The law of Sin? Or the Law of man?

I have thought about this concept for a few days now and I have done research and compiled my data to share with everyone. I Do hope this doesn't offend anyone here by saying this and/or offend those of the Abraham Jedi (I being one also). This isn't to bash another church/religion but, merely to show another side or view point.

Everyone has at least heard of the Ten Commandments once in their lifetime. If not, let me just post it down below for you so that you understand what I am talking about.

You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make idols.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.

Ok so, there you have it. For centuries since the Judaism, Christianity and Islamic believes have been around these have been a cornerstone of most known belief systems are based off. Why is this? Because, these three great religions all came from Abraham (Judaism=Moses, Christianity=Christ, Islamic=Ishmael) now, in America at least when I was a kid and my parents and their parents these ten commandments we're a staple in our economy and was the basis of "good" moral values. Now, This is called the Ten Commandments or "The Law" by Moses and Aaron, by Christ and I believe I could be incorrect but also in some parts Islam (They contain some stories from the Christian Bible similar) now, we also have another view point which is going to be my subject and questionaire for my fellow Jedi. This comes from The Apostle Paul from the Epistle to the Romans Chapter 7,

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Now, my point for this is does sin exist outside The Bible? Does sin exist without the ten commandments? Would mankind have ever known what sin was if it wasn't for The Bible? The Torah? (Five books of Moses). My final question is does it matter? Is it reliant in our world today?

1. Does sin exist outside The Bible/Torah, does sin exists outside the ten commandments?

A: There are alot of other eastern religions that do talk about "sin" but, it comes in different various forms and names. For example the world sin from the dictionary means:

sin1
sin/
noun
1.
an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.
"a sin in the eyes of God"
synonyms: immoral act, wrong, wrongdoing, act of evil/wickedness, transgression, crime, offense, misdeed, misdemeanor;

okay, so the world "Sin" from this diffination seems to be directed into the wrong doing against gods/goddess' but, it also could be pointed at doing an immoral act and so on an so forth.

Now, my personal opinion I believe we as luminous beings have infused into us the moral code of "right" and "wrong" but, again I take it a step futher and the famous quote, "Right and wrong is in the eyes of the beholder" one person may argue that wearing white socks to a formal is a sin but, one person may say wearing black socks to a formal is a sin, then you might have the person who cannot afford either or and might wear either color but, again in the eyes of the beholder.

2. Would mankind have know what sin was if it wasn't for The Bible/ The Torah?

A: I believe personally from my studies of the worlds religion if The Bible or the Torah wouldn't have ever came into existence, if Christians or the Jewish people never existed there would still be someone out there trying to tell you that they have a better way to live life and some will tell you that better than others (laughs).

3. Is The Ten Commandments the Law of Sin? Or, The Law of Man?

A: Being a Christian most of my life, being a former Minister of the gospels do I feel that the Ten commandments are the law of sin? Yes. It is the moral ethic standard for most the the known world for over 2,000 years in many, many countries and many states base their ethic code of conduct based off these ten laws. Is it the law of man? yes and no, I say yes because mankind has followed these as their standard for so many years.

No, because the original Author who brought them down from Mt. Sinai so many years ago (believed to be 1393-1273 BCE) Now it said that Moses was up there for forty days and nights with no food or water. Who is to say that he wasn't in mediation? Or, he wasn't at some point doing astral projection? There are Bible accounts of him praying, talking the Yahweh up there and that Yahweh was speaking to him coherently. They say that Yahweh wrote on the tablets of stone Moses had with his own finger. There are many known and factual facts out there of spirits and unknown activity happening in our world that cannot be explained. I am in the belief that we need to get past our materialistic views, scientific views and what we know and reach out in The Force and believe in the unseen and the unheard.

