What About All The "sins" That Truly Cause No Harm Whatsoever?

[Lyra]

Hello all,

 

I like to think that I have a strong sense of ethics. My moral code is pretty basic: 1) Don't cause others harm, and 2) We all have a duty to give back and make the world a better place in whatever way we are able.

 

So I make it a point to treat everyone around me with kindness. I help others whenever I see an opportunity to do so - just the other day, I was driving and noticed a lizard hanging onto my dashboard for dear life, so I pulled over and put it some nearby bushes to go live freely. I abstain from hurting anyone - not just physically but also in terms of avoiding dishonesty and emotional harm. I think it's evil when people manipulate others or lie in a harmful way i.e. by lying about a relationship being real when it isn't, or setting someone else to take your blame at work, etc. I volunteer on an anti-abuse hotline at least once a week, where I help empower people escaping from domestic violence, and help child sexual abuse victims and human trafficking/kidnapping victims escape from their situations. I'm even a vegetarian because of the way that animals in factory farms are inhumanely treated (although when I visit my redneck relatives who hunt/fish in humane ways from nature, I make an exception for that). Also, in addition to those things, I also take care of my own self by working towards my dreams (novel writing), being responsible with my money, working out and eating healthy and staying fit, not abusing drugs, etc. 

 

Of course I'm not perfect, and sometimes I get pissy and rude with my loved ones in ways that I regret, or handle things poorly, etc. But, aside from things like temporary hurt feelings from family arguments or relationship breakups, I've never caused any type of meaningful harm to anyone's life. And what I described above -- do no harm, and also give back -- sums up my moral code. If everyone just believed in "do no harm, and help others," then the world would be so much better. Sure no one is perfect and we would still have issues in the world, but not on the level of things like mass murder/starvation/global suffering because of a corrupt few at the top who put their own egos and need for power/control/riches over the need to allieviate human suffering. 

Also, most people who lack empathy and are sociopaths were raised in cruel ways as children, and if people's moral code was just "don't be cruel" then we wouldn't see the type of child abuse that causes people to grow up with a hostile and anti-social worldview. 

 

So I think "do no harm, and do something to help" is a pretty good moral code, and in the 24 years of my life, so far it's worked really well for me and the people around me i.e. the people I help on a regular basis. 

 

But according to some Christians, I'm sinning because I:

 

- Don't believe Christianity is plausible, and thus don't believe in it

- Am a lesbian

- Covet by thinking "wow my friend's condo is cool, I wish I had a place like that" and similar

- Like to go out dancing/am not "chaste"/wear revealing swimsuits at the beach/etc

- Am interested in magic, paganism, etc. No "bad spells" and I don't really believe it, just think it's cool

- Have a tattoo and plan to get a couple others in the future

 

 

I could go on, but you get the idea. The concept of "sin" would make a lot more sense if it was just things that cause harm, or things that ruin your health (like eating a whole pizza every day and becoming obese, or abusing drugs). But a lot of the things that Christians consider "sin" doesn't harm anybody. Especially the "sins" or unbelief or believing the wrong religion, or "sins" involving sex. And I can see those to a certain extent -- i.e. some religions like extreme Islam do call for harm and hatred of others, and sex can involve immoral things like lying/cheating on a partner, or telling someone you want a relationship when you don't, or sleeping with someone underage etc. But I'm talking about situations where those harmful effects are not involved, and it's just peaceful and consensual activity of people having their own free will.

 

If something truly causes no physical or emotional harm, whether direct or indirect, how could it be a "sin"?

 

Please discuss.

 

PS -  I actually do believe that there's a Creator, but that human religion could in no way capture or define it, and I don't think the Creator would care what religion people have as long as it's peaceful. To me, a god being angry over the "wrong" religion would be like a parent being angry at a child for believing that Santa brought the toys, or an insecure parent who gets angry when a kid's favorite person is their best friend. 

[rjn]

The Christian concept of sin is all about "offending God", not other people who're undoubtedly real.

[Lyra]

But why would non-harmful "sins" that produce no negative effects on the world cause a God to be offended?

[rjn]

But why would non-harmful "sins" that produce no negative effects on the world cause a God to be offended?

 

Cause the Bible/their congregations interpretation of the Bible says so.

[TheOutsider]

You aren't thinking like an abusive sociopath, which is a good thing. But sin isn't about right or wrong, it's about obedience and submission. He is offended by us not keeping to his laundry list of arbitrary, impossible rules. Murder isn't a sin because he cares about our lives, murder is a sin because as our creator he is the only one with the authority to end our lives. For one of us to take the life of another human is to rob god of his right to do the same. That is the only problem he has with murder.

