What's a sin?

[pdnewbie]

Hi everyone. I wasn't sure if I should be asking this question. It somehow doesn't feel right to me, what with the direction the forum could take it and all. But then I thought why not, it's just a question.

The reason I am asking this question is because the other day, while I was contemplating at work (I was bored), I was getting myself into the legalities of a sin. For instance, it's wrong to murder someone (at least, that's my opinion). However, is it wrong to kill someone's digital character in a video game, or watch movies where people are hacking each other to pieces?

I wasn't sure. On the one hand, the video game and movie are fictional, but on the other hand, these media are giving you these things to think about. Is there an objective way of defining a sin, or is the definition of a sin subjective? How do you define a sin, or rather, how should you define a sin? Should you take a literal, pervasive interpretation, a loose interpretation, or somewhere in between? Perhaps it's a question none of us can answer, because none of us would be able to reach a consensus. I don't know, i just felt like writing in the forum.

[Royce_aus]

It's funny that you ask this question. I was listening to a talk by Alan Watts tonight at work and he was discussing a situation where a man goes to confession to confess his guilt of murder, fraud and many more. But in the end the only sin worth confessing was that he didn't realise he was god. False modesty.

I found that quite interesting, because in different contexts many 'sins' can be the only appropriate action.

[Sunnybayes]

I have a way of defining good and evil... this is related to sin in my eyes.
I'm in the rough stages of trying to define sin in terms of physics and thermodynamics.

From my summary of my framework:

Evil is caused when hierarchy on some level in some system (social, relationships) is destroyed. Good is when hierarchy is created.

This explains why something may be "good" for one system and "bad" to another, and how its a spectrum of the two. Infinite amount of examples:
-An employee gets laid off: good for corporation, bad for his family
-Flip burgers at McDonalds: good for McDonalds, bad for individual if he is creative, good if it is his first job to gain experience
-Eat a cow: Good for human, bad for cow. Eat a plant, not as evil because its not as complex as a cow.
-Terrorism vs USA: USA is evil in eyes of terrorists because it swallows other systems up, terrorists are evil to USA because duh.
-Water is good because it sustains the hierarchies of life but slightly evil sometimes because it could drown you.

So perhaps sin is related to not choosing the choice that optimizes "goodness" in some system.
Perhaps sin is only related to the system of your individual mind, or perhaps it is related to the system of the society that you are in.
Or perhaps the sin is in the context of the system that this your own church.

Also

However, is it wrong to kill someone's digital character in a video game, or watch movies where people are hacking each other to pieces?

I guess you could argue that in the context of the system that is the video game that deleting someone's character is a sin. But then in the system of the outside world that sin that is localized in that game does not matter or is consequential.

Though deleting someone's online character might be considered as a sin as well, because it took the individual who created it lots of time to make it so it destroys the complexity that was apart of that person, but then again it might be considered good in the context of the society of that person because now that person perhaps will be freed from an addiction so that he can contribute to society better.

So it really depends on your point of view how you define sin.

And another example of murder.
For a murderer who got jealous of another guy for going after his girl.
In the system that is the girl and the murder, killing the other guy is not a sin because it preserves and would perhaps strengthen the relationship between the two.

In the system of the mind of the person who was killed it is a sin.

In the eyes of the girl, it may or may not have been a sin. It depends on what system( she with what guy) she values more.

In the system of the society it is a sin to murder because now there is one less person able to contribute to the society. It would have been better if the 3 involved could have been smart enough or concious enough to work things out so that perhaps one guy would get the girl and then the 3 would work together to help out the guy who needs a girl now.

Now in the system that includes all religions and the "global" society, it is a sin if religions have "holy" wars to fight against each other, because there would be one less religious system to contribute to the global society if one side wins.

