Trying not to tie it to context, I'd have to say betrayal. Murder might seem worst, but in all but the most extreme circumstances, it is an illogical course of action. However, betrayal fits almost any social circumstance, and generally manifests itself in the worst possible action, and can only be based upon selfishness. I can try to tie that to our current war, and all the lies and actions surrounding it, but it doesn't fit. Betrayal is still the worst action most of us could ever partake in, not having a standing army, a team of propogandists, and an untracable election-machine manufacturer as a major contributor.
While I don't think it is *the* greatest sin, I do believe that excessive use irony is right up there. It reeks of insincerity and an inability to engage in thoughtful discussion. Sometimes it borders on smarminess. Oftentimes, it's not really funny and comes across as overly juvenile. It's not always cute, it's not always clever. It's obnoxious. It speaks of a generation of people who refuse to mature.
I suppose it all depends on your definiton of "sin." According to our friends at dictionary.com, we have two flavors of sins: 1) "A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate." 2) "Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong."
I'm sure if I looked hard enough and could take time away from my algebra and complex analysis work, I could find a relation of Flavor 1 to "excessive use of irony." However, I don't, so I'm going to stick with my comment as being an example of Flavor 2. It's really that excessive use and its impact on daily discourse and then society as a whole that I find deplorable and utterly wrong.
In an attempt to bring this back, I'm going to offer what I think is the worst sin: idolatry.
I believe that all other sins flow from an inability or unwillingness to recognize that one is not the center of the universe. I had a fascinating discussion with a friend of mine once, in which he claimed that even atheism is a form of idolatry, because somethingfills the void left by God; it's impossible to believe in absolutely nothing at all and have no first priorities, he claimed.
The main danger in idolatry is that it removes the bounds set by the Lord and replaces them with nothing coherent or stable. Indeed, worshipping something other than God must, in the end, lead to worshipping one's self - a self that is by definition transitory and constantly changing.
If you look throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, New Testament, and the Qur'an, you'll find that each prophet (even Jesus and Muhammad) was called to do battle with some form of idolatry. What's of particular interest to me is that the forms of idolatry became more fine-tuned as time went on and civilization became more advanced:
- Moses dealt with worship of a physical idol, the golden calf;
- Jesus dealt with worship of the Holy Law and the state of Israel;
- Muhammad dealt with a very unique form of theological idolatry in the perversity of Dark Age Christian Trinitarianism and worship of the images.
What, then, is our chief idolatry today? I would have to say any of the "-isms" in vogue is a suitable candidate, depending on one's ideology. Certainly America's idolatries of choice are consumerism and capitalism, and as you'd expect, they are in the process of destroying us.
I disagree with Tacitean on this one. As a non-religious person myself, I may not worship a God in the Judeo-Christian sense, but I hardly consider myself the center of the universe, nor do I feel that I worship anything that would take the place of a God. I respect and love science, nature, and people, but I know all are flawed and cannot be fully relied upon all the time. That includes myself. I think those that were brought up in a religious following don’t understand how others who weren’t can go through life not trusting an all-knowing all-powerful source of some sort – we do just fine.
Also? I have a question about “I believe that all other sins flow from an inability or unwillingness to recognize that one is not the center of the universe.” A murderer may not think he’s the center of the universe, in fact he may think there are a lot of higher powers than himself, but he thinks he’s better than one person – the one he’s killed. You could argue that he’s flouting the laws of whatever religious beliefs he has, but I don’t think this stems from idolatry.
And I guess this is all based on how you definite idolatry – for me it’s the blind worship in something man-made (and could this include God? Just a thought). I would say most of America doesn’t idolize consumerism as much as they have a love-hate relationship with it – they love it but know it’s not perfect.
For the record (1): I was not brought up religious at all. My own family thinks I'm nuts! Just ask them.
For the record (2): You ask if God is included as a man-made object of veneration. Well, if we're talking about the God who is a bearded man in the sky, then yes. But if we are talking about the immanent and unfathomable Lord of creation, then no.
I can see what Kelly's trying to say in that one doesn't need to think of themself as the center of the universe in order to sin, but you DO have to decide that your needs outweigh the needs of others. And so I see what Tavitean is saying in that, if one were truly worshipful to God in all actions, one would not decide that his own needs outweighed those of others, and thus would not sin. This is true, but as an agnostic, it doesn't really do much to help me out either.
As to Boudicca's handy definitions of sin in relation to irony, Thomas Aquinas actually has some further insights on the matter, to be found here. Wow. I really am a reactionary!