 

That is if god was real and actually handed down a couple of lists of arbitrary rules. In reality the list of sins are just a list of things various religious leaders decided they didn't want anyone to do, because fuck you. Some of them, if it wasn't for the "No exceptions. Ever. Because god." thing, would be reasonable. Most are arbitrary bullshit possibly intended to keep people on edge and worried about their ultimate fate, which would make them easier to control.

[Lyra]

How can people in today's era -- equipped with scientific knowledge, free access to any information via the Internet, ability to believe as you wish without government punishment (talking about people in USA/Europe/Australia/Canada/developed parts of Asia/etc here) -- be so sheep-like that they would just accept that without thinking it's bullshit?

 

I remember being 7 years old and in sunday school. The adult asked me "If you were making a cake, and accidentally used the wrong ingredients and it turned out bad tasting and gross, you'd have the right to throw it away, right?" then applied that metaphor to people, saying that humanity is like a burnt cake that can be rightfully thrown out whenever God deems.

 

And people accept this and allow themselves to be ruled by it? I don't get it.

[older]

How can people in today's era -- equipped with scientific knowledge, free access to any information via the Internet, ability to believe as you wish without government punishment (talking about people in USA/Europe/Australia/Canada/developed parts of Asia/etc here) -- be so sheep-like that they would just accept that without thinking it's bullshit?

....

 

Fear. Humans are naturally fearful; possibly because of survival behaviors that came down through evolution. Most of us fear death, and religion capitalizes on that. Look at Trump's acceptance speech. It was all about creating fear, and his supporters will vote for him because they are afraid. Same with religion.

 

One of my favorite musicals of all time is The Music Man. A huckster comes to a small Iowa town where everything was just fine, and he stirs up trouble by inciting fear among the populace. Then he steps up and says he has the solution to the trouble. But unbeknownst to the citizens, he plans to collect the money for instruments and uniforms and then skip town. It's a great show — you can probably find it on line (be sure to watch the Robert Preston version).

 

Some of the best lines:

 

Friend, either you're closing your eyes

To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge

Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated

By the presence of a pool table in your community . Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here,

I say, trouble right here in River City.

 

(It goes on, one of the best numbers in the whole show. It's on Youtube. Tell me if it doesn't remind you of current politicians.)

 

Then later he says:

 

Friends! May I have your attention, please?

Attention, please!

I can deal with this trouble, friends, with a wave of my hand, this very hand.

Please observe me if you will,

I'm Professor Harold Hill

and I'm here to organize the River City Boys' Band!

 

(This culminates in the tune 76 Trombones.)

 

So in the case of religion, it's goal is easy — to convince people that they have problems, and then to offer solutions to those problems.

And just like the Music Man, it plans to collect the money and skip town.

[TheOutsider]

Religion is considered sacred, questions are discouraged. Find some way to reconcile your beliefs with reality or face the consequences. Willful ignorance is a great tool to guard ones faith from the facts of reality. Saying "it's just a theory" is a great way to protect your bronze age mythological beliefs from scientific fact that just doesn't fit with what you know to be true. I could probably go on.

 

That metaphor makes my head hurt... Assuming he exists, god is all knowing, supposedly. He cannot make a mistake. He has never made a mistake. Everything is unfolding perfectly according to his plan. You cannot reconcile a perfect creator god with an imperfect creation. And he certainly cannot, if he truly is just, blame the creation for being exactly what he created. No matter how evil or not, objectively or otherwise, it may be. Not to mention your ruined cake has no ability what so ever to perceive it's own existence, or what you end up doing to it.

 

I don't get it either. I guess the empty promises of religion are enough for some to give their lives, and the lives of those they are responsible for, up for. I hope the legitimacy of religion doesn't survive the rest of the century. But unless Islam is castrated and lobotomized soon, I'm not sure how likely that outcome will be... Pardon the tangent.

[Lyra]

100 years ago--hell even less than that--we lived in a society where women couldn't vote, had little to no options of living independently, Black people and other minorities were openly discriminated against and forced into poverty, being gay could get you killed, child abuse was legal, etc. Looking back and comparing that time to today, it's horrifying how oppressive society used to be, but we've come so far as a species since then. Thus, it stands to reason that in another 100 years we can safely assume religion will be gone.

[older]

 

 

...

 

Everything is unfolding perfectly according to his plan.

 

...

 

 

When I hear people say this I want to puke. I spent my career in photojournalism and I've seen photos that Americans will never see. Photos of human suffering and tragedy beyond anything I could possibly describe in words. There is no way any beneficent deity could let these things happen.

