What is Living in Sin?

What is sin and where morals come from

Christian sin—living in an undocumented or unorthodox sexual relationship. This is the crux of Christian morality—that the churches are in fact sexual and family regulatory societies. There is no redeeming liturgy or spiritual achievement. You are forever in need of religion because religion never prepares to graduate it’s members.

Doctrinal issues—do you believe the correct supernatural things? Do you believe with the correct level of humility, knowing full well that the two contradict each other, as belief leads to arrogance? To believe the wrong doctrine is a sin worthy of battle. But who gets to decide what is the correct version of the imagined godhead?

Have you made Jesus your personal savior, and if so, is he the only incarnation of the god (or the ground of being) to use a less contaminated term? Are there other teachings that are perhaps more useful?

The failure of Christianity is this; love your neighbor as yourself, when you yourself have no source from which that well can spring. Loving yourself is the requisite. Without that there is nothing to give.

But in Christian circles you are the fallen sinner not worthy of love, granted only by the lords tolerance and mercy. It’s no wonder the church has never produced the desired results—the order of operations is backwards.

The Thirty Years war was over doctrinal disagreement and which belief was the correct belief—which literally means, which doctrine is more sufficient to keep people subservient to societies upper-crust. Millions died in that conflict alone because the premise is false. It will never produce the desired results because you are born insufficient for the kingdom of god.

HERE is a ten second video illustrating the source of morality.

Author: jimoeba

Alternatives to big box religions and dogmas

99 thoughts on “What is Living in Sin?”

  1. Re “You are forever in need of religion because religion never prepares to graduate it’s members.”

    Yes they do! They even have a graduation ceremony! They are called funerals.

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    1. You are undocumented and worthy of the confessional.
      I was married before we bailed on religion. Neither one of us would do it that way again. The marriage contract in itself is a sign of distrust.

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  2. And they wonder how freethinkers can exist WITHOUT some Asshole telling us what to think, do, say, or BELIEVE! They refuse to look at the truth–most of us were born into some religion or other, but none of us found it spiritually satisfying, so we changed our beliefs. We are not born into sin, because there is no sin. We, many of us, “live in sin” because it is the better way to live. We willingly live our commitment to another person or persons, rather than feeling forced to stay in a relationship because someone else said we have to. And we live not having to hate those who do not think like us (though some of us do hate the people living in the religion forced upon us by our birth).
    (I myself may think they are a bunch of idiots, but I don’t hate them. I look at them as potential atheists, knowing that at some point, given enough time and space, they will see through all the lies we have already seen through. Religion prevents spiritual progress, for those who believe in spirit, and blocks happiness for those who believe in nothingness.) Religion is the ultimate dead-end street!

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    1. rawgod, Free thinking is an intellectual disaster. On the other hand, ordered, or rational thinking is constrained and guided by the rules of logic. Such thinking is liberating because it allows a person to learn about and understand reality.

      Free thinking is simply irrational delusion powered by appetites, personal opinion and bias. Therefore free thing can never lead to knowledge or truth.

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      1. Constrained thought can only lead to stagnation, and reliving the same lives over and over without improvement.
        Why do you persist on interloping into my world trying to promote what you call “ordered thought.” I would called that BRAINWASHED!

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        1. rawgod, Rational thinking never stagnates because it always leads to the truth, which is forever alive. Your type of “free thinking” is stagnant because it never allows you to learn anything. That last time you learned anything was probably in the 7th or 8th grade. Your ideas and the way you express them is childish, fraught with bias and incoherent.

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          1. Man, you are so fucked in the head you cannot think your way out of the box you were born into. I live outside the boxes, and know there is no such thing as truth, only opinion. Chaos is what reigns in my world. It is the most dependable aspect of life. You never know whst is going to be around the next corner, so you have to be prepared for every circumstance. There is variety everywhere.
            The life you are describing is the safe life, with nothing new to amaze you, repeating the past until the past captures you in death. It may be what you want, but you are not representative of “everbody.” What a boring fucking world you must live in.

