Monday, December 07, 2009

Sin…what is it good for?

Growing up, we were intimately familiar with the concept of “sin.” We knew the biggies—the ones we would never commit, but could gain a certain amount of satisfaction realizing we weren’t that bad:

1) Murder.
2) Rape.
3) Kidnapping.
4) Sex with farm animals.

There was the category of sins we didn’t want to do, but did anyway to avoid problems:

1) Lying.
2) Cheat on a test.

And finally there were sins we wanted to do, but knew we shouldn’t:

1) Disobey our parents.
2) Not share our toys.
3) Go to Movie theaters.
4) Get to second base.

We were taught the reason we sinned is because…(and this is obvious)…sinning was fun. It was what our [sin] nature wanted to do. No one sinned because they had to, or did it reluctantly. We did it because it was such a temptation to do the thing our very being craved most at the moment.

We sinned because we liked it. (Not the big ones, of course. No one was allowed to enjoy those!)

BUT…

We were also taught over and over how sin was a disappointment to God. Yes, our sins were covered by Jesus’ blood or atoned for or paid for by His death or _______ [insert appropriate Christian platitude] and we wouldn’t lose our salvation just because we didn’t clean our room when Mom asked us to. Yet every time we sinned—we were repeatedly informed—this hurt God. This bothered God. Jesus cried tears ‘cause we wanted to kiss before we were engaged.

Nobody wants to be a disappointment to their parents. We don’t want to hear the “Sigh” and see the long look on their face. This drives a stake of guilt right into the child’s heart. Even worse, we were disappointing God—the one who loved us, and died for us. Imagine how big His “sigh” would be, and how long His face could get!

And so we entered a cycle:

1) Be tempted by sin.
2) Say “no.”
3) Try not thinking about the sin.
4) Think about the sin.
5) Say “no” again.
6) Think about the sin.
7) Ask God to take away the temptation.
8) Think about the sin.
9) Remember the guilt you felt last time.
10) Say “no” again.
11) Remember the fun you had last time.
12) Justify doing it just this once.
13) Sin.
14) Now the fun is over, feel terribly guilty!
15) Ask forgiveness for the sin.
16) Vow to never sin again.
17) Go back to step 1.

We lived in an almost constant state of wrestling between wanting to sin and not wanting to sin and feeling guilty about sinning and talking about the sins we shouldn’t commit and thinking about sin. This creates a bit of inner turmoil, as you can imagine.

Then we would look at non-believers. We understood their conscience had been suppressed. Muted in some way. They didn’t feel quite the same guilt as we did when we sinned. In fact, one of the mandatory, necessary steps in converting the non-believer was to make them recognize they were sinning! If they didn’t realize they were disobeying God; they would never see their need for God to save them from disappointing God.

We also understood that deep, deep down, they secretly knew there was a God. That there were higher morals they should be following. (See Romans 1 & 2.) What we needed to do was reach past that guilt-free sinful exterior and pull those feelings out, so they could see how bad they were.

In other words, we needed them to feel the same guilt and turmoil we did when it comes to sinning.

Realize we were not envious of the non-believer for their non-guilt feelings. Oh, no—we pitied them. They were going to eternal torment in hell; who envies that? They were angering the creator of the universe; who wants to be in that position? We were light; they were darkness. We were salt; they were tasteless. We were fruit; they were despair. Every good analogy (life, light, salt) we were; every bad analogy (death, darkness, eventual agony) they were.

We felt empathy with the non-believer. We fought with and desired to reduce those inner battles over sin; we assumed they did at one time as well. We simply figured they took the wrong route. We faced up to our demons, and (with God’s help) continued to war against the evil sin nature. They had succumbed to it by claiming there is no God. Or that there are no morals. Or believing in the wrong, namby-pamby type God.

This is why many believers tell us deconverts we stopped believing in God so we could sin; it makes perfectly logical sense to the believer. They want to stop the inner discomfort; they assume we do as well. They think not believing in God will do so; they presume this is the choice we made to suppress the internal feud. “Remove God from the picture and one no longer has to feel guilty about disappointing God,” is how they reason.

