Sin is a good way to keep you coming back to church. If you didn't sin would you need to church? more sins more reason to go to church. more money in the collection.

Technically sin as defined by the bible is a failure to observe and obey the mosaic law.

Of course thats not all sin is.

I see it as the abscence of the positive rather than i thing in itself. Sins not a person ,place or thing after all.

I tend not to become too focussed on it. I must say thou that many of my friends and family do spend quite a lot of time talking about this. It appears to be a very important part of their lives and doctrine.

To me it doesnt exist. I dont worry about it,i dont focus on it and im certainly not an evil sinner because i refuse to be obsessed with it.

Its a non existent thing to me, but as with everything i realise to some its very real,very important and very much in their view of things.

And i respect their right to view it as such.I would rather not dwell upon the lack of good or virtue but rather of the existence of good. and virtue.

Graham

I believe sin is when you do not follow your hearts guidance.

Sin is when you deny yourSelf and your real Nature.

Sin is when you try or pretend to be someone you are not.

Sin is when you listen to other's people voice and not yours.

I believe the modern interpretation of 'sin' is a perversion of a concept intended to serve as a guide for life.

[I forewarn you, my post is very long, but you asked about sin and in my mind sin is an extremely different subject than most are accustomed to. If you do not have the interest in hearing my opinion I strongly urge you to stop reading now.]

The question that arises in my mind is this: Why would an otherworldy God impose worldly laws upon his people? Then taking a step further... Why would an all powerful God, who is capable of speaking to all of his children directly and/or instilling in their soul the understanding they need, ever need or want to use other people to speak or write for him?

If the only thing he desires is his children to love, why wouldn't he talk to them directly like he did in the ancient Bible times? He is God, I'm not sure if you understand the gravity of that statement but the guy has done some pretty impressive things, but he can't seem to manage making a religion that is absolute and cannot be questioned? Something doesn't add up there in my eyes.

That being the case, I decide what is a sin or not in the exact same way I manifest reality, which is convenient because that is what this site is primarily about.

I believe your emotions are a compass helping you find your way, your mind a map capable of becoming more detailed when given more information to be drawn into its pages, and your body a vessel possessing all of the abilities necessary to create our own trails through life, or follow paths laid by those who traveled before us.

First, as with manifestation, you must decide what you want. Do you want to be a good person? I do. It is my first and foremost desire, one I spend every moment trying my hardest to manifest and bring into reality. If you share this desire, then your emotions will serve as a compass that will tell you if you're moving down the correct path or not.

Have you ever showed kindness to a stranger and been filled with a warmth in your heart? A feeling of good and happiness? If not, I advise you to try it some time, it is quite addicting. This tells me that my actions are leading me down the correct path to attaining my goals.

Have you ever committed a Biblical 'sin' and felt good about it? There are a few plausible explanations for this, two that I find to be most likely. Either A: You do not have your 'compass' set on the right target, or B: Maybe you have been mislead into believing it is a sin in the first place.

How about something that isn't a sin or even against the law, and felt bad? Again, you have everything you need inside yourself to guide you to what you want. If being cruel to someone truly makes you feel good about yourself you should be concerned.

Now lets make this slightly more interesting... Imagine first that you desire to be a good person. Now, imagine that you killed a man who tried to murder someone you love. How do you feel?

I would feel discomfort that I was forced to take the life of any living creature because of my respect for life in all forms, but not for a moment would I feel wrong about my decision, and I would even be joyous that I killed a man, because in doing so I saved the life of someone I loved.

But what if the person you killed was innocent and you did so in cold blood? How would you feel then? I would feel disgusted, dark, cold, empty, corrupt, confused, lost, and wrong. To me that is what it means to lose yourself, to be acting against your compass, to not be pursuing what you desire most in life.

Of course this situation is simple because murder is a very clear subject: it should only be used as an absolute last resort, when no other reasonable options exist to meet the ends you seek. Other 'sins' however may not always be so clear.

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I could have answered this question using only the things I'm about to explain below, but I included the above because I believe it is more important to teach a man to fish than it is that he not go hungry for a few days. What good is it to anyone if everything is spelled out in front of them without first teaching them how to decide for themselves if they are met with an unknown or unpredictable situation?

To directly answer your question: I say the things you should be concerned with most are the seven deadly sins, because I think they are the closest thing humanity has come up with so far to what God actually intended.

Something you will notice about all of the deadly sins is that they are extreme versions of otherwise healthy emotions.

Greed is the extreme of desire. Desire is good, you should always want more, but it should never become more important to you than being a good person or the well being of others.

Wrath is the extreme of hatred, which is a part of love. True love is unconditionally caring about another being, willing to protect them no matter what wrongs they commit. Hatred is the unconditional dislike of another, superseding logic or reason. Hatred is healthy because it reminds us what it means to love. If a person dares to hurt one I care about I absolutely feel hatred towards them, and rightfully so. Hatred turns into wrath when you are willing to ignore your other desires just to harm that person in any way you can, no matter the cost to yourself or those around you.

Lust is the extreme of our desire for physical satisfaction and the euphoria created thereby. It is good to desire to be with another person, even multiple other people if that is right for you. This desire becomes a sin when you are willing to seek physical satisfaction in any way you can get it, without any discretion or concern of the consequences.

To be clear, there is absolutely a pattern here. Humans are given logic and free thought for a reason, and are expected to use it. When we forgo this gift and act purely on emotional impulse alone it is a slap in the face to the one who gave it; and that is when these perfectly healthy activities turn into a corruption that will hurt our bodies, minds, spirits, as well as those around us.