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            1. Jim, You are not in my mind so you have no idea what goes on there except what I write for you to see. You dummies are not used to Christians fighting back. Well get used to it. We are taking our civilization back from you dimwitted barbarians.

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            2. Angry-bitchy-little-Christian syndrome.
              You must attack because you have no argument. Typical apologist

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            3. You ever try emulating they name on your moniker?

              His mind seems pretty silent to me. Probably due to embarrassment.
              His mouth/keyboard OTOH …

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  3. Okay, so where did the “living in sin” business start? With Adam and Eve, right? No, wrong. It all started with the angel of light, Lucifer, who, according to God’s inerrant word, rebelled in Heaven, due to Pride, and was consequently, along with his disobedient, sinful followers, pushed over the western wall and into a pre-constructed hell. Now, I wonder where that sin came from? Hmmm.

    God in his infinite wisdom creates two humans out of mud puts them in a great garden, buck naked, as he is we assume, and what? The serpent, “the most subtle beast in the field” whom God also created (And Adam had just named.) tricks Eve into disobeying God’s command not to eat the ripe fruit sprouting from the branches of the Knowledge of Good and Evil tree.

    But wait! Who is this serpent? Why he’s none other, according to the inerrant word, than Satan! But maybe not, maybe the serpent is just mean and subtle, but where did that sinful nature come from? Satan? Heaven? God? Hmmm.

    Well, we have two agents: an angel and a spiteful, subtle serpent, both of whom are beings created by God to trick a recently created and totally ignorant, non-angelic, human: Eve, who came into being because her husband couldn’t find an animal that he really liked and Bingo we have ORIGINAL SIN. From where? No, not from the poor human’s disobedience, but straight from God’s heaven–pretty good trick. So maybe, it’s not so original.

    And God? Well, WTF, these lackluster humans deserve to be farmers and work their asses off and suffer and be miserable and live lousy lives. And Satan, according to the inerrant word, He and God get to be good buddies and make bets on poor Jewish famers like ol Job and kill off his whole family–sons, daughters, children, even the animals. It’s all written down.

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    1. Nice work Paul. Original sin though isn’t compelling enough to weaponize guilt. You need to regulate an immutable attribute to really get people to need your nonsense.

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    2. If atheists think the Bible is as fairy tale, it is preposterous to create yet another fairy tale to explain it. Of course, the purpose of your comment is to demean the Bible. When people demean other cultures and religions that is the very definition of bigotry. If one were to rationally and justly attack Christianity, bigotry would be out of the question. Are atheists religious bigots or was that just an honest mistake on your part.

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        1. Jim, I have rebuked trolls because they are abusive, crazy and deserve it. It is amazing that you can’t tell the difference between a well deserved rebuke and raw bigotry.

          Abusers and bigots always think it’s the other guy’s fault.

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            1. Jim, the only reason you call me a troll is because you have proved yourself a stupid fool and blame me for it. I bring lots of traffic wherever I go. Only an idiot would not appreciate that. Adieu.

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            2. You create your own traffic jams. That isn’t hard when you just get in the way of any decent dialog. I’m a stupid fool? You’re the believer, not me. You’ve jumped so far in your conclusions not even a Klipspringer can keep up with your nonsense.

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            3. Right Jim, You and all your fellow atheists responding to me with your comments is me creating a traffic jam. You are an idiot, Jim. You are so stupid you can’t be somber.

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            4. You are going too far, sir. If you have no respect for others outside of your mental prison, then stay in that prison and don’t bother reaching out into a world you cannot understand. Your brand of life is antithetical to life. To think you bring traffic to sites you enter uninvited is the sign of how huge your ego is, and how little you know about what I call spirituality. “He who thinks he knows everything knows nothing,” And nothingness is where you need to start from. Starting with knowing “everything” is the saddest state anyone could ever exist in.

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      1. Hindus feel that the greatest ‘sin’ is feeling that you are separate from god. if we accept that the whole world is the material manifestation of the divine, then loving everything, accepting all as it comes and as it goes, and fostering the feeling of being one with all of life becomes a life-long affair with ‘divinity’.

        thinking god is one, and I am another is the opposite of that. that causes the greastest schism in our relationship with reality.

