Why so against others' sins?

AgnosticFreeThinker · Apr 15, 2004

Here's something I've never quite understood - why is it that so many Christians so vehemently try to stop the possibility something that they believe is a sin. As a specific example, gay marriage. If you believe that gay marriage is a sin, why don't you just not do it, and let the sinners who commit it go to Hell? You're certainly not going to prevent them from doing, err, other "sinful" acts just by preventing them from marrying. If it doesn't directly effect your life, why do you have such a strong opinion on it? I just don't get it >_> <_<, please enlighten me.

Beleg_Strongbow · Apr 15, 2004

Good point, I think about this a lot. Christians are allowed to follow their own silly rules, but why must they try to make us? Obviously we are going to hell anyway for being unbelievers, so why bother?

vajradhara · Apr 15, 2004

Namaste,

not to put too fine a point on it... however... they, for the most part, care about your immortal soul and would rather see you spend life everlasting in heaven rather than hell.

further, i believe that part of their religion is to go forth and spread the good news of Jesus atonement for your sins and all that sort of thing. so.. you've got two ways to view this in a positive fashion...

a) they are concerned about you in a very real sense
b) they are following the requirements of their religion.

you can also view it in a negative way... such that they are involving themselves in affairs which are not their concern.

i suppose it depends on your view of Christianity as whole whether or not you view this as positive or negative.

nadroj1985 · Apr 15, 2004

vajradhara said:
a) they are concerned about you in a very real sense
b) they are following the requirements of their religion.

you can also view it in a negative way... such that they are involving themselves in affairs which are not their concern.

There are Christians that do all three of these things. IMHO, however, (a) is what Christianity actually teaches.

Havoc · Apr 15, 2004

Being concerned about your soul would be very nice, but in reality more fundies are concerned about controlling your behaviour.

It's about power. If you can control a persons behaviour you can dictate what he does, and then you have power over him. One only needs look at the history of Christianity to see how this works.

Lifesaver · Apr 15, 2004

If the sin is entirely personal or within consenting people, I have no trouble in allowing it to happen.

However, homosexual "marriage" is completely different. For any government to make it official would be to encourage this behaviour as a good way of life.
I'm not in favour of government ever banning homosexuality, but it should not come close to encouraging it either. Rather, it's better for the government to keep itself completely out of the question.

AgnosticFreeThinker · Apr 15, 2004

Lifesaver-

Continuing the example of homosexual marriage, would you consider it OK for civil unions, or is it any sort of government-recognized connection?

transientlife · Apr 15, 2004

Havoc said:
Being concerned about your soul would be very nice, but in reality more fundies are concerned about controlling your behaviour.

It's about power. If you can control a persons behaviour you can dictate what he does, and then you have power over him. One only needs look at the history of Christianity to see how this works.

I agree....some Christians are so concerned about others' afterlives that they get a little "over zealous" and the real reason they should be concerned is undermined by their desire for complete religious conformity, etc.

nadroj1985 · Apr 16, 2004

Lifesaver said:
Rather, it's better for the government to keep itself completely out of the question.

I agree. And that's why I think homosexual marriage ought to be legal. By not allowing homosexual marriage, the government is not "keeping itself completely out of the question" at all. They are making a judgment on the matter, are they not?

Lifesaver · Apr 16, 2004

AgnosticFreeThinker said:
Continuing the example of homosexual marriage, would you consider it OK for civil unions, or is it any sort of government-recognized connection?

I'm not sure, and I'm inclined to think that it would have the same problems as instituting homosexual marriage, though in a lesser degree.

Lifesaver · Apr 16, 2004

nadroj1985 said:
I agree. And that's why I think homosexual marriage ought to be legal. By not allowing homosexual marriage, the government is not "keeping itself completely out of the question" at all. They are making a judgment on the matter, are they not?

No. They would be making a judgement if they were to prohibit homosexuality.

What the government does make is a positive judgment on heterosexual unions, as I believe is right for it to do.

AgnosticFreeThinker · Apr 16, 2004

Unfortunately, both make a judgement of some kind. So the real question is, are the leaders of our governemnt Republicrats or Democans? OK, that's not really a question . . . In fact, this post has no purpose.

Woooh, +1 to blessings X-D

Faith In God · Apr 17, 2004

That is a good question. But you know what? If you have no belief in God, then you would not ask this question. You would say "Why are you so against other people's wrongdoings that don't harm anyone else?" But this is not the question, so I'll address "Why so against others' sins".

Now, lust is sin, but it harms no one. Coveting is sin, but it likewise harms no one. Lying doesn't always harm people, but all of these are sin. You offend God. If it wasn't in God's law, then it would not be sin.

Why against sin? Because "the wages of sin is death"! Those living for sin will be cast into the lake fo fire. If you are offended by this, then don't waste space by commenting in this thread. It would be off-topic. PM me, as many are in the habit of lashing out at my posts (I wonder why ) *rolling eyes a bit*.

