How do we commit sins? Is there sin without God? What is it that is directing our conscience? Is it just chemicals reacting in our brain? If that is the case, why do a bunch of people with chemical reactions in their brains get to decide what is right and wrong for me to do? Just sayin'.
The concepts of good and evil are derived from our capacity for empathy. Our ability to perceive the emotions of others as well as ourselves combined with our ability to reason allows us to define compassion as good and cruelty as bad, or a sin. Giving God credit for defining sin is irresponsible. God gave you that capacity. Virtue is not accepting patterns of behavior and acting and thinking the way you are told, but rather using your faculties to determine right and wrong for yourself and to act with what you determine to be compassion and avoid what you determine to be cruelty.
To start, God doesn't exist, at least not in any sense expressed by Judaeo-Christian theology. How do we commit sins? ---- You can't commit a sin. You can only commit an act. Whether or not such act is a sin depends solely on one's definition of sin, which varies widely from person to person. Is there sin without God? --- It depends on your definition of "sin". I don't think it's possible to "sin" because I don't believe in sin, or God. But I also recognize that certain cultures have developed a set of fantasy rules to live by (aka religion) and those rules state that certain acts are sinful. While I don't personally believe in sin, I can observe ones behavior and conclude it is sinful according the rules of a given religion. What is it that is directing our conscience? --- Who says our conscience is being directed by anyone or anything? We all have a brain that has a somewhat variable level cognitive ability and a lifetime of extremely variable observations and experiences. Those factors combine to produce a personal conscience that is unique to each of us. Is it just chemicals reacting in our brain? --- Basically, yes. If that is the case, why do a bunch of people with chemical reactions in their brains get to decide what is right and wrong for me to do? --- That's life. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about it other than: 1. change other people's definition of right and wrong (somewhat difficult); or 2. do whatever you do want to do and deal with the consequences (usually minor) that result from other people's chemical reactions. Bernard
This thread is pretty deep but the truth is that your girlfriend just wanted to be with Tommy Shaw. Just sayin'
Sin is a religious threat. A threat that if you build up enough sin within your life, you will go to hell. Obviously you don't want to go to hell so you try to stay away from sin or go to confession to be forgiven of your sins. I would like to think that you would do "right" things because your emotions, your heart, and your brain says it's right...... and not because you are scared to go to an imaginary place after you die.
