Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sushan]

Sin is not a law, it is the breaking of a law. The question then is whether sin is the breaking of a man-made law. Everyone knows that sin is the breaking of a divine law, not a man-made law. If divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist.

If divine law does exist, and we can transgress it, then sin exists.

Very good. I think you've shown that the proposition as stated is false by definition, from the everyday meaning of the words.

If it is permissible to speculate, I suspect that the intended underlying proposition is "divine law does not exist". And the argument for that proposition goes something like:

The feelings that we associate with the concept of sin - guilt, shame, moral disapproval of the actions of others - are adequately explained by the human social dynamics around man-made law. We know that man-made law exists, and that many believe that it carries moral weight - that we have a moral obligation to obey the laws of our society. So it is unnecessary to postulate divine law in order to explain our experience of sin. So by Occam's razor we should assume that divine law does not exist.

Thank you for the clarification. Yes, that was the intended discussion prompted through the topic. And I agree with what you have mentioned. If the aspects like morality, shame, and many more are associated with laws, why should we even bother about divine laws?

[Sushan]

Sin is not a law, it is the breaking of a law. The question then is whether sin is the breaking of a man-made law. Everyone knows that sin is the breaking of a divine law, not a man-made law. If divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist.

If divine law does exist, and we can transgress it, then sin exists.

Very good. I think you've shown that the proposition as stated is false by definition, from the everyday meaning of the words.

Thank you. I think that's right.

If it is permissible to speculate, I suspect that the intended underlying proposition is "divine law does not exist".

I also agree with this.

And the argument for that proposition goes something like:

The feelings that we associate with the concept of sin - guilt, shame, moral disapproval of the actions of others - are adequately explained by the human social dynamics around man-made law. We know that man-made law exists, and that many believe that it carries moral weight - that we have a moral obligation to obey the laws of our society. So it is unnecessary to postulate divine law in order to explain our experience of sin. So by Occam's razor we should assume that divine law does not exist.

Yes, that is a cogent argument. To be clear, the idea is that the religious person has mistaken an experience of mundane wrongdoing for sin, because they have mistaken a man-made law for a divine law.

This is helpful because now we have moved from a rhetorical claim to the outline of a real argument. Certainly if the experience associated with the concept of sin can be intuitively explained without recourse to divine law, then we would have one good reason to think that people who believe in sin are mistaken. This is the crucial premise in your argument, and I think it would need to be defended.

Well, the sins and divine laws are associated with the stories about the heaven and hell. Your bad deeds and sins will lead you to the hell while the opposite will lead you towards the heaven. But do we know that for sure? NO.

On the other hand, values like morality, responsibility, etc. are associated with human nature and society. These are harmed by breaking the laws, and the effect can be explained without using divine laws or divine explanations.

[Sushan]

I would say that it's precisely because we're animals (sin is permissible) that sin is an idea that transcends humans i.e. it has other-worldly origins. You wouldn't expect a dog to do tricks like we see on TV shows unless it has been taught them (by superior beings, humans). We have to be taught to be good (it's not ingrained, virtue) as children, through adolescence, to adulthood. Who taught the first humans about morality? That's the question that gets me all excited!

A small correction. Dogs are not taught to do tricks, but are conditioned to do so. Unless the things that we learn, the dogs will loose the ability if the conditioning is stopped for some time.

Who taught the first humans about morality? Quite interesting. It is a question like the hen and the egg; which came first. But I think no one taught that to humans, but was born amongst humans. There should have been people who taught differently among our ancestors, and they should be the ones who are responsible for this sort of unusual things.

[Sushan]

Sin is traditionally based on a book written by people in the Middle East area of the world. By force and economic gangsterism, other cultures shockingly now think this book relates to them! It’s the biggest shim sham in all of history. Nordic people had a nature worshiping type spirituality and had totally more liberal views on things like sexuality. The biblical laws were designed to make people FEAR god and to promote male dominance. Most cultures/religions agree that such things as murder (of course) are unacceptable (but not “sin” that you are doomed to hell for)

I agree with you. Religions and the associated sins and stuff like that are used throughout the history to tame the people who could not be bound by man-made laws. Seemingly the expectations have been to make those who are not afraid of other hhumans and law enforcing authorities afraid of some divine power.

