Sin

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

 

Apologies to everyone for disrupting the thread.

 

Further personal apologies sent by pm.

 

I won't contribute again on this thread.

 

I will ask your forgiveness.

 

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Edited December 18, 2013 by Captain Mar-Vell

[3bob]

Zen speaks of "missing the mark" which I believe I read long ago in the book, "Zen in the Art of Archery".

[3bob]

Btw, the true, the free, the pure, (etc..) never has been, isn't, nor ever will be corrupted or sinful... thus not in need of redemption.

The "relative" self or whatever you may want to call it is another story.

[Brian]

...

 

Apologies to everyone for disrupting the thread.

 

Further personal apologies sent by pm.

 

I won't contribute again on this thread.

 

I will ask your forgiveness.

 

...

Wasn't asking you to be silent. Your contributions are both welcome and valued. Just trying to avoid pages of chopped-up soliloquy or monologue.

[goatguy-too]

Goatguy, who amazes me with his abilities, really wants sin to be understood for what is it. He absolutely refuses to soften it up the slightest bit at all by calling it ignorance.

 

But what he has unveiled in his brilliant disposition on the gospel of Thomas might as well be the eastern teaching that it, in fact, is.

 

Sin, in terms of Thomas' gospel, isn't the sin of action, it is the sin of existence.

 

Sin, is ignorance of one's inconceivable nature. Taoism and Buddhism both consider having a self the main issue confounding realization of selfless nonorigination, which is the effective equivalent of the Father.

 

 

goatguy said in response to me on his thread:

 

So goatguy has made it clear that it is necessary to realize, firstly, and then subsequently admit of one's own very wretchedness in order to enter into the path of the light.

 

goatguy?

 

 

 

 

ed note: add "be" in 1st sentence

 

I think we have much in common. Sin of the Bible also isn't 'action' but of 'being'. Action merely reveals who we are. We call it the sin nature, or the 'old man', or the flesh.

 

This is also explains the faith vs. works. Works reveal faith as certain actions reveal a sinful nature. THe actions don't cause us to be sinners, and works don't get us saved.

 

By nature we place ourselves at the center of the universe. We judge the universe by our own standard, and look out for ourselves first. The teaching of Christ is that we can have a new nature. He doesn't 'clean up the prostitute', he makes her a virgin. The beginning of this, for the Christian, is to recognize (better to say 'admit') that the universe is God's, not ours. And the result of acknowledging God as God, is that with the new nature, we are also able to put others before ourselves.

 

I also agree that we are made of nothing. However, we ceased being a nothing when God shared part of his nature with us. I think we also differ in the existence of God. I would say that he is the only thing that has intrinsic existence, and that all else has existence because it is imputed to us by God.

 

In other traditions, the struggle for self-annulment is yours alone. In Christianity, the struggle is engaged with eth help of Christ, who was not only a model of self-annulment, but an enabler of it in us.

 

I think you are able to state my position very well. Thank you. I hope I am doing the same for you.

Edited December 20, 2013 by goatguy

[chegg]

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Edited May 7, 2015 by chegg

[yabyum24]

For me, the whole concept of sin is inextricably tied to the Abrahamic presentation of God. One sins against this God, which displeases him and nasty things follow.

 

If we move away from this narrow, dualistic concept to a more 'monist' understanding, then the very notion of sin becomes redundant. It is replaced by ignorance - our own apparent separation from the supreme source.

[Captain Mar-Vell]

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Thank you very much for your last post chegg. Plenty to meditate upon.

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[3bob]

Another take: Excerpt from K.G.

 

"That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.

But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.

For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light..."

 

:high-lights by me

[Captain Mar-Vell]

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Yes 3bob what an excellent extract!

 

All that is now real was once merely imagined!

 

Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?

 

Hmmmmph

 

In.

 

Phooooow

 

Out.

 

Adamantium Skeleton!

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Edited December 20, 2013 by Captain Mar-Vell

[goatguy-too]

For me, the whole concept of sin is inextricably tied to the Abrahamic presentation of God. One sins against this God, which displeases him and nasty things follow.

 

I understand that Abrahamic religions are often portrayed this way, but I believe it is a misrepresentation which ignores the heart and focusses on the actions. The way it is stated above sounds like an unreasonable god even to me. But I think it not unreasonable for God to expect us to at least acknowledge that he is God. It would be like your adnoids deciding that they don't need the rest of your body and pretending that you don't exist. When they stopped receiving blood from the body that they pretend doesn't exist, they would die.

 

The fact that we are not yet dead in such a denial of He who gives life, is the evidence that we are receiving grace even now. He first loved us.

 

In another place I proposed my own riddle of Mary who fed the poor to her own destruction in order to show that it is the heart condition toward God, and not the specific action which defines the person.