But again, if the religions are not "concious" or my new buzz word "synergetic" enough to look past themselves and see themselves as part of a global society then each side will not see destroying the other side as a sin or evil, but will instead see that destroying the other side as the best way to maxize goodness because they think that it will preserve and strengthen their own system because they will have access to "resources"

[Freelancer]

So your saying sunnybayes that there are no real sins?
If yes than I agree.

[Sunnybayes]

Be careful of what you mean by "real"

The actions are real. It just depends on how you choose to interpret those actions.

And for the survival of everyone, in the context of the global society since we cannot escape that context, then I'd say defiantly yes there are sins, sin as defined as defined as things that you should not do and things you should do if you want to survive and exists for the "greater good", or moreover if you want the global society to live "happily". But that you can defiantly justify any action as "good" if you are not aware or unable to be aware enough (because noone has pushed you to change your subconcious mental habits, because they wont change on their alone unless you become concious of them...) to take in consideration your actions at a greater level and context, or are "selfish" (on different degrees and levels) and only take in consideration or consider a context that is a subset of the global society system.

Yet another example, if you do what is "good" for you company might be in fact be a "sin" against the "global society system"

And another thought, perhaps that system should include the biosphere of the earth as well..., after all that is what supports the global society system... so then an action that is in fact good in one subset of the global society system, such as keeping the lights on at night to protect against burgulars because you are considering your actions in the context of the neighborhood system, is in fact evil against the global society system on one level because it waste resources, so then it becomes quite an act of knowing how to minimize the "evilness"....

And I think that is where information theory comes in...

Also though it becomes a choice of what system you want to maximize goodness for.... well there's something to think about.

But also, its really almost impossible to know how to interpret all your actions as good or evil because after all it is a complex system and you can't see the consequences of everything and that if there is no way to get more information about it then it is quite pointless to worry if you are "sinning" or not... though you might consider it a "sin" if you conciously choose to not seek out information and to be ignorant of how your actions influence things... but since curiosity is built into us then you'd want to do this anyway.

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by Sunnybayes

Be careful of what you mean by "real"

The actions are real. It just depends on how you choose to interpret those actions.

And for the survival of everyone, in the context of the global society since we cannot escape that context, then I'd say defiantly yes there are sins, sin as defined as defined as things that you should not do and things you should do if you want to survive and exists for the "greater good", or moreover if you want the global society to live "happily". But that you can defiantly justify any action as "good" if you are not aware or unable to be aware enough (because noone has pushed you to change your subconcious mental habits, because they wont change on their alone unless you become concious of them...) to take in consideration your actions at a greater level and context, or are "selfish" (on different degrees and levels) and only take in consideration or consider a context that is a subset of the global society system.

Yet another example, if you do what is "good" for you company might be in fact be a "sin" against the "global society system"

And another thought, perhaps that system should include the biosphere of the earth as well..., after all that is what supports the global society system... so then an action that is in fact good in one subset of the global society system, such as keeping the lights on at night to protect against burgulars because you are considering your actions in the context of the neighborhood system, is in fact evil against the global society system on one level because it waste resources, so then it becomes quite an act of knowing how to minimize the "evilness"....

And I think that is where information theory comes in...

I was a bit short in my answer so let me explain a bit further;
There is no sin if you look at the overal picture without a context.

Sin depends on the individual person and the system they are in, this system dictates (mostly) the context they view the world and in this context certain actions are termed 'sins'.

Pretty much a condensed version of what you said.

[Sunnybayes]

ahhh cool... thanks for the summary

[Sunnybayes]

Ok, so I'm going to squeeze every last drop out of this as I can...

And even throw into the concept of "holistic learning" into this...

If you've read my framework in my signature then consider that the system is the hierarchy tree of your subconsciousness / cortex .

And I'm going to relate this to me. Say my hierarchy has only 2 main branches, one is the knowlege and skills about getting the ladies and the other is general personal development (lol... that seems about right....)

In my pains of transitions post I wrote that it took soo much energy to switch from learning "the arts" to writing my paper about culture.

