the lens of everything being defined by some imagined war between so-called "Atheists" and so-called "Theists", where the theists are typically "Mono-Theists" (i.e. thinking solely in terms of one specific religious dogma).

Since I have never enlisted in that war I don't view reality through that lens.

For me, the answers to these specific kinds of questions are entirely subjective, and most likely quite "relative" as well. And any "absolute truths" are evasive in many cases.

For example, the very concept of "sin", as far as I'm concerned, is a human construct. We invented the whole idea. Therefore to even speak of any "absolute truth" concerning this concept is ridiculous. Unless we accept that the "absolute truth" may indeed be the the concept is basically meaningless outside of human imagination. In other words, the "absolute truth" about a concept of sin may simply be that we made up the whole concept. Period. The whole idea is most likely nothing more than a human judgement call that obviously places human life as the ultimate value. Which is what we should expect. After all, it not likely that humans would invent a moral system that places, say the livelihood of monkeys, as the focal point of morality.

You have mentioned science. However, there's no need to bring science into a conversation about a concept like "sin". Science doesn't deal with ill-defined abstract concepts that cannot be shown to exist beyond human subjective imagination and opinion.

Science deals only with things that can be observed and measured. It's not an abstract philosophy, it's basically an "applied philosophy" that only deals with things that can be verified via observation and/or measurement.

Ironically, when we ask whether science can make any credible statements about a concept such as "sin" we are doing nothing more than revealing our ignorance of both the nature of science, and the nature of an abstract and ill-defined concept of human imagination.

Some atheists have suggested that science can deal with questions of "sin". However, in order to do this they must necessarily introduced the following:

1. Sin can be defined in terms of the observable and measurable well-being of humans.

Again, notice the arbitrary choice to place humans at the focal point of this moral concept. In a sense this arbitrary choice is already in violation of actual science. None the less, once we have embrace the arbitrary choice of placing humans at the focal point of this concept, we can then define the concept of "sin" (or morality) in terms of the well-being of humans.

2. They must also make arguments for why they feel various actions or behaviors are indeed beneficial to, or detrimental to, the human condition.

So even after introducing #1 having defined "sin" or "morality" in terms of observable and measurable events that result in benefit or detriment to humans, they still end up with walking a very thin tightrope of subjective opinions concerning precisely what might or might not be beneficial to humans.

So even when this obviously arbitrary concept of "sin" or "morality" is brought into the world of the scientific method, it tends to bring in a myriad of subjective opinions along with it that cannot be avoided.

In other words, before we can "observe" or "measure" whether or not something is beneficial to humans, we must first agree on precisely what those events or activities might entail.

So in a very real sense, these concepts cannot be made scientific without including the necessarily unavoidable contamination of human subjective opinion. These kinds of problems do not plague the physical sciences that don't require subjective opinions. In other words, the charge on an electron is equal and opposite to the charge on a proton. No subjective opinions required. Etcetera.

Science doesn't require human subjective opinions.

A Theist, on the other hands, necessary defines "sin" as behaviors and actions that their God disapproves of.

This is why when discussing a concept of "sin" with a theists, it's natural to ask them to provide evidence for the existence of this God that they claim is judging things to be "sins".
Anomaly wrote: I have no interest and little time to get involved in arguing for God’s existence.
In that case you need to define the concept of "sin" in secular terms.

Otherwise, you have no choice to to get involved in arguing over the existence of a God that you definition of "sin" ultimately depends upon.

If you enjoy "absolute truths", I would suggest that what I have just explained in this post qualifies as "absolute truth". This is necessarily true by the very definition of all these terms.

You can hardly claim to have a "theistic" meaning of "sin" without a "God".

That very concept defines what must be "absolutely true" for that to occur. There absolutely must be a God, otherwise the concept makes no sense.

So as strange as this may seem, we demand what must be "absolutely true" if our arguments are going to hold any water.

Ironically, an atheist can speak of secular concept of "sin" where no God is required.

In that case, they have no need to argue about the existence of any Gods. Because their argument for a secular concept of sin is not dependent upon the existence, or non-existence of any Gods.

In summary to the thread topic:

What is Sin?

The answer to this question ultimately comes down to how we define the concept of "sin".

If we define it as being in harmony with the desires of a God, then we're stuck with having to face the question of whether a God exists whether we like it or not. That just comes with the territory of any "theistic" arguments. It's an automatic that cannot easily be swept under the carpet.
[center]Image
Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
of how well they believe they are doing
relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
[/center]

Anomaly
Student
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:09 am

Post #9

Post by Anomaly »

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]
Science doesn't require human subjective opinions.
Yet there exists a plethora of conflicting opinions on virtually every scientific issue. So much for scientific objectivity. My point was that the structure of the material reality I find myself in--the mutable (matter) under the supervision of the immutable (non-contact forces) is the same structure the theist finds in the realm of faith. Within this structure, the norm is that the individual subjective consciousness of each individual operates within a system ordered by the immutable.

You can argue (as some do) that the contact forces aren't immutable, but the arguments are ineffective, often based on what might be (gravity might someday begin to weaken) given that the universe shows evidence that the immutable forces that control it have a pretty good track record the last several billion years.

You may disdain the atheist-theist worldview distinction if you wish DI, but if you or I quack, look and waddle like a certain kind of duck, we're that kind of duck. This is a religious debate board. Disctinctions like this are perfectly normal and acceptable.

As to the rest of your post, I guess we'll both agree to agree: there surely is nothing new under the sun my friend. Peace out.

Sojournerofthearth
Apprentice
Posts: 198
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 11:24 pm
Has thanked: 7 times
Been thanked: 9 times

TOO WORDY

Post #10

Post by Sojournerofthearth »

WHAT IS SIN?

1Jn 3:4  Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. 

According to the bible, if one is so inclined,

Soj

Post Reply