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No, God doesn't have a religion. The story is that God offered Torah to people around the world, but only the Jews accepted it and chose the One True God as their own.
Now there were other people in the area who followed the God of the Jews even if they didn't follow Torah. They were called the God-Fearers.
Then along came Jesus, who was rejected by the Jews because he didn't match up with the prophecies of the Jewish Messiah, and they were not about to abandon Torah, but Christianity brought primarily non-Jewish people to the idea of the One True God. That's one POV, anyway.
It's the adult equivalent of stepping on a crack in the sidewalk and fearing it might actually break your mother's back. Only in the adult world, you fear it will anger one capricious god or another. He'll do more than break your mother's back. He'll fry her eternal soul for eternity ... among other horrible things depending on the culture and the god being worshiped.
Don't do this, don't do that, those are sins! If you do those things, God X or God Y will get mad and we'll have a drought or our baby will be stillborn (or it will be a girl!) or there will be a storm at sea while our fishermen are on the water!
You get the idea.
Superstition for adults.
Some sins are actually more made up than others. Which is to say that, while all sins are made up by human beings fearful of a dynamic planet they didn't understand, some sins they didn't even bother putting into a holy book. The clergy simply tells you it's a sin (dammit!) and you better obey or else!
For instance, most Christians believe that suicide is a sin ... except you won't find that in the Bible anywhere at all. In fact there were at least 4 suicides in the Bible by good men and there was no mention of them burning in hell for the murder of themselves. Nope. Instead, suicide was merely declared a sin in 262 A.D. by the Catholic Church in response to a plethora of Christian suicide cults forming during that time period because, hey, if Heaven is that awesome, why wait around, right?
In other words, suicide has absolutely nothing to do with sin. Nothing. It was simply decreed a sin by people who have no more authority over what happens on the other side of death than you or I do. But, because of this, we still have numerous issues with euthanasia thus tens of thousands of people are forced to live out painful, horrific lives, often against their will, where they have no quality of life, no comfort, no enjoyment, no joy, no happiness ... essentially nothing to live for. And most of the nay-sayers aren't even Catholic.
Thanks Pope for inventing a superstition that has caused so much suffering. Gee, there seems to be a pattern forming ...
But I digress.
That's sin for ya. It's a pretty easy concept to understand. It's complex and the subject for heated debate if you believe in God and take the scriptures at their word, but if you're an atheist, you see sin for what it is: superstition for adults.
As an atheist I don't believe in the concept of sin.
...please contribute from an educational perspective. Thanks.
Nor do I.
How could there be sin as is conceived....sure, there is missing the mark...forgetting,
thinking there is separation...that 'this ' is all there is...placing obstacles in front of yourself missing
out on happiness, wisdom, power and peace and who you are. Sure.
'Looking for love in all the wrong places.'
And I am not an atheist.
I am not going to repost Shirina's entire post, but I'm not sure that it's true that most Christians consider suicide a sin. Any other Christians want to weigh in that? I did not know the Catholic history on that, by the way, thanks.
A guy I knew from my childhood shot and killed himself some years ago. That Sunday, a man in his parents' church said to the father, "Well, you know your son went straight to hell, don't you?"
Any Christians I know were/would be appalled, not just at the fact that the guy was a jerk, but at the concept that depression so deep you take your own life is somehow worthy of eternal damnation.
I am not going to repost Shirina's entire post, but I'm not sure that it's true that most Christians consider suicide a sin. Any other Christians want to weigh in that? I did not know the Catholic history on that, by the way, thanks.
A guy I knew from my childhood shot and killed himself some years ago. That Sunday, a man in his parents' church said to the father, "Well, you know your son went straight to hell, don't you?"
Any Christians I know were/would be appalled, not just at the fact that the guy was a jerk, but at the concept that depression so deep you take your own life is somehow worthy of eternal damnation.
Suicide is a sin because God told us 'thou shalt not kill', God gives life and God takes it. The one who wants us to take our own lives is satan, who was a murderer from the beginning. But that being said, God is also very merciful, and as is true with any other sins (except the unforgivable), if you know Jesus Christ there is forgiveness with God.
Having recently lost 2 people I knew personally because they committed suicide, one of which actually burned herself alive publicly, it's not at all because I want to be uncharitable or hard towards suicide. I loved these people, and it's absolutely heartbreaking to me..
I know people can live in complete darkness and desperation. I know when dealing with psychiatric illness, psychosis, depression, life can seem unbearable. And it's a comfort that as far as I could tell, they were children of God, and I hope to meet them in heaven.
I do believe that God never gives us more than we can handle though, but I think sometimes darkness can be so strong, that there seems to be no way out. And I think satan is the one that loves to throw fuel on the fire of desperation and suck every ounce of hope away.. I just thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving me true hope, giving me rest, as He has given so many people that were lost. And He still gives to any that come to Him burdened and heavy laden.
Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Actually no, Paul didn't make this up, and it's not a New Testament thing.
Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Psalm 14:1-3 {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Job 25:4-6 How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?
Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Are you trying to say that ancient Jews (or specifically all TNK bibliolaters) believed in Original Sin barring their babies and adults from Heaven? Well they sort of did believe in "rules" and "punishments" that can be passed down the generations (in their own, less criminal, way) just like Hindus sort of did. Even many Buddhists believe that all beings are born "originally in the wrong" realm of Samsara. Like I said before, all religions have ideas about guilt, rules, and perfection.
I don't think I ever proposed that Paul came up with it out of thin air. They were his personal interpretations of his own Spirituality and Bibliolatry (Pharisees were Bibliolaters too). But "original sin" is found more highlighted in the New Testament, since by the TaNeK (and then the Oral explanations) interpretations proposed by non-christian Jews, Isaiah is talking about his generation (filthy rags because there is not enough righteousness (rags) to clean up all the filth, not because all righteousness is an ugly thing). Some Christians even see the "none that does good" as only applying to Anti-Agnostic (Hard/Strong) Atheists. Genesis is seen as about that generation too, "the ones deserving of the flood". The imagination of man's heart is of course a cause of Bibliolatrist religions, think of the logic in a statue, think of the logic in this inanimate thing --> flood to kill all (babies and animals included) because man is evil, no flood (no fire, no ice, no curse?) ever again because man is evil from his youth... and Noah killed animals in burnt offering of "sweet aroma", that is Bibliolatrist logic for you. Ecclesiastes is not seen by Jews are barring all humans (including non-Christian Jews such as Abraham and Jacob) from Heaven/Paradise resurrections. A egotistical and jealous god creates impure creations to castigate it's own sight and is therefore a masochist.
I think a Christian would consider such a statement to reflect that you're in huge denial. That's because they're so accustomed to seeing "sin" as the obvious / axiomatic / self-evident explanation for human folly and frailty. Saying that you don't believe in sin is, for them, tantamount to saying that you don't believe people do bad things or that you don't think morality is a good idea.
Let Christians believe what they wish it doesn't bother me. I believe that when people do something that's wrong it comes down to choice not Satan, etc. Making you do it. Just choice, your choice.
I don't agree with the idea that there's a hidden force that goes around causing people to do "bad" things. I find human behavior to be easily explainable through evolutionary psychology.
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