Is "sin" just... sin? Or...? 💔
I'm talking not necessarily for the God that one would believes in, but for the believer. Because it would seem that inevitably the more you keep track of what someone does and doesn't do good and bad, then you start to decide whether this is someone you want to associate with or not, or set yourself apart from or not. And then it's not a matter of grace and forgiveness and understanding and love. It's how must I guard myself from that person?
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:36
And so for me, being a kid, it was okay. If my family says this action or behavior is a little sin and another family says, no, they have it categorized as a big sin, how am I going to make sure that I stay out of the fiery pits of hell? Because now this feels like a trap and a setup. And it landed really confusing, and I remember tucking that away
Dewuan .
@FryedOreo · 3:43
They seem to I was kind of doing a tiny bit of research on this before I answer and I found that Eastern denominations tend to look at sin completely different than the west. So that's interesting. I guess culturally we may be able to take in certain cultures in the way how they viewed sin. And yeah, to some degree, with certain denominations, you're born in sin and unless you're baptized, there's nothing you can do to undo that sin
Speaking of speaking articulately, you put that perfectly. The little sin, the big sin. And who decides? And especially when we're trying to stay out of hell and go to heaven, the rights and wrongs differ from faith to faith, let alone denomination to denomination, building to building, church building to church building, individual to individual and and then to somehow deem someone worthy or unworthy. It doesn't make sense to me either
And yet there's always a claim that it is an objective truth of what is sin. Okay, maybe if there is such a thing as objective truth and if there is such a thing as objective truth around what is sin, maybe humans muck it up then with ranking them as lesser and more evil or wrong. When really, if one believes that God exists and he judges us, then what in the hell are humans doing getting wrapped up in that pointing of fingers, elevating and demoting other people?
But ultimately, regardless of all of those experiences, with the exception of Buddhism and possibly my time at Unity, was that I felt that the people that practice organized religion, although in some cases it might be intentional and sin, some others it might not be. But that it was very exclusionary whether I was in a casual environment or a business environment. Meaning? Like, if you didn't go to their church or you didn't follow the same religion, you somehow felt excluded from their group
But if my neighbor is out there trying to evangelize to me and is out like sleeping with porn stars while his third wife is pregnant with his 6th child, that's where I draw the line. And I think that the amount of Christians that expected us to just remain hush about that or not expect some sort of accountability is just really one of the reasons why we're seeing a sharp decline in membership in organized religion over time
It's not about not doing the bad thing. It's about living a life of integrity. Do you know what I mean? Things are so skewed and they're subtle, but they are insidious and they infuse absolutely everything in the way that someone perceives self, someone perceives other people social dynamics, et cetera, et cetera. And then when you wrap it up with the stamp of holiness or righteousness, then you can get that altruistic narcissistic attendance. It's anything but about love, grace and forgiveness
Himanshi Thakur
@GreyMatter · 3:46
Hey, Christina, first of all, thank you for your wonderful swell. I mean it's late night here and it just, you know, made me think about sin and sinner. However, I would like to express my two cent on this. So I am trained in law, right? I am a trained lawyer. However, I don't practice. But in the course of my legal studies, I have studied crime quite deeply. And sin or it's almost synonymous to crime
Because you hear of some people who had a family member was murdered and they want the murderer's life to be taken. And you'll see other people whose family members were murdered and instead they want grace and forgiveness for the murderer. Right. And so that it's. Like, are those both justice or are they not? Are they justice, both of them? But because the different individuals see justice differently or see what's the word I want?
SOUL MIND
@BEAUTIFULSOULMI · 0:57
Hi. I just had to respond to your reply. The transparency in your reply was just amazing. You said you do not hate the sin and love the sinner and that you would hold a grudge. And I just want I'm curious as to how would you go about doing that if you're holding a grudge, but you're not vindictive or want to take revenge upon someone? How do you hold a grudge? Are you just keeping it hostage in a separate cage?
SOUL MIND
@BEAUTIFULSOULMI · 3:30
Hello. Okay, so very interesting. Swell. I love it. I love it. I love it. Is it just a sin or not? I grew up learning that all sin is the same. I could go to the store and steal a Tootsie Roll and someone could be behind the store raping a teenager. Our sins were supposed to be, in fact, equal. It's the way I was raised. It's what was said to me numerous times through my childhood
Himanshi Thakur
@GreyMatter · 1:41
And it is especially if it is intentional, then it's a huge deal. So what I do is that I simply cut off. I simply cut off from that person. I reduce my interactions. I eventually let them go and I'll always keep in mind what they have done with me. And I'll take that as a lesson that okay, this is a possibility. People can do this thing to me. So I be a little cautious and I remain cognizant of the possibility of this
Then if you mention it, then they can project onto you all of the horrible things they're doing because you have the audacity to make the social faux PA of discussing religion. Really, there should be no topic that is out of the realm of possibilities, of discussion, because when we become a society that starts pushing things under the rug in the name of political correctness is when we start pushing under the rug abuse
And you read plenty of studies too, how depending on somebody's perspective was their outlook, was when they were seriously ill and how that can affect them. I know it sounds cliche these days to talk about gratitude, but I think there's so many different ways of embodying that or living it out from just seeing, witnessing, observing those little details in life, just the feel of running water over our hands and how amazing is that? And just those little things
And so I wonder, because it is such a subtle difference, maybe, of how to go into those conversations, I wonder if there's an easier way to I think I need to think on this a bit more of articulating, how to enter into those kinds of conversations so that it can cease to be a faux pas, but instead be almost a necessity. Because you're right if instead we're going to project onto other people faith or not right?
This is my relationship with God. Because if you're Catholic, if you can get to confession at the end of the day, you can start off fresh in the morning. Simple as that. You do the Hail Marys and thing and all that. I remember that in A Bronx Tale. Said, I love being Catholic. I love being Catholic. I can go tell the priest everything that went on. And they show him talking. Well, I witnessed a murder
If I'm following you correctly, I really like the distinction you made. I mean, you're right, going back through history, how do we know what was and wasn't written, by whom, and what things are rigid which aren't, which are, quote unquote, big sins which are little ones. The only way is to do something very rigid with it, and and then it almost becomes something else, right? Not faith, but something else