Now, I am not sitting here tonight trying to convert anyone to Christianity or, Judaism by any means. But, what I am saying is that how does mankind know good from bad? how is it that we know good from evil? Alan Watts says in his lectures, "How can there be darkness without light?" how is it we perceive one thing being good and one being evil? How is it that we know what is "sin" and what isn't? Is it merely, personal convictions? Or, is it something more? I am curious to know what anyone has to say about this subject hope to see comments.

MTFBWY all

Sven One

According to the New Testament, however, Christ explains that because of his sacrifice, there are really only 2 commandments:

• Love God with your whole being.
• Love others as you love yourself (or in other words, do unto others as you would have them do unto you).

These 2 encompass the other 10. Christ died on the cross in place of sin, thereby eliminating the original 10 commandments. That is, at least, what Christians believe.

It's ironic how you say you've done research and yet the next thing you bring up betrays how you really really didn't.

So, the ten commandments. First of all, that list you gave is not the list the Bible calls the ten commandments. These are admittedly resembling the first ten, but "THE ten" are the ones from some fourteen chapters later because the stones had apparently been too slippery or whatever. A good example would be the second commandment you list: That is the one that appears as a prohibition against "molten gods" in the second list in Ex 34:17. Admittedly, though I have heard that mostly from orthodox circles and can confirm that, say, the most common Russian translation of Ex 20 does say to not create any idols, ammending it with that which we find in both the KJV and the NIV: A prohibition against making graven images or indeed any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth. In other words: Abstract art only and never any sculptures of any kind. Likewise, whether the sixth commandment says to not murder or to not kill remains up for debate, setting aside that the change to "not murder" is a rather recent one. Finally, the tenth commandment, while technically correct, it still makes a difference to remember that we are talking only about your neighbor's things (including their male and female slaves and wife, because all those things are commodities in the eyes of god), and not the posessions of men from other tribes. As with murder, these commandments are a covenant specifically with the nation of Israel and the Bible makes sure to express how they don't apply when it comes to any foreign people.

In the very next paragraph already your "research" betrays you: No Abrahamic faith is "based off" these commandments, and Islam specifically doesn't even list them in their text. Some of them appear here and there scattered, as they do in both Testaments, but they never appear in order and hardly together, and the one place one could try and painstakingly argue they are listed at all is not the place where Moses received them.
Whether the three Abrahamic religions came from Abraham is also under question seeing how Abraham was likely not a historic figure while a great bunch of the stories we find in the pentateuch much predated it anyway.
Likewise, these commandments were never underlying either US law and the tenth flies directly against the only economy the USA ever successfully adopted for itself within the lifetime of anyone still around to this day.
The very next sentence greets again with a falsehood: These are not the ten commandments refered to as the ten commandments within the Bible. Those in Ex 34 are. Nor is this "The Law", since that has over 600 commandments and continues throughout Exodus, starting in chapter 20, with a good bulk still to be revealed ahead in the rest of the Pentateuch. And yes, you are incorrect, only a subset of those laws appear in the Islamic holy texts.

Alright, so now that your "research" is out of the way, let's move on to the questions and how you adressed them and perhaps even how I would.

1. Yes, it does exist outside the Bible, and yes it exists outside the ten commandments. While the word is used to refer to immoral acts, I have yet to hear anybody use it to mean something completely absolved from any religious connotation. A sin is specifically a transgression against the divine. Since the Bible is not the only holybook and the ten are not the only commandments either within or outside of it, therefore there can be sin outside of both.
Personally, I argue mostly, though not exclusively consequentionalism and I came to be a moral surrealist. In metadiscussions of ethics when needed I insist on hypothetical imperatives only. There are truths to be discovered about the consequences of our actions. While it is up to the "beholder" whether any particular goal or value they choose or are naturally inclined to hold, provided those goals, what is helpful to achieve them is not a matter of opinion but of fact. Likewise, what is a transgression of godgiven laws should also be a matter of fact which is why hardly anybody is arguing over which color socks are sinful to wear but many are quite certain what kind of meat must not be eaten or what kind of love must not be felt - another equally arbitrary set of rules betraying how laws, wherever they come from, are never just about morality, and indeed shouldn't be.