[Lyra]

But we can see photos like that. Anyone can go on Google Images and look up things like Holocaust victims photos, child abuse injuries, starvation in Africa, gore from tyrannical violence in war-torn countries, hideous car accidents, etc.

 

I think that some people choose to ignore those things because it forces cognitive dissonance. It jolts them out of their fantasy land where they believe that God's ways are always best and people get what they deserve. 

[older]

But we can see photos like that. Anyone can go on Google Images and look up things like Holocaust victims photos, child abuse injuries, starvation in Africa, gore from tyrannical violence in war-torn countries, hideous car accidents, etc.

 

I think that some people choose to ignore those things because it forces cognitive dissonance. It jolts them out of their fantasy land where they believe that God's ways are always best and people get what they deserve. 

 

Yes, you can find them but the main stream American media do not present them to their readers. To expand on the cognitive dissonance idea, the media has learned that people don't want to see that stuff. You are absolutely right about folks not wanting to upset their notions of reality.

 

I've thought about inviting the Jehovah's Witnesses in next time they come by and putting some of those images up on the TV. Then I'll tell them I want them to look at the photos and tell me about their god. (Probably won't work, though. I'm sure they have a tactic to avoid such a challenge.)

[Lyra]

You should do that. Also ask them about the other fundamental flaws, like the illogic of the entire premise. (We're inherently evil and doomed to be tortured forever after death, but God loves us so much that he came down as a human and had himself killed, to appease himself, so that he wouldn't have to torture us? and the way to not be tortured forever is to believe that that's reality?)

[TheOutsider]

100 years ago--hell even less than that--we lived in a society where women couldn't vote, had little to no options of living independently, Black people and other minorities were openly discriminated against and forced into poverty, being gay could get you killed, child abuse was legal, etc. Looking back and comparing that time to today, it's horrifying how oppressive society used to be, but we've come so far as a species since then. Thus, it stands to reason that in another 100 years we can safely assume religion will be gone.

I hope your right, I really do. But I can't help being a little pessimistic sometimes.

 

Also, welcome to the forums, I hope you enjoy your stay.

 

 

...

 

Everything is unfolding perfectly according to his plan.

 

...

When I hear people say this I want to puke. I spent my career in photojournalism and I've seen photos that Americans will never see. Photos of human suffering and tragedy beyond anything I could possibly describe in words. There is no way any beneficent deity could let these things happen.

 

That's kind of why I used it, it's a sickening thought. Hopefully it will help open someones eyes to what they actually believe in.

[midniterider]

Lyra:

If something truly causes no physical or emotional harm, whether direct or indirect, how could it be a "sin"?

 

Please discuss.

 

PS -  I actually do believe that there's a Creator, but that human religion could in no way capture or define it, and I don't think the Creator would care what religion people have as long as it's peaceful.

 

-------------------------------------

 

If God says something is a sin, and yet that sin causes no harm, then God is illogical. In my experience though, it isn't God telling me that something is sinful, it is people claiming that God is telling them that something is sinful. If God would like to appear and corroborate the bible, that's fine. But he hasn't.

 

How is it that Jesus/God is so infinitely advanced in intelligence compared to human beings yet seems to be overly concerned about our sexual orientation? Bible thumpers dont worship God really , they worship bronze-age/iron-age culture and values and try to apply that baloney to the 21st century.

[Guest Furball]

But why would non-harmful "sins" that produce no negative effects on the world cause a God to be offended?

God is offended because even the so called "smaller sins" are are violations of his law and an affront to his his awful majesty, thus causing him to be offended. 

 

Christians believe that all sins are harmful because sin itself is an invisible disease that causes physical/mental/spiritual problems as well as natural disasters. They are brainwashed to believe that all sin is vertical (against god) and not horizontal (towards man) and that there is no such thing as non harmful or trivial sins. Christians are so embarrassingly stupid that they actually believe all sin causes negative effects in the world like hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as birth defects and things like the cold the virus etc. 

 

Basically what they believe is that somewhere in china, a guy is masturbating which is responsible for the drought in california. 

[Lyra]

That's so nutso.

[rjn]

That's so nutso.

 

To be fair, only a fairly small amount of fundamentalists are that crazy. Most Christians, to my knowledge anyways, believe that sins hurt the sinner's soul and his/her relationship with God. Only indirectly does it affect the World at large. furball is right about sinning being perceived as a "vertical" thing. Again, the severity of the sin doesn't really matter, what matters is that you've offended God, and since God is infinitely powerful, he can somehow, by Christian reasoning, be infinitely offended.

