SIN TO MAKE SINNERS (& EX SINNERS!) HAPPY
If a good God exists we can sin for we would then have free will. If God is
good, then if there is evil it is our doing not his. So we have free will.
Sin is offending God by doing wrong.
The Bible says that we are all totally depraved monsters, creatures capable only
of sin. It teaches that everything we do is evil though we can be good but won’t
be unless God lends us his grace (supernatural help).
God wrote the Bible to teach us spiritual truth - or so we are told.
In Romans 3, we are told that no one on earth does good – no one at all which is
why all need a saviour. We are even told that the righteous acts of the holy and
the saved are stained by sin (1 John 1:8).
If we are all sinners like Bible religion would have us believe, then to be
happy is to reward your sins. It is taking happiness and refusing to make God
happy which is insulting him. To punish yourself would be wrong because you can
repent and cleanse your heart of all sin instead of inflicting unnecessary
suffering on yourself.
So it seems we can do one or the other for neither is right. The punishment
would be more appropriate though. If there is a choice between a sinner
rewarding herself or punishing herself then she has to punish herself. In fact
rewarding herself with happiness would show a desire to hold on to the sin
forever.
I suppose if you can’t resist sin as many religions say you can’t due to
original sin then it is right to punish yourself.
Perhaps rather that sinners rewarding themselves with happiness or punishing
themselves they should do nothing? But they have to do something. And it has to
be better or worse to some degree. Feeling nothing would then be ideal but hard
to manage.
So you have three options - be happy, be neither happy or unhappy and be
unhappy. The happiness option is not acceptable for it is outnumbered.
The criticism that taking happiness from another while you grab it yourself
still applies when you are not talking about freely hurting a God but a human
being or a race of benevolent extra-terrestrials who allegedly care for us.
Pleasure is wrong if you are a naughty free agent no matter who you are horrible
to.
If emotion is allowed and the doctrine of love the sinner and hate the sin says
it is - ie you must have a violent dislike of sin - then we should feel hate for
sin until we fall ill. The more we hate sin the better. The less we hate it the
more we love it and the more we sin. The divine injunction to refrain from sin
means almost dying of hate. The Church says our likes show our character. Not
detesting sin means you like it and are sinful yourself or you hanker after sin.
If it is wrong for sinners to be happy then it is wrong to make them happy. If
it is wrong to make sinners sad that is a sin too. If you think both are wrong
then sinners have to be neither helped or hindered. They have to be forgotten
about. The only time they should be remembered is when you have the chance to
inform them about why one does neither good or evil to them to try and prevent
them from going deeper into sin. The consistent Christian cannot say that God
put us on earth to help one another – except to see us love one another – for
Bible Christianity condemns the whole world as sinful.
But what if ignoring sinners makes them happy or sad? That is not our fault but
theirs. We are doing our best not to be a blessing or a curse for them. What we
are not doing is still must likely to have the desired effect.
Religion is not afraid to point out the hatred of God implied in taking
blessings from him when one bears ill will towards him. There is a
double-standard for it never says the same about taking blessings from sinners
which is complementing them on being decent when they are sinners and not
decent.
The smug who say, “Oh, we used to be sinners but we are something now”, should
eat their words after what comes next.
The Christians cannot be blamed for thinking that once God has forgiven them
that they are allowed to grab happiness whenever they can. “The past has been
dealt with and the sins are pardoned. There is no use in being punished for them
anymore”.
Even if you are forgiven for your sins it is decency and gratitude to make up
for them. Because you have done what is very bad you have to make a big
sacrifice of painful goodness to thank God. It is not punishing yourself but you
have to suffer in order to love. You are trying to reward God but not to punish
yourself.
Remember how we cannot punish ourselves for it's a sin to punish sin that we
won't give up. It is sadism. But it is a problem if we take happiness too. So what
do we do? The answer is we should suffer but not to punish ourselves for the sin
we stick to. If I cannot punish myself for the infinite evil of the sins that
never leave my heart, then I should sacrifice for others to the extreme. I
should do this not to punish but to get as near to both punishing myself and
making amends as I can. I deserve it so it is not unreasonable. I know I should
be punished but I can’t punish myself for I adhere to the things that need
punishment so I have to work out the best compromise.
Hebrews 6 says,
7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
This is in the context of those who abandon
the Christian faith. It matches what Jesus said that if people
don't bear fruit he will cast them out with the rubbish. Don't
assume they mean literally no fruit. What they mean is the
person may seem largely good but they have cut off God and have no
real connection with him.
A sin is an act that ideally should draw down suffering and punishment. To love
the sinner because of the sin in the sense that you see the sin as harmful to
them is impossible. That is really hating the harm and not the sin. To love the
sinner in spite of the sin implies you are trying to force yourself to love and
you are on the edge of hating the person with the sin. If our love for sinners
is so dubious then I wouldn't like to be confident that our love of ex-sinners
is authentic. We are too good then at fooling ourselves. Love the sinner and
hate the sin translates as, "I want you to be happy but only if you give up the
sin. I will not make you happy in the sin. If I am good to you it is to help you
or inspire you to give the sin up." If it was stated like that people would see
through it. But it suits religion to lack transparency.
Suppose we truly can love the sinner and hate the sin.
To love one sinner and hate the sin and not to love another and hate his sin is
unfair. And even more so if the sinner who is loved by you has done worse than
the sinner who is not loved by you. Do you really love sinners if you are so
random? What you are doing when you hate one person because of her sin and not
another is using the sin as an excuse. You just don't like her and wish her
evil.
We all tend to love some people with faults and hate others who are no better or
no worse than them. Religion says everybody is a sinner. We always condemn or
hurt others because of something we don’t like in them. That is worse than
hating a person because of their sin. Why? Hating a person because you feel they
do things you dislike is not understandable. It's vicious. As bad as hating a
person for breaking moral law is, it is not that petty and personal.
If I treat my wife badly though she is kind to me it is because I do not
appreciate her - I do not like her for what she does for me though I may like
the benefits. To offer unfair love to a person who deserves love is not love at
all. It is an egotistic shot at manipulation.
Anybody who believes he or she is a sinner simply cannot work for the happiness
of the sinner and hate the sin. Any love he or she has is self-deceit.
Happiness is iniquitous for sinners and former sinners for the former sinners
are really still sinners.
BOOKS CONSULTED
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