Temptations...

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Ecclectic Mystic

Christians are very good at advocating sin by describing it as "tempting." This implies that there is some kind of value in sinning.

How about this: sin has no value.

I think the perceived value in sinning comes from the concept of iniquity, but I think its unfair to tag all Christians as advocates of sin. I agree that sin has no value, which is its definition. Sin translates as 'error', but sin is frequently more than just accidents. It also refers to purposeful mistakes made in spite of knowing better. Sin is within us at all times, fighting against our better judgment.(Romans chap 7) Messy rooms, littering, and overeating are all examples of sins with various consequence levels. An example of consequence is that poverty would be impossible if people were not greedy. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Psalm 14:2-3 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one.

Romans 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

[Eclectic Mystic]

Originally Posted by tao

Ohhh I dont know....there are a few 'sins' I value pretty highly

This is my point. You value them because you don't actually view them as being sins. Other people call them sins and they've tricked you into agreeing with their concept, even if you are being sarcastic.

Originally Posted by dream

It also refers to purposeful mistakes made in spite of knowing better. Sin is within us at all times, fighting against our better judgment.(Romans chap 7) Messy rooms, littering, and overeating are all examples of sins with various consequence levels.

I just see so much irony in this. First of all, "purposeful mistakes" is an oxymoron. You're basically advocating that there is a value in messy rooms, littering, etc. Some Christians attempt to trick anyone who questions or challenges them into harming themselves/doing things they wouldn't have seen a value in doing in the first place. Because of this concept of sin (which is all it is-- a concept) people bounce back and forth between the two mentalities:

"Sin has value and I should suppress it" and
"Sin has value and I should give in to it."

I stay away from this crap and simply tell myself "Sin has no value."

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Eclectic Mystic

This is my point. You value them because you don't actually view them as being sins. Other people call them sins and they've tricked you into agreeing with their concept, even if you are being sarcastic.

I just see so much irony in this. First of all, "purposeful mistakes" is an oxymoron. You're basically advocating that there is a value in messy rooms, littering, etc. Some Christians attempt to trick anyone who questions or challenges them into harming themselves/doing things they wouldn't have seen a value in doing in the first place. Because of this concept of sin (which is all it is-- a concept) people bounce back and forth between the two mentalities:

"Sin has value and I should suppress it" and
"Sin has value and I should give in to it."

I stay away from this crap and simply tell myself "Sin has no value."

Yes, 'sin' is an unusal word that's easily misunderstood, fairly abstract. People have used it to put other people on guilt trips, before. Is that what you're talking about?

Yes, 'purposeful mistake' is an oxymoron, however I explained what I meant by it. Why so hostile? Some people know they should drink enough water, but they don't. Purposeful mistake. Its a mistake not to drink more water, but they do it anyway. One consequence is a slower metabolism. You don't want to use the word sin, so don't. How about 'Bad decision' or 'Poor choice'?

[Netti-Netti]

The struggle between the spirit and the flesh is often represented as being a central task for humans. I don't doubt that it's a basic issue, but I wonder if the spiritually lopsided mind isn't the more fundamental problem because it leads to derangements of the will. The turn-on of sensory pleasures - including appreciation of art and music - starts with the mind. It is mental imagery that disposes the will.

I think the real "struggle" involves the will, not the senses. It seems human beings experience autonomy most immediately and directly by exercising their will against G-d's wishes. This rejection of being dependent on G-d actually has little to do with seeking sensual experiences as such. It has to do with being attached to them to the point where one is unable to practice the Presence.

You can be willful about almost anything. You can be attached to any kind of experience in the sensual, aesthetic, and intellectual realms. Heck, if you really want to you can even be attached to your remorse and shame about being a sinner and keep sinning just to keep the feelings of remorse and shame going indefinitely.

The effect of sin is the deadening of the spiritual aspirations that give life meaning and that link the person the Family of G-d. Sin isolates the person and binds them to their finitude and keeps them from carrying out the kinds of creative focalizations that facilitate the ongoing evolvement of true life with the help of the Holy Spirit. To me that is the meaning of "spiritual death." It is the absence of true life due to a predominance of false consciousness.

You've heard of instant karma. The bondage of sin is immediate. In a very real sense, the effect of sin is right now because it introduces developmental lags into the evolving personality. There's no need to wait for judgment day where an accounting person will go over your lifetime tally with you.

Originally Posted by Eclectic Mystic

Christians are very good at advocating sin by describing it as "tempting." This implies that there is some kind of value in sinning.

How about this: sin has no value.

I think it's part of the navigation system. The value of sin lies in being able to learn from it and knowing not to keep repeating the sin over and over again, as though you'd get different results.

Originally Posted by Eclectic Mystic

You value them because you don't actually view them as being sins.

To me the concept of "wanting to do it my way" suggests otherwise. People do know they are sins and that is exactly why they value them.

The defiance of G-d will and the deliberate repetition of sin bespeaks the inward attachment and willful intent.

[seattlegal]

Hey, I admit it. I have a will of my own, and I'm a sinner. I can use my will to resist the temptation to sin, although sometimes I don't, usually due to my misunderstanding the situation. So, I can be weak-willed and weak-minded (human) at times. (Something I need to continually work on...)

[Eclectic Mystic]

Dream, please don't assume the hostilities are towards you. You have no idea what other people have put me through.

I have the ability to discern that bashing my face with a hammer would be a mistake. If other sins are purposeful and if we have the ability to discern so accurately what sin is, then why do people sin? Something just doesn't add up.

[Eclectic Mystic]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

To me the concept of "wanting to do it my way" suggests otherwise. People do know they are sins and that is exactly why they value them.

This is an example of advocating the notion that people even have an incentive to be separate from God in the first place.