They think we are convinced in the theory of evolution because it gives us an excuse to sin. They think we find contradictions in the Bible to allow us to sin. They think we look for any excuse in the world to disbelieve Jesus walked on water so we can cheat on our taxes without the same feelings of guilt the believer has.

This is why telling these types of believers we deconverted because of evidence and reasoning is a waste of time. They have already transferred their own motivations and desires on us. They believe we think just like they do, and the only reason they can possibly see for giving up God is to sin.

I wonder if this is why atheist-to-Christian stories often include tales of sinning, but feeling terrible about it. This is exactly the stereotype many Christians have in their mind regarding non-believers. It fits perfectly. That the only reason we don’t believe is to avoid the inner conflict the believer so righteously engages when wrestling with sin.

16 comments:

  1. It's good for feeling constant guilt. Christians are supposed to feel guilty for all the regular stuff PLUS for not praying enough, witnessing enough, reading their Bible enough, loving everybody, etc. It's a fun life, for sure!! ha.
    I used to feel guilty for not liking somebody or not loving my enemies (which sounded kind of dangerous anyway.)
    I would stand in amazement at regular people who didn't go to church on Sunday mornings and didn't feel the slightest bit bad about it.
    In Christianity, there are so many things you are supposed to be doing. You are basically a failure at all times and are reminded of that each Sunday.
    Oh yeah, and you can never give enough money either. On and on...

    I had a Christian tell me not long ago that people don't see their sin and need of a savior. That's the crux of the whole thing. If you don't see that, the whole deal falls apart.

    And I, thankfully, no longer see myself as a depraved sinner who deserves eternal flames for simply being born. I no longer feel guilty for being a human.

    I think you make such a good point in saying that Christians think atheists just want to run around wildly sinning, so they conveniently decide there is no God. As we all know, we decided there probably is no God because there seems to be no evidence for it. As for sinning, we simply go on being the same people we always were, only with a huge load off our shoulders-off-loading all the false guilt. We continue to use our value system to rule our morality as we always did.

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  2. We know that Christians, on the whole, do not actually behave better than non-Christians (and in some cases, measurably worse), nor do they (when they're honest (i.e. rarely, and only when cornered)) claim to behave better. So I should become a Christian not to change my behavior but... what... to feel worse about it?

    I'm a fairly normal, mostly law-abiding citizen. Most of the outrageous things I've done haven't been illegal, and I don't hurt other people; I want everyone to be happy, insofar as that's possible.

    I never feel guilt. Ever. If I think I would feel guilt about something, then I just don't do it. I'm not even tempted to do things I think I would feel guilty about.

    The difference between me and the Christian, why I don't ever have to wrestle with temptation and "sin", is that my guilt is my own. While my feelings and psychology are of course the result of my childhood training, I keep only those feelings that were successfully internalized; none of my feelings of guilt are externalized. As an adult, I never refrain from doing something only because my mother/father/grandmother/hero/authority figure wouldn't want me to do it. I refrain from doing only those things that I myself internally don't want to do. I consider this attitude to be the sine qua non of adult maturity.

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  3. I remember hearing these lies when I was a child, that atheists hate god and left the church because they don't like being told what to do. I believe that part of the reason they tell these lies is because the truth is too threatening: that we don't hate god, that we don't leave and then delude ourselves into believing that there is no god after the fact, and that we aren't bad people. Because that would make atheism a viable and even attractive option. I didn't even consider the fact that atheists were normal, everyday people until I became one.

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  4. Gosh. It turns I'm an even worse heathen. Not only did I turn away from God so I could sin, I now don't even believe in the concept itself. Ooh, I've gone over to the dark side. :D

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  5. "This is why telling these types of believers we deconverted because of evidence and reasoning is a waste of time. They have already transferred their own motivations and desires on us. They believe we think just like they do, and the only reason they can possibly see for giving up God is to sin."

    This transference seems kind of Narcissist, doesn't it? I think you pretty much nail it. Religion is always pitting what is against what 'should be.' Conversely, the "hope" that many Christians cling to is heaven, which mostly seems to translate into being finally 'free' from the conflict of fighting what is.