The knowlege systems of IRs that represented the paper about culture had to "fight" with the "unrelated" system of IRs that represented the arts.

In this context I argue that holistic learning is the "good" thing to do while not doing it is evil.

Here is the article about Holistic learning.

Holistic learning takes an opposite approach. Learning holistically is not done by trying to remember information by using repetition and force. Holistic learners instead organize their minds like spider webs. Every piece of information is a single point. That point is then consciously related to tons of other points on the web. There are no boxes with this form of learning. Science becomes literature which becomes economics. Subject distinctions may help when going to class, but a holistic learner never sees things in a box.

When it comes time for exams (or any practical application for your knowledge) compartmentalized learners have to hope that they pounded the information hard enough into their head so it might come up during the exam. Holistic learners do the opposite. Holistic learners only need to start at one point on their web, but they can use that web to feel around and find all the associated information they need.

Ok. So I don't understand how the associations work... or even that is always a strict hierarchy, not always like that. But its basically that you make the knowlege work together to create something better instead of keeping it separate.

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by Sunnybayes

ahhh cool... thanks for the summary

Ah no problem, should've said it from the beginning.

Anyway happy editing, make it a good one.

[Dusty]

There is no such thing as a sin. There is only one power in this universe, and that power is infinite of love. The things that are darker are not "evil"... they just have less love. Infinite love is the only truth... everything else is illusion.

God is not a vengeful f*cker in the sky who judges you like the church teaches... you are god also. God is pure life energy - absent of any form. To be in form means to be in ego.

A "sin" is just an action that the ego judges as bad. Since judgments are illusions (the are just projections of the mind/ego), there is no such thing as a "sin"

Namaste (I honor and respect the God in you)

Dusty

PS: For more on this, check out some Eckhart Tolle

[Lychee]

Originally Posted by Dusty

There is no such thing as a sin. There is only one power in this universe, and that power is infinite of love. The things that are darker are not "evil"... they just have less love. Infinite love is the only truth... everything else is illusion.

God is not a vengeful f*cker in the sky who judges you like the church teaches... you are god also. God is pure life energy - absent of any form. To be in form means to be in ego.

A "sin" is just an action that the ego judges as bad. Since judgments are illusions (the are just projections of the mind/ego), there is no such thing as a "sin"

Namaste (I honor and respect the God in you)

Dusty

PS: For more on this, check out some Eckhart Tolle

So you don't think Hitler committed did evil acts?

[Dusty]

nope... everything is either out of love or fear and fear is the state one feels when one is not connected with love (God) Hitler emanates less love that most, so a person with the average level of present day human consciousness would look down upon and shun Hitler.

Don't expect to understand this now... I have been around very high vibing people for the past 1.5 years. If that sounds arrogant to you, know that that is your ego judging me. The heart + soul can't judge.

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by Dusty

nope... everything is either out of love or fear and fear is the state one feels when one is not connected with love (God) Hitler emanates less love that most, so a person with the average level of present day human consciousness would look down upon and shun Hitler.

Don't expect to understand this now... I have been around very high vibing people for the past 1.5 years. If that sounds arrogant to you, know that that is your ego judging me. The heart + soul can't judge.

It doesn't sound arrogant to me, but perhaps misguided.

Ah well who knows really?
I sure as hell don't, all I know is that for me right now becoming a 'spiritual being' ain't the right move. Try'ed it for a while and pretty much crashed mentally lol, I feel much more happier/satisfied etc. and I'm pretty sure my 'fibration' as you guys call it is much higher than before.

[torilink]

Originally Posted by Dusty

There is no such thing as a sin. There is only one power in this universe, and that power is infinite of love. The things that are darker are not "evil"... they just have less love. Infinite love is the only truth... everything else is illusion.

God is not a vengeful f*cker in the sky who judges you like the church teaches... you are god also. God is pure life energy - absent of any form. To be in form means to be in ego.

