Being a sinner just for being born

[Ignorant]

Jonathan Haidt in his work on moral foundations found that people often distinguish between two different types of moral transgression.  Moral transgressions which are actual moral violations, such as harm of another person, and moral faults that are more violations of social conventions rather than actual wrongs.  It was found that violations of the latter type were more easily excused than those of the former.  If sin is just a measure of what God wants, or what God intended us to be, it seems that this falls in the latter category as well.  It's someone's expectation of us.  It isn't true moral harm in the way that certain transgressions are.  Making it 'About God' seems to take the teeth out of any Christian moral framework.  It's taking something that should be about real violations and making it merely a betrayal of God's conventions.  I think that's part of why nonbelievers don't take 'sin' seriously, beyond not believing in God.

Well, sin isn't a measure of what God wants. God wants the opposite. What we are is the measure of what God wants. Sin makes us less than what we are/what we are capable of being.

Actions which correspond to what-we-are and add to the fullness of what-we-are are good actions.

I am not familiar with Haidt's work, so I can't comment on his position really.

Just for the record, I am not really proposing an explicitly Christian moral framework. Christianity would only come into play with an assertion that participation in the life of Jesus Christ is the actual source and goal of humanity achieving divine happiness. Without specifying the thing(s) in which human fulfillment is found, I am merely proposing a framework within which the concept of sin can be intelligible, with or without God's existence. Human fulfillment is the measure of morality. If an action leads to human fulfillment (whatever that may mean), then it is a good action. If an action is not capable of leading to human fulfillment, then it is sin (it "misses the mark", it "turns away", it "breaks the law" of happiness, etc.).