    Sin really complicates Christianity. Since one is born a sinner, "ye must be born again." But being "born again" doesn't really change anything, because you still have this "body of death" tied to you so that "that which you would do, that do you not" and vice versa. But then there is the "one called alongside to help," (i.e., God in Spirit form), but no one can quite figure out how that is supposed to work. I mean, you would figure "... God is for you, who can be against you?" If God is really helping you, shouldn't you be successful?

    The reality is, Christians are just like everyone else, they do all the same things, they just feel guilty about it. Their one claim to superiority is that they "know" they are sinners, and that knowledge motivates them to seek forgiveness and thus salvation. But any real Christian knows that one of the worst sins is pride. So what to they do with that sense of superiority that comes from realizing they're a sinner? They exercise it and grow it by 'witnessing' to inferior non believers.

    The informed Christian knows there is a group out there who think they are Christians, they even do a lot of Christian like things, they look Christian. But apparently, Jesus knows better and will say to these people, "depart from me... I never knew you...."

    Identifying what sin is is trickier than it seems on the surface.

    Christianity is the original catch 22.

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  6. Yep,

    Looks like we are all despicable heathens.

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  7. Paul,
    You said alot of good stuff. I used to be one of those who felt superior in that I could plainly see how depraved we all were. I knew I was basically selfish, and it was obvious other Christians were too. I thought they gave themselves way too much credit for being good Christians. It's funny now.

    And I always marveled at the role of the Holy Spirit also! Like you said, if God Himself is living in you and helping you, how could you ever fail at being perfect?? Made no sense at all.

    Oh yes, the sheep and the goats. What if a pastor stood up and said "Today we're gonna figure out who the sheep are and who the goats are. We're gonna separate the wheat from the tares right here today." Actually couldn't the Holy Spirit just tell the real Christians who the fake ones are?

    Sin-what is it good for? It's also good for feeling superior to others. And we all love to do that. Christianity-being chosen-helps you do that, for sure.

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  8. **. Yet every time we sinned—we were repeatedly informed—this hurt God. This bothered God. Jesus cried tears ‘cause we wanted to kiss before we were engaged.**

    I'm curious about something ... I've seen in Christian blogs the idea that when God looks at Christians, rather than seeing their imperfect, sinful self, He sees Jesus covering them, or in their place.

    So how is this reconciled with the idea that every time a Christian sinned, it made God sad/upset? How could God see both the perfect Jesus and the sin, when Jesus was supposed to blot the sin? Or is this just one of those mysteries?

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  9. **. Yet every time we sinned—we were repeatedly informed—this hurt God. This bothered God. Jesus cried tears ‘cause we wanted to kiss before we were engaged.**

    I'm curious about something ... I've seen in Christian blogs the idea that when God looks at Christians, rather than seeing their imperfect, sinful self, He sees Jesus covering them, or in their place.

    So how is this reconciled with the idea that every time a Christian sinned, it made God sad/upset? How could God see both the perfect Jesus and the sin, when Jesus was supposed to blot the sin? Or is this just one of those mysteries?

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  10. The cycle you describe is very real, and it is painful for those of us who claim to be mentally healthy. In other words, those of us who aren't schizophrenics, or bipolar, or whatever find the cycle grueling.

    But the people who are one sandwich short of a picnic are truly destroyed by the guilt trips. It sends them deeper down into their personal hell. That's what I find unforgivable about the mental tactics of the Bible-based mind games of Christianity.

    ** Lorena

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  11. Control is important, of course, but I think there's more to the story. People can leave, and people who are not inherently susceptible to guilt trips (such as yourself or my wife) don't have that much problem leaving a fundamentalist religion.

    Put another way, it's not just the desire of the leaders to control the followers; the followers' desire to be controlled by by feelings of guilt seems as strong or stronger.

    Even among atheists, and even (perhaps especially) among philosophically aware atheists, there's a strong desire to think of ethics and morals as matters of objective truth. There seems to be a preference for knowing what's right and wrong even if that "knowledge" is not in accord with one's own desires and feelings.

    Looking at how people talk and behave, while they do project their own desires onto their evaluation of ethical truth, this projection is by no means complete or universal. If it were complete, there would be no feelings of guilt, which occur only when one's desires are in conflict with one's specific ethical beliefs.