A "sin" is just an action that the ego judges as bad. Since judgments are illusions (the are just projections of the mind/ego), there is no such thing as a "sin"

Namaste (I honor and respect the God in you)

Dusty

PS: For more on this, check out some Eckhart Tolle

yes, very nicely stated.

also A Course In Miracles is a beautiful book which will assist one in learning these truths.

[Matthew Shea]

Wow. I'm amazed by some of these responses.

In my experience, sin is definitely very real in the world and the definition is really quite simple. Anything that interferes with your relationship with God (assuming belief) or harms your fellow humans is sinful.

Of course, as was pointed out above, you have to take the whole context into account when judging something as sinful. There's nothing I can imagine to excuse, for example, the killing of 6 million Jews, but I think I would be justified in killing someone invading my home, knowing my life was in imminent danger and I had no other choice. You can still argue, however, that in the latter case, I still committed sin, but my action was justified given that my survival was at stake. I should point out that just because something is justified, doesn't make it "good," but it can lessen the responsibility for and/or consequences of a sinful act.

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by Matthew Shea

Wow. I'm amazed by some of these responses.

In my experience, sin is definitely very real in the world and the definition is really quite simple. Anything that interferes with your relationship with God (assuming belief) or harms your fellow humans is sinful.

Of course, as was pointed out above, you have to take the whole context into account when judging something as sinful. There's nothing I can imagine to excuse, for example, the killing of 6 million Jews, but I think I would be justified in killing someone invading my home, knowing my life was in imminent danger and I had no other choice. You can still argue, however, that in the latter case, I still committed sin, but my action was justified given that my survival was at stake. I should point out that just because something is justified, doesn't make it "good," but it can lessen the responsibility for and/or consequences of a sinful act.

The more I venture into the 'unknown the more I think there is no sin just artificial context created by men.

[ethereal]

All sin is ignorance. All people choose what they perceive to be the good, but their perceptions are distorted by ignorance. So out of ignorance, they "sin" and do what is counter to where they actually want to go.

It's true that there is actually no "sin" and it is just a label -- there are only choices and consequences, both seen and unseen, physical and nonphysical. But for convenience's sake, if we accept that human beings naturally want to gravitate towards Love, then all actions that run counter towards the evolution of consciousness towards Love can be labeled "sin".

However, this is highly situational and contextual, depending on many factors including intention, karma, the individual, the circumstances, etc. For example, when defending yourself and your family you end up killing an intruder, that is actually the most loving act you could have done, and so it isn't a "sin" per se. Same concept as triage -- it is out of respect and reverence for human life that triage is taken, by choosing the lesser of two evils. People often take these things out of context and judge actions in comparison to some perfect idealistic hypothetical reality, but it has no actual basis in Reality.

[Matthew Shea]

Sin certainly is an abstract concept, but so are karma, love, evil and many other things that most of us accept as "real."

Also, I'd dispute that sin is purely ignorance. That's certainly a big part of it, but not the whole thing. There's an element of rebelliousness, too, which is really what causes problems. Ignorance can be taught, but rebelliousness is much harder to treat. You have to dive deep inside a person to find the individual cause. Take me, for example. I know it's wrong to drive over the speed limit and I'm perfectly aware of the potential consequences, but I continue to do it from time to time knowing I shouldn't. That's a mild example of the rebelliousness I'm referring to and is a big part of what makes the sin.

Finally, I think you're oversimplifying and making a big assumption when you say people all want to gravitate towards love. Some people only truly love themselves, others want to serve others. Love of yourself is fine and there's nothing inherently wrong with taking actions based on that love, but you can certainly do something drastically wrong, even though your reason for acting is "love."

[Brutha]

Sin certainly is an abstract concept, but so are karma, love, evil and many other things that most of us accept as "real."

I guess a bunch of the posters in this thread that are discussing at the moment don't consider Karma, Love or Evil as existing.
Sure their are people who feel love. But at the end of the day its a bunch of chemical reactions in someones body but not Love.