        Hindus also did not ignore the power of sexuality and its role in life. so Krishna, one of the main embodiment of god, is also the greatest lover and has a looong cohort of gopalas (herd girls) who yearn after him. total devotion to Krishna ultimately merges the ego with Brahman (Self, or god, or whatever name you give the one)
        i often tell Ricc, my heart belongs first to Krishna, and he complains that he has to compete with a god. 🌞

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    1. A few years ago an ex
      Muslim was commenting here for a little bit. He noted that biblical morality was akin to the great apes, controlling sex, land, and food. It was also when trump was running the first time and I couldn’t help but see the similarities.

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  4. I think it’s pretty unfair putting all this ‘sex as sin’ shit on Christianity. I think you’ll find trying to control people with strictures on sexual expression – with all its attendant hypocrisies – is a very common strategy used by power hierarchies, both religious and secular, down through the ages. Among groups that subscribe to ‘populate or perish’ strategies for overwhelming rivals, reproductive sex is often elevated to the position of the only virtuous sort, with all other expressions stigmatised and repressed.

    Let’s not forget how many institutions practiced explicit discrimination against homosexuality up until quite recently (and often still practice it covertly). To most (nominally secular) Western legal systems it was a crime until the late 20th century. To the psychiatric profession it was a mental illness until the 1970s. I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone of the knots the US armed forces have tied themselves in trying to come to terms with it over recent generations, even after The Village People gave a huge boost to enlistment in the USN from 1978.

    Sex has always been a powerful lever for manipulating people and authoritarian institutions have long recognised that and used it. Christianity is just one of many offenders in that respect and even it is slowly moving with the times, albeit as slowly as we might expect from such an old and calcified tradition. Some churches already recognise gay marriage and ordination and I think we can expect that to become the attitude of the Christian mainstream within a generation or so, though doubtless some reactionary sects will hang onto that ole time bigotry for much longer.

    I think you’re on much firmer ground with your reference to the 30 Years War – which was only one of the many, many wars and pogroms endorsed, promoted or initiated by Christianity over the last 2000 years.

    Right from the start Christianity was incredibly intolerant of religious heterodoxy, with dissenting Christians often persecuted most of all (the Roman historian Marcellinus noted “No wild beasts are so deadly to humans as most Christians are to each other.”).

    Augustus called the Council of Nicaea to try to standardise Christianity and end the internecine fighting so as to make it suitable as a unifying state religion, but no sooner had it finished than Christianity fragmented along the lines of the Arian heresy, with no less than five separate groups insisting their own subtly different interpretations of the nature of the Trinity justified the persecution and murder of Christians holding alternative views. That pretty much set the tone for the next couple of thousand years with Holy Wars, Crusades, pogroms and outright genocides all finding justification in the Christian doctrine that if you not following the ‘correct’ interpretation of Christianity you’re following Satan.

    There’s an element of that in all three Abrahamic religions, but I think Christianity takes it to the greatest extreme and has used it to the most horrendous effect.

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    1. I think it’s pretty unfair putting all this ‘sex as sin’ shit on Christianity.” The structures you do mention, then revert to Christianity as the grossest offender I rest my case. On top of that I don’t think most people realize how much the other institutions (including the scientific approach as well as atheism) is permeated by the influence of the Hebrew religions and their way of thinking about everything.
      I wonder if Islam, Judaism, or Christianity have their own version of Kama Sutra? I bet not, as sexual purity is Christian morality. Living in sin? Jew and gentile even know what that means.

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      1. I wonder if Islam, Judaism, or Christianity have their own version of Kama Sutra?

        Err, have you read the Song of Solomon? It may not be as explicitly instructional as the Kama Sutra but it’s definitely a celebration of sexuality.

        But if you’re suggesting that the Kama Sutra, the Sun Temple of Konarak or the sexual aspects of the left handed path of Tantra indicate that Hinduism lacks sexual repression then you’re dead wrong.

