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Atheists and Sin
#1
Atheists and Sin
I would like to know atheist views on sin. Clearly, being a person of high moral character requires an understanding of sin. I do not assume that because you are atheist, that you are immoral. Please refrain from saying the bible is immoral because of slavery, etc.

Some examples of sin include: pride, envy, jealously, over-indulgence (food, wine, sex), being vain,selfish ambition.
The bible contains essential spiritual truths on how you may be saved.
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#2
RE: Atheists and Sin
To me sin is something immoral put in a religious context. I think morality and immorality are in everyone, whether they are religious or not.

I dont like it if my stuff gets stolen. You don't like it either. Neither do all the others. So if we are going to co-exist in a society we will agree amongst each other that we will not steal from each other. Anyone violating that aggreement is not adhering to our moral values and will be either punished or shunned.

All the other examples you give, will bite you in the ass some time or another, but I don't consider them immoral or a sin.
Best regards,
Leo van Miert
Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall --Torque is how far you take the wall with you
Pastafarian
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#3
RE: Atheists and Sin
I like sin, it tastes good on toast with mayonnaise.
Atheism as a Religion
-------------------
A man also or woman that hath a Macintosh, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with used and abandoned Windows 3.1 floppy disks: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27
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#4
RE: Atheists and Sin
sin is just a concept to me.

Following christianity or islam would be against my morals. You call it sin, I call it "your" personal belief not mine.

Your bible, your religion your hell (You burn in it), your god, your sins....not mine!Tongue

Sin is just a little concept made up from over active imaginations from adults who should really know better.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan

Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.

Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.

You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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#5
RE: Atheists and Sin
(October 30, 2008 at 6:02 am)ManofGOD Wrote: I would like to know atheist views on sin. Clearly, being a person of high moral character requires an understanding of sin. I do not assume that because you are atheist, that you are immoral. Please refrain from saying the bible is immoral because of slavery, etc.

Some examples of sin include: pride, envy, jealously, over-indulgence (food, wine, sex), being vain,selfish ambition.

Your bible contains some of the most monstrous sins imaginable!
Have you read it?
Maybe you could discuss them next time god talks to you.
HuhA man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
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#6
RE: Atheists and Sin
(October 30, 2008 at 6:02 am)ManofGOD Wrote: I would like to know atheist views on sin. Clearly, being a person of high moral character requires an understanding of sin. I do not assume that because you are atheist, that you are immoral. Please refrain from saying the bible is immoral because of slavery, etc.

Some examples of sin include: pride, envy, jealously, over-indulgence (food, wine, sex), being vain,selfish ambition.
I believe in morality. I don't believe in sin.
Pride: I don't think pride is always wrong. Especially when you have something to be proud about your not ignorant mixed with pride, so it probably couldn't and/or shouldn't be considered arrogance or arrogant pride.
Envy/jealousy: I'm not familiar with a difference between envy and jealousy so I will treat them as the same. I'll call them both envy for now atleast. I doubt envy is always bad without being good in any way atleast. I just can't think of an example of envy being a good thing at the moment, and I might not in the near or distant future, but then again maybe I will soon. Maybe one of you can give me an example for instance. I can imagine that there could be occasions when it is good overall. But I can't think of any right now.
Over-indulgence: Well over indulgence implies indulging too much doesn't it? Well too much I understand to be, well, too much. So I don't see how something that implies 'too much is bad' or that 'over indulgence' is bad, could be wrong. I don't see how.
Vanity: I understand that vanity can cause problems, because its ignorant because it assumes oneself, and particularly one's imagine, to be more important than it really is. In atleast a shallow sense. I can imagine that it could in order to make oneself look better perhaps. But you don't need vanity to do this. Just care for your appearance, which I wouldn't call vanity because I assume that vanity would mean doing so, but in an overly obsessive way. I think there could be quite a few ways in which vanity could comfort oneself. But I understand that vanity (as in the sin of vanity, so therefore overly excessive vanity, if there is indeed a mild and normal vanity) is in the majority of cases and occasions atleast a bad thing.
Selfish ambition: I have experienced this myself, and once again, I think that selfish ambition in itself, in what the words mean alone when put together, isn't necessarily bad, particularly if you just have it on the side. But if it becomes overly important you become shallow to say the least in my opinion and experience. I personally think there should be a crossover between selfish and selfless ambition. That is very harmonious atleast in my opinion. I think when what you want to do for yourself (therefore selfish), also happens to atleast potentially help others (there also selfless), then that is harmonious and perhaps even somewhat ideal. Depends on your opinion.
So thats what I think about those sins as immoral/negative values (or whatever you'd call them, can you have bad/immoral or negative values?). And thats just about these "sins".
I do not treat these "sins" that I talked about as having any supernatural connection whatsoever. So I certainly don't believe it has anything to do with God.
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#7
RE: Atheists and Sin
The sins as described by Christianity did not shape our morality. Rather, our biological sense of what is and isn't beneficial shaped a sense of right and wrong for many situations, and religion documented it.

For example, a normal person has adverse feelings regarding punching a baby, or stealing from another, or seeing a homeless person suffer. This is because none of these are advantageous to humanity as a species, and we've evolved to accentuate this.

I have a very firm set of morals that did not come from the Bible. All the commandments can be explained as either reflections of biological morality or that religion's self-preservation.
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#8
RE: Atheists and Sin
It is a well established fact that the morals from the Bible simply come from the combination of morals already active at the time of it's writing. Every single moral value is based around self preservation. For example:

If someone murders you, you end up dead. Being dead is bad, therefore murder is immoral.
If someone steals something from you, you no longer have it and they have it for free when you paid for it. No longer having something is bad considering you have paid for it, therefore stealing is immoral.

Even something like charity is based on self-preservation. People rarely give to charity and keep quiet about it. People give to charity because they know that it looks good when they do, and looking good is beneficial in society.
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#9
RE: Atheists and Sin
(October 30, 2008 at 6:02 am)ManofGOD Wrote: I would like to know atheist views on sin. Clearly, being a person of high moral character requires an understanding of sin. I do not assume that because you are atheist, that you are immoral. Please refrain from saying the bible is immoral because of slavery, etc.

Some examples of sin include: pride, envy, jealously, over-indulgence (food, wine, sex), being vain,selfish ambition.

Sin is an inherently religious concept, I have no religious beliefs therefore I cannot sin.

Kyu
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#10
RE: Atheists and Sin
Yes I agree, sin is a made up concept and morality doesn't come from the bible.
Oh and many thought of the Golden rule before Jesus did (if he did, the bible just said he did), Socrates for example. Or he is at least quoted speaking of it as far as I know - and he was before Jesus of course.
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