I see "sin" as the stuff god tells you not to do. It does not have to be an issue of right or wrong, or of flaws or mistakes, or of harm done to others. If I covet a possession of my neighbor, I have sinned. If I have lustful thoughts towards a woman who is not my wife, I have sinned. Before Jesus arrived on Earth, I could have killed a man who worked on the Sabbath and not have sinned. I could have worn a garment of mixed fabrics and committed a sin. I could have followed the command to massacre my conquered foes and take one of their virgin girls as a wife and not have sinned. I could have refused to have sex with my dead brother's widow and committed a sin.
Sin, like Biblical morality, is whatever god says it is. No action is intrinsically good or evil, save apparently for "blaspheming against the holy spirit." Sin, like Biblical morality, is what god says it is at any given time, and subject to change.
Sin, like Biblical morality, is whatever god says it is. No action is intrinsically good or evil, save apparently for "blaspheming against the holy spirit." Sin, like Biblical morality, is what god says it is at any given time, and subject to change.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
