Sin from a Polytheistic Perspective

@Quintessence and folks

I would ask, wouldnt it be non realistic in nature to have sin given you have mutitple gods with morals of their own?

Like there are spirits in many lands. Where I live, many are civil war. Civil war soilders have different morals than I do. Especially since VA is a southern state. So I guess I can sin against them by disrespecting their stance on racial issues. Basically, insulting the spirits would be a sin.

(Edit) Sining against the spirits of nature or just nature itself is not taking care of it. Many ways to ignore the spirits and earth that takes care of us.

Maybe its the same with mythological gods? Sin would be direspecting their culture and land they are from?

Or is my assertion completely off?

Carlita said:

Sining against the spirits of nature or just nature itself is not taking care of it. Many ways to ignore the spirits and earth that takes care of us. Maybe its the same with mythological gods? Sin would be direspecting their culture and land they are from?

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I'd call that offending.

If some-one burgles your house, you say their action was a crime, an offence against you, and a vicious act (i.e. the opposite to a virtuous act). You don't say they sinned against you. Similarly, if some-one treats you with disrespect, you don't say they sinned against you.

The term "sin" has always been used for an act in disobedience of a divine command, and altering the meaning when there are plenty of other words to describe wrongful actions is just corrupting the language.

The religious concept of sin applies to those religions where god is conceived as laying down the law. The Hindu concept of dharma "duty" and the Greek concept of arete "excellence, virtue" do not refer to divine commands, but to the nature of the universe. You are born a human being in a particular community and it is those facts imply certain constraints on your behaviour, not some divine legislation.

DavidMcCann said:

I'd call that offending.

If some-one burgles your house, you say their action was a crime, an offence against you, and a vicious act (i.e. the opposite to a virtuous act). You don't say they sinned against you. Similarly, if some-one treats you with disrespect, you don't say they sinned against you.

The term "sin" has always been used for an act in disobedience of a divine command, and altering the meaning when there are plenty of other words to describe wrongful actions is just corrupting the language.

The religious concept of sin applies to those religions where god is conceived as laying down the law. The Hindu concept of dharma "duty" and the Greek concept of arete "excellence, virtue" do not refer to divine commands, but to the nature of the universe. You are born a human being in a particular community and it is those facts imply certain constraints on your behaviour, not some divine legislation.

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Similar to saying "I broke the law" rather than "I broke the law against you"?

I offended you by my sin. Sin a noun. Offend (etc) verbs?

The concept of sin was never monotheistic to being with, it was a borrowed concept from south Asian religions (from what is now the Middle East)

It is a transgression against the Gods, pure and simple. Humans are born to sin, for it is our very nature here on Earth. The Gods exist from outside of our material realm, because they exist only through spirit.

Our very immortal soul is that of divine status, when we are born, we are going against the nature of God (Gods are without body) and to become unified with the Gods, we must ascend through Mystic rites and let go of our petty materialism.

All this is inherent truth, and there is no denying the truth as She is Goddess that permeates all realities. I've been a trained, scholarly Platonist for 6 years, and an initiate of the Orphic Mysteries for 3 years.

Quintessence said:

Second, and perhaps more problematic, is that in polytheism, there are gods, not god. The gods have distinctly different domains, wishes and desires that can and do come into conflict with one another. Taken as a whole, it is impossible for a polytheist to not make a transgression against the desires of the gods. If you're not at war, you're offending the war gods. If you're not at peace, you're offending the peace gods.

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There is no conflict (at least in Hinduism) because there is a thing greater than God and Goddesses, i.e., 'Dharma'. Even the deities have to follow it. The God of war (Mangal, Mars) does not want war all the time. War is necessary in defense of 'dharma'. Otherwise, he is a nice jolly fellow sipping Soma along with Indra. And when war is necessary for 'dharma', even the deities of peace would not object - because 'dharma' is greater than them. Krishna made it amply clear:

"atha cet tvam imaṁ dharmyaṁ saṅgrāmaṁ na kariṣyasi;
tataḥ sva-dharmaṁ kīrtiṁ ca hitvā pāpam avāpsyasi." BhagawadGita 2.33

If you back out from this duty of war, you will have backed out from your 'dharma', lose your reputation as a fighter and incur sin.

This also answers Unveiled Artists post # 21. In Hinduism, deities do not have different morals.
To answer HailOlympos, one transgresses the Gods and Goddeses when one does not fulfill his/her duty.
It is something like Pashtoonwali ('which combines Manliness, Goodness, Gallantery, Loyalty and Modesty' - Wikipedia).

Quintessence said:

These problems appear to make sin an invalid concept in polytheistic religions. How could we revise the concept of sin to make sense from a polytheistic perspective? What is the polytheistic equivalent?

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The answer is simple if there is an essence of likeness and unity between all these multiple Gods. One law should apply to all beings. This is why the hebrew and christian God makes sense and other Gods do not. Because other God focus on loyalty but do not explore and design the out print for the understanding of what sin actually is. Jesus Christ/Yahweh does.