        I’m sure some of the extreme sexual repression evidenced in modern India – as promulgated in particular by Hindutva groups such as the RSS and BJP – are in part artifacts of Muslim and Christian colonisation, but freedom of sexual expression has never been widely respected across India. It’s always been the province of certain Hindu sects and castes, mostly urban North Indian Kshatriyas.

        The Laws of Manu (Manusmriti) – which are at least as old as the Christian Bible – strictly proscribe many sexual practices and behaviours, especially between castes and especially by women. In fact it places women under sexual regulation by male family members until marriage in much the same way as many Abrahamic cultures do. According to the Laws of Manu lesbianism is to be penalised with a large fine and ten lashes, older lesbians with younger partners are to have fingers amputated and be subjected to public pillory and male homosexuals lose their caste status and must drink a mixture of cow urine, cow dung, milk, curd, ghee and water then undergo a purification fast to ‘cure’ them.

        Contrary to Californian Tantra, sexuality as a religious practice is a minor aspect of even the left hand path of Tantra and completely eschewed by the right hand path. Inasmuch as Tantric sex is practiced at all its effectiveness is considered to be because it transgresses mainstream Hindu sexual morality.

        If you think Hinduism is or ever was a sexually liberated religion you’ve fallen for the hype.

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        1. I’m simply exploring ideas. I’ve fallen for nothing. But, as you’ve noted, there are multiple ways to see this and it mostly leads to religion maintaining control of family planning.
          As far as the institutions; discriminating against the homosexual just shows how pervasive religion is and has been. I know dozens of deconverts who have had an instant about-face on this the moment they saw religion for what it was. Religion is ground zero for this type of behavior, while I’m inclined to think that oppression of women overall is an evolutionary trait to control the gene pool, without today realizing it.
          There are certain things that seem to be immutable attributes no matter how much we are aware of them. That is why knowing history does not deflect the same behavior from happening over and over.

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          1. It’s not religion per se jim.
            It’s authority and hierarchy.
            It’s power.

            Even in non-military societies that lack a medium of economic exchange; even in non-human societies; sex has always been a currency of power. It has always been abused and those who seek power have always sought to control and monopolise it. It’s used to enforce divisions and stratification and to persecute rivals and out groups.

            Of course organised religions try to control it. As do small cults, including secular ones such as Ayn Rand’s Objectivists. As do governments, guilds, militaries, corporations and pretty much all human institutions. Even manipulators that promise sexual fulfillment, such as Rajneesh and the marketing industry, rely on its widespread suppression for their power.

            That religions were among the first to codify how it’s to be controlled is neither here nor there. They were among the first to codify almost everything. Even the Code of Hammurabi and laws of Ancient Egypt defined a wide range of sex crimes and their penalties.

            Sex is too effective a means of control to be left to individual preferences. It’s always been repressed and used to oppress.

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        2. To me, Solomon’s Song celebrates relationship as only God knows and understands. He’s likening the man-and-woman union to the union of the Father, Son and Spirit; and via Christ, WITH him. That stretches the human mind to all sorts of mutant imaginations. I’m guessing it will take an eternity of learning the wellsprings of God to know him.

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          1. When the Song of Soloman was written, there was no “Father, Son and Spirit” — nor a “Christ.”

            Your interpretation of the “song” is one manufactured by the Christian church. Period.

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            1. Not sure it’s “manufactured.” Interpretations are basically educated guesses, and there are a few with this Song. It may only be a love story about a king and peasant girl. Anyway, the Bible beckons exploration. What’s your take?

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            2. My take is that the author was mystically inspired.

              Mystical love manifests overwhelmingly across the whole spectrum of human experience, not just what the Greeks call agape. It incorporates feelings that can perhaps best be verbalised by alluding to an embodied eros. That’s why you find mystic poets such as Sufis so often using using erotic metaphors.

              The author was trying to speak of his experience of divine love with the entire vocabulary at his disposal in a way his listeners/readers might gain some sense of the width and breadth of those feelings. To excise the language and shared understanding of erotic love from his account would have both blunted what he was trying to express and denied some dimensions of his experience of divine love.

