Huh? How do you figure that??

It is both, a psychological imperative in Man and indispensable tool to enforce acceptable social growth called civilization.

I believe in the affirmative. Take for example the dawn of human history. It was a period of pre-enlightened rules, unlike today we have schools building up children to hasten development from natural animal behaviour toward morally acceptable citizens. It was a time Man was without social apparatus to enforce norms acceptable to progress. Yet... man learned to love his woman, and may often exhibit heroic deeds to vindicate this emotion and belief; natural parents learned to take care the child; and siblings help each other against stranger. The natural tendencies of Man is both: to love or to hate --either can be true :) with or without religion.

If you lie to a human(\or self), you are teaching them* to hate... :tisk: :p

The concept of sin implies that moral law is laid down by a divine lawgiver and it's associated with monotheistic religions. Sin is disobedience to divine command. But other religions have no such commands and it's perfectly possible to derive moral law by reason. Both Aristotle in Greece and Confucius in China use a naturalistic theory, Virtue Ethics.

If we call a person or an action "good", then there must be some common element with the sense of "good" in "good food", "good idea", "good book". Something is good if it functions in a way which is appropriate: the good idea solves a problem, the good book informs or entertains.

A good person functions as a human being ought to: as a rational member of society. The bad person cannot flourish. The most successful of criminals has to live a life of concealment, only being open with fellow criminals — who, being criminals, cannot be entirely reliable friends! A Hitler lives a life constantly threatened by the enemies, both at home and abroad, created by his own actions.

That is a very crude sketch, but it shows that we can have morality without divine commands, without the concept of sin.

I personally think that the concept of "sin" is one of the worst, and yet certainly the most intrinsic, concept of the Christian religion. The religion is too-careful to point out that "you are utterly fscked," from the very moment of your birth as a human being.

And the "Divine Justice of 'God Is Love'" is ... "(dear God™) what exactly?" You got it: a never-ending bath in a lake of fire.

But for what? "Probably less than seventy years, certainly not much more than a century's worth," of screw-ups. By their official argument, after all, "it only takes one." Ostensibly, you could live a perfect life, then say "fsck!" with your dying breath, and wind up ... on fire. Forever.

Uh huh. I don't see any sense of "tit for tat" here. (Instead, I smell the Roman Empire.)

Well, the more I thought about that, the less it had a grip on me. But also, the less important(!) it became.

To my way of thinking, "your very-precious time here-and-now," has got(!) to be a whole lot more about "what you do, here-and-now, especially with regard to anyone else who is here-and-now with you," than about "making sure that your Celestial Fire-Insurance is Paid Up."

... and yet, a certain author and his cohorts made a ton o' money from their so-called Left Behind series of books, with their not-too-disguised gloating at the idea of "being a grand-stands spectator as the rest of the human Universe burns."

But, I digress.

When a certain Person could have thrown a stone, He didn't. When faced with a Pharisee who raised "being religious" to a science, He embraced the Publican. And(!), in the Judgment scene of the very Book that certain people seem to love the very most, He dispatched people who had(!) performed miracles in His name to that very same firepit. (So far as I know, "lil' ol' me" has never performed one single miracle ...)

Anyway: I feel really good when I'm schlepping metal containers of soup that weigh 40 pounds apiece. (Hint: wherever you may live, your local Food Bank, etc., are always desperate for volunteers...!) Handing out bedrolls and pointing out places on a [warm] concrete floor. And, if that one day winds me up in some firepit somewhere, I don't think that I would really want anything to do with that god's version of "heaven." (But, I have a gut-feeling that this is not the case.)

"Oops, I did it again.™" ... #undef soapbox

Many of the replies made me think this song may apply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skFWsc_-i14

Have a great day to scholars, relativists, etc.

Greetings.

preach only rhymes with teach ;-)
 

"Two aesthetics exist: the passive aesthetic of mirrors and the active aesthetic of prisms"
- Jorge Luis Borges

Stephen Roberts: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Attachment 23189

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ual_traditions &C :eek:

Here's a fun quote from Soft Parade

Hi guys

It seems that the snakes were not exactly of the same opinion, and didn't recognize themselves in the arbitrary role some superstitious "pastors" tried to force them in, and "God" didn't actually care:

Snake-Handling Pentecostal Pastor Dies From Snake Bite
Jamie Coots

Borges! Great quote!

Another excellent one. The old «gods as personal butlers» anthropocentric nonsense. I think Morrison got it right.

Jam what are they doing with that snake? Are they inside the church service? I notice crucifix behind the one with guitar.

Yes, that's the whole point of the story. These cultists handle snakes as part of the service as a demonstration of faith in (a certain interpretation of) God's word. As the story makes clear, the snakes are not freshly caught from the wild but are long-standing "pets" used to being handled. Consequently they seldom bite. But sometimes, someone is unlucky!

Hazel hit the snake on the nose, which is a bad idea even if you believed it's misbehaving. ;)

That list of religions could be 1,000's of times larger if we could look past here and now but I digress...

On "sin" etc...
 

Think of something *I've put before: you could raise a kid completely sheltered from the world and teach them red is blue. Then release them to either find they were lied to or they may choose to believe the rest of the world is wrong but what if you'd shelter all kids from the "demons" of fiction turned to wine °<hiccup>0o° I mean truth?