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

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Real question is, would an angel make a better than average spouse? I guess it only applies to females, tho.

An angel would never become a spouse.

My guardian angel has an Oedipal complex
[and a sense of humour]
actually a succubus wouldn't be all bad right now

TallyMan, what's your personal criteria for determining what is and isn't moral? If religions (including mystical teachings that may be considered religious) are out, how do you make the judgment?

Ask them.

A succubus attacked me one night at my other house. It put a vacume house on my **** and I woke up screaming. They disappeared and I was so scared. It was bad.

they never stick around for a hug after

I kinda like the Christian concept of sin, at least the way it was explained to me at my Anglican primary school. Anti-religion types sometimes talk as if "sin" is the excuse used by Christians to judge other people. And maybe historically, that is how the concept was used. But actually, I think it should have the opposite effect.

Basically, to a Christian, "sin" is a failure to live up to God's moral standards. But here's the crazy part: it is impossible for any human to live up to these standards!

When confronted by a group of people who wanted to judge a woman for the crime of adultery, Jesus said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". But there is no such person! In other words, no human has the authority to look down on another human for a moral failing. Only God has that authority.

Didn't Moses throw stones?

Well I doubt Jesus was a fan of Moses. Jesus said that he "came to fulfill the law", but in reality he mainly just destroyed it.

Actually, I just thought of something funny. Jesus (allegedly) was the only person present who was literally "without sin". So maybe Jesus' famous question was really an attempt to skip to the front of the stone-throwing queue!

It never seems difficult for me. I simply treat others as I'd like to be treated myself. Fairness is important.

Does everybody want to be treated the same though? One person may prefer to not be bothered by others at all, others would like to see others' interest, not to speak of any extremities. You could displease (but then again displeasing isn't necessarily immoral) plenty of people by measuring them according to the peculiarities of your own temper, preferences and values.

thats why Brussels in homogenising humankind into a sameness
nearly everyone is connected
and on the same page
everyday now people from all over the world have conversations
like right now in this forum
how marvellous
and yet to Amish a sin of technology

That happens occasionally but the consequences don't tend to be very severe. If I have a personality clash with someone then I have little to do with them and vice-versa. If someone steals from me or abuses my goodwill I have nothing more to do with them for example. However, most people find me very easy to get on with and quite agreeable - albeit a little eccentric. I can't imagine subscribing to a list of behavioural norms as dictated by any religion, even Buddhism - though my behaviour coincides very much with mainstream Buddhist teachings.

Some people get themselves into a state over sin and beat themselves up over what they perceive are their sins. As I do not accept the concept of sins I don't have this heavy weight to carry around. If I find something immoral as per my own code I simply don't do the immoral thing, simple really. I act in the moment and carry nothing around to beat myself up about afterwards.

I hear of religious believers feeling guilty and sinful because they masturbate which apparently is a sin. The concept of sin dumps a lot of unnecessary guilt onto believers for things that I don't consider immoral. If someone wants to pull their willy that is no big deal - certainly not worth getting neurotic over!

Moral standards will clash and very often. But how does this show that, therefore, morality must be absolute?

Actually, as far as I can see, Christians also are compelled to accept that morality is relative because even they don't have much access to whatever absolute morality happens to be. They may pretend and argue morals are absolute, but whether they see it or not, each one of them decides (or is conditioned by other humans and/or natural factors) for himself what's moral and what's not.

Last edited by MCalavera on 11 Jan 2013, 8:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with you. The bible has a massive sin list as shown in my opening post; however, individual Christians pick and choose from that list as to what they consider are good moral values to have and which ones are plain ridiculous our outdated in today's society.

Even then, individual aspects of morality aren't always black and white, but circumstance dependent. Take lies for example. Most people find lies to be immoral/wrong but we all tell white lies occasionally when we consider it more appropriate, especially to save someone from unnecessary hurt.

Yep, the Bible itself is a very poor guide to use as a moral standard because some of its moral teachings are inconsistent with other teachings in it, and a lot of them lack so much needed clarity that they could be reasonably interpreted in different ways by various groups that take the Bible seriously. And not to mention that there are so many moral issues out there in the real world that the Bible never ever addresses.

That is why I said Christians don't have much access to absolute morality anyway since the Bible is a very poor entryway to it and God is so selectively mute that even if we were to ask him in prayer if, say, smoking a cigarette was a sin or not, he wouldn't respond.