what is Sin in Christianity ?

[Sam Albion]

[QUOTE=Etu Malku;
Your Sins are my Pleasures![/QUOTE]

do do do do dooo... I'm lovin' it...

[Amergin]

Originally Posted by BrotherMichaelSky

wouldn't we first have to define "Christianity"?

seems otherwise there will be differing thoughts....

I agree with you Brother Mike. Christianity was a group of tens of different Jesus Cults in the first two centuries CE. It was not even called Christianity in the First Century.

How can I define it? I am giving an opinion. Many different cults arose after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Most regarded him as a prophet, a messiah, a king in the Davidian Lineage, a created God (Arianism), and little known mystery cults mixed with Mithraism, Olympianism, and Roman Pagan beliefs.

It was not Christianity as we know it, until the writings of Athanasius and Tertullian, later Augustine. What these Roman citizens did was create a new religion only nominally based on Jesus. It was a Trinitarian Religion, a variant mystery cult. Olympians, Illyrians, Celts, Teutons, Romans, and even Egyptians had their older Trinities.

Athanasian Christianity developed from a fusion (intentional or by unintentional diffusion) with those Pagan Trinity Religions of Europe, Africa, South Asia, and India. Tertullian was the designer of the Trinity accepted by the new religion. This paganised religion remotely based on Jesus' teachings spread rapidly, being second only to Arianism until Emperor Constantine forced the bishops at the synod in Nicaea 324 CE to accept it as the only "Christianity." All other Jesus followers were persecuted and forced to flee to Persia, German nations, convert, or be executed.

Emperors Theodosius I and Theodosius II further influenced this. The latter made it compulsory at the end of the 4th Century. Pagans were persecuted, executed, forced to flee, or simply convert to the new paganised Jesus religion. Constantine was a shrewd politician. He knew Athanasian Trinitarianism was so close to Mithraism, Druidism, Roman Paganism, Olympianism, and The Teutonic faiths that a grand merger could work and possibly save the empire.

There was a moral revision along with the Paganism merger to Christianity. Early Jesus followers won wide support among the poor, oppressed, and those admiring the high values of Jesus. Like many movements, it split into tens of variants. Constantine needed loyalty of the people to the Empire. He cared less about personal morality issues. He violated many of them.

The process continued to evolve. Jesus’ teachings became increasingly ignored and replaced by deification. He became a created god to Paul and Bishop Arius. Later he was part of the famous Trinity. Jesus became more an IDOL instead of a Moral Teacher.

Sin became a confusing issue. Trinitarianism misread Jesus as eliminating sin, forgiving sin, and eliminating Garden of Eden inherited sin by the death and resurrection myth about Jesus.

By the time of the Reformation, this trend reached its extreme under the infamous anti-Semite Martin Luther, and the mentally homicidal John Calvin. They made sin something easly erased by confession or accepting Jesus in some mysterious way...i.e. worshiping him as a God.

Modern Evangelical Christianity dismisses almost all sin as meaningless, easily dismissed by talking to Jesus. The only sins were sins of incorrect belief. Failure to worship Jesus as a God meant lost you salvation. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was the other unforgivable sin. The Jews including Jesus did not believe in a Holy Spirit Being or Trinity.

Christianity became a cult centred on a false Jesus, a violent God instead of a kindly Jewish chap. No matter how many people one kills (thousands, millions, thousand millions) those are forgiven if they have faith in Jesus. It makes for a paradoxical morality, a meaningless morality because sins do not count. It had only the sin of politically incorrect belief.

Amergin

[radarmark]

Amergin, right good matchbook review there! "Sin" should (I believe) be reduced to "straying from the path of G!d". Not doctrinally, but rather by "bad" behavior. The Traditionalist Christian version (Oriental Orthodox to Calvinists) is too focused on punishment. The Evangelical Christian version is nonsensical at best (if old Adolph has truly repented between pulling the trigger and dying, he would sit at G!d's side).

The Jewish version seems the most morally acceptable, even though I am relatively certain the brother of the Prodigal Son did not think so.

[Etu Malku]

Originally Posted by radarmark

Amergin, right good matchbook review there! "Sin" should (I believe) be reduced to "straying from the path of G!d".

Question; Does this apply to those of us that don't accept the existence of an Abrahamic god?

Not doctrinally, but rather by "bad" behavior.

"Good" "Bad", are both subjective and rely on period, culture, and society.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Etu Malku

Question; Does this apply to those of us that don't accept the existence of an Abrahamic god?

"Good" "Bad", are both subjective and rely on period, culture, and society.

Would measurable effects an act has upon your mind be objective or subjective?

[Etu Malku]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Would measurable effects an act has upon your mind be objective or subjective?

Measurable? In what way?

[radarmark]

The whole idea about "G!d" is that one need not consider the Abrahamic definition binding. Kinda like "higher power", capice?

We differ a little in our definitions of good and bad. They are subjective, certainly. That does not mean that we, as semi-civilized human beings, cannot sit down and use (for example) utilitarianism, utility theory, and bayesian analysis to explore the impact of an action. Then judge goodness or badness by the amount of suffering caused.

I am not calling for some "Father G!d" or some "eternal, universal ethics". I do not think that is ultimately decidable, even. Lord, if the issue of multiverses versus M-theory vs the Copenhagen Interpretation isn't decidable--how much more so these?

Just saying with a little effort and a little intersubjective calibrating we can give some pretty broad conclusions (even with a lot of assumptions). I am talking philosophy and science, not myth and ideology.


"Would measurable effects an act has upon your mind be objective or subjective?"

The act of taking a massive dose of an hallucinogen has pretty measureable effects. Getting mad does. Making decisions does (massive amounts of neuroscience on all three). Different parts of brain are effected and they correlate to what is happening in the mind. The hard question is why?

