If you're referring to the post I made, basically my point was that many people believe that they can commit a sin as long as they confess and all is automatically forgiven. This often keeps people in the habit, as the ritual of confessing becomes an act to allow somebody to continuously do so without feeling guilty and still believing that they will be eligible to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Personally, to truly repent, so to speak, is to recognise the mistake or sin, realise that you've hurt or violated somebody else, or even yourself (in terms of drug use, alcoholism, or anything else harming your body) and learning from that mistake or sin by making different choices in the future. It's about self-responsibility, really. 

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There's no such thing as 'sin'

If humans were created perfect, there would be no sin

But humans are far from perfect

Take a narcissist.  Being narcissistic is all he knows.  It doesn't feel wrong to him to lie, manipulate, steal, divide, create havoc and harm, etc.  It's how he is.  It's how he's wired.  Maybe he inherited a narcissistic tendency, or maybe his life's experiences led him to become narcissistic in order to survive

A lion kills, it stalks, it terrifies and sometimes it eats humans.  Does it sin?  No.  The lion was built that way

The psychopath kills, stalks, terrifies and sometimes eats humans.  Does the psychopath sin?  No.  It's how he is

Someone who's been badly damaged by punishment or poverty, ridicule or who simply has low intelligence might be guilty of actions that are described as 'sinful', 'evil'.  Is that person actually 'sinful' or 'evil' ?  No.  It's just how they are

Someone murders his/her spouse.  Their motivation is greed or anger or a desire to simply be rid of their spouse.  They're described as 'sinful', 'evil' and people often post they should 'rot in hell'.  But take away the 'sinful/evil' descriptions and what are you left with other than someone with less resources than the majority.  Who's fault is it that they have less resources and turn to violence and murder to solve what they consider to be their problem (their spouse)?  Genetics?  Low intelligence?  Poor parenting?  High suggestibility re: violence tv/movies?  Is it someone's 'fault' that humankind produces killers?  Who's fault is it?  Humankind generally?  Humankind's creator?

What is 'sin'?  And when is an act considered to be 'sinful'?

Are governments sinful for waging wars and pushing their troops to certain death and to kill?

Is an act only considered 'sinful' when committed by an individual on civvy street?  Rape's a 'sin' when committed in a town or city.  Is it still considered a 'sin' when committed by uniformed troops during 'war'?

Is theft a 'sin' when committed by an individual?

Is it still a 'sin' when perpetrated by banks and governments?

Same could be asked in almost every case when 'sin' is in question

Quote:



I touched on 'humans as animals' in another thread a few moments ago.  Human Eustachian tubes are claimed to be vestigial gills.  Then there's the human tailbone, said to be a vestigial tail. Etc.

Seems little doubt that humans have considerable animal component.  But it's what separates us from animals -- that 'other' component -- about which no-one can offer any certainty, although there's no shortage of theories, including 'fallen angels', 'space aliens', etc.  Most who trust religion to get them through to safety on the other side of death have a difficult time explaining our animal component.  They prefer to believe we were created as we are - two legged creatures descended from a woman's rib and some mud

Science continually rewrites the length of time humans have walked the Earth, but regardless of how many hundreds of thousands or even millions we've actually been here, it doesn't matter.  What we regard as millions of years could be no more than a few seconds

What's clear is that we are encased in animal type vehicles/bodies.  Yet we are not animals as we generally perceive them to be.  Nor are we free of animal behaviours and our reptilian brain is still there.  It emerges at times of stress and threat, etc.  It compels us to cling to and fight for life even as our mind is eager to be free of that life.  It causes us to be a mass of conflict.  The most urbane, 'civilized', intelligent individual is capable of the most barbaric behaviours - behaviours which later can cause him to take his own life out of revulsion with himself

We get no say in the cards we were dealt.  And they're dealt at the micro-second of our conception.  The blueprint is set.  Societal conditioning and Nurture are only as deep as a thin coat of paint

