What is sin (or evil)?

[PLOlover]

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I've definitely heard the saying and I know what it's trying to say. But my question is what are "wicked things"? How do you determine which actions are evil and which are not?

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wicked things lead to death, good things lead to life.

fat=wicked, prohibited in bible
[censored]=wicked, prohibited in bible,
etc.

[Taraz]

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I've definitely heard the saying and I know what it's trying to say. But my question is what are "wicked things"? How do you determine which actions are evil and which are not?

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wicked things lead to death, good things lead to life.

fat=wicked, prohibited in bible
[censored]=wicked, prohibited in bible,
etc.

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You realize that this gets into a whole host of issues though. A huge amount of things "lead to death": alcohol, red meat, too much sun, etc. Also the bible doesn't have an exhaustive list of do's and don'ts. And though it does have a list, there is a lot of disagreement within Christianity about what this list contains (birth control comes to mind). Is it just left to the best judgment of the believer? Is there no better definition of evil that can deal with new circumstances?

[bunny]

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I think there is an absolute morality and "Is this act evil?" has an objective, ultimate answer. Some of our acts are evil and some good in the same way that some numbers are prime and some arent.

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Pick Two:

[ ] You have thought about that very thoroughly.
[ ] You honestly believe what you said.
[ ] You are a fairly rational, intelligent, and sane person.

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Seriously, you can't really think that is true, right? I mean, either a number is prime or it isn't. Always. By definition. Is every action either good or evil (i.e. never neutral)? And if it is, it is objectively so? No way you believe that, right?

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To clarify, I didnt intend prime numbers to be a complete analogy for moral questions - I used primes to illustrate the objective nature of how I see morality, not to suggest there is a binary "right or wrong" answer to every action.

If you prefer, consider the reals - each one is positive, negative or zero. It doesnt matter what you believe about it, there is an answer. I think the same is true of morality. Knowing the answer is a separate question, but nonetheless, I think an answer exists.

[PLOlover]

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You realize that this gets into a whole host of issues though. A huge amount of things "lead to death": alcohol, red meat, too much sun, etc. Also the bible doesn't have an exhaustive list of do's and don'ts. And though it does have a list, there is a lot of disagreement within Christianity about what this list contains (birth control comes to mind). Is it just left to the best judgment of the believer? Is there no better definition of evil that can deal with new circumstances?


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good is life affirming and bad is life denying, hard to argue with that. I don't think you have to overthink it.

also alchohol and red meat are covered in the bible, don't know why u think sunshine is deadly.

birth control doesn't have to be good or evil. i mean, if you've got 3 kids you've already multiplied so you can say you've fulfilled that deal [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[KipBond]

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I think there is an absolute morality and "Is this act evil?" has an objective, ultimate answer. Some of our acts are evil and some good in the same way that some numbers are prime and some arent.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pick Two:

[ ] You have thought about that very thoroughly.
[ ] You honestly believe what you said.
[ ] You are a fairly rational, intelligent, and sane person.

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Seriously, you can't really think that is true, right? I mean, either a number is prime or it isn't. Always. By definition. Is every action either good or evil (i.e. never neutral)? And if it is, it is objectively so? No way you believe that, right?

[/ QUOTE ]
To clarify, I didnt intend prime numbers to be a complete analogy for moral questions - I used primes to illustrate the objective nature of how I see morality, not to suggest there is a binary "right or wrong" answer to every action.

If you prefer, consider the reals - each one is positive, negative or zero. It doesnt matter what you believe about it, there is an answer. I think the same is true of morality. Knowing the answer is a separate question, but nonetheless, I think an answer exists.

[/ QUOTE ]

That analogy is still bad. Every real # is either: positive, negative, or zero. An action isn't all evil, all good, or neutral. Is it?

If you have to have an analogy, perhaps you can go with shades of gray? Or maybe the entire rainbow? Only, with morality, we are the ones defining the color spectrum. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[bunny]

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That analogy is still bad. Every real # is either: positive, negative, or zero. An action isn't all evil, all good, or neutral. Is it?

If you have to have an analogy, perhaps you can go with shades of gray? Or maybe the entire rainbow? Only, with morality, we are the ones defining the color spectrum. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Clearly, I'm not explaining my goal very well. I never intended to create a mathematical analogy for morality. The analogy was meant solely with regard to what I believe is the objective nature of morality - the only point is we have no choice with the mathematical consequences of our axioms, similarly I believe we have no choice as to what is moral and what isnt (knowing the difference is a separate question).

Similarly with any color analogy, I dont think we are defining the spectrum as you say I think it's there and we have beliefs about it - some false and some true.

[KipBond]

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Similarly with any color analogy, I dont think we are defining the spectrum as you say I think it's there and we have beliefs about it - some false and some true.

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That's a fine analogy, then. You think morality is like the colors of the rainbow: some actions are red (bad), some are green (good), some are yellow (neutral), and then there are shades of morality in between.

I'm cool with that analogy. We disagree about how objective each color-label is, though. You think an action might be exactly "red" or exactly some very precise wavelength of light (to be more accurate, probably), whereas I think an action might be "red" and it might be "green" depending on what color glasses you're wearing.