A question about sin

I'm getti g really cross with you soon to be. I don't think your God exists.

wrong?! I think it's unfortunate for anyone it happens to, but you can't call it wrong. It is beyond a person's control. Better to come out than live a life of repressed loneliness.

God decides all rules. Us christians are messengers. We dont make the rules. We just try and follow them.

The sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable vq.

oops, Christianity, have distorted scritptures to malign women for ever. I attended a really interesting lecture a few years back, by a Catholic priest who is a famous Hebrew expert- about Adam and Eve and the original sin. In Hebrew there are several words for man and mankind- which are used in the original Hebrew scripture- but it was quite deliberately mis-translated into 'man and woman' to put the blame on said original sin- and therefore all the sins- on women.

Look at Mary Magdalen too and so many more.

Personally I believe that homosexuality is a wrong thing to do then as now.

Mishap, couldn't have said it better. Thanks.

I am not a rabbid feminist- but many religions, including

For goodness' sake - just be kind to each other and have done with it!

Great concept. But sadly not all there is to it.
We have to [and here I will give a link as it is very important}

Romans 10 v 9
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.

It is a narrow door that we have to go through, not a wide door of merely being kind to each other.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself is one of the two commandments in the New Testament.
The other one is You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.

I have always believed that the sin against the Holy Spirit is the total reversal of the moral order as we know it ie calling that which is evil good and portraying good as evil. As such it is persistent and cannot be forgiven. Forgiveness needs some acknowledgement of wrongdoing or "missing the mark". Having said that,it is possible to seek forgiveness on behalf of others but even then somebody has to acknowledge wrongdoing.
As mankind develops and gains more knowledge, the goal posts can be moved and something that was seen as a sin in the past may not be seen as such now. Homosexuality is an example of this.We have realised there is a reason for this way of being just as the eating of pork is no longer considered wrong now that we know it cannot hurt us if well-cooked. These are my own thoughst and I am willing to admit they may be wrong.

vq. The New Testament supercedes the Old Testament.
The old set of rules were not working, as in people were not obeying them. And God got fed up with people not obeying them.
So His son was sent to try and save all, not just the Jewish people.

There is a specific part in the New Testament which says that all meat is now allowed.
I am not sure how many links to put. Some posters seem to welcome links. And some posters seem to pretty much hate them.

I think that these decisions about what is or isn't allowed are dreamt up by powerful people (usually men) with vested interests. How it comes about that people latch onto them and live their lives round them is a complete mystery to me.

I came to write the OP because of the blasphemy/perceived blasphemy thread caused by the expletive of used by a TV presenter.

It just made me wonder who decided what the sins were in a religion and how does it come about that something that was once a sin is no longer a sin. Christianity started as a Jewish sect so pig meat would have been taboo but now Christians happily eat pork, bacon and ham. Who decided that rule could be ignored whereas the sin of blasphemy couldn't be?

jingls scary thought

"Talk to the old man upstairs directly! no intermediates needed."

If only it were that easy!

Tony Blair probably talked to God.

I had the RC religion rammed down my throat as a child and teenager so I have not been near a church since. I try to live a decent life and help others without going overboard. Trying to show some kindness and compassion I think.

I never did get the concept of 'original sin'.

And if the Holy Trinity is three in one how can you sin against one and not the others?

Just basic rules for living a decent life imo, and, as feetle has posted, man's interpretation of those rules.

Amen Mishap!

For goodness' sake - just be kind to each other and have done with it!

I was not brought up with this awful and often very damaging concept of sin. I wonder how many people suffered emotionally all their lives from having this idea rammed at them throughout their formative years.

I do understand that these attitudes are not so common nowadays.

I was a Methodist and it seems from a fairly moderate tradition. You did what you could and should to lead a good life and follow Christian teachings.
There seemed to be an understanding that Jesus knew that we are human subject to human frailties, we are not perfect and we don't always do the right thing but that we should keep trying.

