[PUG] Picking and choosing sins.

[CindyLou]

CindyLou[/MENTION];553734]All the things you typed in quotes do not reference empathy or true guilt and remorse...those are just manipulative statements from people trying to evoke guilt, or possibly statements from frustrated people dealing with those that don't experience empathy. I do understand where you're coming from and why you feel that way. In my opinion the emotion itself it still useful and directly related to empathy.

i'm sorry my link didn't work, i should have checked it. i'll try to fix it.
in any case, the quote i referenced was more to demonstrate that guilt is not a healthy way to reach a person, not necessarily focusing on that type of guilt. that particular example is one of direct guilting - but in my eyes there is no difference in how it is meted out. it is still what it is. the end doesn't justify the means.
i must agree to disagree with your idea that one must feel guilt to feel empathy. i know what guilt feels like, and i know for a fact it has no place in my life or in my sense of responsibility toward others or toward actions i take. i also would not use guilt against another person to make them see reason so to speak.
what many seem to be referring to is what i simply call a sense of accountability.
thanks for that last bit, but no worries there. i don't have a problem with people in my life trying to guilt me, because mostly they know it's not worth the hassle lol

That's okay to disagree. Your statement just stuck out out at me because my narcissist frequently said that guilt and regret were wasted emotions, probably because he had never felt them before. You've obviously felt guilt and remorse so you are not a narcissist..I just think you don't let people evoke that feeling in you. At the same time, I know that if you ran over a child by accident in the street, or got caught up in a selfish moment and hurt someone you cared about, you would probably feel guilt and remorse. I can imagine you don't like hurting those around you because you know that doing so would make them feel bad and also make you feel bad...guilt and remorse...and you can only do that by empathy...by imagining yourself in the other person's shoes..imagining their pain in advance and also predicting your pain (guilt/remorse). This is the silent law by with humanity and society function, and there are different levels by which people are sensitive to it and repress their feelings about their own actions towards others (I call this a hard heart) and what they can justify. But at some point, somewhere....I don't know where but at some point I know that stepping outside and repressing that too much, people can become pathological, malignant, disordered, pretty much anti-social.

 

[David54]

personally I fail to see why people get so hung up on sin. . .
first of all the bible is not a book written by god. . it is a bunch of writting decided upon at the Council of Nicea that would define this new growing religion. . personally I think most of Christianity was lost at that meeting. .
but aside from that. .
the old testament was about man trying to be righteous through works. . god recognized that man is not able to do that. .
so. . .
he sent his son to atone for the sins of man. . . god realizes that man is not capable of life with out sin. . so he created "grace". .
the message of christianity is that if you believe in Jesus Christ . . at the time of judgement. . it will not be you that is judged:
(for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god. .). . words of Paul
it will be Jesus who is judged. .
at least that is the message. . .
so. . worry about sin. . how about if we try to do our best . . knowing we will fall short. . .but strive to be our best anyway. . .
just my $0.02

 

[JGirl]

That's okay to disagree. Your statement just stuck out out at me because my narcissist frequently said that guilt and regret were wasted emotions, probably because he had never felt them before. You've obviously felt guilt and remorse so you are not a narcissist..I just think you don't let people evoke that feeling in you. At the same time, I know that if you ran over a child by accident in the street, or got caught up in a selfish moment and hurt someone you cared about, you would probably feel guilt and remorse. I can imagine you don't like hurting those around you because you know that doing so would make them feel bad and also make you feel bad...guilt and remorse...and you can only do that by empathy...by imagining yourself in the other person's shoes..imagining their pain in advance and also predicting your pain (guilt/remorse). This is the silent law by with humanity and society function, and there are different levels by which people are sensitive to it and repress their feelings about their own actions towards others (I call this a hard heart) and what they can justify. But at some point, somewhere....I don't know where but at some point I know that stepping outside and repressing that too much, people can become pathological, malignant, disordered, pretty much anti-social.

i do understand what you're saying, and yes i have felt guilt and regret and remorse. the regret and remorse do play a part in my thinking but guilt does not.
after spending a lifetime under the giant anvil of that emotion i've realized that in order to function properly i need to stop letting it cloud over my judgement. in this way i can take a more objective view of my actions and the effect those actions have on others and made amends if need be.
you said:
"I don't know where but at some point I know that stepping outside and repressing that too much, people can become pathological, malignant, disordered, pretty much anti-social. "
yes, i would agree with that statement. although i don't feel as though i repress guilt - more that i disregard it as an effective tool in correcting my behavior.
i am accountable for what i do - outside myself. (this is what i suspect you refer to as guilt)
i feel responsibility for what i do - inside myself. (or is this what you refer to as guilt?)
either way, i get the job done. and i sleep very well at night.

 

[Quiet]

Warning: This thread my not be for everyone. If you are easily offended you may want to turn away.