              Of course my deity is the Goddess of Tantra and my apprehension of Her is exclusively mystical, so I may just be projecting …

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            3. Thanks. And my take sees Christ in everything natural and spiritual. Christianity’s failure is worshipping our pet denominational interpretations instead of God himself. Christ is both our spiritual AND natural access to God: God in the flesh, ‘come in MY flesh.’

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            4. In my understanding of spiritualty, Arnold, there is nor room for God or Christ. Spirit is free, unconstrained, able to explore in any direction. Gods and messengers of gods do not embody freedom. Just listen to Silence of Mind when he tells me I have learned nothing since the 7th or 8th grade. The truth he he is spouting is the same shit that has been spouted for the last 2000 plus years, and he call it truth. There is no truth. And certainly, in his world, there is no learning…

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            5. Anger? Do I hear anger? First, you reverted back to insulting my name! Then you called me a Nazi! Then you want me to be ashamed of my ideas and words. AND THEN YOU ACCUSE ME OF NOT LETTING YOU WORHIP AS YOU WISH!!!!,
              Funny, I thought you were supposed to love your neighbours. There is no love inside you. No respect. Your only desire is to make everyone in this world a replica of you. And you cannot stand that there are people who refuse to believe your bullshit. And that is exactly why I said what I did. You missed the “If” statement. “IF ANY BOOK NEEDS TO BE BURNED,” I don’t believe in burning books, but obviously YOU DO. IF you can burn any book, ANY BOOK!, I can burn the bible. Fair is fair.

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            6. Interesting thought but it’d probably be resurrected. 😉
              I do think Christians are too militant on issues–we try too hard to look religious and keep too busy to fear God. Our one word to the world should be “Christ, crucified.” Hear him or not.

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            7. I wish there were more Christians .i,e you, ery oderate. Sotty if I sounded angry, i was. Silence of Mind is anything but silent, and his mind is trapped in the box of religion doctrine.

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            8. Something’s amiss. I have no answers to the tragedy you each experienced. I had a rose-garden childhood. Why me? 9 years ago I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and take what comes.

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            9. You are lucky. There are way more dysfunctional families in this world than anyone cares to admit, certainly double the “funtional” families, at an optimistic guess. Someone should conduct an unscientific survey, functional or dysfinctional by the grown children’s own judgment.

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      2. If it wasn’t theism, a different form of fanaticism or extremist belief system could/would take its problematic place. One might look at Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge concept of the righteous society as a scary example of this. Having said that, however, I can see how there could be no greater perceived justification for, or the-end-justifies-the-means motivator of, inhumane/immoral behavior than ‘the Almighty hath willed it!’ …

        (As an aside) Some of the best humanitarians I’ve met or heard about ironically were/are atheists or agnostics who’d make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings than too many (whom I refer to as) institutional Christians (i.e. those most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth). Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout practitioners of institutional Christian theology.

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        1. But I think the history of the mid-2oth century demonstrated that simply substituting rationalist/humanist means and ends for transcendental ones without addressing the aspiration for transcendence can lead to some rather unfortunate outcomes.

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  5. Does the Almighty really need or desire to be worshipped? Could not “houses of worship” actually have been meant for the parishioners, divinely intended to be for the soul what health clinics/spas, even hospitals, are for the body and mind? And perhaps the Ten Commandments were/are not meant to obey in order to appease/please God but rather intended for His human creation’s benefit, to keep people safe and healthy. …

    And while I don’t believe that God required blood and pain ‘payment’, from Jesus or anyone else, I do factually know that the creator’s animals have had their blood literally shed and bodies eaten in mindboggling quantities by Man. And maybe the figurative forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.

    I can see that really angering the Almighty, and a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. I’ve noticed that mainstream Christianity doesn’t speak up much at all about what we, collectively, have done to animals for so long. (FYI: I’m not vegetarian; though I seldom eat mammal meat, I do enjoy eating prawns or shrimp pretty much on a weekly basis.)

