RE: I'm an atheist, but I believe in sin. 나는 무신론자이지만 죄를 믿는다. naneun musinlonjaijiman joeleul midneunda.
Thanks for replying. I appreciate your thoughtful comments, but I think they reflect the secular notion of morality as a purely social phenomenon.
For instance when we think of religion and sin it is natural to think of the things some religions condemn, like homosexuality, or eating the wrong food, or ignoring the poor (or touching the poor!), or wearing revealing clothing etc. But that stuff is all about controlling people. It's the bad side of religion.
To me the word sin applies to actions or inactions that leave you disappointed in your self - selfishness, hurting others , violence, mockery etc. We all do these things, because we are humans and humans are fallible. Most religions have time and/or rituals set aside to encourage us to reflect on our failings and commit to being better. This is the thing that is missing from secular institutions.
Religions offer redemption for the things you don't like about yourself. People who hate the actions they have taken in the past are encouraged to love themselves and forgive themselves. This is made possible because each religion encapsulates the idea of a magic power that has the authority to forgive.
Morality is important, but it's the way we talk about it doesn't cover many things that are covered by the idea of sin. Morality is usually focused on how we treat each other in the outside world - peace, justice, economics etc. But let's say you and I are roommates and I lied about eating the last cookie in the cookie jar or something similar. Most people wouldn't think about that as an issue of morality, but lying to each other can eat away at your psyche and make you not like yourself. That is the area of sin I think we are missing.
Thank you for taking the time to engage as well! Even if I disagree, I appreciate the questions you are talking about and the points you are making.
I absolutely agree that we need to reflect on our actions. I also think that thinking about morality inevitably forces us to think about those. I know for certain it has that affect on me personally.
Redemption is a tricky concept. I feel that some religions offer that too easily and that sometimes backfires.
I feel all of those are well withing the scope of morality and ethics and we would be better off discussing them without the dogmatic approach of sin. But if you want to use the word sin in a non-dogmatic subjective way, than the word doesn't really matter and the things we are talking about are pretty much the same regardless of the fact that you want to call them sin and I prefer to call them immoral or unethical acts.
The reason I'm cautious about using the word sin is because it's difficult to separate the good aspects of religion and the bad ones. And we can incorporate all the good aspects into our ethics and morality conversation and examination, including the personal and internal one, without having to resort to the exact sin concept.
I think the last-cookie-and-a-roommate example you gave is well within the scope of morality and ethics and we could have a meaningful conversation about it discussing what's right, wrong and if one is warranted to feel guilty in that situation without bringing in sin at all.
I get what you are saying about the word sin. I used it partially just to be polemic, although I do like the more personal connotations of sin versus abstract notions like morality.
Sin is an overloaded word. It can mean a general concept "Murder is a Sin" - and that matches up nicely with saying "Murder is immoral".
But sin also is used as a verb "I feel bad when I sin". I guess you could say "I feel bad when I am immoral".
And finally, sin can refer to a specific instance of immoral behavior, "I feel bad for that sin I committed last Tuesday". That tends to work better than "I feel bad for the moral transgression I committed last Tuesday:
I see and then I agree. I guess the word that you used the threw me off into a tangent was actually "believe", no just "sin".
I absolutely agree that using the word "sin" instead of the phrases "immoral act" or "moral transgression" has practical value. The thing is I do think that the word is really overloaded with religious concepts and dogmatism and reclaiming it for secular purposes with an altered usage would be really hard. Despite that I do see the utility in trying to do so now.