[GlorytoGod]

Just to clarify

James 4:7 (New International Version)

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

This is the word of God !

it is the truth

so be confident

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Hey, I admit it. I have a will of my own, and I'm a sinner. I can use my will to resist the temptation to sin, although sometimes I don't, usually due to my misunderstanding the situation. So, I can be weak-willed and weak-minded (human) at times. (Something I need to continually work on...)

I can understand that, I too sometimes have to work quite hard to get the best out of sin. Sometimes it can take considerable expense to sin in style. And sometimes its not even worth all the effort. But at the end of the day the sins I love to indulge are usually worth it So keep working on them


ta

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I can understand that, I too sometimes have to work quite hard to get the best out of sin. Sometimes it can take considerable expense to sin in style. And sometimes its not even worth all the effort. But at the end of the day the sins I love to indulge are usually worth it So keep working on them


ta

The distractions are worth distracting you from the important things? Hmm, it has been said that the tao is found 'without desire...' {Tao Te Ching 1,} so your argument might have some merit...
Regarding style and temptations vs. substance:

Tao Te Ching 35
To him who holds in his hands the Great Image (of the invisible
Tao), the whole world repairs. Men resort to him, and receive no
hurt, but (find) rest, peace, and the feeling of ease.

Music and dainties {read: temptations--sg} will make the passing guest stop (for a time). {read: temporary in nature, distractions--sg}
But though the Tao as it comes from the mouth, seems insipid and has
no flavour, though it seems not worth being looked at or listened to,
the use of it is inexhaustible. {read: 'without desire it is found..."--sg}

[nightsoul]

Sorry, i'm new here. Please define sin.

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Eclectic Mystic

Dream, please don't assume the hostilities are towards you. You have no idea what other people have put me through.

Ok. Sorry about that. The flutter of a butterfly and it would have been me putting the screws to you sometime in the past. Fortunately, things never aligned for me that way.

Originally Posted by Nightsoul

Sorry, i'm new here. Please define sin.

Sin is a Christian word. It is a combination translation both of words and of abstract ideas from Hebrew culture, and it is confusing partly for that reason. Sin can refer to ritual uncleanness, accidental mistakes, unwise actions, hateful activity and more, although its usually either talking about ritual uncleanness or wrongful activity. You have to examine the context when reading Christian letters or the Gospels if you want to be sure what kind of 'Sin' you're talking about.

Originally Posted by Eclectic Mystic

I have the ability to discern that bashing my face with a hammer would be a mistake. If other sins are purposeful and if we have the ability to discern so accurately what sin is, then why do people sin? Something just doesn't add up.

We're talking about a Christian word and I'm a Christian fundamentalist specialist trying to post in a generic Abrahamic section! I don't represent all Abrahamic points of view or even all Christian ones, but I try to honor all. To me it seems the Pauline explanation is that sin was planted within man to demonstrate its nature, differentiate it from the human soul, and to also condemn it. Once the demonstration is complete, the sin will be removed from humanity and from the world. This is the best Christian explanation I can find of why people make evil choices and why there is trouble in the world.

Romans 7:13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Romans 7:20-24 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Romans 8:3-4 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

The distractions are worth distracting you from the important things?

Well here we enter another huge ballpark.. what is or is not "important"? Surely you can only define importance for yourself and those an action may immediately affect? Some of my sins are solitary, only affecting me, my favourites are not but always involve willing and enthusiastic accomplice(s). So where is the 'distraction' ?, surely not to sin would be the distraction? Of course I do not view my 'sins' as sins but pleasure seeking. It is the pressure to conform to some stereotype that would make them sins. Since I have no desire to conform and do not give a hoot about what some puritan might think of my behaviour there is no distraction and I am indulging in what is important. Tao encourages taking the path of least resistance and I do not have a problem with that. I am perfectly happy not to resist the temptation of pleasure I find in those sins I enjoy.

tao

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Well here we enter another huge ballpark.. what is or is not "important"? Surely you can only define importance for yourself and those an action may immediately affect? Some of my sins are solitary, only affecting me, my favourites are not but always involve willing and enthusiastic accomplice(s). So where is the 'distraction' ?, surely not to sin would be the distraction? Of course I do not view my 'sins' as sins but pleasure seeking. It is the pressure to conform to some stereotype that would make them sins. Since I have no desire to conform and do not give a hoot about what some puritan might think of my behaviour there is no distraction and I am indulging in what is important. Tao encourages taking the path of least resistance and I do not have a problem with that. I am perfectly happy not to resist the temptation of pleasure I find in those sins I enjoy.

tao

Actually, the Tao is not about the path of least resistance, it is about doing nothing with a purpose:

48

He who devotes himself to learning (seeks) from day to day to
increase (his knowledge); he who devotes himself to the Tao (seeks)
from day to day to diminish (his doing).

He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing
nothing (on purpose). Having arrived at this point of non-action,
there is nothing which he does not do.

He who gets as his own all under heaven does so by giving himself
no trouble (with that end). If one take trouble (with that end), he
is not equal to getting as his own all under heaven.

Self-control can be easy or it can be difficult. The difficulty comes from ourselves.

I probably should add some Abrahamic commentary on this, since this is the Abrahamic section. {Please forgive me my sin. }

Regarding the source of difficulties we have with self-control:

James 2
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Regarding the vanity (distraction) of striving after pleasure:
Ecclesiastes 2
I would recommend the entire book of Ecclesiastes!

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by nightsoul

Sorry, i'm new here. Please define sin.

Welcome to IO, nightsoul.
Sin means 'missing the mark.' The first sin mentioned in the bible involved not resisting temptation. (Adam and Eve and the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.)