Monday 6 June 2005

Pic of the day: "It was something I shouldn't have been thinking!" Even in Japan, where Christianity is little more than a rumor to most people, the conscience is making its presence known. Here in the anime Mamotte Shugogetten. Even if he doesn't know the word "sin", he knows the feeling. Isn't this it exactly? Something we shouldn't have done?

Sin

I have been thinking about sin lately. I don't mean that I have been planning to sin; you don't need planning for that. And I don't mean "sin" as in a cutesy name for sex. No, I have been thinking about how we don't have a science of sin.

You may say this is only natural: Sin is a religious concept, and science and religion have nothing to do with each other. After all, we don't have a science of angels or a science of miracles. But to this I will answer: You don't run into angels or miracles every day. Sadly, you are likely to run into sin every day.

Everyone is a sinner. If not in your own eyes, then in someone else's.

And I don't really think sin is a religious concept. Perhaps it was at first, I don't know. But today it is understood intuitively by any normal person in our civilization, no matter their personal piety or lack thereof. If nothing else then at least the experience of temptation is common. And temptation without sin simply makes no sense: If you got tempted to something good, wouldn't you just do it without a second thought? The fact that you are having second thoughts is proof enough of the battle inside you. Which, if you are a normal person, you sometimes lose.

I think the recent science of "hot" and "cold" mental states may be interesting in this connection. I wrote a bit about this on March 7th, including a link and some other stuff that can help you find out more about it. But the short of it is, we are not like a pearl. We are not even like a jewel with different facets, as I used to compare to before. Rather we are like one of those transformer robots. We change according to the situation. Big chunks of our personality are swapped out and a different piece of personality swapped in. While not as bad as dissociation ("multiple personalities"), it still makes it hard to keep promises, much less resolutions. "Never again chocolate!" makes perfect sense until your blood sugar crashes to the floor.

***

This theory of mind states may be helpful in understanding why we do things we wouldn't even think about doing, and combined with a higher self awareness (as in keeping an eye on ourselves, not as in being proud of ourselves) it may help to avoid some traps. But the big question still remains: Why are we put together in such a way that we do this? Why are we transformer robots and not pearls?

It may be easy to talk about double standards in society and so on, but the fact is that we do these about-face things even when utterly alone. So it seems to be a fundamental trait of either the human soul or at least the civilized soul; my bet is on the first.

I think we are always in a flux. We are pulled in opposing directions, not just by invisible spiritual forces, although I certainly won't rule out that. (If I ruled out that, God would not be happy about it, I suspect.) But we are also born into a continuum from parasite to host. As babies (not to mention before) we are pure parasites, incapable of surviving alone, much less doing anything useful. As we grow up, the balance shifts, and we can begin to give more than we get. The "sin- free" life is the life of complete giving, or spiritual love (as opposed to the love you fall in, which can be quite self-serving at times... or so I hear). The "sinful" life is one that takes more than necessary from others to serve the small self. Just think it over and see if this is not the essence of sin, to place oneself before everyone else. And love, just the opposite.

But we are not in a balance. Life is like a flame, more a process than an object. And so we flicker. As I said about the chocolate, it seems easy to renounce when you are fed up with sweets, but then circumstances change and what was clear becomes unclear. Obviously chocolate isn't much of a sin, unless you are really addicted to it and spend your family's last money on chocolate. But there are other processes that have a similar effect. Some of them are every bit as bodily as the chocolate hunger, while others are more subtle. The need for status in the pack, which is found in many animals, can take very subtle forms in humans. And when we place this need before the needs of others, we get stuff like hypocrisy, envy and greed.

That's how I see it now. But does that mean we should accept sin and compromise with it? Perhaps. Or rather we should accept our needs and compromise with them, so that we are not pulled out of balance when the legitimate needs grow too strong and lose their natural boundaries. I'm certainly not the first to think of this: The Christian apostle Paul seemed convinced that most people would commit adultery or at least do some really indecent things if they did not marry and spend quality time with their spouse regularly. I am sure other bad things could happen if you try to completely deny other human needs as well. Surely you can cut down on some of them over time, but the first step to overcoming sin must surely be to accept that we are not gods. (And won't be just by deciding to.)

Humility is simply a subset of realism.