[Sushan]

There are several types of sins, one is the man made agreement , that provides a society with enough peace in order not to collapse. There is an instinctive sin feeling, even existent for animals, that is somehow different. The inner feeling for sin, is nothing made by society but is just a derivation of an instinctive feeling for guilt. Moral values and feelings somehow seem to differ. The one is made by man, the other is somehow created by the beeing itself. The sin can be a moral concept or is just a more subtile version of guilt as a feeling, that makes one somehow uneasy.

Morality and shame are feelings that are felt by humans according to their cultural norms and ways of upbringing. I am not sure how these can be felt by animals who do not have such backgrounds.

And I do not think these things have to be named as sins as they already have different nomenclature like morality, shame, etc.

[Sushan]

To @Detail”. The concept of SIN is not innate. Sin is unique to Abrahamic religion! Eastern and Pagan religions have no such concept as SIN. I agree people have feelings that are more like SYMPATHETIC to other’s suffering. But things like monogamy, sexuality, etc are not innate. Most traditional sins are man made

Quite true. The innate feelings are decided by the different ways of upbringing. The children who are born to religious families feel more sympathy while who are born to barbaric families feel less sympathy. But, as you mentioned, the things like monogamy, sexuality are just man-made agreements. And I believe these agreements are made by those who could not withstand or win when the rule of the jungle is applied. So they invented a clever way to bend that natural rule.

[Sushan]

Sin is unique to Abrahamic religion! Eastern and Pagan religions have no such concept as SIN.

I would have thought that most religions involve some moral "rules", and hold certain actions (theft, murder etc) to be morally wrong.

What's the difference between saying "murder is morally wrong" and saying "murder is a sin" ? Is there any ?

Or is the latter just the former expressed in the language of Abrahamic religion ?

When something is moraly wrong, that is just wrong. But when something is named as a sin, then doing so will put you under the wrath of some divine power and you will be doomed to the eternity unless you salvage your soul by whatever the means that that divine power has shown.

[Sushan]

The author argues that we, humans, are not superior than any other animals. We too have basic needs like sex, food and shelter like them. But we have made agreements and laws among us making polygamy, killing others for foods, etc, sins. So the point that the author is trying to prove is that sins are not defined by divine laws, but only by mere agreements among humans. Do you agree with this point of view? Are sins merely man-made laws?

By us human beings saying and agreeing that sins are objective & absolute instead of being man-made agreements, we paradoxically make it so that they are man-made. Because this information was stated by ourselves.

Your logic may not be generally applicable. But I think it is very much applicable to this argument. Yes, all these are man-made arguments and laws, and what we are discussing now is also on a man-made observation.

[Sushan]

By us human beings saying and agreeing that sins are objective & absolute instead of being man-made agreements, we paradoxically make it so that they are man-made. Because this information was stated by ourselves.

Don't follow the logic here. If I state that gravity objectively exists, does that turn it into a man-made agreement ?

Well, gravity is also a man-made agreement in a way. The subject is complete and it cannot be universally applied either. Humans have made a more applicable model to explain what we call gravity. But it can be changed when a more applicable model is introduced by some other human. So, yes, it too is a man-made agreement.

[Sushan]

By us human beings saying and agreeing that sins are objective & absolute instead of being man-made agreements, we paradoxically make it so that they are man-made. Because this information was stated by ourselves.

Don't follow the logic here. If I state that gravity objectively exists, does that turn it into a man-made agreement ?

Yes. Even though it is true objectively AND physically, it is still a man-made agreement. However, the important thing to know is that before gravity is agreed as true by humans, it is first agreed as true by the universe. In fact, the reason why it is agreed as true by humans is because it is agreed as true by the universe / laws of physics.

But unlike this aspect of laws of physics, sins are only a man-made agreement that is not agreed as true by the universe. And it is only agreed as true by humans because we want it that way, not the Universe.

(As in, there is nothing in the Universe that physically makes it impossible to sin like how it is physically impossible to go against the laws of physics. It only tries to restrain us using human logic, where we have a choice to either succumb to it or ignore it.)

The difference between the laws of physics and human morals is that the first one cannot be ignored even though it is a man-made agreement, but the second one can be.

That is to say, you made me realize that I owe some more explanation to you regarding my previous post—Just simply by us thinking that sins are objective, our thoughts can make it look like sins are objective. In our thoughts, the objectiveness and subjectiveness of sins are not distinguished. Because that's what thinking something is true means.

