Lucifer

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'll grant you that Hitchens probably over-egged his remark, yet the point remains that the doctrine creates a problem and then offers the cure.

That's one way of looking at it. The underlying assumption is that the condition of sinfulness was invented or manufactured as opposed to say recognized.

Remove "God", eliminate "sin". Problem solved, and not a shot fired.

"Sin" as a word carries a lot of theological baggage. So in a sense yes, outside a theological context the term sin seems rather quaint. In Biblical Hebrew, sin literally translates as missing the mark like an arrow missing its target. Translated into contemporary secular language, sin would mean something like failing to achieve one's moral potential. Most people consider themselves generally good people and by and large most people are. At the same time, I think most people would freely admit they are as good as they possibly could be. Jeff Goldberg said it best in The Big Chill (and i'm paraphrasing) , "Rationalizing is more important than sex....can you go a week without rationalizing something."

A fair criticism of much church-speak is that it appears to advocate over-the-top scrupulousness. As in, if you take a cookie without asking then you unworthy to stand in the presence of the Holy God! That kind of talk is very off-putting and I think theologically reckless. The idea is that unrecognized sin grows (lies beget bigger lies) unless there is a change of direction. Repentance is that change of direction - away from rationalizing our faults and toward overcoming them. As a result of true repentance, the righteous cultivate the habits of virtue that will carry with them into eternity. That is regeneration.