2. I agree with you here. Since gods and their laws are made by people, what is a transgression of said laws is a matter of what they come up with and not a universal truth underlying the universe.

3. And back to heavy disagreement again. No country you ever lived in was based on the ten commandments you listed. Only two of them are actually laws and three others are broken by just about every person before they are even as old as eight years. And that is modern times. Since most of the known world included at least north Africa and all the way to China during the past 2000 years, I disagree that these laws were the basis of their morals and ethics.
Now where you get dates for the time of Moses from I also do not understand seeing how attempts to date the Exodus have long been abandoned and indeed since Moses himself is not recognized as an actual historic figure. Likewise, fourty happens to be a number used to exaggerate expressions of big quantities the way we would say a billion, which doesn't help the dating much. We can be pretty sure that there cannot have been about two million Jewish slaves residing in one city of a country that in that age had a population of as much as three million people total, nor is it conceivable that - with God's aid, no less - it took them fourty years to cross a distance that takes two months worth of travelling along the coastline.
Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen - I'm not a qualified enough historian to do so. But it sure didn't happen the way the book says nor should we believe things just because somebody somewhen long ago claimed them. Invoking things unexplained to make incredible things believable is frankly going backwards: You start with the conclusion that this must have happened and are now trying to find a way how it could have. That's not the way you treat Harry Potter, is it? Heck, that's not even the way you treat Little Red Riding Hood. That one also has a talking animal, but at least it doesn't have magic spells like Exodus does. I'd say it is far more realistic, yet you wouldn't buy it on the book's say-so, would you?
See? No science required to tentatively reject extraordinary claims of demonstrably incredible sources.

Streen wrote: According to the New Testament, however, Christ explains that because of his sacrifice, there are really only 2 commandments:

• Love God with your whole being.
• Love others as you love yourself (or in other words, do unto others as you would have them do unto you).

Christ doesn't explain that, since by the time he names these two he did not make his "sacrifice" yet. Moreover, in other places Jesus said to keep all of the law and that he came indeed to enforce and not abolish it. In Matthew 19 he lists more than the two as the ones to be kept and in Mark 21 he calls the second one the second commandment when of course it isn't in either the Exodus 20 nor the Exodus 34 version of the ten commandments. It should be pointed out that neither of those places he refers to specifically "ten" commandments but just to "the" commandments.

These 2 encompass the other 10. Christ died on the cross in place of sin, thereby eliminating the original 10 commandments. That is, at least, what Christians believe.

No, they encompass all of the commandments, according to Matthew 22 where he doesn't read the ones he said to keep in chapter 19, just before giving some of the worst advice he could. On a personal note, you don't get to define "what Christians believe". You can't speak for all of them and we both know that should I find the group of Christians who doesn't believe as you do, your only comeback will be the No True Scottsman Fallacy, so let's just stay away from speaking for them all in things that are not part of every Christian doctrine out there. Cheers

Gisteron wrote: It's ironic how you say you've done research and yet the next thing you bring up betrays how you really really didn't.

Sounds familiar. Whether you intentionally mean to belittle other people's opinions or not, starting a reply like this really isn't conducive to productive discussion. It just triggers emotional and defensive responses and creates ill feelings towards you.

It is such a shame because you make some good points but the combative nature of your replies leaves a sour taste and makes your point of view hard to swallow.

Not to derail the thread but by this "just before giving some of the worst advice he could" do you mean Matthew 19:21 "If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.". I had a little trouble reconciling the chapter numbers you quoted and want to make sure I know which bit you are saying is bad advice.

I may indeed be a little harsh on purpose, though rest assured that I meant it. If somebody offers their opinion, that's fine and the gentleman said that this is what they are and I responded to them as such. If however they also said they did some research and they know they didn't, I don't feel bad for calling it out. And this is not something obscure, mind you, we're talking about the ten commandments here, no less, one of the best known codes in the western world. It doesn't take a lot of research to make sure to at least phrase them correctly.