That's to say if you believe in God - if it isn't a myth made up by man to explain their existence
And Tacitean, I've had this argument before with more religious folk, that was why I assumed - I would throw in something about it making an ass out of you and.... nah, it's too cheesy, I can't finish the line
Of course I am sensitive to the critique that 'idolatry' is specific to one religion over another. To clarify, I did not mean 'statue-worshipping' per se, but willful belief in a defective - that is, less than perfect - system, whether it be one's own emotions or capitalism. I think all religions, in their higher forms, would find that sinful.
Even our Hindu friends, whose religious sculpture and pictography is sublime, do not think any one particular deity or its representation is the full and real manifestation of the essence of the universe. Just ask Krishna sometime (it helps if your name is Arjuna)!
Your comment that, as humans, we do need some form of idolatry, leaves me grasping for an adequate response, in part because I half-agree with you. I agree that God cannot be found on this Earth - not in totality, I mean - but I stumble at your notion that this should limit us to a "pick it and stick with it" religious outlook. I think such an outlook could very well lead to the corruptive form of idolatry I have in mind.
In this sense, I view the current "Christianism" to be as much idolatry as kneeling before Lord Baal and the current Islamic fundamentalism to be as much idolatry as venerating statues.
I realize my comments lead to the natural conclusion that religion should concern itself specifically with the impossible to describe. I don't shy away from this conclusion! Let me therefore take the thread in a slightly different direction, with your indulgence: is contemporary religion in trouble because it has become too logical and concerned with earthly affairs? Has it therefore excluded plenty of good people who are "spiritual" or "mystical" but will not adhere to an absolutist code? I'm putting it out there. If you want to keep listing sins, that's fine, too.
"Humans need metaphor so they can express their belief somehow. The problem is when people conflate metaphor with reality. And I suppose this excessive idolatry is what Tacitean would define as sinful."
I am in complete agreement with Prometheus on the issue of conflating factual truth with other sorts of truth. In fact, I had quite a bit so say about it in my comments on Eudemonic's photo manipulation post a while back. We constantly ask questions in the wrong language, casting questions of faith as questions of science for instance, and it leads to unproductive and rancorous squabbling. As for sin, I think that the choice of word might be a little distracting, carrying religious connotations as it does. So let us be clear that we are not requiring sin to be specifically religious, even if we use a world that sprung up historically in a religious context. I suppose a sin is something that sin supposes that one accepts, at some level, membership in a society and as part of that membership, being bound to a greater or lesser degree by its rules (vague and precise, spoken and unspoken). It also assumes that people are responsible for the own actions; that they have choice or free will. Generally, sins are actions committed or omitted through malice or weakness. Thus, sin is intimately tied to volition or intent. In other words, it is not the act alone that constitutes the sin, but the intent behind it and the context of it. Thus, many faiths and moral systems would not consider killing to defend one’s life a sin (or not as severe a sin), while killing to obtain someone’s property, or killing out of hate most certainly is. Thus insofar as sins require a person to be a member of some society, Tacitean’s idea that “all other sins flow from an inability or unwillingness to recognize that one is not the center of the universe” is a good one. I would take that to mean that sin is essentially a willful renunciation of your role as part of a community beyond yourself. Depending on your particular ethical and religious bent you might see this society as extending only to a specific country or people, or to all of mankind. Either way, when I take a life out of jealousy, I have ignored and spurned my place in the network of trust that makes up my society and decided to satisfy myself without thought to the consequences to other people. This comes up in many different forms in many different religions and ethical systems. Monotheism sees all as equal before god, Buddhism speaks of alleviating the suffering of human life, Kant speaks of treating other people as ends in and of themselves and not merely means to one’s own ends. All of them rest, more or less, on the twin acknowledgements that A) other people feel and experience and think in the same way we do (even if the contents of those thoughts and feelings are different from our own) and B) that no man is an island, ie. that we CANNOT exist in isolation and that therefore we have a need for collaboration. I think these are so fundamental as to be inseparable from human identity. If I try to imagine a man who has never seen another of his kind, who would not recognize them as anything but an animal if he did, then I imagine no man at all. Quite simply, sins are actions that at their core, go against those fundamental human traits of mutual recognition and mutual dependence. All the rest deals with scope and context. Many societies did not extend the idea of essential humanity to those outside their culture (Greeks – Barbarians) while many modern faiths claim the entire species should be included in our reckoning (making sinners of the entire world as we sit back and let genocides occur in Africa).
