Wrong and right, good and bad, objective or subjective

[Surya]

I have been going to various conversation groups recently, where we discuss concepts with in various traditions. This week I went to a Christian meeting, where sin was the topic of discussion. On of the participants asked if it is possible to be happy while living in «objective sin,» whereby I said that I don’t believe there is such a thing as objective sin or morality. What’s your thoughts on this?

 

The above is the subject of discussion here (although you ofc are free to write whatever you’d like), but I’d like to share some beautiful takes shared in that ring. One of the participants said that there are no rules to how to play a guitar: you can just pull the strings randomly and without purpose, but to create beauty there need to be a… harmony to it, a method. We also discussed what sin is, and one of the members defined it as behavior that distances us to each other and to the divine. 

[Jenn]

I think "sin" can only really be judged by intention.

 

Is killing someone a sin? Would you say the person who invented seatbelts is a sinner? Or the person who put their use into law? People have died because seatbelt use, but far less than would die without seatbelts. The intention was to save lives, the outcome of a smaller number of people dying from that intervention was one of the many outcomes.

 

It's not a sin to sell your own belongings generally, but what if you do so to intentionally get revenge on a family member? 

 

Is the sin the action, the result, or the intention behind it all?

 

We have control of our intentions, but how our actions actually play out is up to the divine. 

[Mark Foote]

On 9/20/2025 at 8:09 AM, Surya said:

I have been going to various conversation groups recently, where we discuss concepts with in various traditions. This week I went to a Christian meeting, where sin was the topic of discussion. On of the participants asked if it is possible to be happy while living in «objective sin,» whereby I said that I don’t believe there is such a thing as objective sin or morality. What’s your thoughts on this?

 

The above is the subject of discussion here (although you ofc are free to write whatever you’d like), but I’d like to share some beautiful takes shared in that ring. One of the participants said that there are no rules to how to play a guitar: you can just pull the strings randomly and without purpose, but to create beauty there need to be a… harmony to it, a method. We also discussed what sin is, and one of the members defined it as behavior that distances us to each other and to the divine. 
 

 

 

Post from my blog, about the "original sin":

 

The Tree of Knowledge

 

In the Old Testament, God instructs Adam:

 

Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

 

(NKJV Genesis 2:16-7)

 

 

Adam did eat, and he didn’t die, but he did find himself cast out of the garden.

 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says:

 

Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.

 

(NKJV John 8:51)

 

 

The Gospel of Thomas (a gnostic text uncovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945) opens as follows:

 

These are the secret words which the Living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote. And He said:

Whoever finds the explanation of these words will not taste death.

 

(The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, p. 3 log. 1, ©1959 E. J. Brill)

 

 

Gautama the Buddha spoke of “the Deathless”:

 

As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized.

 

(SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159)

 

 

And again:

 

(One) cultivates right concentration, which is based on detachment, on dispassion, on cessation, which ends in self-surrender, which plunges into the deathless, which has the deathless for its aim, which has the deathless for its end.

 

(SN V 54, Pali Text Society V p 44)

 

 

Gautama taught the cessation of action born of determinate thought. He taught that such action ceases gradually, first in speech, then in body, and finally in “perceiving and feeling” (action of the mind).

 

The cessation of action born of determinate thought must needs include the cessation of action on the basis of the knowledge of good and evil.

 

We are stardust, we are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden

 

(Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock”; “Ladies of the Canyon”, April 1970)

 

 

 

Edited September 23 by Mark Foote

[Sanity Check]

Morality and good intentions move with nature.

 

A life of sin means waging a constant war against nature.

[Lairg]

There are some apparently alien accounts that the concepts of good and evil, and religion itself, are specific (unique?) to the Earth humanity 

 

Perhaps it is all about learning.  Some learn in more difficult ways

 

37 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

A life of sin means waging a constant war against nature.

 

Maybe the "sinners" provide more intense and therefore faster learning for themselves and others.  That would be useful if the Earth were a training ground 

 

I suspect a top-down view of this solar system gives a quite different perspective

 

 

[Sanity Check]

18 minutes ago, Lairg said:

 

Maybe the "sinners" provide more intense and therefore faster learning for themselves and others.  That would be useful if the Earth were a training ground 

 

I suspect a top-down view of this solar system gives a quite different perspective

 

 

 

Nature's way is for life to be fruitful and multiply

 

The path of sin leads towards scarcity and depopulation.

 

I would guess that is what they provide more than anything.

[Lairg]

46 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

Nature's way is for life to be fruitful and multiply

 

  There’s a natural background rate to the timing and frequency of extinctions: 10% of species are lost every million years, 30% every 10 million years, and 65% every 100 million years. 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions

Edited September 24 by Lairg

[Sanity Check]

30 minutes ago, Lairg said:

 

  There’s a natural background rate to the timing and frequency of extinctions: 10% of species are lost every million years, 30% every 10 million years, and 65% every 100 million years. 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions

 

 

I think I read somewhere 97% of species extinctions since humans emerged.

