HOW "WE ALL SIN" IS A TOOL FOR JUSTIFYING A RELIGION THAT CANNOT REALLY HELP THE HUMAN NASTY STREAK

"We are all sinners" is used as an excuse for a religion being evil

That excuse is common among people who are confronted with what their religion did some years or centuries ago.  But they need to be reminded that when the religion was butchering the innocent everywhere that its members who suspected this was wrong used the same excuse.  And then nothing was done!  A bad religion feels supported by thinking that each individual member and each person on earth is anti-god and sinful anyway.

When you point to the evil done by the Church, Christians say, “We are all sinners. We repent our sinful deeds.” But their response needs unpacking.

*We are all sinners – it’s a human problem not a Christian one and who are you to judge being a sinner yourself?  And you don’t know what you will do to somebody tomorrow.

COMMENT: That is actually an ad hominem against you!  Not only do they do grave evil but they look down their noses at those who point it out!

*We are sinners

COMMENT: You are accused of the sin of blindness if you do not believe in sin or that the only difference between a violent sinner and a non-violent one is the sins that they are attracted by. Nobody has the right to disrespect you and accuse you when it should be "innocent of sin until proven guilty". If you can be proven to be a wrongdoer it is then necessary to prove that that wrongdoing is sin. Sin and wrong are not the same. There can be no sin without wrong but there can be wrong without sin.  Wrong considers what was done to a person and sees right and wrong as being about what it means to be human.  A calculator made by chance not by a person still means to calculate so don't allow the notion, "Only a God can show us what it means to be human" in here.

* Repenting sin shows we are trying to deal with sin so failure means our religion is good even if we abuse it.

COMMENT: Repenting sin is a scam for getting people to think, "The evil they have done is in the past.  We must move on in peace and friendship."  Moving on does not mean abandoning the evil of the past.  It means reminding the religion of what it has done and that it still matters.  It means working together for the sake of peace not for the sake of the religion.  The repentance thing is an insult to the people who were ripped open by the religion.

ESSAY: The "We are all sinners" copout

When a religion has a history of terrorism the number involved does not matter.  What matters is that it happens at all.  The terrorists win if they get us to see it as a numbers game and we end up sort of to blame if we play along with that rubbish.  The terrorists need to be heard and listened to when they claim the religion is a driving cause.  By calling itself good the religion is averting that discussion and thus to blame for the problem.  Not all in a religion are terrorists simply because not all can be and because some are not committed enough or they think it is wrong under the circumstances.  

Women generally do not fight anyway but expect others to do it so it is dishonest to assert that people in a religion are not all bad for that mostly and usually means the women.   And then there is the children.  It is an insult to point to children as evidence that a religion is good.  If they could and would fight in war it would be different.  Thus you cannot use their innocence to water down the danger from the adult males. 

As for the terrorists and fanatical killers, the question is not if the religion sends them out to slay and maim it but is there anything in its belief system that forms its identity that can inspire or smooth the way to religious related violence?  The we are all sinners talk discourages religionists from challenging the subtle influence on the basis, "What can I say when I am a sinner myself?"  Accepting one another as sinners normalises a refusal to fix the faith or get a better one.  It keeps the problem thriving.  There is too much concentration on the actively violent as if they live in a vacuum.  What about the faith context that made them? 

"We are all sinners" is just an excuse when a religion has members who do harm and commit violence in the name of religion.  As bad as it is to dodge the responsibility as a religion by saying that when Holy Catholic Joe robs the bank, it is nothing like saying it when Joe burns down the Mosque for faith reasons.  The excuse is really saying, "Forget about what my Church members did.  Think of how you are not that great either. You are a sinner too."

Consider when a faction or group in a religion or who the religion recognises as its own engages in terrorism or sectarian violence religion says that we are all sinners.  How they can say that and then claim that the terrorists have nothing to do with them "for we are not all bad" shows just how manipulative they are.  If the sinner who steals a bag of crisps is considered one of your own as a sinner then the terrorist should be as well and has to be.  A religion saying it's a collection of sinners means it has to take responsibility and it is not just the responsibility of the actual terrorist.

So they say when some of them become terrorists, "We are all sinners but we reject that violence".  What do they mean?  They could mean one or all of the following.

They could mean that as in resignation and would say to you, "They bomb and kill in the name of our faith but what would you expect?".  They could mean that as we all sin it is only natural for some if not all to engage in religious related violence.  That is disgraceful for there should be no resignation in such a serious matter.  If people give up trying to be non-violent after hearing a message like that can we be surprised?  The violent would feel sort of supported by such a horrible attitude as sported by those who think their religious evil is just human nature.

Resignation could be a tool for making the terrorist inclined feel safe and tolerated in acting on those inclinations.

They could mean, "We all sin and their sins are simply different from ours."  That is insulting and dismissive.  They even degrade themselves by putting themselves on the same level as the terrorists.  Or is it really degradation if that is their attitude?  If you are a faith terrorist and think your sins and Mother Teresa's sins are equally bad but just different sins then you are warped.  Your religion is as bad as you if it would agree with your insane ideas about sin.

They could mean that we are all sinners but at least we have the right religion so we should battle sinners of other religions or certain sinners within our own religion such as heretics for we have to battle somebody anyway.

If we are all sinners and if we can twist even good things into sin then why can't religion itself be an example of sin?   If man is sin then why can't religion be sin?

Some things like smoking are greatly loved though they do harm and love for religion could be similar.

The doctrine that all are sinners implies that as far as people in it are concerned, religion is not all good.

The sinner doctrine especially when it tries to make us all equal in sin before God only encourages sin. People sin easily when they think they are in company.

The doctrine that we are all sinners can become an encouragement to sin especially for the religion that teaches it for religion functions as a placebo for the tormented conscience.  If there is no God to erase that sin then you are not entitled to that placebo.  And you do not need it in order to try and fix the harm you have done to people.  The risk of being wrong is a real one and thus no religion can or should claim to be totally good for risk is bad in itself even if it is needed.  Other goods make it tolerable but it is not good in itself.

Some Christian countries in the past were remarkably civilised.  But that did not stop innocent people from being banished and legally tortured and murdered because they were thought to contradict the Christian orthodoxy.  The goodness was the reason why they felt they should destroy.  Some goodness or some good people in a religion cannot make a religion good.  It is stupid to take God's command, "You shall not murder" as condemning the death penalty when those who wrote the Bible clearly believed in the death penalty and assumed one reason for the command was that nobody would murder and have to end up executed.  Today's supporters of the death penalty cite the command and hold that it in context is pro-death-penalty.

Politically correct people ignore religious doctrines and scriptures that incite to violence and when religionists obey those evil teachings the politically correct just pretend it has nothing to do with religion.

Enough is enough.  Religion is bad and using the not all bad is surprisingly against the religious self-understanding which is reflected in the doctrine.


CONCLUSION: Religionists when they are not agents of religious evil are accomplices even if they don’t see themselves as accomplices.   This is true if they can leave and go to a true religion of peace but won't.



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