But they are not, and this is not decided by us, and is rather decided by the universe that we live in. This is proven by my previous statement "The difference between the laws of physics and human morals is that the first one cannot be ignored even though it is a man-made agreement, but the second one can be."

I cannot fully agree with the 'universe accepting thing' that you have mentioned in your comment. Universe is not a sentinel being and we have not studied it enough to understand it fully. So everything that we depend on, calculate on, and many more are just agreements.

But I do agree with the last part of your comment. We can simply ignore the agreements like the one on sins, but we cannot ignore agreements in subjects like physics.

[Leontiskos]

Are sins merely man-made laws?

No, and for several reasons. Sin is not a law, it is the breaking of a law. The question then is whether sin is the breaking of a man-made law. Everyone knows that sin is the breaking of a divine law, not a man-made law. If divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist. If divine law does exist, and we can transgress it, then sin exists.

If the author thinks that sin is a law, or that sin is the breaking of a man-made law, then he is just redefining words willy-nilly in an entirely unphilosophical and unhelpful way. Neither St. Matthew, Mephistopheles, nor Bill Maher would be tempted to affirm that sin is a law or that sin is the breaking of a man-made law.

With the highlighted text, I think that your comment is a bit biased. Yes, I agree that sin is breaking of a law or an agreement. But who created the word sin? I think it too is made by humans as same as all the laws.

I have already addressed this in detail in my posts on page 3.

[Sushan]

Are sins merely man-made laws?

No, and for several reasons. Sin is not a law, it is the breaking of a law. The question then is whether sin is the breaking of a man-made law. Everyone knows that sin is the breaking of a divine law, not a man-made law. If divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist. If divine law does exist, and we can transgress it, then sin exists.

If the author thinks that sin is a law, or that sin is the breaking of a man-made law, then he is just redefining words willy-nilly in an entirely unphilosophical and unhelpful way. Neither St. Matthew, Mephistopheles, nor Bill Maher would be tempted to affirm that sin is a law or that sin is the breaking of a man-made law.

With the highlighted text, I think that your comment is a bit biased. Yes, I agree that sin is breaking of a law or an agreement. But who created the word sin? I think it too is made by humans as same as all the laws.

I have already addressed this in detail in my posts on page 3.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification.

[Sushan]

If I state that gravity objectively exists, does that turn it into a man-made agreement ?

Yes. Even though it is true objectively AND physically, it is still a man-made agreement. However, the important thing to know is that before gravity is agreed as true by humans, it is first agreed as true by the universe. In fact, the reason why it is agreed as true by humans is because it is agreed as true by the universe / laws of physics.

That's fair enough. It becomes a socially-agreed cultural truth as well as an objective physical truth when enough people in the culture believe it.

But unlike this aspect of laws of physics, sins are only a man-made agreement that is not agreed as true by the universe. And it is only agreed as true by humans because we want it that way, not the Universe.

(As in, there is nothing in the Universe that physically makes it impossible to sin like how it is physically impossible to go against the laws of physics. It only tries to restrain us using human logic, where we have a choice to either succumb to it or ignore it.)

The difference between the laws of physics and human morals is that the first one cannot be ignored even though it is a man-made agreement, but the second one can be.

There's a difference between saying water cannot flow uphill and saying water should not flow uphill.

Yes there is nothing in the Universe that makes it physically impossible to commit murder (to take one example of an act that most of us would, as part of our man-made agreement, agree was a sin). But that was never what morality claimed. Morality claims that we should not murder.

You're right - the question is how much of an objective reality that agreement reflects. Is there some sort of truth of the universe that murder is bad, to which that human agreement is a response ? Or is it merely an arbitrary social convention ?

Could we all turn around and agree that we're all fine with murder now ? Or would we run into consequences that we could not ignore ? Consequences not at the level of physics but at the level of recognisable badness ?

If the only level of objective reality you will accept is physics then you've chosen to define away any possibility of objective morality.

Whereas Kant has it that if you can will it to be a universal rule that people may murder each other at will then the act isn't sinful. Again, with a sense of "can" that is weaker than physical impossibility. Because lying to oneself is possible...

