MdmSzdWhtGuy said: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.
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If you are implying that the commandments were given solely to the Israelites, then I partly agree with your statement, for it provides a better and more truthful interpretation of things.
Consider this: Where there is no law there is no sin. Without law no sin can exist. The concept of law and "transgression of law", which is sin, is within the Jewish concept and not the Christian condemnation in/of original sin.
The commandments of law given by Moses to the Israelites(sons of Jacob) were not given to any other people on earth. They were not given to the Moabites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, etc. "Sin" was defined as transgression of those commandments of law. How then, could any other people transgress laws they did not have? How then, could other people be declared as "sinners"? Without law they could not. Is the world then off the hook and free from bondage of "sin"? YES!