Sin Duda

Hello Tim Johnson:

In your latest Spiritually Speaking column, you rue Americans labeling so few things sin today. 

Can you provide some examples?  What should we be more often calling sin?  (Rather odd that your article provides no examples, isn't it?)

You say Americans have replaced sin-talk with disease-talk.  What are you talking about?  Are you unhappy with Alcoholics Anonymous and its progeny--or what?

Sin is a religious word signifying 'a breaking of god's law'.  Given America's religious diversity and secular public tradition, shouldn't we aim to keep religious instruction out of the public school classroom?   You don't really want public school educators discussing sin with pupils, do you?

If I wrong you and later seek to put matters right, as an atheist I'd try communicating with you.  I would seek to restore friendly relations by expressing awareness, remorse and a commitment to upright future conduct.  My ameliorative act simply wouldn't require the word sin.

Alternatively, if you wrong me, please don't pray to Jesus asking for forgiveness--as that entity's opinion doesn't matter to me.  If you wrong me, it'd be much more satisfying were we to sit down together--so that you can issue your dignified apology and make sure that our relationship has been restored to its former wholesomeness.  Okay?

Many people feel skepticism, when Christians claim certainty that a dead man teleported himself out of a cave 2,000 years ago, given the claim's utter lack of evidentiary basis. 

Confessor, my chillins don't complain much about getting too little advice from their old man--au contraire.  But within my always-rapid advice torrent, I don't use the word sin--as I don't believe any god exists for us to sin against.

When you and I have a disagreement, Reverend, there are upright and dishonorable ways for you to state your case.  Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which the speaker claims to prove her point simply be assuming it to be true.  (It falls squarely within the latter category, mind you.)

You say:  Sin is such an obvious reality in daily life, to explain it away is futile. 

Jesus' existence is not obvious--certainly no more obvious than that of the thousands of other deities claimed by cultures throughout the ages. 

When we meet in the public square, parson, it wouldn't be gentlemanly for me to ask you to renounce your religion.  By the same token, it is not gentlemanly of you to ask me to endorse your religious dogma.

Yours truly,

Gavin Sullivan
Eden Prairie