15 Comments:
Trying not to tie it to context, I'd have to say betrayal. Murder might seem worst, but in all but the most extreme circumstances, it is an illogical course of action. However, betrayal fits almost any social circumstance, and generally manifests itself in the worst possible action, and can only be based upon selfishness. I can try to tie that to our current war, and all the lies and actions surrounding it, but it doesn't fit. Betrayal is still the worst action most of us could ever partake in, not having a standing army, a team of propogandists, and an untracable election-machine manufacturer as a major contributor.
Oh, dammit. You're right.
Oh well, guess I'm unoriginal, and thus, stupid.
Focus, people, focus! Worst sin and why!
While I don't think it is *the* greatest sin, I do believe that excessive use irony is right up there. It reeks of insincerity and an inability to engage in thoughtful discussion. Sometimes it borders on smarminess. Oftentimes, it's not really funny and comes across as overly juvenile. It's not always cute, it's not always clever. It's obnoxious. It speaks of a generation of people who refuse to mature.
I suppose it all depends on your definiton of "sin." According to our friends at dictionary.com, we have two flavors of sins:
1) "A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate."
2) "Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong."
I'm sure if I looked hard enough and could take time away from my algebra and complex analysis work, I could find a relation of Flavor 1 to "excessive use of irony." However, I don't, so I'm going to stick with my comment as being an example of Flavor 2. It's really that excessive use and its impact on daily discourse and then society as a whole that I find deplorable and utterly wrong.
In an attempt to bring this back, I'm going to offer what I think is the worst sin: idolatry.
I believe that all other sins flow from an inability or unwillingness to recognize that one is not the center of the universe. I had a fascinating discussion with a friend of mine once, in which he claimed that even atheism is a form of idolatry, because somethingfills the void left by God; it's impossible to believe in absolutely nothing at all and have no first priorities, he claimed.
The main danger in idolatry is that it removes the bounds set by the Lord and replaces them with nothing coherent or stable. Indeed, worshipping something other than God must, in the end, lead to worshipping one's self - a self that is by definition transitory and constantly changing.
If you look throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, New Testament, and the Qur'an, you'll find that each prophet (even Jesus and Muhammad) was called to do battle with some form of idolatry. What's of particular interest to me is that the forms of idolatry became more fine-tuned as time went on and civilization became more advanced:
- Moses dealt with worship of a physical idol, the golden calf;
- Jesus dealt with worship of the Holy Law and the state of Israel;
- Muhammad dealt with a very unique form of theological idolatry in the perversity of Dark Age Christian Trinitarianism and worship of the images.
What, then, is our chief idolatry today? I would have to say any of the "-isms" in vogue is a suitable candidate, depending on one's ideology. Certainly America's idolatries of choice are consumerism and capitalism, and as you'd expect, they are in the process of destroying us.
I disagree with Tacitean on this one. As a non-religious person myself, I may not worship a God in the Judeo-Christian sense, but I hardly consider myself the center of the universe, nor do I feel that I worship anything that would take the place of a God. I respect and love science, nature, and people, but I know all are flawed and cannot be fully relied upon all the time. That includes myself. I think those that were brought up in a religious following don’t understand how others who weren’t can go through life not trusting an all-knowing all-powerful source of some sort – we do just fine.
Also? I have a question about “I believe that all other sins flow from an inability or unwillingness to recognize that one is not the center of the universe.” A murderer may not think he’s the center of the universe, in fact he may think there are a lot of higher powers than himself, but he thinks he’s better than one person – the one he’s killed. You could argue that he’s flouting the laws of whatever religious beliefs he has, but I don’t think this stems from idolatry.
And I guess this is all based on how you definite idolatry – for me it’s the blind worship in something man-made (and could this include God? Just a thought). I would say most of America doesn’t idolize consumerism as much as they have a love-hate relationship with it – they love it but know it’s not perfect.
For the record (1): I was not brought up religious at all. My own family thinks I'm nuts! Just ask them.
For the record (2): You ask if God is included as a man-made object of veneration. Well, if we're talking about the God who is a bearded man in the sky, then yes. But if we are talking about the immanent and unfathomable Lord of creation, then no.
Just to clarify.
I can see what Kelly's trying to say in that one doesn't need to think of themself as the center of the universe in order to sin, but you DO have to decide that your needs outweigh the needs of others. And so I see what Tavitean is saying in that, if one were truly worshipful to God in all actions, one would not decide that his own needs outweighed those of others, and thus would not sin. This is true, but as an agnostic, it doesn't really do much to help me out either.
As to Boudicca's handy definitions of sin in relation to irony, Thomas Aquinas actually has some further insights on the matter, to be found here.
Wow. I really am a reactionary!
If irony is the greatest sin then Williamsburg is Sodom and Gommorah. At least none of us live off of Bedford, or we'd all be lost already.
