According to a recent survey conducted by The Vatican, women and men sin differently, and as an aside the practice of confession has diminished in popularity.
1. Does that mean that we are not commiting sins or that perhaps we don't consider them to be sins anymore, and therefore not needful of absolution.
2. How do you define sin? It would seem that sin cannot exist if God does not exist, with the most famous perpetrator being Adam, by eating the forbidden fruit.
So if you commit sins does that mean you are being bad? In the eyes of God, that would almost certainly be the case, but if there is no God, then are envy, gluttony, greed Being Bad?
I would put forward the idea that Bad is only Bad if a 3rd party is affected, and as long as we consider others in our behaviour then we cannot be thought of as being Bad.
This is more of an Eastern Philosophy than a Western one, but surely this is the ultimate responsibility that we make choices by consider their effect on others, thus taking responsibility for all.
Hi! I posted a comment on this in my blog, here it is:
ReplyDeleteIf we consider the bible to be kind of a moral guide, then the guidelines was written by and for people that lived in a society that was completely different from ours.
I think there’s usually some kind of practical function and/or power structure behind moral rules. When society changes (it’s always changing) then these rules needs to change as well. A lot of the stuff in the bible has no relevance what so ever today, because we’re not the same anymore. Take greed for example; how often, in our capitalist, consumer-driven part of the world is this considered being a bad thing?
We’re not necessarily worse, just different. Let’s face it; human life has always been kind of twisted one way or another. New sets of moral codes arise when needed to extinguish or endorse our new behavior, needs and wants…
//Johanna