On who's authority do you claim one and only one version of spiritual "truth"?
Why the bible and not the Qu'ran?
Why not the tales of ancient Greece or Rome (Jupiter, Zeus, et. al.)?
Why not Ra or Isis or Osiris?
Why not Hinduism or Buhddism?
Why not any of the thousands of other 'gods' and their books and stories?
Have at it hoss...believe whatever you want, but don't be a bit surprised when you get push back from those who would not believe the same.
There is no "sin" because the concept is not meant to be anything other than a control meme from the Church as Christianity dominated western thought and society for 1,000 years and set back the species by at least as much or more.
Name a "sin" and I can easily give you secular reasons for discouraging such behavior as a way to control the public without armed enforcers in every home at every hour. Once you see "sin" for the control mechanism that it is always intended to be, its hard to ever take the concept seriously again. There is no great book of deeds in heaven or anywhere else keeping track of deeds and transgressions, and if there is...then my "hell" would be spending eternity in mindless worship and praise for ANYTHING...let alone to have that misery suffered alongside the peachy assholes that make evangelicals a term that is just shy of lawyer to make people uneasy or discomforted.
Murder?
What is murder at its core? Killing another sentient being? Killing on purpose? Killing is specific ways? Or is it just killing in general? "Thou shall not Kill." may seem pretty clear cut, but in most translations and teachings I was exposed to (forced Catholicism upbringing, of course) the commandment was not "Thou shalt not murder" it was kill. Well, even by the age of 11 I knew that steaks and chicken wings and burgers were dead animal parts. I may not have killed them myself, but I survived on their deceased bodies. By the time I was 15, and exposed to chemistry and biochemical reactions and physics, the concept of killing as a sin was already lauaghably transparent. It may very well be intended to prevent primative societies from offing each other in constant dominance rituals...but even chimpanzee societies display some aversion to killing members of their own social heirachies. Do you REALLY believe that is because of Jesus or Allah or Chthulu?
Murder is a specific act of killing, but without killing - be it animal or plant material that an omnivore like man survives on, requires killing, so the "sin" is a specific way of killing but not the act in and of itself. Same thing with sex...
Adultry? Child abuse? Incest? Sexual orientation?
Please, if there is an almighty and its will is concerned with the sexual behavior of apes then its not a supreme being, its a porn addict with great wifi and endless subscriptions for porn. Seriously, the very concept of the almighty, the creator, the godhead or the one prime mover having ANY FUCKS to give about who touches who and where or where the private parts are placed or stimulated or WHEN is absolute lunacy. Society CARES because sex and infidelity and choices for mating or intimacy are deeply personal betrayals and harmful to a person's mental state. It frays the fabric of society to allow too much in any direction, but it also is a useful tool to use against a small minority to persecute and use as an example. Then you're back to matters of degree and splitting hairs in linguistics and langauge intent. But to ever assume that a single entity responsible for a nearly infinite universe (speed of light limiting the ability of corporeal bodies from ever traversing its length and breadth) and space on a scale our monkey brains can barely conceive let alone understand, it is lauaghable.
It gets worse. Honor thy father and mother? Adoptees must love hearing about this from a society that claims to love life and yet all too often allows its most destitute and vulnerable to suffer unspeakably. Yet, the almighty is more concerned with obeying a drunken daddy's commands to strip or a mentally deficient and dammaged mother commanding obedience than providing love and understanding? Please. Honor is EARNED, so is LOVE. No one is 100% worthy of eiher concpet in a vaccum.
Does society create morals? 100%.
Are morals necessary for a peaceful instead of warlike existence? Again, 100%.
If you try to set up a society without laws, morals, codes or honor - an 'everyman for himself' libertarian utopia...you get wildly disparate results, but never peaceful societies. Throw in unfettered access to guns and a 24/7/365 industry of promoting desires and lack of delayed gratification and you get America 2022. Its easy to see why people see "gawd" and "plans" and "sin" and "redemption" to keep from going under permanently. But comforting mental constructs and fake cures for fake problems do not make them real or even plausible. They make them coping mechanisms for people to make sense of our incomprehensibly lucky existence.
If not for Jupiter and Saturn, Earth would be a atmosphere-less rock instead of the magnificent moist pebble we are all hitching a ride on for a short period. We all have but a single life to live, one ticket to the great revolving moist pebble in the solar system. The mere fact that any of us exist is a miracle in and of itself...but to ascribe divine intent and thereby "sin" as a concept in opposition to said intent is adolescent at best and infantile at worst. Knowing the truth - that we are all organic molecules assembled for the briefest of intervals in a vast sea of emptiness and that we will forever be parted from the furthest reaches of observable reality - can be overwhelmingly negative for some, crushingly so to others and beautiful and precious to still others.
Sin has nothing to do with reality. Souls and spirituality are like trying to describe why a painting is a marvel to some and dried pigments on animal skin or plant material to others. The idea that reality can be compressed into such a pathetic and tiny box as any human created religion or scripture ultimately is insulting, it is sheer vanity, self-importance and an afront to the possibilities of mind and the cosmic coincidence, almost as much so as the odds that someone may have actually read all of this rambling text wall...
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