Quote:
Originally Posted by Brutha  Sin is not about whether someone is hurt. A deadly Sin like pride doesn't hurt anyone.
Your driving faster than the speed limit didn't hurt someone either.
If we go back to the orginal question: "Does killing people in a Video shooter is a Sin?". Obviously the video game characters aren't fellow human beings. pdnewbie seems to mean something different when he ask: "Is it sinful?" |
To clarify my earlier post, someone doesn't have to be hurt every time, nor do they have to be directly impacted for a thought or action to be sinful. Taking my previous assumptions into account (we are talking about an essentially religious concept here), we're all responsible for the eternal fate of our own souls. Assuming that God has the power to send you to heaven or hell for eternity, I think the essence of whether or not something is sinful comes down to whether it leads you down one path or the other (towards heaven or hell). Pride is sinful because it puts the intelligence of the proud person over that of God and the rest of creation, especially other people. Pride warps our sense of humanity in that the proud person thinks he's better than everyone else and results in maltreatment of others (since they're all "lesser" people anyways). That's where a something as seemingly innocuous as a thought can be sinful and can cause real harm to others.
In a more secular way, sin can be addressed in terms of ethics. Leaving God out of the equation, I would argue, doesn't fundamentally change the fact that our thoughts and actions can impact others in both direct and indirect ways. Knowing the nature of those effects helps us to understand that bad (sinful) thoughts and actions tend to have negative effects on others and are to be avoided while good thoughts and actions tend to have positive effects on others and should be encouraged. Bringing up the concept of pride again, re-read the 2'nd to last sentence in the previous paragraph (starting with "Pride warps our sense of humanity..."). The effect is still the same and, even if you don't believe in God, the negative impact on others is identical.
So my point is that sin by any other name is still sin. Evil is evil and wrong is wrong. The concepts are fundamental and universal even if the word itself has religious connotations and is typically defined in a religious manner.