So, according to Christianity, I’m a sinner. In order for this to be true, I must accept 1.) Christianity is the one true religion, 2.) that sin itself exists, and 3.) that I am incapable of avoiding acts that are sinful.
In my philosophy, I do not acknowledge sin, as the very concept is one designed to force you into compliance with a stated dogma; Christianity. It relies on guilt, shame, and fear to be successful. It requires the supplicant to prostrate oneself before the altar of a god that may not even exist in the first place.
Therefore, I reject Christianity as the One True Religion, since no religion of any stripe has the full truth. Is there truth in Christianity? Some. Is there truth in Islam? Some. Is there truth in Judaism? Some.
Should we define our laws to conform to one religion or another? Absolutely not. Religion is an extremely divisive issue and, clearly, not everyone follows the same set of beliefs. Some don’t follow any beliefs at all.
In my view, and I state this only for myself, I do not know if there are any entities which can rightly be called gods. If there are gods, they are as unknowable to us as we are to an ant. They would exist on a plane so far above our perception, that it is pointless to even argue about it. We simply, as mortal beings, cannot relate to them in any real meaningful way.
Oh we can add human characteristics to ‘divine beings,’ but the truth remains that they are so far above us that such anthropomorphic classification is pointless.
I know this is an unpopular view. I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re offended. I don’t care if you think I’m going to your imaginary hell. Think what you want. But think. Don’t let some crappy book tell you what your beliefs are. And don’t listen to me, either. Find out for yourself.
Since I have rejected Christianity as the One True Religion, and since I have rejected the concept of sin, I clearly cannot accept the concept of committing sinful acts. Therefore, for me, sin does not exist.
I am sure there will be someone who will drive by post about how wrong I am and how I’m going to ‘find out at the judgment.’ Do us both a favor and keep it to yourself, okay?
Thanks.
The House of Goonery 
Reblogged this on 0over0 and commented:
You are so wrong! You are going to find out on the final judgment day!
Just kidding, but in all seriousness, and for purposes of furthering the argument:
In your opening paragraph, only the first of those axioms must be accepted in order to create the desired effect. The second one is a part of the first, and the third one is just completely unrelated to the matter at hand. Christianity does not teach that humanity is incapable of avoiding sin, but that humanity sins of its own free will.
As for your second paragraph: it is here that you set up an exclusively rhetorical approach that is used throughout the rest of the argument. You never address whether sin is actually real or not, but instead focus only on the ramifications of sin. I would suggest that the ramifications of a belief are irrelevant until the belief is determined to be true or false. For example, if I wanted to convince someone that the moon is made of cheese, I would not go about it by first telling them how useful such a belief would be, that is, how it would reduce the operation costs of NASA missions in feeding their astronauts. Instead, I would begin by raising evidence telling them why it is only logical that the moon is made out of cheese.
And now to your third paragraph. I see here that you accept the notion of absolute truth. Just out of personal curiosity, I wonder if you would be so kind as to reply or comment on this reblog to tell me why that is. In any case, it is very useful for the argument. I might, therefore, refer you to my seven posts on ‘The Omnipotent.’
This I don’t understand at all, though I’ve heard it said by so many people: “We simply, as mortal beings, cannot relate to [god(s)] in any real meaningful way.” I get the whole notion of an infinite god being beyond the reach of human wisdom, but the conclusion that we therefore can’t know any thing about him/her/it is completely illogical once you strip it of its rhetoric. That is, if God is so powerful, wouldn’t he be powerful enough to reveal Himself to us if He liked? Sure, an ant isn’t going to know the first thing about human matters on his own, but we can easily teach him all his little brain can hold.
As for your belief that “such anthropomorphic classification [of god(s)] is pointless.” I think this statement is just to belittling to all of humanity to so much as fit within the logical scope. That is, if there is no such thing as ‘Transposition,’ as C. S. Lewis calls it, if bigger things cannot be expressed (how ever incompletely) in smaller languages, then there is hardly a point to life at all. I should not bother writing this post if I didn’t believe that you, an intelligent being, could take these configurations of a twenty-six-lettered alphabet and convert them into immeasurable, human thoughts. Maybe what you get out of what I’ve written here isn’t the whole of what I was thinking when I wrote it, but that is a part of the art of communication. Sure, a god could not be expressed wholly in human terms, and I don’t believe there is a religion that denies that, but he/she/it must be expressible in some terms, or else there is no such thing as reality.
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I believe not so much in the concept of sin, but that each of us is capable of good and bad. I’ve noticed that Nature does a fabulous job of keeping the world in balance and that good and bad is required and will, in fact, always be “at war”. I think the original concepts put forth in Christianity at its inception would be far more acceptable to someone like me, but man has gotten a hold of it and twisted it to his own use.
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