Blessed75 · Apr 17, 2004

AgnosticFreeThinker said:
Here's something I've never quite understood - why is it that so many Christians so vehemently try to stop the possibility something that they believe is a sin. As a specific example, gay marriage. If you believe that gay marriage is a sin, why don't you just not do it, and let the sinners who commit it go to Hell? You're certainly not going to prevent them from doing, err, other "sinful" acts just by preventing them from marrying. If it doesn't directly effect your life, why do you have such a strong opinion on it? I just don't get it >_> <_<, please enlighten me.

Enlighten you? ENLIGHTEN YOU? Hon, when you find out the answer - LET ME KNOW! Sorry, IMO God should be the judge - I'm a sinner myself, so who am I to point out other's sins? Think I'll leave that up to my Father in Heaven - I could never so bold as to pretend to be Him............

Faith In God · Apr 17, 2004

Blessed75 said:
Enlighten you? ENLIGHTEN YOU? Hon, when you find out the answer - LET ME KNOW! Sorry, IMO God should be the judge - I'm a sinner myself, so who am I to point out other's sins? Think I'll leave that up to my Father in Heaven - I could never so bold as to pretend to be Him............

Yes, it is not in our place to judge men, but THEY ARE GOING TO HELL!!! THAT CONCERNS ME!!!!!!!!
THAT IS WHY we as Christians must point out sin and its consequence of HELL!

Beleg_Strongbow · Apr 17, 2004

Enlighten you? ENLIGHTEN YOU? Hon, when you find out the answer - LET ME KNOW! Sorry, IMO God should be the judge - I'm a sinner myself, so who am I to point out other's sins? Think I'll leave that up to my Father in Heaven - I could never so bold as to pretend to be Him............

I agree, if your god hates sin so much, let him judge it and do something about it. Christians should just focus on following God's laws themselves. Besides, forbidding gays to marry won't make them sin any less, they just won't be married when they sin.

Faith In God · Apr 17, 2004

Beleg_Strongbow said:
I agree, if your god hates sin so much, let him judge it and do something about it. Christians should just focus on following God's laws themselves. Besides, forbidding gays to marry won't make them sin any less, they just won't be married when they sin.

We are saved from living under the law. Now Christians are under grace, not the law. We do not need to keep the law in its entirety, because we are justified and live in Christ. Now we must warn others that they are head for hell. That is why [two posts down i think] we are to warn others that sin will be judged. I am justified, but if you are not, then you need to flee from God's wrath to come upon sinners. Repent and believe in Jesus.

Blessed75 · Apr 17, 2004

butxifxnot said:
Yes, it is not in our place to judge men, but THEY ARE GOING TO HELL!!! THAT CONCERNS ME!!!!!!!!
THAT IS WHY we as Christians must point out sin and its consequence of HELL!

Oh Lord help me - I'm not even going there with you - it'll just start an argument but thanks for your POV -

AgnosticFreeThinker · Apr 18, 2004

butxifxnot said:
That is a good question. But you know what? If you have no belief in God, then you would not ask this question. You would say "Why are you so against other people's wrongdoings that don't harm anyone else?" But this is not the question, so I'll address "Why so against others' sins".

I was asking the opinion of Christian people . . . it would be silly to ask the former question, because as far as I can see most areligious people aren't against other people's wrongdoings that don't harm anyone else. I didn't want the opinion of areligoius people, I wanted the opinion of religious people. Hey, areligious is a fun word because it isn't a word!

butxifxnot said:
Now, lust is sin, but it harms no one. Coveting is sin, but it likewise harms no one. Lying doesn't always harm people, but all of these are sin. You offend God. If it wasn't in God's law, then it would not be sin.

OK, then I'll ask another question, of lust specifically because I absolutely hate when people use lust as an example:
Why would your god make an integral part of all sexual life be a sin?

butxifxnot said:
Why against sin? Because "the wages of sin is death"! Those living for sin will be cast into the lake fo fire. If you are offended by this, then don't waste space by commenting in this thread. It would be off-topic. PM me, as many are in the habit of lashing out at my posts (I wonder why ) *rolling eyes a bit*.

The question was why are you against OTHERS' sin. Obviously you're against your own sin, but why against others'?

And finally, my oh-so-fun post ender:
What if God/god/gods/whatever didn't like people who denied that lust is an integral part of sexual life, and felt that that was an insult to his design of sexual life? Then which one of us would be cast into the lake fo (sic) fire? Just an innocent question

Lifesaver · Apr 18, 2004

Let's make a clarification: every Christian is against other people sinning. We don't like seeing people turn away from God like that, and will do what is in our power to stop them.
However, we are not against giving them the freedom to sin, and if that's what they really want, we'd have no right to force them to obey us.

By the way, if the gods said that lust was good they'd be what we call demons.

Why so against others' sins?

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