    It's interesting to compare and contrast various deconversions.

    In your own case, Dagood, it seems that the most difficult part of your deconversion process was the loss of social acceptance, which seems to persist in your relationship with your wife and family.

    In my wife's case (she deconverted from fundamentalist Islam around 15), there was little social acceptance to actually lose: women — especially Pakistani ex-patriot girls in Saudi Arabia — don't have much social coherence, and social coherence is not primarily dependent on religious belief. Religious belief among women is primarily imposed from without by the men. Once she realized that Islam wasn't scientifically true, her de-conversion was almost completely without guilt.

    In my own case, I never had much social acceptance (I've always been a little weird) and what social acceptance I did have was never predicated on religious belief. I was also very strongly indoctrinated as a child to be inner-directed, and my mother (my father split when I was 7) inculcated my moral feelings by appealing directly to empathy: "You know you hurt so-and-so's feelings when you did that." My moral beliefs were never inculcated by any sort of appeal to authority, not even legal authority.

    It seems unsurprising, therefore, that I myself basically "drifted into" atheism without ever thinking or worrying about much about it.

    I think that fundamentally the social importance of being inner-directed is relatively new, and inculcated and indoctrinated in only a very few individuals.

    Some people seem to have something early-developmental, congenital and/or genetic that predisposes them "innately" to inner-direction, regardless of their indoctrination. But this predisposition seems to occur in only an equally small (or smaller) portion of the population.

    So I think we're looking at a combination of factors:

    1: The desire to know what's "objectively" right or wrong even if that "knowledge" is in some sense in conflict with one's own beliefs and desires

    2: The desire for social acceptance; as I noted in my earlier comment, submission to some authority is a quick and mindless path to social acceptance.

    3: The prevalence of outer-direction, the positive desire to be told what to do by an outside authority.

    4: The desire for control and power by leaders, and their willingness to psychologically and emotionally manipulate others to achieve that power.

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  12. I was thinking control more globally, rather than locally…time for a blog post!

    Good comment, The Barefoot Bum

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  13. Great thoughts, Barefoot Bum. I can see myself lining up very well with the kind of people who are susceptible to others controlling them.

    I've realized things I do to try to be socially acceptable. When I try to be different (for my own good)-it's uncomfortable and creates anxiety because of fear of rejection.

    Great insights.

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  14. "I was thinking control more globally, rather than locally…"

    If I am following, wouldn't global control be an extension or expansion of local?

    Barefoot, what you are talking about seems to venture into group selection vs. individual selection (to put it in another context), which gets into a discussion of survival (Whether it be survival of the individual organism or the group organism). I think the whole subject of control is pretty fascinating, that it is central to survival, or oft times, perceived survival.

    My own observations lead me to think that the inclination to control or be controlled is, to a different degree, part of everyones make up. That we shift back and forth as we move through life. Kind of like control is the left leg and being controlled the right and we use both legs to move forward. But it seems to me that allowing control is still a function of wanting acceptance, and becomes a means of self control that we use to get it?

    Here's kind of a funny story. One of the changes in my life since I deconverted is the car I drive. As a part of the Christian culture I always drove 'conservative' cars (i.e., cars that projected the appropriate humble, conservative image of a Christian). That strikes me as hilarious now, a wonderful example of Madison Avenue controlling 'God.' Now I drive a Z4 BMW, with eyes wide open. I bought it with the underlying knowledge of how I would be treated by driving such a car. It turns out to be a comparatively cheap way to get affirmation (i.e., it only costs money vs. abdicating my volition to religious culture). But it's all still control, isn't it?

    Re your observation:

    "I think that fundamentally the social importance of being inner-directed is relatively new, and inculcated and indoctrinated in only a very few individuals."

    I have wondered about this, that such a difference may be an example of the outer edge of evolution. Interesting that being inner directed still may be the result of inculcation and indoctrination. The individual doing the indoctrinating is the catalyst for change, but still doesn't risk their individual status to affect that change. I.e., in your case, your mother raised you to be different from the group by appealing to you vs. say a god, and using intrinsic empathy as a fuel to empower 'you' vs. attributing that 'quality' to a god who must be followed.

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