From what I can remember apart from the general confession in a communion servic, formal confession was not an issue and confessing to a priest for absolution was most definitely not on the agenda.

Talk to the old man upstairs directly! no intermediates needed.

That idea of needing to go through saints etc to intervene (? intercede) for us seems to have been another ploy by the established churches to keep us hoi polloi in our place in society. (You lot are far too lowly to dare to speak God directly.)

It's just not as easy and straightforward as religious/philosophical teachings make it out to be.

Can there be a "just" war? Is it sinful to kill others because of their actions towards innocent people? Or should we sit back and let them continue their murderous activities, and hope that if we are kind to them they might eventually come round to our way of thinking?

John 13:34
English standard version

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

So basically don't do any thing which harms or upsets others.

In terms of how to behave the above is pretty good

"Sins" are just a concept of religion.

I knew I had a list somewhere - found it...

~1970-1640 BCE "Do for one who may do for you, / That you may cause him thus to do." - The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant 109-110, Ancient Egypt, tr. R.B. Parkinson.
~700 BCE "That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self." - Dadistan-i-Dinik 94:5, Zoroastrianism.
? BCE "Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others." - Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29, Zoroastrianism.
~550 BCE "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself." - Bible, NIV, Leviticus 19:18, Judaism.
~500 BCE "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." - Udana-Varga 5:18, Buddhism.
~500 BCE "The Sage...makes the self of the people his self." Tao Te Ching Ch 49, tr. Ch'u Ta-Kao, Unwin Paperbacks, 1976. Daoism
~500 BCE "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." Analects of Confucius 15:24, Confucianism, tr. James Legge.[1]
~500 BCE "Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves;? this may be called the art of virtue." Analects of Confucius 6:30, Confucianism, tr. James Legge. [2]
~500 BCE "one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life [is] reciprocity. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire." - Doctrine of the Mean 13.3, Confucianism.
~500 BCE "Therefore, neither does he cause violence to others nor does he make others do so." - Acarangasutra 5.101-2, Jainism.
~400 BCE "Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others." - Socrates.
~200 BCE "What you hate, do not do to anyone." - Bible, NRSV, Tobit 4:15, Septuagint.
~150 BCE "This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." - Mahabharata 5:1517, Brahmanism and Hinduism.
~100 CE "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." - Hillel; Talmud, Shabbat 31a, Judaism.
~100 CE "Do to others as you would have them do to you." - Bible, NIV, Gospel of Luke 6:31, Christianity
~100 CE "What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others." - Epictetus.
~800 CE "No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother (fellow Muslim) that which he desires for himself." - Hadith recorded by al-Bukhari, Islam.
? CE "And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself." - Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, 30, Bahá'í Faith.
~1870 CE "He should not wish for others what he does not wish for himself." - Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf Bahá'í Faith.
1999 CE "don't do things you wouldn't want to have done to you." - British Humanist society, Humanism.

@VampireQeen : The 'Golden Rule' is common to pretty much all belief systems - and equally subscribed to by those of us without belief systems.

'Sin' is a purely religious matter, and of no interest to non- members...
Surely nobody thinks murder was AOK before the Ten Commandents were cobbled together?

Agree Brenda, that's my philosophy too?
RC schooling as a C of E confused me for life I'm afraid.....

I think that all any of us can do is to live life to the best of our ability but a well lived life is not the same as a life well lived.

Do to others as you would have them do to you Luke 6:31

If you want others to be nice to you then you must like yourself otherwise you wouldn't be bothered if they were nice to you or not.

Therefore love others and love yourself.

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” Mark 3:22–30

I'm used to Christians cherry picking from the OT but I thought the NT was sacrosanct. Now it appears that although it's written that a blasphemer against the Holy Spirit is eternally damned, it isn't so.

I've threatened and abused God and his kid on numerous occasions. Seems like it's OK to threaten and abuse his kid but not him. Odd fatherly response but that's what's written. Seems as I said before, I'm totally buggered.