I guess the question is do you belief in a God who judges certain things as Sin or Evil.
But if you don't have such a God, I don't see how something can be a Sin.

That's a mild example of the rebelliousness I'm referring to and is a big part of what makes the sin.

Without a God I don't see how rebelliousness is a bad thing.

Still their are people who do bad things that lead to dispair. But that still doesn't make them Evil. Just people who do bad things.

If you are a Muslim then you are not part of the Christian system so that it is not a sin that you worship Mohamed, but it is a sin against yourself if you worship Jesus.

I guess you know nothing about religions but neither do the Muslims worship Mohammed as a god, nor do they have problems with Jesus as a person. They just think that he wasn't a god but sent by god as an important prophet.

[Matthew Shea]

I see your point, Brutha. Accepting that something can be sinful does actually presume belief in a higher power. Assuming that's true, though, and that this higher power has the ability to affect your eternal destiny based on what you do in this life, sin is very real. Even without that belief, though, there are certain actions that inevitably hurt others. Things like murder, theft and adultery hurt your fellow humans. That's the essence of sin and it applies to everyone equally.

Now I can see that those wishing to achieve a high level of consciousness might not focus on avoiding sin as much as focusing on how to do the most good. Acknowledging sin for such people might be seen as lowering consciousness. That doesn't change the fact, however, that humans can and do hurt each other every day by committing actions that are universally accepted as wrong.

Finally, I'm not saying rebelliousness is a bad thing. If it's directed against an improper use of authority, rebelliousness is good. But in the example I cited, the rebelliousness is directed against a reasonable restriction put in place for everyone's safety. That type of rebelliousness is not good.

[Brutha]

Things like murder, theft and adultery hurt your fellow humans. That's the essence of sin and it applies to everyone equally.

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?"

[BanditFlyer]

Originally Posted by Brutha

But if you don't have such a God, I don't see how something can be a Sin.

What do you mean?

So if I don't "believe" in the law, is it not illegal for me to break the speed limit?

[Caveman Joe]

Sunnybayes, you've said some very interesting things, and that's a philosophy I haven't seen before. I've been very interested for a while now in trying to objectively define what is right and what is wrong - I've a feeling I may be interested in it for a lot longer, since I doubt it's actually possible.

Here's mine:

Since every action has some sort of knock-on effect, it's hard to define what is really "Good" and what is really "Evil," without creating a sort of feedback loop as the effects move around from person to person (or from object to object). But as far as I can see, from a viewpoint that's as objective as I can make myself:

Any act of creation that doesn't lead to an act of destruction is inherently good.
Any act of destruction that doesn't lead to an act of creation is inherently evil.

Now, every single action that we do is an act of either creation or destruction; my act of typing this now is creation of thought, destruction of electricity, destruction of oxygen, creation of carbon dioxide... you get the idea.
The gist of it is that if you've spent lots of time creating things or ideas or communities or relationships that don't in themselves cause other things of equal value to be destroyed, then you're ahead.
If you create something that creates other things and never causes a noticable act of destruction, then consider it a bonus.

Thinking, too, is an act of creation, even if it never manifests in a physical form. Thus, you can say that any act (or stimulation) of thought that doesn't result in acts (or encouragement) of ignorance is inherently good.

Likewise, with change. Change good, entropy bad.

I had about five or six things that stood on either side of the fence at one point, but I think I've forgotten them - and I'm pretty sure it could all be boiled down to either "creation" or "destruction" in some manner, anyway.

[Brutha]

Originally Posted by BanditFlyer

What do you mean?

So if I don't "believe" in the law, is it not illegal for me to break the speed limit?

Yes, the criteria is whether the law exist (not whether someone believes it exist).
In addition when something is illegal that doesn't have to mean that it is a Sin. The word Sin appears nowhere in law.

[Matthew Shea]

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.