Doug Shaver

Sin is a theological concept. I reject all views of it for that reason.

Chili

It is not about sin but warping passages to make them 'reasonable' so you can get a readership in agreement and 'sell copies.'

lmbarre

It is also a mythological concept. I reject it for these reasons. No, we do not have some quasi entity living in our bodies, generating corruption (death).

lmbarre

The topic belongs to this thread insofar as we are isolating Pauline thought on the basis of his writings, particularly Romans.

Chili

Sure and Romans is a good beginning as it descibes the function of the Law which is the heart of the mythology to generate its pulse and life therein. Social toboos are part of every mythology that has a Genesis if its own as you cannot have life without death as a beginning and an end to come full circle in its own life, and I suppose, the Gospels show us how that is done.

sotto voce

Paul's concept of sin was the concept of sin of the Pharisees, of which he was one, which was the concept of sin delineated in the Torah, which was in its moral aspects akin to the concept of sin found in contemporary Babylon and Egypt, and indeed in the modern world. That concept was based on the Golden Rule, do as you would be done by, with the added perceived notion that deity was offended, as well as fellow man, by breaking of that rule. In effect, sin was that which gave bad conscience in a context of divine displeasure. The basis of sin was offence against fellow man rather than offence against God, the latter being contingent upon the former. The several Hebrew words used to express a sinful, therefore offensive state, include the concept of falling short of an expected standard; of rebelliousness, i.e. deliberately doing what one knows to be wrong; of lawlessness, i.e. thinking that one is above law; and of trespass, i.e. going beyond one's rights, to offend another.

Paul, being a stickler for tradition, did not try to revise anyone's concept of sin. The Hebrews and indeed the Gentiles to whom he wrote had more or less the same concept of sin, though the Gentiles who had converted were less 'house-trained'. As cities like Corinth were notorious even among non-Christians, it may not be too surprising that Paul had to be more frank than he would have preferred.

Chili

'House training' here meant that righteous must be engrained to form the stream of consciousness against which sin is made known. Paul said that "without the law sin is dead" that later in life comes alive again to make the sinnr feel like a sinner so that here now the sinner dies instead, for which he then claimed that the law aroused in him all kinds of evil desire while he was dead to the law, as in 'running aways from God' or 'taxing religion' as it can be said.

judge

I prefer this kind of idea as opposed to the idea that man himself is evil, which seems to have been promoted by various christian sects.
If that makes any sense to you

sotto voce

'Various christian sects' does not make any sense. People either follow Jesus or they do not.

Toto

:rolling:

They follow Jesus and throw stones at other people with a different way of following Jesus.

None of which makes sense to me, but that's life...