[quinntar]

Hello all,

 

I like to think that I have a strong sense of ethics. My moral code is pretty basic: 1) Don't cause others harm, and 2) We all have a duty to give back and make the world a better place in whatever way we are able.

 

So I make it a point to treat everyone around me with kindness. I help others whenever I see an opportunity to do so - just the other day, I was driving and noticed a lizard hanging onto my dashboard for dear life, so I pulled over and put it some nearby bushes to go live freely. I abstain from hurting anyone - not just physically but also in terms of avoiding dishonesty and emotional harm. I think it's evil when people manipulate others or lie in a harmful way i.e. by lying about a relationship being real when it isn't, or setting someone else to take your blame at work, etc. I volunteer on an anti-abuse hotline at least once a week, where I help empower people escaping from domestic violence, and help child sexual abuse victims and human trafficking/kidnapping victims escape from their situations. I'm even a vegetarian because of the way that animals in factory farms are inhumanely treated (although when I visit my redneck relatives who hunt/fish in humane ways from nature, I make an exception for that). Also, in addition to those things, I also take care of my own self by working towards my dreams (novel writing), being responsible with my money, working out and eating healthy and staying fit, not abusing drugs, etc.

 

Of course I'm not perfect, and sometimes I get pissy and rude with my loved ones in ways that I regret, or handle things poorly, etc. But, aside from things like temporary hurt feelings from family arguments or relationship breakups, I've never caused any type of meaningful harm to anyone's life. And what I described above -- do no harm, and also give back -- sums up my moral code. If everyone just believed in "do no harm, and help others," then the world would be so much better. Sure no one is perfect and we would still have issues in the world, but not on the level of things like mass murder/starvation/global suffering because of a corrupt few at the top who put their own egos and need for power/control/riches over the need to allieviate human suffering.

Also, most people who lack empathy and are sociopaths were raised in cruel ways as children, and if people's moral code was just "don't be cruel" then we wouldn't see the type of child abuse that causes people to grow up with a hostile and anti-social worldview.

 

So I think "do no harm, and do something to help" is a pretty good moral code, and in the 24 years of my life, so far it's worked really well for me and the people around me i.e. the people I help on a regular basis.

 

But according to some Christians, I'm sinning because I:

 

- Don't believe Christianity is plausible, and thus don't believe in it

- Am a lesbian

- Covet by thinking "wow my friend's condo is cool, I wish I had a place like that" and similar

- Like to go out dancing/am not "chaste"/wear revealing swimsuits at the beach/etc

- Am interested in magic, paganism, etc. No "bad spells" and I don't really believe it, just think it's cool

- Have a tattoo and plan to get a couple others in the future

 

 

I could go on, but you get the idea. The concept of "sin" would make a lot more sense if it was just things that cause harm, or things that ruin your health (like eating a whole pizza every day and becoming obese, or abusing drugs). But a lot of the things that Christians consider "sin" doesn't harm anybody. Especially the "sins" or unbelief or believing the wrong religion, or "sins" involving sex. And I can see those to a certain extent -- i.e. some religions like extreme Islam do call for harm and hatred of others, and sex can involve immoral things like lying/cheating on a partner, or telling someone you want a relationship when you don't, or sleeping with someone underage etc. But I'm talking about situations where those harmful effects are not involved, and it's just peaceful and consensual activity of people having their own free will.

 

If something truly causes no physical or emotional harm, whether direct or indirect, how could it be a "sin"?

 

Please discuss.

 

PS - I actually do believe that there's a Creator, but that human religion could in no way capture or define it, and I don't think the Creator would care what religion people have as long as it's peaceful. To me, a god being angry over the "wrong" religion would be like a parent being angry at a child for believing that Santa brought the toys, or an insecure parent who gets angry when a kid's favorite person is their best friend.

Oh Lyra, you sound like a dynamic girl with fringe benefits (Shhh, I don't know know what fringe benefits is.)

[Lyra]

Huh? Not sure what you mean. 

[quinntar]

Huh? Not sure what you mean.

Neither do I.

[MOHO]

I have attempted to discuss the concept of sin due to disbelief with fundies as well as a pastor at my wife's church. When I tell them that my disbelief is not a choice but a condition that my mind arrived at after chewing on the evidence for some time, I get the same response from each. A blank look - as if, maybe, they are thinking the same thing.

 

But, yeah, that one was the big FAIL for me. According to the scirpture I'm going to hell for something that I have no control over. Good thing it's all BULLSHIT!