Gluttony is very similar to greed; but instead of acting because your desire is so strong that you don't care about anything else you're doing it simply because you can, not because it is something you actually need or want. For example, eating excessively is a sin because it is unnecessarily wasteful.

Sloth is a sin because the purpose of life is to live it to the fullest and most importantly to live happily. We have been given gifts, the ability to do anything in this world if we desire it enough. Not using these gifts is insulting to the one who gave them, because it shows a lack of appreciation. It is good to relax at times and take it easy, but as with all other sins not more-so than our other directives.

Envy... Dante defined this as "a desire to deprive other men of theirs." Envy in its modern English definition is actually a good thing in my eyes: the appreciation of the possessions of others and the desire to obtain similar possessions. This becomes sinful when we don't just want an idea like their's, we just want their's. Coveting thy neighbor's wife, theft, jealousy, all come together in this one sin. You should never want to take from someone else because you do not feel they are worthy, nor should you ever feel dislike or hatred towards them because they possess something you do not.

Finally comes pride, the most dangerous of all and the source of the others. The belief you are more important than those around you, either by your works, the works of those who came before you, or by some absurd 'divine right'. God made all life to be equal, and thinking that somehow you are more important than his other creations is believing yourself an equal to God, or in extreme cases greater than.

Pride is something nearly all religious individuals are guilty of. Their religions teach that if they believe in the proper deity and follow the proper rituals they are somehow entitled to something that others are not. This is the most disgusting perversion of true spirituality, and goes against the most fundamental instructions we are given to live by. Do you believe that you will go to a magical place that only you and those like you are entitled to? Do you believe that there is another magical place that those inferior to you are damned to? You are prideful, you think you are better than the people who have not done the same as you, and it is shameful.

Pride is the source of all bigotry, prejudice, war, and evil in the world. People start wars to kill and take what they did not earn, or because they think that the others do not have the right to believe as they do or possess what they do. Racism stems from the belief one's race makes them better than a race they dislike. Similarly, sexism the thought their gender is more powerful or deserving than the other.

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Hopefully my answer was not too long for people to read, I can be very verbose at times. I continue to be this way however as I would much rather people hear my words in their entirety because they were willing to take the time to listen, and for those who do not have the interest I'd rather they not hear me in the first place.

I do not know how I missed this question, but I did.

"Sin" is being apart from God. If you prefer, it is being apart from the God-in-You, for "sinning" always makes the sinner unhappy in the end. That unhappiness is the key to understanding what sin really is.

Anything that makes us unhappy, or fills us with remorse, involves what we call "sin". It is NOT a measure of perspective or a scale of this sin is less than that- ALL sin has its results in unhappiness and remorse.

Some people have the ability to ignore this unhappiness- they may be psychopaths or they just may be so inured to sin that they have lost the ability to feel their own unease. Sin is "edging God out (E.G.O.). And we all sin from time to time. The measure of the man or woman is how readily they admit this sin to themselves, and forgo anymore of the behavior that caused the sin.

Only a fringe of churches have those limitations you mentioned. Most of the churches I have attended had no such restrictions.

I am sure i need not say much more about sin, for God put inside of us a conscience which tells us when we sin. You know when you have sinned. Period.

The New Testament, especially what Jesus has to say about sin, is my best guide to what sin is about. I refer anyone to that. Paul's writings a a bit harsher.

Thanks for the good question. I am sorry I missed it.

Love,

Jaianniah

Sin is judgment. "Judge not lest ye be judged", and what is the original sin? Eating from the fruit of knowledge of good and evil - that leads to judgment "this is bad", "this is good" - it is reality and "good" and "bad" are labels.

Repentance seems to be God forgiving you, but it is you forgiving yourself of your own self-judgments and judgments of others.

Psychology the Study of Human Behaviors shows why we behave the way that we do in given situation, and indeed we do have both strengths and weakness in our personality traits etc. So, I see sin as weakness that we all experience, but that we can improve on to grow spiritually, and to improve and correct our behavior patterns!

The Church will see sin as described in the Bible, and Christians do believe that there is sin, and have accepted it as a fact in their life!

all bad though speak and action is a sin. judging is a sin. judgement becomes a sin. there is a saying.Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes”. “You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

like i said before who has removed all veils of the mind and can judge another?

http://www.planetofsuccess.com/blog/2011/developing-empathy-walk-a-mile-in-someone%E2%80%99s-shoes/

and if you sin repent. where you did a wrong do a right.

experience and enjoy.

Sin in simplest terms is what leads us away from God or good. Even temptation knowingly or unknowingly if it causes another to fall is sin.

Someone has big dreams and feels excited and tells you about them. You say, "Oh I don't know about this. This doesn't sound like it would work. You'd never make it." He goes off feeling like, "What was I thinking? I am too dumb. I'll never amount to anything!" Then he drops into depression. Like it or not that is what you caused.

Someone believes it is a sin to eat meat, you get a big well done deep brown stake and eat it in front of him. Really enjoying it and commenting on how good it is. He gives in and orders a stake even though to his belief that he accepts it is a sin. You feel good afterwards because it does not clash with your belief. He on the other hand has deep feelings of guilt and remorse. He feels he turned his back on God, so the both of you have now sinned.

His sin is not yours, your sin is not eating meat, your sin is temping him. His sin is eating the meat, not because eating meat is a sin but his belief that it is against God's will for him. To him it is rebelling God's wishes, just as much as Satan rebelled, "I don't have to! You can't make me!"