 

Were directly caused by humans.

 

The fruitfulness and multiplication of people has had disastrous effects on other species and forms of life.

 

People fear aliens and zombie apocalypses.

 

But if the human species ever goes extinct, I think overpopulation is a more likely scenario.

[Tommy]

When something does not agree with our truths then it is wrong. If it concerns our religion or God then it is a sin. Take for example early humans who were afraid of the weather. Poor weather meant the Gods are angry and demanded a human sacrifice. Then, they go about determining who must die and kill that person to appease God. If that agrees with your truths then it is not a wrong. If it does not agree with your truths then it is wrong. Time and circumstances help to determine whether a thing or action is wrong or right.

 

Good or bad? Wouldn't that be a judgement made by someone who holds their truths to be universal? Like killing is bad but it is good if it is to punish someone who has committed evil by killing.If killing is bad then shouldn't it be bad in all circumstances?

 

Lucky for me. I live in a place where laws determine what is right and wrong. And the government has people who enforce these laws. All the while these enforcers break the law themselves. Yes, how lucky am I??

[Lairg]

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

Wouldn't that be a judgement made by someone who holds their truths to be universal?

 

For whatever it is worth:  Truth is a reification

 

The quality of being true to a relationship/situation/statement is turned into a noun with no context - as if it were true for all time and space.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

 

[Krenx]

In this world, actions, intentions have consequences. And there are wholesome and unwholesome actions that lead to beneficial or harmful results. 

 

Anytime we suffer, it is a mix of our own unwholesome and ignorant deeds in our past, and the contribution of other people's unwholesome deeds affecting us. 

 

You do not really need a god to prove this to you. It is apparent in all our lives if we observe and investigate suffering deep enough. 

 

There is often the argument we hear that the animal kingdom kills, and does all kinds of insane things to survive and thrive in nature. And why don't humans adopt that mode of living. What makes what they do so wrong while having the right to exist on the same planet. 

 

Well, if you want to suffer as much as an animal, have lives as short as most in the animal kingdom, then acting like them would result in that quality of life, mind and suffering. 

 

Humanity has tried to wrestle with virtues, and find loopholes in it since it was discovered. There are no loopholes. Either you adhere to the standard of virtues most religions agree on, or pay the price for foolish unwholesome actions in your life. 

 

And the most harmful and result of unwholesome actions and views is, even if you get away for it, and nobody in the world knows what you did, YOU know, and your mind WILL be tormented by it. By the qualities of greed, hatred, delusions. The damage to your mind that does not know the way out of its suffering is a real tragedy. 

 

[bradley]

19 minutes ago, Krenx said:

And the most harmful and result of unwholesome actions and views is, even if you get away for it, and nobody in the world knows what you did, YOU know, and your mind WILL be tormented by it. By the qualities of greed, hatred, delusions. The damage to your mind that does not know the way out of its suffering is a real tragedy.

 

It is amazing though how people can justify their own "bad" actions.  Some people can never consider themselves wrong or to have committed wrong because that would destroy the illusion of their ego, though they certainly cant escape karma.  Some degree of enlightenment and transcendence of ego seems to be necessary to understand right and wrong, good and bad, etc. 

[Krenx]

7 hours ago, bradley said:

 

It is amazing though how people can justify their own "bad" actions.  Some people can never consider themselves wrong or to have committed wrong because that would destroy the illusion of their ego, though they certainly cant escape karma.  Some degree of enlightenment and transcendence of ego seems to be necessary to understand right and wrong, good and bad, etc. 

 

The Buddha calls that ignorance. And as they continue to be unaware of their actions, a trail of victims grow in their path. 

Edited Monday at 03:58 PM by Krenx

[Tommy]

 

24 minutes ago, Krenx said:

 

The Buddha calls that ignorance. And as they continue to be unaware of their actions, a trail of victims grow in their path. 

I believe the ignorance the Buddha referred to was the ignorance of not knowing the truth of our nature. And not so much as them being unaware of the trail of victims from their actions. But, I could be wrong??

Edited Monday at 04:23 PM by Tommy

[Krenx]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

 

I believe the ignorance the Buddha referred to was the ignorance of not knowing the truth of our nature. And not so much as them being unaware of the trail of victims from their actions. But, I could be wrong??

Ignorance is the root of wrong views. But the Buddha sometimes uses them both synonymously.

 

To not know the 4 noble truths, not realize of exist is ignorance, and people just do as they please, and fall into all the traps and harm in the world. 

 

So it is in that context. They are not aware.