RE: Sins
October 18, 2011 at 12:44 am
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2011 at 12:45 am by Cyberman.)
(As I type this it is way past my bedtime, so I apologise in advance if it makes no sense. That's my excuse, anyway.)
A child raised in the manner you describe would have no knowledge of sin, nor would he have a use for it, and although his behaviour would be in accord with his adoptive society, he would still be a human with all that entails. There have been examples of feral children raised by animals; as far as I'm aware, in each case the child has very quickly reverted to 'normal' human behaviour soon after being re-adopted into human society.
'Sins' can be divided into at least three categories: those that are harmful to society, killing and theft being the obvious examples; those that are essentially victimless crimes, such as blasphemy; and the rest, such as pride, lust, envy etc that are not fundamentally harmful in themselves and in some cases may even be beneficial to society (where would our economic systems be without envy, for example?). The various 'holy' books would have us believe that all these sinful behaviours are more or less equal in the eyes of their supreme overlord; so under this system, if I knew I was condemned to eternal hellfire for, say, blasphemy, I might feel justified in running out and killing a bunch of people on the basis of it being "better to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb". I'm doomed anyway, so why not?
As a method of controlling a population, you really have to hand it to the church on this one. What better way to prevent a few million tired and hungry peasants from rising up en masse in revolution, slaughtering anyone wearing fine silks, hoarding gold and eating better food than those peasants could ever dream of? Let's just tell them that they'll get their rewards for a lifetime of shit and servitude after they die - and conveniently can't report back - unless they cause trouble during their lifetimes by questioning the authority of the church, lusting after its riches and fine food, spending their time enjoying the sinful pleasures of sex when they could be tilling the land and working themselves to death...
A child raised in the manner you describe would have no knowledge of sin, nor would he have a use for it, and although his behaviour would be in accord with his adoptive society, he would still be a human with all that entails. There have been examples of feral children raised by animals; as far as I'm aware, in each case the child has very quickly reverted to 'normal' human behaviour soon after being re-adopted into human society.
'Sins' can be divided into at least three categories: those that are harmful to society, killing and theft being the obvious examples; those that are essentially victimless crimes, such as blasphemy; and the rest, such as pride, lust, envy etc that are not fundamentally harmful in themselves and in some cases may even be beneficial to society (where would our economic systems be without envy, for example?). The various 'holy' books would have us believe that all these sinful behaviours are more or less equal in the eyes of their supreme overlord; so under this system, if I knew I was condemned to eternal hellfire for, say, blasphemy, I might feel justified in running out and killing a bunch of people on the basis of it being "better to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb". I'm doomed anyway, so why not?
As a method of controlling a population, you really have to hand it to the church on this one. What better way to prevent a few million tired and hungry peasants from rising up en masse in revolution, slaughtering anyone wearing fine silks, hoarding gold and eating better food than those peasants could ever dream of? Let's just tell them that they'll get their rewards for a lifetime of shit and servitude after they die - and conveniently can't report back - unless they cause trouble during their lifetimes by questioning the authority of the church, lusting after its riches and fine food, spending their time enjoying the sinful pleasures of sex when they could be tilling the land and working themselves to death...
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
