What makes a sin a sin? Where's the line between simple bad behavior and a sin? Is there a line?

The dictionary defines sin as “an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.” So, I guess it depends on one’s moral code and/or one’s chosen god.

The Catholics have developed a rather intricate definition of sin, as defined in the Catechism, Article Eight, Part I, paragraphs 1849—1851, and the types of sin are described in Article Eight, Parts III & IV.

It appears that every major religion on earth has a concept of sin, including the Buddhists:

“Buddhism does not recognize the idea behind sin, but believes in the principle of karma, whereby suffering is the inevitable consequence of greed, anger, and delusion (known as the Three poisons).”

The Three Poisons sound an awful lot like the Deadly Sins to me.

This Wikipedia article covers the concept of sin in the other major religions.

The term “sin” really just means to ” miss the mark”. like an archer missing his target. There is no huge morality factor attached IMO unless you are a Christian, for an atheist no, just another mistake, or maybe not a mistake, just an experience or a life lesson. Short of extreme unethical behaviors like murder.

A sin is where Bernie Sanders can use the word HUGE emphatically more than once in his victory speech. Something very wrong in that message.

According to what I remember from Catholic school, a sin is defined as a transgression, by act or omission, against the law of God, or by extension, the laws of the Church. In order to be considered guilty of a sin, you must know that it is a sin, and willfully commit the act or omission.

@Yetanotheruser , if that’s the case, it would make a strong case for being religiously ignorant. If you don’t know that what you are doing is, wrong, then you cannot be sinning. Not sure that makes sense.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a great place to start. If you hurt someone in any way, it’s a sin. This is not all inclusive.
An Atheist cannot “sin” but can still hurt people in the same way. An Atheist cannot be “judged” for “sins committed” if there is no “God,” or heaven, or “final judgment.”
“Sin” implies a future judgment call when (supposedly) getting into heaven.
(“sin…1a : an offense against religious or moral law b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible… c : an often serious short-coming : FAULT 2a : transgression of the law of God b : a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God…” from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed.)
See @Yetanotheruser ‘s entry above. (By the way, GA!)
As I was told in my Catholic upbringing (by Sisters of the Holy Cross) that minor sins would be cleansed in Purgatory by fire until the sins were burned from the soul, then the sinner could be allowed into heaven. If you break one of the 10 Commandments, you basically go straight to hell and burn forever. This, too, is not or may not be all inclusive.
@elbanditoroso Good point. But ignorance is no excuse. If you sin in the eyes of “God,” then you still sin.
(No small wonder I am now an Atheist!)

@kritiper If you are a self declared Atheist how do you have the authority to say…“If you sin in the eyes of “God,” then you still sin”?

What if sin is just a term for acts and thoughts which cause us to vibrate at lower frequencies?

@Jak “What if sin is just a term for acts and thoughts which cause us to vibrate at lower frequencies?” You are apparently on to something I have not yet considered….can I ask how sins cause us to “vibrate at lower frequencies”?

@Espiritus_Corvus _“It appears that every major religion on earth has a concept of sin, including the Buddhists:

“Buddhism does not recognize the idea behind sin, but believes in the principle of karma, whereby suffering is the inevitable consequence of greed, anger, and delusion (known as the Three poisons).”

The Three Poisons sound an awful lot like the Deadly Sins to me.“_

Sure, if you’re taking a very superficial view of things. A sin is a transgression against some divine authority. Buddhism has no divine authority to sin against. Recognizing something as harmful isn’t the same as it being a sin.

@Darth_Algar “A sin is a transgression against some divine authority.” according to you it must be so.

@elbanditoroso I once brought that argument up to a Catholic theologian, saying if an individual conscientiously (according to conscience) believes an act (or omission) is not sinful, the individual is not guilty of a sin. His response: while that is true, it is incumbent upon the individual to form a good conscience.

“The term “sin” really just means to ” miss the mark”. like an archer missing his target.”

I am desperately trying to think of where I just heard this analogy. I have narrowed it down to the Madoff mini-series that just aired on ABC last week or the show Billions on Showtime.

Since I am sure it was on one about economic malfeasance is telling.

There are gradations of sin in the Catholic Church: venial and mortal. (Under public law, we call them misdemeanors and felonies).

A venial sin is a minor transgression, such as a kid stealing a candy bar. A mortal sin is where one knows the gravity and sinfulness of the act, yet proceeds to commit it anyway.