And yes, that was what I was referring to, about the bad advice. I like the giving to the poor bit, but this passage implies that the fellow sell all his posessions (and in other places the all part appears also) and follow Jesus, and the motivations for this are two-fold: You'd be perfect if you did it and you'd get great treasures after you die. If this was good advice, it would need no attempted coercion. And it can only be good advice if you are already living in the last days and that is an assumption not quite backed up in either the book or by any of the other generations that thought that the end was nigh because of said book.

Gisteron,

This Is merely a discussion I value your opinion but, you don't need to be overly critical of what I wrote. I merely summarized what I have researched I have enough consideration for my fellow jedi they dont need four, five pages of scripture based thats just too much. Also, the 2 commandments Jesus wrote if you study then extensively do sum up the 10 if you read what he saif after he finished speaking. However I feel this is a discussion that has negative energies attached to it and I am trying to surround myself with positive energies so I'm going to leave this at that and say no more because what I could say would be unkind and unbecoming of a Jedi.

"sin" as a word has a history which can be traced back and defined with some degree of specificity
we can say "this is where the word comes from and how it was used and how its been translated" ect ect and we can go on to list specific acts which have been identified as sins
as the word "sin" has a very precise cultural origin, so to does the interpretation of what sinful means have to be centered on that culture and so are the items on the list of all things which are sinful
some of the things on that list would make sense to us today, in the modern west, but many of them would not

so, sin, as a WORD, is cultural
sin as a CONCEPT however, is universal - the idea that lives underneath the word, so to speak
the idea that there is a standard or an ideal to live by and that it is possible to fall short of that ideal or even to betray it outright
the merit of this idea is obvious, i think

and it is a good opportunity to point out that the relativity of right and wrong exists, but only so far

that it is sinful to eat pork is a matter of culture (as long as you are coming from the perspective of someone outside of one of the cultures where its considered sinful) but the negative effects of eating nothing but frosted flakes and haagen daz every day are not - this is universally unhealthy and is clearly identifiable as "wrong" and "bad" because the effects will be measurable and consistent

so too are there "moral" and psychological patterns which will consistently produce negative results in ones life and relationships - and yes we can say "negative and positive are relative, and can mean different things to different people" but going to prison for the rest of your life or finding out that your spouse has been getting it on with your friends - all of them, are universally bad or negative experiences, despite the relativity of the value-words

and there are ways of thinking and behaving which pretty well ensure that both of these events come about

and also ways which make them very, very unlikely

my personal opinion is that the most functional and up-to-date interpretation of the IDEA of sin is to make genuine effort to understanding how things like personal ethics, thoughts, and behavior patterns, effect ones overall long term health, physically and psychologically, and socially

to me, while the ideas of sin and righteousness are no longer viable in purely moralistic terms - to say someone is immoral because of what they eat is not going to work - but to cultivate our understanding of these ideas from within the framework of human development and and of social maturity, of health and growth and of the balance between self actualization and communal responsibility, is pretty functional and totally appropriate, imo

Thank you Shinobi,

You put that in the way I was trying to articulate but, I put too much on the history and evidence. Perfect thank you

In the end you asked three questions. I will give my short answers here: 1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) Yes to both.

One thing that might effect the answer is the understanding of the word "sin." If we use "sin" as just "doing something wrong" that gives us a different answer than "doing something wrong with cosmic/divine/Godly consequences."

Does sin exist outside of the bible/tora? Yes, though it might be knows by a different name. The idea of Christian Sin, Mortal Sin, ultimate sin, etc may be specific, but the idea of doing wrong isn't. In pretty much every belief system there are things that you shouldn't do, they just might not be called a "sin."

Would humanity have learned about sin if not for the Bible? See the above answer. Like you said Sven, someone would be out there telling people how to live.

Are the ten commandments the law of Sin or the law of man? Yes...? According to the Bible the first is true, according to any society that abides by those rules the second is true.

Just my opinion. No research to back it up.