The prohibition of the act of sinning is a man-made agreement, whereas the sin or the result itself that is committed through an act of sinning is objective. But this is only from a human perspective. From the "Universe's" perspective, it does not matter if a lifeform lives or dies. The Universe is still itself. In fact, its existence is directly defined little by little, through these individual events themselves.

From a philosophical perspective, it is worth considering the relationship between morality and human agency. Many ethical systems maintain that humans possess free will and the ability to make choices that can either conform to or violate moral principles. The notion of sinning, for example, typically implies that humans have the capacity to act in ways that are morally wrong or harmful to themselves or others.

However, the idea that the universe itself is indifferent to human actions is also an important one. Many philosophical traditions, particularly those rooted in naturalism or scientific materialism, posit that the universe operates according to impersonal laws and processes that are independent of human concerns or values. From this perspective, it may seem that the moral judgments we make about human actions are ultimately subjective and arbitrary, since they are not grounded in any objective standard external to human experience.

But this does not necessarily mean that morality itself is entirely subjective or meaningless. Many philosophers argue that moral principles can be justified on the basis of human well-being or flourishing, which can be understood in objective terms such as health, happiness, or fulfillment. Even if the universe as a whole is indifferent to human existence, it is still possible to argue that certain actions or behaviors are objectively harmful or beneficial to human beings, and that moral principles can be grounded in these considerations.

Moreover, the idea that the universe is indifferent to human existence does not preclude the possibility that human actions can have consequences that extend beyond the human realm. For example, environmental degradation caused by human activities can have far-reaching impacts on non-human species and ecosystems. From this perspective, it could be argued that humans have a moral responsibility to consider the broader consequences of their actions and to act in ways that are compatible with the well-being of the wider universe.

[Sushan]

Sin is not a law, it is the breaking of a law. The question then is whether sin is the breaking of a man-made law. Everyone knows that sin is the breaking of a divine law, not a man-made law. If divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist.

If divine law does exist, and we can transgress it, then sin exists.

Very good. I think you've shown that the proposition as stated is false by definition, from the everyday meaning of the words.

Thank you. I think that's right.

.

That's clearly correct, by definition. However, it begs the question of whether "divine law" can exist without a Divinity. Suppose God is invented by men. Suppose the laws He dictates are also invented. Suppose the term "sin" is used to describe the breaking of these "divine laws".

"Sinh" remains a meaningful and valuable term when used this way.

The question of whether "divine law" can exist without a Divinity is a complex and controversial philosophical issue that has been debated by thinkers throughout history. One prominent position on this issue is that moral and ethical principles can exist independent of any divine being or authority.

Proponents of this view argue that ethical principles can be grounded in reason, human nature, or social consensus, rather than in the commands of a supernatural entity. From this perspective, the term "sin" may still be meaningful even if there is no actual Divinity dictating the laws, as it can be used to describe actions that violate universally accepted moral standards.

However, others argue that without a Divine Lawgiver, morality becomes a matter of personal preference or societal convention, lacking any objective basis or ultimate authority. From this perspective, the concept of "sin" loses its meaning as there is no higher power to define and enforce it.

[Sushan]

Are sins merely man-made laws?

No, and for several reasons. Sin is not a law, it is the breaking of a law. The question then is whether sin is the breaking of a man-made law. Everyone knows that sin is the breaking of a divine law, not a man-made law. If divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist. If divine law does exist, and we can transgress it, then sin exists.

That's clearly correct, by definition. However, it begs the question of whether "divine law" can exist without a Divinity. Suppose God is invented by men. Suppose the laws He dictates are also invented. Suppose the term "sin" is used to describe the breaking of these "divine laws".

"Sinh" remains a meaningful and valuable term when used this way.

Er, of course divine law cannot exist without a divinity. Surely you are not proposing that sin is a meaningful and valuable term in an atheistic context?

If sin is the breaking of divine law, and divine law does not exist, then sin does not exist.

In a strictly atheistic worldview, there is no divine law or deity to establish a moral code. Therefore, the traditional definition of sin as a violation of divine law would not apply. However, that does not mean that the concept of sin loses all meaning in an atheistic context.

Many atheists still hold to a moral code based on principles such as empathy, compassion, and the well-being of others. In this sense, sin could be understood as actions or behaviors that harm others, violate basic human rights, or are in conflict with this moral code. This view is consistent with secular ethics and humanism, which reject the notion of divine law but still recognize the importance of ethical principles in guiding human behaviour.