Visit chud-roundtable.blogspot.com
That's to say if you believe in God - if it isn't a myth made up by man to explain their existence
And Tacitean, I've had this argument before with more religious folk, that was why I assumed - I would throw in something about it making an ass out of you and.... nah, it's too cheesy, I can't finish the line
Prometheus,
Of course I am sensitive to the critique that 'idolatry' is specific to one religion over another. To clarify, I did not mean 'statue-worshipping' per se, but willful belief in a defective - that is, less than perfect - system, whether it be one's own emotions or capitalism. I think all religions, in their higher forms, would find that sinful.
Even our Hindu friends, whose religious sculpture and pictography is sublime, do not think any one particular deity or its representation is the full and real manifestation of the essence of the universe. Just ask Krishna sometime (it helps if your name is Arjuna)!
Your comment that, as humans, we do need some form of idolatry, leaves me grasping for an adequate response, in part because I half-agree with you. I agree that God cannot be found on this Earth - not in totality, I mean - but I stumble at your notion that this should limit us to a "pick it and stick with it" religious outlook. I think such an outlook could very well lead to the corruptive form of idolatry I have in mind.
In this sense, I view the current "Christianism" to be as much idolatry as kneeling before Lord Baal and the current Islamic fundamentalism to be as much idolatry as venerating statues.
I realize my comments lead to the natural conclusion that religion should concern itself specifically with the impossible to describe. I don't shy away from this conclusion! Let me therefore take the thread in a slightly different direction, with your indulgence: is contemporary religion in trouble because it has become too logical and concerned with earthly affairs? Has it therefore excluded plenty of good people who are "spiritual" or "mystical" but will not adhere to an absolutist code? I'm putting it out there. If you want to keep listing sins, that's fine, too.
"Humans need metaphor so they can express their belief somehow. The problem is when people conflate metaphor with reality. And I suppose this excessive idolatry is what Tacitean would define as sinful."
-Yep.
I am in complete agreement with Prometheus on the issue of conflating factual truth with other sorts of truth. In fact, I had quite a bit so say about it in my comments on Eudemonic's photo manipulation post a while back. We constantly ask questions in the wrong language, casting questions of faith as questions of science for instance, and it leads to unproductive and rancorous squabbling.
As for sin, I think that the choice of word might be a little distracting, carrying religious connotations as it does. So let us be clear that we are not requiring sin to be specifically religious, even if we use a world that sprung up historically in a religious context.
I suppose a sin is something that sin supposes that one accepts, at some level, membership in a society and as part of that membership, being bound to a greater or lesser degree by its rules (vague and precise, spoken and unspoken). It also assumes that people are responsible for the own actions; that they have choice or free will. Generally, sins are actions committed or omitted through malice or weakness. Thus, sin is intimately tied to volition or intent. In other words, it is not the act alone that constitutes the sin, but the intent behind it and the context of it. Thus, many faiths and moral systems would not consider killing to defend one’s life a sin (or not as severe a sin), while killing to obtain someone’s property, or killing out of hate most certainly is.
Thus insofar as sins require a person to be a member of some society, Tacitean’s idea that “all other sins flow from an inability or unwillingness to recognize that one is not the center of the universe” is a good one. I would take that to mean that sin is essentially a willful renunciation of your role as part of a community beyond yourself. Depending on your particular ethical and religious bent you might see this society as extending only to a specific country or people, or to all of mankind. Either way, when I take a life out of jealousy, I have ignored and spurned my place in the network of trust that makes up my society and decided to satisfy myself without thought to the consequences to other people. This comes up in many different forms in many different religions and ethical systems. Monotheism sees all as equal before god, Buddhism speaks of alleviating the suffering of human life, Kant speaks of treating other people as ends in and of themselves and not merely means to one’s own ends. All of them rest, more or less, on the twin acknowledgements that A) other people feel and experience and think in the same way we do (even if the contents of those thoughts and feelings are different from our own) and B) that no man is an island, ie. that we CANNOT exist in isolation and that therefore we have a need for collaboration. I think these are so fundamental as to be inseparable from human identity. If I try to imagine a man who has never seen another of his kind, who would not recognize them as anything but an animal if he did, then I imagine no man at all.
Quite simply, sins are actions that at their core, go against those fundamental human traits of mutual recognition and mutual dependence. All the rest deals with scope and context. Many societies did not extend the idea of essential humanity to those outside their culture (Greeks – Barbarians) while many modern faiths claim the entire species should be included in our reckoning (making sinners of the entire world as we sit back and let genocides occur in Africa).
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