the stigma of sin

Defining sin :

1  a: an offense against religious or moral law

    b: an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible it's a sin to waste food

    c: an often serious shortcoming : fault

2  a: transgression of the law of God

    b: a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God

Sin — the idea or belief that we sin — is the single most destructive force implanted into the human psyche. Made up by religious organizations and human institutions to control others through guilt and fear, blame and shame. No dignity or respect for human life.

scenes from Greek mythology adorning the ceiling in the Palazzo Medici

What if we did not regard the human being as sinful by nature, even when in rebellion against god? Every human being is a person of great worth who has within themself a vast store of good as well as unworthy and even terrible behavior or habits.

The good in a person is always waiting for a suitable opportunity to flower and to ripen. "There is so much that is good in the worst of us and so much that is bad in the best of us."

Everyone is responsible for their own "good" and "bad" deeds, and each individual has free will to mould their own destiny. We are all answerable for our own thoughts and actions.

The human creation of religion and a god of their making caused this nightmare of the divided self. When the human being fell from grace, this act caused a split (a fault line) in human nature.

The belief that they had sinned set the human stage for what is right and what is wrong. With Satan as our embodied demon that stands at the ready to trick us with temptation into transgressions and offenses against what and whom?

Our conscience? Our morality? Our judgement? Who decides what is right and wrong? What is good or not? What to uphold or turn away?

Wanting forbidden “fruits” - of knowledge, thought, act, sensation, desire - in fear of displeasing God, others, ourselves - we struggle and suffer. In religious belief, though we try our best to be like God our natural nature overruns our good intentions. We sin. Fall. Repent. Fall again.

The game never ends. Sin twists our mind. Sin makes us hate our own “self” as well as the world we live in. Separated. Divided. Us versus an "other".

Universal laws exist and are not subverted in any way - no one or thing can transgress, change, alter, modify, deny, reroute, or ignore the laws of the cosmos. Ignorance of these laws will not exempt us from them or being at their effect either.

Our natural nature cannot be undone and nature nurtures our existence by these laws.

Sin is a human construct - an abstraction created by humans for humans - for a variety of reasons and causes - none of which make sin real.