all sins are equal

[voltare]

A spiritual belief in sin is not equivalent with a psychological capacity to understand right from wrong. Different religions have different ways of dealing with right and wrong.

I don't believe in 'Hell.' I don't believe in 'Heaven' either, for that matter. I don't like how concepts are contrived in spoon-sized bites so that we mere humans might collectively digest them better. Nature doesn't give us spoon-sized bites of Lions if we are hunting in the woods of Africa. I don't really see God that way either.

I don't believe in the concept of Sin. Sin, like hell, strikes me as a simplified way of asserting control over a group. This doesn't negate the importance of control in society - we exist in such large, organized numbers without in relative peace because there are people who have control (whether we have chosen those leaders or not.) Areas where too little control or too many people seeking control are warring are the major causes of misery, pain, and death amongst our species.

Indeed, if Sin represents a personal choice to disobey God, than why is it touted and used as a condemnation device on such a widespread, institutionalized scale? I'll bet every gold cross in Italy that without sin, there'd be no gold crosses.

When I make a mistake, I don't need a priest to chastise me. I don't feel I have ashamed God. I feel bad because of the hurt or damage I cause to other people and myself. The more I sin, the more I will suffer, sooner or later.

The key to this is rooted in self-accountability. Small children learn right from wrong when they are punished for bad behavior, and rewarded for good. Most religions take this simple, effective approach, and apply it to adults. That doesn't make it right, or even holy - just effective. Somewhere in the maturation process most of us learn that when we hurt other people, it hurts us too. The few who never learn this lesson are either psychologically stunted in their emotional growth, or end up sociopaths.
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[Xtreme]

All I meant by that line is that it is impossible to sin and bring oneself to remain completely in God's presence simultaneously. If we participate in evil, we cannot bear to also, at the same moment, participate in holiness.

In one sense, perhaps, that's all evil is - the absence of God, the stepping away from holiness.

If, then, we choose eternally to go against God, you could call that state of being - resulting from free will - hell. We are, indeed, all intended for total holiness, and when, on an eternal time scale, we choose something else, there is as close to nothing left for us as possible. That is hell.

[voltare]

I suppose I'm not capable of viewing the world in such black and white extremes.

"Thou shalt not kill" Seems pretty simple, right? Except if someone comes into my house and tries to kill my wife and children. I discussed this last night with my girlfriend - imagine coming across three men who have just killed someone you love in your house. They have knives, and you have a gun. You kill the first where he stands. The other two run out. You kill the second one on your front porch. The last one runs down the street, a block away, before you kill him.

By law, the first killing was 'justified' and in self defense. The second killing would technically be manslaughter, but would still be justified as self defense. The third killing is murder (in the 2nd or 3rd degrees depending on your state laws.)

Which of these are sins? Not such a simple question.

Absolutes, positives and negatives, come easily from the mouths of politicians and priests. The real world isn't so easy to pigeonhole. People who pretend it is are either willfully ignorant, or dangerous.
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[Xtreme]

I believe I've been through the explanation of that concept somewhere on the order of 6 trillion times .

Firstly, the commandment is better stated as "Thou shalt not murder," where murder is the intended killing of an innocent person.

Therefore, the intentional destruction of innocent life is strictly forbidden according to both natural and moral law. When a person attempts to harm innocent life though, it may become necessary to use a certain amount of force to stop that action and to preserve the well-being of the aforementioned innocent life.

Minimal force should always be used. However, sometimes the minimum force needed to protect innocent life is the killing of a non-innocent person. Basically, when a situation requires the harming of person X (who is the harming party) in order to defend person Y (who is the potential victim of X's attack), you, as an able bystander, should use the minumal force necessary to remove person Y from danger. Sometimes, as I said, that may mean the death of person X, but that should not be the sole intention, regardless of your relation to person Y.

So can the killing of a person be justified? Yes. But only to defend the immediate well-being of another innocent life.

[clpo13]

But how do you determine what "innocent" is?
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[userfriendly]

It makes sense in theory .. but.. who is anybody to determine who is innocent and who isn't? You, as a bystander witnessing this guy about to kill somebody else, have no idea what his reasoning is.. perhaps the one about to die raped and murdered the other mans sister. You don't know that though, so you will kill him to prevent him from killing the rapist/murderer? That's what we have police and court and everything for.
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i heart boobs.