But Mind -- Mind is something else again.  It's commonly said that the Brain is the hardware, Mind being the software.  It's also theorised that Mind resides 'out there' rather than in the Brain -- something with which I agree

So perhaps we're Mind, or at least part of a Mind, but compelled to exist within a flesh-cage, with the flesh-cage subject to behaviours determined by the animal or reptilian brain inherent within that cage

Who hasn't lost their mind?  Wonderful turn of phrase, attributable to people who lived long before us - demonstrating yet again that people were just as aware of our conundrum back in the 'olden days'

'Out of his/her mind' is another term which harks way back

Lost his mind.  Out of his mind.  Both signify a detach.  And most of us have experienced it.  With some, unfortunately, this being 'out' of their mind or in a state of having 'lost' their connection with their mind, has disastrous results.  It's when they kill someone, beat someone senseless, rape a child, go nuts in a road-rage incident

Then, most of them restore contact with their mind, or get back into their mind -- only to suffer the consequences of that momentary lost connection with their Mind

How often do we hear someone claim 'I must have been out of my mind' when I did it' ?  Sounds the same as if they said they were 'out of the office' or 'out of the house', doesn't it ?   Again, the detach, the lost connection, the absence from Mind

We know what they mean.  So do those olden-day folk who coined those phrases.  We know -- although we rarely think about it -- that it's possible to lose our connection with our usual occupancy within our Minds.  That's very interesting ...

But then we become distracted and distraction appears to be externally imposed -- almost as if it's a prerequisite for maintaining and controlling humans on this planet

Our Minds may be close to perfect.  But of course, if the Brain is faulty, the Mind's material could become garbled, mistranslated, deleted, corrupted.  And that appears to be where the trouble lies -- where all troubles lie

I like to think we are our Minds and that our Minds are connected to greater and greater Minds -- also that when the flesh-cage/vehicle dies, that we return to our Minds

Jasin wrote on Oct 1^st, 2014 at 10:49pm:




One day it occurred to me

that God has no religion

Popped into my head -- God has no religion

It was so simple and true and it still makes me smile

Freedumb wrote on Oct 1^st, 2014 at 11:17pm:



But it's gobbly-gook, isn't it

People hundreds of thousands of years ago were imprinting signs on rocks and trees etc. to be read by others, whether they be simple tallies of days between rivers to symbols signifying 'water', etc.

Writing (and naturally the ability to comprehend those writings, called 'reading') emerged of necessity.  It did not spring fully formed within one remote tribe

and certainly records of harvest, barters, populations, distances, etc. were recorded.  In fact, the need to record such matters led to the progression from simple symbols to writing or carving several in succession, known as 'writing'

Freedumb, this is just my 'sort of' opinion and in no way am I claiming it's correct

but -- well, it's the only way I can cope, to be honest, and it's via a hunch or maybe the distillation of various thoughts over the years that God (by whatever name) isn't responsible for this place we're in/at (be it a dimension, a physical Earth or a computer simulation, etc.).  But God holds out to us a rope to grab, a way out, an escape.  Takes pity on us

Others (and it sounds nice and who knows, could even be true) choose to believe that Life is a learning experience.  They believe that God put us here to learn, to become better, etc.  And for a while I bought that and even preached it to my dying father.  He wasn't impressed, I guess, because when I'd finished my Pollyanna version of Why Life's Like This -- he replied dryly, 'Yeah?  Well, I haven't learned a damn thing'

You have to question it - kids being raped and chucked under bushes - people and animals dying in unimaginable agony at the hands of those who're put inside for a few years and turned loose again.  Who learned from that?

You have to wonder about the nature of God, if you believe he created this place and us and put us here so the hope and light in our eyes will be killed off, inch by inch. Who learns?  What do they learn -- to be quicker on the draw, to trust no-one, to become cynical and so on?

