[ExI] psychology

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Apr 24, 2020, at 10:50 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
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> >…The 'forgiveness of sins' assumes that 'sin' actually means anything real, and to atheists, I should think it doesn't, seeing as how the term relates to the concept of a god. If you don't believe in gods, you don't think 'sin' is a meaningful term…
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> Ben Zaiboc
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> Hi Ben, on the contrary sir, the concept of sin survives religion, certainly in my mind it does.  There are things I regret having done and said in my life, and I see it perfectly appropriate to call these things my sins.
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> There are those who argue the point: without god you have no concept of sin and no conscience.  I have always disputed that notion.
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> As a fun aside…  the more rigorous religions have a task ahead of them.  To create and maintain a market for their product, they not only need to make the believers feel guilty for their sins, there are plenty of cases where they must make the young believer feel guilty for sins they didn’t actually do.
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> Hilarity ensues.  
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> I will let you ponder that if you wish, and offer an example if you want it.

I believe you’re conflating the concept of sin with morality, guilt, and conscience — or making them interdependent. I believe without religion, one can still have morality and the like. In fact, atheist moral philosophers do not rest their morality on sin (or divine command theory).

Of course, people might bring using ‘sin’ metaphorically, but then there’s the problem: what’s meant by sin. Sin in religious terms doesn’t mean doing something wrong, it means doing something against god or the gods. For instance, in Christianity the sin of Eve and Adam isn’t that they did something wrong aside from disobeying a divine command.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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