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Etu Malku

Measurable? In what way?

Let me give you an analogy: You believe that what is in your subjective mind has a manifest effect in the objective world, correct? Think this through backwards: toxic substances accumulate in the predators on the top of the food chain. Subjectively, wouldn't that indicate greater toxic waste, high voltage lines, etc, in the shadow side of the psyche (and hence, greater entropy feeding back?)

There is also plenty of research regarding the effects of the psychopathic mind out there to explore, as well.

Darkness doesn't necessarily mean twisted. It just means unknown, or hidden. The best use of darkness, imo, is to hide your good karma there, and bring the bad, twisted karma out into the light where you can work on untwisting it. JMHO.

[Etu Malku]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Let me give you an analogy: You believe that what is in your subjective mind has a manifest effect in the objective world, correct? Think this through backwards: toxic substances accumulate in the predators on the top of the food chain. Subjectively, wouldn't that indicate greater toxic waste, high voltage lines, etc, in the shadow side of the psyche (and hence, greater entropy feeding back?)

There is also plenty of research regarding the effects of the psychopathic mind out there to explore, as well.

Darkness doesn't necessarily mean twisted. It just means unknown, or hidden. The best use of darkness, imo, is to hide your good karma there, and bring the bad, twisted karma out into the light where you can work on untwisting it. JMHO.

Interesting, this again makes me think of the Qliphoth in regards to every Creation having its 'negative' energy, its shard, a Shadow aspect of itself.

Traditionally, the Qliphoth vampyrically feed off of negative energies and grow stronger from them, just as our Shadow Self would, just as the Khaibit would!

Entering the Qliphothic Tunnels of the Tree of Knowledge (Tree of Daath) and engaging these Dæmons, returning to the mundane world is associated with other traditions of decending into an Underworld, defeating a monster, gaining a magickal weapon, and returning to the normal world with new found powers!

Psychologically I see an alighment with all of this (Qliphoth, Khaibit, Underworld, etc.) with coming face to face with our Shadow Self and conquering it.

**Just a few crazy thoughts from a madman . . .

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Etu Malku

Interesting, this again makes me think of the Qliphoth in regards to every Creation having its 'negative' energy, its shard, a Shadow aspect of itself.

Traditionally, the Qliphoth vampyrically feed off of negative energies and grow stronger from them, just as our Shadow Self would, just as the Khaibit would!

Khaibit as a killer t-cell in an immune system? Interesting.

Entering the Qliphothic Tunnels of the Tree of Knowledge (Tree of Daath) and engaging these Dæmons, returning to the mundane world is associated with other traditions of decending into an Underworld, defeating a monster, gaining a magickal weapon, and returning to the normal world with new found powers!

Psychologically I see an alighment with all of this (Qliphoth, Khaibit, Underworld, etc.) with coming face to face with our Shadow Self and conquering it.

**Just a few crazy thoughts from a madman . . .

Have you ever been a gate guardian in your own psychodrama?

[Etu Malku]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Have you ever been a gate guardian in your own psychodrama?

I've been performing Qliphothic rituals for years . . . opening and closing those Gates
Ati Me Pete Babka!!

[Amergin]

I think it is an error to consider the Trinity God of Christianity as an Abrahamic God. The Abrahamic God was one single and undivided god. The branch that was expounded by Moses was a continuation of that Abrahamic God. The God of Moses was clearly single and undivided. The final religion based on the Abrahamic God is Islam. The God described by the prophet Muhammad dictated by a messenger angel was also a single and undivided Abrahamic God.

Jesus believed in the single and undivided God of Moses and Abraham. Muslims also accept the teachings of Jesus about that god. The Abrahamic God was called Allah. Yet it clearly is the same god of Abraham and Moses. Jesus did not claim to be a god and would have considered his own deification two centuries later to be blasphemy.

The Christian God is not single and not undivided. It is divided into a father, son, and Holy Spirit. In this, it is structurally related to Zoroastrianism, Roman Mithraism, Hinduism, and the Indo-European Paganisms.

The simplicity and order of Judaism and Islam explain the Islamic growth to the largest religion in the world. Judaism does not try to convert people.

Christianity, once it was amended and amended by philosophers in the first three centuries CE, was selected by Emperor Constantine for official status because he saw that it was Mithraism, Hinduism, Druidism, Olympianism, Sol Invictus, and Roman Paganism. Politically Constantine was clever. He picked a religion as Indo-European in structure as to merge easily (syncretion) with the Indo-European Cults making up the majority of Greco-Romans, Celtic Romans, and Latin Romans.

The argument I heard from one Christian trying to link Christianity to Moses, was the term Elohim. The Judaic single god was defined as one God. He was called JHWY or El. The comment in genesis, "man wants to become one of us," is cited to show a Trinity not a Monotheistic God.

So much else supports the strict Monotheism in the O.T. and N.T. gospels if one deletes the Divine impregnation of the virgin birth of a saviour separate from God. The Resurrection Myth says that Jesus WAS resurrected, not that Jesus resurrected himself. I suspect the plural Elohim may have been a figure of speech such as used by Kings and Emperors. A King would condemn rebellion saying, "We are appointed by God." The royal "we" and "us" is well known.

Amergin

[arthra]

"The final religion based on the Abrahamic God is Islam."

Hmmmm... I dunno if I'd go along with that one...

[Etu Malku]

Originally Posted by arthra

"The final religion based on the Abrahamic God is Islam."

Hmmmm... I dunno if I'd go along with that one...

Hey . . . make up a new one! Sheeit, everyone else did!

[NiceCupOfTea]

so is watching porno a sin ?