It's painful.  No wonder people have to invent a moral for the story, complete with happy ending.  You'd go nuts if you took it at face-value

But if God did not condemn us to live here like this and instead can't stand to see the suffering so offers a hand up, even though we are revolting in so many ways - hybrids created by who-knows - decent spirits trapped within animal shells -- well, for me, there's a certain logic in that idea

Sin, so called, very often originates in our animal nature.  It seems a constant tug-of-war goes on within us.  Someone drops a fifty dollar note next to us on the bus.  We have two dollars to our name.  The person who dropped it doesn't look too well off either.  Tug, tug.  Hand it back.  Pocket it and tell ourselves we were 'meant' to have it or 'the other person won't miss it' -- all the rationalisations.  It's a 'sin' to steal, we're taught.  And our conscience knows we should hand it back.  But we need it - we're hungry.  Tug of war happening all the time in us and those around us.  Not correcting someone when they tell what we know to be an untruth about someone else.  Vicious gossip.  But to agree and join the gossip will gain us approval, even friendship.  Do we speak out in defence of the defamed?  Or do we remain silent and tell ourselves the person being defamed will never hear about it or our participation (large or small).  We have nothing to lose.  It's someone else who's being picked to bits.  What do we do?  Tug, tug

We're extremely complex creatures.  I suspect we always were and always will be.  Our brains, for example -- multi-level, old brain, new brain, each with its own characteristics and duties and the limbic system flushing emotions through us.  So it's not that simple, defining 'sin'.  Little lies, big lies, half truths, etc, denial, rationalisation, justifications

We do pretty well, all considered, imo.  God can't help but know that, even though we may be nothing  more than a fly-speck on a piece of rotting fruit somewhere in the universe

There's Godliness in us.  We yearn for 'goodness', 'fairness', reason, balance -- even the worst of us.  We know these things exist.  How?  It can only be because at some level (Mind?) we just do - we know it.  Maybe because part of us -- our 'overview'? -- is part of the balance, fairness, justice, altruism, reason, etc. 

I see us in the same way we regard toddlers in the sand-pit.  Toddlers bite, scratch, take each others toys.  And we smile indulgently, because that's the level of their development.  And we know that at heart, they're all (well, most of them) cute in their unreasoning behaviours and dummy-spits

When we've exited these earthly bodies, we'll look back, perhaps, at our earthly behaviours and tantrums and regard our earth-selves with the same fond indulgence.  And we'll shake our heads in pity at how we castigated and berated ourselves (and others) for their and our actions in this big sand-pit we find ourselves in at the moment

Sprintcyclist wrote on Oct 3^rd, 2014 at 5:05am:



Are we talking about Biblical type 'sin'?

Or whatever individuals deem to be 'sin' at that particular time?

I don't know what 'sin' is because most who commit what society describes as 'sin' usually cite justification for their actions

Woman hammers spouse to death when he's asleep.  In Biblical terms, she's murdered him and murder is a sin.  But the woman explains to the jury that her spouse (and this is a true story, happened in Queensland I think over 20 years ago) had physically abused her for years.  She'd tried to escape a car he was driving, or he pushed her out (can't remember) leaving her wheel-chair bound -- after which he'd tip her on the floor, strip her and douse her in cold water, middle of winter, that sort of thing.  His kids had left home soon as they could and stood as witnesses at their mother's trial.  The only way she could end her torture of decades' standing was to kill him and the only way she could do that from a wheelchair or her knees was to hit him with a hammer while he slept.  She'd have no chance when he was awake

She was imprisoned, from memory.  I didn't consider her actions to be a sin, even though she admitted to murdering her spouse.  Don't know how the Bible would judge her actions

So defining sin becomes complicated

On the other hand, someone who snatches someone else's child, kills and disposes of it -- that's inexcusable, although no doubt the child-killer would attempt to justify his actions and maybe to him/her their act would make sense.  In an instance such as that, were I judge or jury, I'd imprison the child-killer and I'd like to add ten hours a day hard-labour and for an enlarged photo of the child's remains to be situated prominently within the killer's cell behind smash-proof material with a light over it night and day, to help the killer comprehend the consequences of their actions