What is sin?

I would like to explore this question, particularly within a Christian framework and a preliminary step to another debate. What do you think sin actually is? What constitutes sin anyway?

Anything that is not in the frame work of love God and love everyone else.

sinner=stupid and evil selfish liar blapheming your entire existence, a.k.a koron the demon of illusions the joker in the box and the lifelong creator of nightmares.
sin=act of unclean and zero value that ends up destroying it's sources (humanity).

What is sin?
Sin is an action to contemplate when we aren’t busy judging others.

What is sin ?

The Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm defines sin as "Sin is nothing else than a morally bad act (St. Thomas, "De malo", 7:3), an act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law. God has endowed us with reason and free-will, and a sense of responsibility; He has made us subject to His law, which is known to us by the dictates of conscience, and our acts must conform with these dictates, otherwise we sin (Romans 14:23)."

I am not sure i am 'happy' with the 'morally bad act' which is later defined as 'an act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law', simply because this implies that atheists can have no morals, which is absurd.

I would be tempted to define sin as "something your conscience tells you is not something Jesus Christ would have condoned". Add to that the fact that there are sins of omission as well as those of comission......

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."

~Victor

Sin is any act, attitude, or disposition that fails to fulfill or live up to the expectations of God, setforth in his everlasting and Holy Word- the Bible.

Sin is merely a concept to me...the term sin makes every action seem so terrible, when no one is above these, instead the concept should be a mistake, which is able to be learned from and the habits changed that caused it. Example: you get emotionally damaged through a bad relationship, you rethink how you look at people and what type of person would really be best for you. Example 2: You steal something and get away with it, but something inside (Not necessarily God, perhaps your conscience, which can be seen as purely human) tells you that this is wrong for one of many reasons. You return the stolen item, apologize, take whatever punishment you are given and resolve not to steal again. Again, I feel alone, a relativist lost among theists and Christians, among others that believe God is so close to mankind, he can touch us...

muichimotsu said:

Sin is merely a concept to me...the term sin makes every action seem so terrible, when no one is above these, instead the concept should be a mistake, which is able to be learned from and the habits changed that caused it. Example: you get emotionally damaged through a bad relationship, you rethink how you look at people and what type of person would really be best for you. Example 2: You steal something and get away with it, but something inside (Not necessarily God, perhaps your conscience, which can be seen as purely human) tells you that this is wrong for one of many reasons. You return the stolen item, apologize, take whatever punishment you are given and resolve not to steal again. Again, I feel alone, a relativist lost among theists and Christians, among others that believe God is so close to mankind, he can touch us...

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The thing is that people sin because it's emotionally satisfactory to them. They get attached to a certain good prefer the fuzzy feeling above a lesson to be learned. Attaching yourself to God intellectually and emotionally is but the best way to fight it.

~Victor

cardero said:

What is sin?
Sin is an action to contemplate when we aren’t busy judging others.

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That one deserves a rimshot, ba dam bomp!!!

B.

michel said:

What is sin ?

The Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm defines sin as "Sin is nothing else than a morally bad act (St. Thomas, "De malo", 7:3), an act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law. God has endowed us with reason and free-will, and a sense of responsibility; He has made us subject to His law, which is known to us by the dictates of conscience, and our acts must conform with these dictates, otherwise we sin (Romans 14:23)."

I am not sure i am 'happy' with the 'morally bad act' which is later defined as 'an act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law', simply because this implies that atheists can have no morals, which is absurd.

I would be tempted to define sin as "something your conscience tells you is not something Jesus Christ would have condoned". Add to that the fact that there are sins of omission as well as those of comission......

Click to expand...

Perhaps it means tho, that athiests cannot sin. They can be moral, or immoral, just as any theist can be, but if they are not bound to any set of supernaturally inspired rules, then can they sin?

Reminds me of something I heard about a tree falling in the forest. . . no, I didn't hear about it, cause I wasn't around to hear the tree fall. . . ahh, it all gets very confusing.

Seems to me that there aught to be a pretty defininative answer to this question tho. If you break one of the 10 comandments, that is a sin, right? Seems like a set of standard rules like that should be how we decide if something is a sin or not. In the church I was brought up in, we were taught that if we died with a sin on our hearts (not yet confessed, and requested forgiveness therefrom) then we were doomed to Hell. No problem, right?

But then sin became so broadly defined, as to include swearing, lustful thoughts, etc. etc. etc. that it made no sense to try, as you were doomed to spend your whole life avoiding anything enjoyable, only to step off a curb, see a bus bearing down on you and say "Oh Sh__!" and boom, you are in Hell suffering the pains of the damned.

My vote, for whatever small measure it matters is that we use the 10 commandments. Breach that, and you sin, otherwise its ok.

B.

Victor said:

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."

~Victor

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timecube is the truth....praying to singularity is a sin.

Sin...anything you wouldn't do/say/think if the Lord were standing right in front of you. If you would feel it's ok to do with God by your side then you are probably good.:bounce

fromthe heart said:

Sin...anything you wouldn't do/say/think if the Lord were standing right in front of you. If you would feel it's ok to do with God by your side then you are probably good.:bounce

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That's a great response. It also kind of illustrates something I think is very important. The idea that a person would behave differently with the Lord standing right in front of him implies, to me, that there has to be some sort of recognition that a particular behavior is wrong in order for it to be sinful.

So it all has to go back to God here? Why can't humans (with lots of hard work, btw) find a sense of morals similar to Christians, or is that impossible?

I differentiate between sin and that which is morally wrong although the two often overlap.

A sin is that which our respective deity has specifically told us not to do. It need not be morally wrong but it should be considered forbidden for whatever reason. For example, keeping the Sabbath holy. It is not immoral to do otherwise, but we are to stick to it for other reasons and therefore we commit a sin if we decide not to.

An immoral action is immoral independent of whether our deity has condemned it or not so it may or may not be a sin. An example of this would be abortion, of which the Bible makes no mention meaning that whilst one can consider it immoral, I do not believe that it can be considered a sin.

The examples I gave are just from a particular view of the Bible and don't really reflect my own in which morality becomes totally relative and thereby completely independent of sin.

fromthe heart said:

Sin...anything you wouldn't do/say/think if the Lord were standing right in front of you. If you would feel it's ok to do with God by your side then you are probably good.:bounce

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god is a word i have no reason to worry about a word-god standing in front of me neither by my side but even from an atheists view you should know that even he is imperfect.

Sin is not a list of things you should not do.
It is an attitude of mind.
It is not caring for your fellow man and the world, in the way you know you should.

Both believers in God and non believers can sin.
If you do not do what you know is right,
or do those things you know are wrong.
Then you sin
For Christians Jesus gave us a yardstick in his teachings,
But he taught more about forgiveness and love than about sin.

Terry_________________________
Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall behold their God.

blood-lord14 said:

timecube is the truth....praying to singularity is a sin.

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Uh...ok.

~Victor