 

The heart of sin, as defined in Abrahamic religions, is a failure to give God his due. It is the desire for self-definition, self-determinism, etc. It is one's choice to believe differently, and the doctrine that such a choice in fact dis's God and is the nature of original sin, which make Christianity so offensive to those who make such a choice.

[Captain Mar-Vell]

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Smashing stuff goatguy!

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[3bob]

"God" does not exactly need to be given His due for his dues are exactingly made to come to terms via karma... (unless mitigated through the highest law which is the un-measureable reach, power and wisdom of Grace ) thus it does not really matter if one believes in God or not in any way, shape or form (or from any of the multitudes of various religious names or traditions per-se) since karma as an unbreakable universal law for all beings, in all realms, at all times is in effect if any dues are owed. (why - because karma is a "thing", maybe not like we normally think of things but still so)

 

Om

Edited December 21, 2013 by 3bob

[dawei]

The heart of sin, as defined in Abrahamic religions, is a failure to give God his due. It is the desire for self-definition, self-determinism, etc. It is one's choice to believe differently, and the doctrine that such a choice in fact dis's God and is the nature of original sin, which make Christianity so offensive to those who make such a choice.

 

The reason this cannot be the cause is retrospective effect: God does not demand anything as it would all be failure anyways.

 

Sin leads to guilt leads to shame leads to separation leads to division leads to "I".

 

One might like the argument along this lines but it would imply that God put in place a path of understanding separation and "self" and that would also be a retrospective effect.

 

If we were to entertain an idea of God, it cannot result in the idea of sin... why not? it is the duality and opposite?

 

It is the mind alone which wants such duality.

 

What is Sin?

 

IMO, It depends on the perspective of the source.

[yabyum24]

It is the desire for self-definition, self-determinism, etc. It is one's choice to believe differently, and the doctrine that such a choice in fact dis's God and is the nature of original sin, which make Christianity so offensive to those who make such a choice.

For me, this goes back to the 'fall' in the garden of eden. It's less a desire for self-definition, rather a process which affects all of us as we develop a self-identity. The apple (the knowledge of good an evil) is the dualistic discriminating, self-grasping mind. Our expulsion is the sundering of this self-grasping identity from it's basis - from whence it has arisen (God in this case).

 

When God says that Adam should not eat of the tree of life, it is a riddle - a concealed invitation to do so. The directions for the return to Eden are there for those who are ready and can locate the gateway. Guarded by the flaming sword - you shall not enter between (sunrise and sunset) but in the twilight which belongs to neither the day nor the night - the gateway opens. Between the in breath and the out breath between the death of one thought and the birth of another.

 

Shiva's skin is the dusk of dawn and twilight, the crescent moon in the sky.

 

When this self-grasping mind falls away, no boundaries are found and we walk naked in God's presence once more. But this time with the light of knowledge, not like Adam before the fall who did not understand and was compelled to leave.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Captain Mar-Vell]

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That's marvellous Yabyum!

 

Thanks!

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[Dolokhov]

I understand that Abrahamic religions are often portrayed this way, but I believe it is a misrepresentation which ignores the heart and focusses on the actions. The way it is stated above sounds like an unreasonable god even to me. But I think it not unreasonable for God to expect us to at least acknowledge that he is God. It would be like your adnoids deciding that they don't need the rest of your body and pretending that you don't exist. When they stopped receiving blood from the body that they pretend doesn't exist, they would die.

 

The fact that we are not yet dead in such a denial of He who gives life, is the evidence that we are receiving grace even now. He first loved us.

 

In another place I proposed my own riddle of Mary who fed the poor to her own destruction in order to show that it is the heart condition toward God, and not the specific action which defines the person.

 

The heart of sin, as defined in Abrahamic religions, is a failure to give God his due. It is the desire for self-definition, self-determinism, etc. It is one's choice to believe differently, and the doctrine that such a choice in fact dis's God and is the nature of original sin, which make Christianity so offensive to those who make such a choice.

 

"Acknowledging God" is one way to put it; I'd also add something else to clarify: I don't have to acknowledge God just because he's some sort of jealous attention-demanding child who gets upset if I look away. God's nature is eternal, immortal, and life-giving by definition. I need to become a "partaker of the divine nature" (as St. Peter says) because I am mortal and not self-sustaining (nor created to be such). So I need to come in union with him for my own health and life, because he is the "God of the Living."

 

Sin is just something that disrupts this union. When I start concerning myself more with money than I do about God, I become greedy (one of the big seven sins) and might start caring less about anything else. If I care only about myself to the exclusion of my relationship with God and my fellow man, I become prideful, and the union again suffers. All of the sins (look at the ten commandments for examples: murder, stealing, etc.) break relationships with others and with God. All of the virtues (humility, patience, kindness) build relationships with other people and with God.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Dolokhov

[chegg]

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Edited May 7, 2015 by chegg

[deci belle]

Well~ I see that goatguy and I got in a few licks in too!!