What is a sin? Do sins matter? Are you a sinner?

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That seems a bit open for interpretation. If you don't give me your wallet I will hurt you if necessary.

The fundamental problem I have with the Gospels is one can only assume they are what Jesus said but who knows? Could be these followers putting words in his mouth. One can take the liberty presuming these followers had a vested interest in adhering to the master's principles only who knows how much of themselves and their own beliefs and values they felt necessary to interject. None of them must have cared much for Judas.

How about wrongful acts, your own or someone else's. Do they matter.

ruveyn

How do you define wrongful? Is it wrongful to work on the Sabbath or be blasphemous?

This is where I make a strong distinction between humane morality which is important to me and so called sins which I do not accept/recognise.

Thinking about it more, sins are just a special category of rule breaking within a particular social group.

At the country level there are laws. Contravention of those laws results in sanctions or exclusion from the group i.e. prison.

At the human level there are moral principles such as not killing, stealing etc which are a subset of most country level laws but in addition there are other human rules such as not telling lies, not boasting, and generally not being a dick etc. Contravention of these rules results in social exclusion.

At the (Christian) religious level there are so called "God's rules", breaking of which is termed a sin. Contravention of those rules results in sanctions within the persons religious circle and threats of damnation in somewhere called Hell.

At other group levels (clubs, societies, internet forums [ and WP ]) there is usually a written list of rules. Contravention of those rules results in sanctions against the member or expulsion from the group.

So, I'd say the bottom line of this is that if you are not a Christian, the concept of "sins" is simply irrelevant for you.

Yes, they do. But I don't call them sins.

Do you think anything is worth feeling guilty over? I'm sure masturbation is not the worst deed you could possibly carry out, yet it's still not something I can see anybody being proud of regardless of level of secularisation. The culture of guilt is far from being a religious one though. The Western world is growing more secular, and politicians are still frequently outed on actual or supposed immoral behaviour. Does it deserve our criticism? Yes. Is religion to blame and would people stop wanting to humiliate and embarrass their fellow human beings if religion was successfully combated? I wouldn't say so.

I most definitely agree that one should not dwell on past sins as there's nothing to gain from that sort of focus. I am happy to hear that you do exactly what you feel is right, yet I feel that if I found myself in the same state I should feel alarmed about deluding myself. Is it a matter of simplifying what is right and what is wrong?

Also, 'sin' is defined by some sources as breaking either a religious or a moral law, therefore irreligious people would still find the concept of sin to be relevant to their lives in one way or another, as opposed to people who reject the notion of morality altogether. An individual trait of mine is to think less in terms of 'good vs bad' and instead think in the category of pain, as it seems that my mind is more capable of this at the present stage.

I think my other post (up three posts in this thread covers what I consider to be the difference between morality and sins. While there is some overlap between the two I make a strong distinction between the two. I think many people muddle human morality with the Christian concept of "God's rules" / sin. Perhaps because they haven't thought of the distinction before.

There are different human moralities though. The contemporary Western morality (secular/humanistic) is a longtime tradition that continues its development still and can be seen as a rather artificial construct mainly based upon its ties to Christianity, even if the connection comes through either replacing Christian laws and norms with simplified ones or direct opposites. Is it what we should call 'human morality' however? I would reserve such a term for a natural phenomenon, which Christianity doesn't fit either with its well-known claim of being unworldly.

In Ancient Greek tradition, we are aware of the unfortunate hero Tantalus who cooked a dish from his own son for the gods or Medea who vengefully killed her own children. The gods are said to have found it heinous and Greeks may or may have not agreed to this repulsion, but the only thing we know for sure is that they felt it was impractical. If you make a dinner out of your son, you deprive yourself of somebody to rely on in your old age. Did they feel it was immoral? That's what most of us think, but we have no evidence there was any shame and contempt involved in the disposition towards such acts besides what our own views may add to our interpretation of these myths.

Or how about a few other sins from the primitive, pagan world (that is not terribly heterogeneous) - contempt for incest and not burying people.

He expounds on this in his Myth and Religion talks. There are printed transcripts available some places, but I have always enjoyed listening to him talk more than reading his words.

Sin is basically something that is an abomination in God's eyes. Thus, actual Christians see it as something between the eternal award, and the eternal death. (Notice death, not the eternal burning alive stage.)

Yes, I'm a sinner. Everybody is a sinner, and if one was to tell you otherwise, they're lying. The only difference is we ask our Lord to forgive us of our shortcomings and to help us to not fall into sin again.

Working one day a week is enough for me.