[voltare]

clpo,

Obviously, none of us are truly 'innocent.' But the purpose of this exercise is to illustrate where the victim becomes the killer, and where the killer becomes the victim. The intruders in my house were not innocents. The intention I had in killing the first is not murder, legally, and most people would say morally, after all there were three of them, in my home, and potentially they could have killed me. This is where my 'innocence' stopped.

My purpose in killing, throughout, was revenge. The justifications are never adequate in society. I was angry and wanted to kill the people who killed my family. On a personal level, most people will agree with me, support me, and defend me. This doesn't make what I did right. Thus my first killing, while legally and morally justified, is still wrong because it was wrongly motivated.

The second and third killings are wrong. I took life needlessly, innocent lives or not. I probably saved many more innocent lives, in fact, but the problem is that within our society, I do not have authority to judge a man's life or death. In fact, no single person in western society legally has that kind of authority, though many people are given the burden of permitting that authority. Governors in death penalty states, for example, are given authority to stay or commune capital sentences. Yet, when a criminal is held in custody, they are now at the mercy of the state - meaning all of us. Criminal he may be, but his execution can still be viewed as state-sanctioned murder, directly against 'Thou shalt not kill' - after all, a man with the power to prevent murder who does not, is guilty of murder in a legal, and moral sense.

This all takes us back to the fundamental problem with such polarized, black and white thinking. It surrenders deliberation and careful thought in favor of absolute proclamations that only serves to feed one's ego, not justice nor a healthy society.

Killing is wrong. Killing has dire consequences on society. Yet more people have died needlessly for political and religious ideology than any number of condemned criminals in history. Absolutism is the root of that death.
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[Xtreme]

Sorry, I see that I should have clarified.

Basically, my use of "innocent" here refers to a particular situation. Someone is no longer "innocent" if they are immediately, directly, and willfully endangering the life or well-being of a person who is not also doing the same to another party.

So if there's a man running around with a handgun firing at people randomly, it would probably be safe to say that you should take the minimal force necessary to stop him. One's first reaction should not be to TRY to kill another person in this sort of situation, but if it becomes absolutely necessary to use some measure of force that may or may not result in the death of the attacking party, then that force should be used with the intention of saving the originally victimized persons.

[voltare]

[Xtreme]

[voltare]

And you're hitting the nail on the head. Moral principals should never be compromised. It is the application of those principals in real world settings that require compromise - and individuals who confuse moral inflexibility with judicial and personal inflexibility do themselves and those around them a great disservice.

And, sadly, legislation is often enough self-defeating, both in principal and letter, and practicality is the benchmark. Consider tax dollars spent on AIDS research - a noble cause indeed, except those same dollars could have been spent on primary vaccinations for schoolchildren. Or tax dollars spent on animal control services (and grants to the Humane Society) while we have humans who eat, sleep, and live in the streets.

In the end, it seems that the question of practicality simply falls victim to individuals and groups agendas. What seems reasonable to one person simply won't be for another. To this end, democratic legislation is pointed not where it necessarily does the most good, but rather where it makes the largest number of people happy. I think we all know that what we want, isn't always (or often) good for us.
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[SoulJah]

All sin is equal because it is a form of imperfection like John stated. That's why Jesus came to save us from our sins. No sin is greater or smaller than another, if you do something wrong, you're guilty of going to going to hell. That's why there was the sacrifice. The end result is, if you can learn from your sin and ask for forgiveness, you're well on your way to being in heaven and with God.
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Living by Faith

Romans 1:16- I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile

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[linuxdoctor]

I've often wondered why Protestants/Fundamentalists believe that all sins are equal. They pretend to believe in the Bible but refuse to accept what the Bible says. I guess that's why they are heretics and not Christian.

The Bible says (1 John 5:16-17) that there are different classes of sins. Some are deadly and some are not. We Christians call them mortal and venial sins.
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Misanthrope: someone who realizes that humans really are as stupid as they appear.

If you think I'm 'politically' incorrect you have the wrong politics.

[clpo13]

If I refuse to believe or accept the Bible, does that make me a non-heretic?
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"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." --Thomas Jefferson

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[DMZ]

i am to lazy to read the bible but i think there is a script in there that says that no matter how fr you stray from the flock , when you return the lord will forgive you and accept you as one of his own again. all sins are equal, im gods eyes all sins are the same, a sin is a sin but for mans own conscience a method was devised in order to control sin. and so to man its different. if i were to still candy and confess for 5 mins i'd go to heaven. if i kill a man and confess for 5mins id still go to heaven.
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