I should preface by saying that I am an agnostic with buddhist leanings.
Alright, so I just got finished reading the Christian Bible. I grew up in a christian house with a christian family and we all went to church every sunday and all that. My question is why do christians, or more specifically "the church" condemn certain sins more than others? Now as far as my personal opinion goes, I don't really believe in sins other than as sort of principles perhaps. It seems to me though that the church I went to focused an inordinate amount on sex and virginity (they also focused a lot on tithing but I do understand their motivation for that .) There's really not much of that in the new testament of the bible, in fact most of the new testament and of Jesus teachings has a lot to do with love, acceptance and withholding judgement. Very little has to do with say having sex outside wedlock for example, but for some reason sexual sins seem to be the be all and end all for many christians (or at least the churches they go to.) I just have to wonder where these perceptions came from. Looking at christian rhetoric you would think that sexual sins are the only sins. What about the other sins, such as sloth? I don't see many christians raising issue with this one and it's one of the apparent seven deadly sins. So basically my question is, why the inconsistency? why are some things weighted more heavily in christian societies even when the Christian Bible doesn't necessarily indicate that they should be?

Good question. This got me all the time when I read the Bible and went to Church. Why not teach the good stuff, love and peace, rather than condemnation and hell?
I used to have a book that I lost in my last move that had some interesting things to say about this topic, particulary why the Catholics and Christians are against homosexuality. I wish I had it now, so I could provide a reference.

It pretty much said that chapters in the Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah have been misintepreted and twisted to suit the agenda of the Church at that point in history. Apparently the Church 'used' to be very corrupt, very rich with vast wealth, greedy, and rife with immoral sexual behaviour. Apparently the church used to have temple whores and such to help generate income, and homosexuality was prevalent. Meanwhile the people were poor and discontent. Scholars and officals started accusing the church of acting like Sodom and Gomorrah, a city that God destroyed because of their hoarding of wealth, greed and inequality. The church had no intention of parting with its wealth and stopping its greed so it changed the intepretation of the Sodom and Gommorah story to say that God destroyed the city because of its perverse sexual acts and homosexuality, not because the city was excessively wealthy while commoners were starving. They church ruled against homosexuality and vowed to eradicate it from the church hierarchy as well, in the hope that God would feed the poor and stop punishing the people for their homosexuality with hunger.

There are some practical reasons for teachings against uninhibited sex.

Well, there are few possible reasons.
Since sex makes babies, it could be that it's forbidden to "taint" the tool of the ever so valued reproduction for less virtuous means, such as pursuit of physical pleasure.
It could be that lust, as opposed to sloth, is seen as a gateway to many more negative things: jealously, greed, shame, excess, selfishness, exploitation, diseases, self-centeredness and other such things considered bad, unvirtuous traits.

and

Humans do the same whatever the reason, that's the point. To achieve order you need balance and to get it usual means giving rules. Rules create frameworks to give life order so that society can function. Abandon such rules and chaos ensues (the idealists usually avoid this fact). My point being is that things of a sexual nature lead to pregnancy in majority of cases in the natural world, to be wary over such things is a natural hard-wired defence, it also deals with idea of selection both from the female and male. Most philosophies of old (and I'm referring to philosophy in its literal meaning) dealt with issues such as unwanted breeding by avoiding said problem, this was the point when rules were applied to already natural determinates. One would assume such outdated models would have dyed out but the fact we have prevention is irrelevant as the philosophies that subscribe to contraception are not popular due to been too cold or try to use rational thinking against theology (you might as well talk another language to such people). Sex comes up a lot (as a subject as well)because its one of humans common grounds, you don't really get people condemning sins such as murder as often because it isn't as prevalent.

Uninhibited sexual practice in a society can certainly lead to unwanted children, broken families and all the things that Peppermint and detectivepope mentioned. Establishing a nulcear family and marriage as a condition for sex solves a lot of those problems. This can very important in establishing a stable community.

But in terms of practicality and advancing as a culture:

i don't believe in sin.
people do crappy things, people make mistakes, people get tempted here and there. it's all a learning thing. the concept of sin is a religious one, and i think it actually hinders people from learning from the so called sins they commit. there is only bad when you cannot make something good from an experience...any experience.
they're led to believe that if they just confess to some person of power with a direct line to god (because they of course have no right to have their own direct line to god) that they are cleansed of it and can move on. no reflection. no lesson. they were just sinners doing what sinners do.

Totally agree. The term 'sin' and the practice of 'confession' takes the personal responisbility and the ownership of the action from the person. There is no sin, just effective and ineffective behaviour, that one should be accountable for and learn from. When I was a little girl I used to get so frustrated that people were supposed to do good things to get into heaven and not do bad things to avoid hell. It sounded so childish, like God was a mean parent. I always thought you should do good things 'just because' they are the right thing to do and they make sense. To do them for a reward seems immature, petty and insincere. I know that constantly doing good works will make anyone a better person but the motivation behind it is gross. The same with not doing bad things, it seems that the only motivation not to do bad things is fear of punishment, which is not really teaching one about 'why and how' or life in general.