A mortal sin can be absolved if the person makes a sincere confession and performs the assigned penance. A venial sin is absolved with participating in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Yet the general direction as mentioned by @kritiper is old thinking, and there is much more theology than the idea of judgment and guilt or innocence.

As I have been raised to understand it a sin is the breaking or transgression of Gods law. If that is actually the case then there has to be a god for there to be a sin. If there is not then it is simply bad behavior and no, an atheist cannot sin since there is no god to sin against in their eyes.

Let’s ask the Pet Shop Boys

A sin is entirely religion orientated, unless it’s one of the seven deadly sins.

The word is just another implement in the great tool box of manipulation. The label is slapped on every “offense” from casting eyes upon yhe women in the sultan’s harem to munching a slice of bacon on a Friday. Sin is the frame over which we hang guilt.

@ucme A sin is entirely religion orientated, unless it’s one of the seven deadly sins.

The Seven Deadly Sins are enumerated in the Summa Theologica (Article 4), written by Thomas Aquinas, a major theologian for the Catholic Church, so I would think the seven deadly sins are extremely religion orientated.

@johnpowell Missing the mark, according to the Wikipedia article has to do with the origin of the word “sin”.

It seems most of the time the word “sin” is used, it is in reference to its religious or theological usage. However, a broader interpretation is used a lot, as in the trope “sins of the father(s),” where someone suffers for the actions of an ancestor, usually a parent. In cases such as these, we are talking about transgressions of the rules, written or not,.

@Yetanotheruser Yeah fair enough, i’m not in any way religious & thought the deadly sins were more gothic in nature, rather than those scribed on Moses’ tablet/iPad.

Just weighing in on the question of “sin” in Buddhism:

The moral code in Buddhism is organized around the principle of not causing suffering. There are rough guidelines, in the form of precepts, that are intended to warn us away from activities (like killing, lying, stealing, etc.) that are more likely than not to cause suffering.

But the Buddhist precepts aren’t absolute. There are, though rarely, circumstances where adhering to the letter of a particular precept would increase suffering rather than prevent it. The ultimate moral mandate is not the precept, but one’s own compassion. If the precepts prescribe one course of action (or non-action), but compassion urges another, compassion trumps precept.

Morality in the real world is messy business. We’re limited in our capacity to understand the full consequences of our actions, so we sometimes cause suffering while meaning well. Then too, sometimes there are no “good” options, only lesser or greater suffering. So moral living in Buddhism is seen as a skill that one refines over time. As with all learning, there’s a lot of trial and error involved. A failure of compassion or other misstep along the way is better characterized as an “unskillful action” than a “sin”.

An unskillful action that causes suffering has consequences that ripple out into the world in unpredictable ways, propagating the suffering. That’s what karma is. There is no cosmic arbitrator of all this, dealing out judgments and punishments. It’s a simple matter of cause and effect.

The Three Poisons (Greed, Anger/Hate and Delusion/Ignorance) aren’t offenses in themselves; they’re the underlying pathology behind unskillful actions. They represent fundamental misperceptions about the nature of reality—a failure to clearly see how things are—and so they undermine (or poison) our ability to act skillfully.

@Cruiser Because that is what believers believe, from the POV of a believer, not myself. To get that point across, I felt I needed to come at it from the other angle.

@kritiper I don’t believe in a Divine God either but IMHO you do not need to be religious or believe in God to commit sin. A sin at the core is a transgression against moral law. Moral law is what allowed religions to form their religious rules and codes which over the years influenced the laws people created to help keep the peace in their societies. So again IMO we are all sinners not exclusively in the eyes of a Divine God but more so each other.

@Cruiser you do not need to be religious or believe in God to commit sin.

The term has indeed evolved from being a totally religious or theological concept, to a broader, more humanist concept. Although the consequences are totally different. The consequences of sin to a believer are supernatural in nature, where the consequences of a sin to a humanist would be the effect an individual action (or omission) might have, individually as well as cumulatively with similar actions or omissions, on human society.

@Cruiser.well everything is vibration somethings cause to vibrate at a higher frequency, like laughter, certain types of music, etc. when you’re angry afraid you are vibrating at a lower frequency.there is a lot to this. Maybe I’ll PM you some links later. I’m in my car on my cell.

@Jak Something along the lines as this ?

@Cruiser

Yup, according to me and me alone. Certainly not according to 2,000 years of church teachings or anything like that. It’s just little old me trying to make up some wild new concept for the word.

@Darth_Algar go up 4 answers and read my comment to @kritiper for the meaning behind my comment to you.

@Cruiser that is a pretty good starting place.