Is sin an imaginary affront to an imaginary being?

Answer 1

In a word, yes.

I just read an excellent book - Elaine Pagels' "Adam, Eve and the Serpent." She discusses the way in which the Christian idea of Original Sin was evolved in order to account for man's apparent senseless suffering. Why does a beneficient God allow us to experience pain and death? What's the point? Since we evidently cannot blame God Himself, the trouble must've started with Adam's rebellion, which was thought to have literally altered the course of nature. Ever since then, all of humanity is condemned to a life of suffering capped off by death, by virtue of the disease of sin, the inheritance of The Fall, which was thought to be transmitted physically through the semen. (This dogma conveniently exempts Christ, conceived, according to the legend, without semen.) As such, none of us is even capable of morality; all of us are corrupted from birth, condemned to crawl irritably upon the earth for a span, enduring all hardship, until we return to the dust from which we are made.

The psychological explanation for the success of this dogma is that man would rather feel guilty for his own suffering than to imagine that it's just a part of nature. He would rather see it as punishment for lax morality than simply the accidental result of nature's indifference to the "human condition."

The explanation for its social and political success is that the Church recognized that by convincing Christians that they were inherently corrupted by Original Sin, and incapable of morality, they could insist upon the necessity of obedience to the bureaucracy for the salvation of their souls. Quite a racket.

In this day and age, belief in the concept of "sin" is simply morbid neurosis. Far from being necessary to morality, it actually exempts man from all real moral responsibility while simultaneously saddling him with the guilt for his imagined ancestor's transgression.

Answer 2

Sin is not imaginary. It literally means to "miss the mark", like missing a target in archery.

Definition
equivalent to 264
to be without a share in
to miss the mark
to err, be mistaken
to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour, to do or go wrong
to wander from the law of God, violate God's law, sin
that which is done wrong, sin, an offence, a violation of the divine law in thought or in act
collectively, the complex or aggregate of sins committed either by a single person or by many
- from a Greek lexicon (the NT was written in mostly Greek & some Aramaic

Greek word hamartia (ἁμαρτία) is usually translated as sin in the New Testament; it means "to miss the mark" or "to miss the target". - from Wikipedia

Answer 3

If you do not believe in God, then why act in a moral way? Why not just do what you want regardless of the consequences? If you believe that once you die you are dead in a box, then why bother being civilized? Why not go out and rape and kill and plunder at will, or just save yourself the pain and suffering of incarceration and commit suicide? Anybody that has a sense of morality and believes that he/she is more than just an animal believes in God. Anybody who considers himself/herself to be civilized has a sense to some degree of what is sinful and what is not. To deny God and sin is first to believe that God and sin exist. You cannot deny what you first do not acknowledge. this is basic Philosophy 101.

Answer 4

That is correct.

Answer 5

BINGO!!!!!!!
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Answer 6

huh?