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    1. Does the Almighty really need or desire to be worshipped?

      Seems unlikely.
      But do we need to worship?
      That seems a more difficult question.
      If the answer is yes, the next question is ‘What do we need to worship?’.
      What we understand or what we don’t understand?
      What we are or what we aren’t?
      What we hope or what we fear?
      What we love or what we seek to love?

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    2. If love counts for worship then yes, he desires worship. If he is our creator then he commands love, that is, respectful attention.
      Eating that fruit was a breach of contract where direct damage was death, separation from God. Therefore the atrocities of the bible, and life.

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      1. not commands. god commands nothing. there is a powerful poem by Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel prize winner) that goes like this

        “I am able to love my God
        becuase He gives me the freedom
        to deny Him.”

        Like that!

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  6. The Christian sacrament of marriage is central in Christian doctrine because the marriage of one man to one woman is central to healthy family life. Stable family life is most beneficial for the physical, emotional and spiritual development of children.

    As family life has disintegrated over the last 60 years, 40% of children are now born out of wedlock. This is a civilization crushing development since 40% of today’s children have not had the benefit of stable family life.

    At its foundation, all Christian doctrine is aimed at the pursuit of happiness. Protestants will squeal that being saved is by Jesus is the fundamental doctrine. True, but Jesus saved us so we could pursue happiness in this life and the eternal life to come.

    Atheists’ hatred for the Christian religion in particular indicates maleducation and abuse at the hands of deranged parents and/or preachers. Blaming the Christian religion for the evil that men do is unjust and wrong headed.

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    1. And my father beat the shit out of me and nine other chidren, including raping my sisters, all in the name of a “healthy, stable, family”? Take a look at what you call teality, SoM? Those rose-coloured glasses do not let you see what real is. REAL IS MEN AND WOMEN OF GOD SEXUALLY ABUSING INDIGENOUS CHILDREN IN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS IN ORDER TO TEACH THEM TO LEARN TO LOVE GOD! Catholics! Anglicans! Whatever “Christian” religion was given the job of killing the spirit in infigenous children, THEY ALL USED THE SAME TACTICS. RAPE! MURDER! TORTURE? This is the religion you defend?
      There is no defence. YOU ARE AS GUILTY AS THE RAPISTS AND ABUSERS WHO PREDOMINATE YOUR CHRISTIAN RELIGION. And you think the world is all wine and roses… You are as blind as your mind is brainwashed! I spit in your face!

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      1. rawgod, I hear you. Me too. Except my family is a little smaller and my mom, rest her soul, was a raging alcoholic who later in life recovered marvelously. Also, I was raped by burglar when I was 22 years old. He corned holed me real good, too. Where you are still a victim and see yourself as such, I am triumphant, a victor. I am a soldier of Christ, disciplined and schooled by misfortune.

        One thing I am guilty of, however, is opening my heart to Jesus and getting healed. Where the demons once raged, there is now, silence, Silence of Mind. My moniker is a tribute to Jesus of Nazareth, Savior of mankind, great healer and brother.

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        1. I am a vocti because I told you of my upbringing. Really? You know so little! Opposite to you, I was only a victim as long as I believed in God. How could he let a man like my father exist? It was once I stopped beIieving I was able to heal. There was only me. At first my sperm donor was dead to me, and then he died so there was only me. And that was when I realized MY STRENGTH. No one else’s, just mine. Victim? Unlearning? You got the wrong guy. Life started once I threw belief away. I learned my life was up to me. I took charge, and have never looked back!

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          1. rawgod, You are a victim because of the way you think. You think like a victim. You are angry, ignorant and pathetic. Nowadays, being angry, ignorant and pathetic is a badge of honor.

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            1. Jim, Did you read rawdog’s vile comment to me? He rhetorically bitch slapped me. I responded by rhetorically by bashing his face in. I am a lot meaner than you and our atheist comrades. Be nice to me. I will be nice back.

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            2. My anger is only with non-thinkers like you, SoM. You think you know me, and can pigeonhole me. Those are your first TWO MISTAKES. All others follow from those.

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