SIN: sin
Noun: An immoral act considered to be a
transgression against divine law.
Verb: Commit a sin.
Synonyms: noun:
trespass - guilt - offense - transgression - offence
Verb: transgress - err - trespass – offend
The concept
of sin has always fascinated me.
Logically when we think about what sins actually are and what they’ve
been turned into it astounding. When we
look at sin from a legal prospective we see something very similar to the Code of Hammurabi, an
ancient Babylonia law code that some say is the ancestor of what we today call Common Law. Sin is in essence a “God’s Law” code. A set of rules created to ensure the security
of the tribe in question.
I can completely
understand why in antiquity a group of people would want a set of rules to
govern people. My issue comes in when
those rules are written by human beings and are claimed to be of divine origin. One group claims that another group cannot possibly
be “righteous” because “God said don’t eat pork” and they eat pork. Here I am referencing of course the Law of Moses.
This law,
according to the Old Testament, governs everything from moral laws through laws
of what to eat and when to eat it. If we
look at this set of laws from the prospective of the people of the time, we can
see that some of them make pretty good sense for people living in a desert without
access to proper cleaning materials. It’s
a pretty good idea not to eat pork that’s been lying about in a hot desert for
a week. I get that. We also cannot pick and choose what we want
to keep and what we want to toss out. On
one hand we have “don’t eat or touch pork, it is unclean” and then we have Football. I think you see where I’m going here. This particular set of laws, if I give the
benefit of the doubt and say, yes, your book is true, was intended to govern a
group, a LARGE group of people that had been living as slaves their entire lives,
for generation after generation. They
NEEDED strict rules until they could learn to think and govern themselves
again. I think that by now, these “laws” are
obsolete.
The next “sin”
I want to talk about is the idea of “Original Sin”. This
is a Christian doctrine, which says everyone is born of sin. Because of the sins of our fathers we
inherited that sin and must be forgiven in order to move in to the Kingdom of
Heaven. Many religious groups support
this and have way to “cleanse” newborns by baptisms and so on to help remove
the sin. To me, this concept was
nothing more than a way to control the masses.
How else do you get a group of people to do what you say? Tell them they
are doomed from the beginning and the ONLY WAY to salvation is via your
church. I just shake my head at this
thought process. When we look at this
from a legal prospective, to tell a person because their father was a thief,
they must serve time is ludicrous. We
would never, arrest the child of a rapist and toss them in jail. We would never require restitution from the
offspring of an embezzler. Each person
is accountable for their own actions.
Not the actions of their fathers, grandfathers or great
grandfathers.
If that were
the case, I’d not be sitting here now writing this blog. I’d be locked away in a jail somewhere,
because I have parents who were indeed criminals. The concept that I am a sinner because “YOUR”
book quotes a God that “YOU” follow and that means I’m doomed is a bit
much.
Over my
lifetime I’ve studied many things, one of which is law. I am a Paralegal. I have taken classes and studied the law in
three states. One thing that I learned
very quickly was a concept called the “Spirit of the
Law vs. Letter of the Law”. When one
follows the letter of the law, it is taking the words or the “letters” directly
from the statute and applying them to a particular incident. The “spirit” of the law is where we look at
the situation, and understand that even though by the letter of the law this
person may be guilty, this was not what the spirit of the law, fairness…
justice.. Those two “spirits” would not
be rewarded and actually be damaged by applying the letter of the law. This “spirit” is even mentioned in the
Christian bible in the book of Romans.
An example of this might be someone who is driving 67 miles per hour in
a 65 zone. By the letter of the law
they are speeding, however this speed limit was not intended to stop people
from driving 67, it was intended to stop people from driving 80.
I think that
when we look at sin we need to stop looking at the “letter of the law”. Those “letters” were written a very long time
ago, by who? Men. Not a God. Men that wanted your
obedience. Today we can look around us
and think about what does sin really mean.
What is the “spirit” of the law?
In my
opinion, the spirit of the law or what should be the spirit of the law of sin
is one thing. Don’t be an ass. Yup that’s it. Don’t be an ass. Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, and
don’t blow people up. Live and let
live. One commandment, the word
according to Sosanna.
Namaste
& Blessed Be
Sosanna
)O(
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