A question about sin

I think you may be over-thinking it vampire. IMO a sin is anything that hurts other people.

Oh My God, that's me condemmed to hell.

Might read this bible, sounds exciting and after all I was all in favour of the flower people in the sixties.
Love everybody, free love and make love not war etc etc etc. Maybe I did something good after all. lol

Don't remember that third commandment!

God is very big on forgiveness if a person is genuinely sorry.

All people sin, including christians.

I wouldnt get concerned about sinning against the Holy Spirit. Very few people do that. If you are worried about doing it, you dont have a problem. I think it was something that people of the time were doing. I shouldnt imagine it is at all common nowadays.

The St Thomas Aquinas quote is not right. There is nothing like that in the bible.

I have been wondering today myself whether there is a heirarchy of sins. Not sure. Best to try and not do any!

Some people have to work on the sabbath. God understands that.
But the sabbath exists for our benefit, and I find it very useful!

I dont tend to covet much. I dont think it is in my nature much as it happens. But all christians find some parts of the bible harder to carry out than others.
It took me 5 years to learn to be patient for example.

I dont know much about catholism.

And the hardest part of the op to answer for me? Santa!
I did have to pray and think about doing Santa. I may have sinned, but I think God would understand me and others doing Santa? I hope so.

I don't remember a 'love yourself' commandment. Where did that come from?

There are two commandments in the New Testament which emcompass the Ten Commandments.
I will find them tomorrow.

Xd posts jingl. Must admit some people these days seem to think it is one...

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.

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.

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

@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?

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.

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.

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?

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.)

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

Amen Mishap!

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.

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.

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

If only it were that easy!

Tony Blair probably talked to God.

jingls scary thought

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?

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.

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.