Sunday 11 March 2001

Pic of the day: View from my bedroom window. Pretty foggy outside. Is my brain in a similar state? You be the judge ...

A brief history of sin

It's nice to see that God still reads my journal, even though he does not always agree with me. I guess when I sort of pass myself off as representing him, he should be allowed to have his say. Here's his comment on yesterday's entry. It did not come in the form of an e-mail from god@heaven.gov, but rather by telephone.

The telephone was from a friend of mine from the physical world, who doesn't read my journal. (In fact, I don't think he has Internet access yet.) He urgently needed to borrow $1500, for reasons which he explained but which do not concern the world at large. The message from God to me seems to be that actually having some money is not a bad thing. It can be used to help others, or to avoid becoming a burden to others when conditions in life fluctuate. Being poor is not in itself morally superior; just be careful to not love the money or the things it can buy. (Now, would I be able to resist such temptations? God knows my track record is not the best.)

Of course, it may not be God. It may just be Reason. I often have a hard time seeing the difference. Take for instance the whole "sin" thing.

***

To me it seems obvious that any God worth his capital G would prohibit the stuff that's harmful, like a good parent would, instead of just following his own quirks and irrational dislikes. So basically there should be no difference betweens the concepts of "sin" and "immorality".

However, your average religion has an extended sin concept that includes ritual sin, to use my own name for it. (I'm sure there is a fancy Greek or Latin name, but none comes to mind.) This may seem as sensible as "victimless crime", that is, not much at all. For instance, most religions forbid some kind of meat, though the actual type varies. Hinduism forbids beef, Judaism and Islam forbid pork; the Vikings generally avoided horse meat, and almost no one eats a dog. Christianity probably forbids the eating of blood (though some read it as a prohibition of bloodshed, I don't).

The pork thing is an excellent example of a sin that started as "moral sin" and ended as "ritual sin". In days of yore, eating pigs was a certified bad thing. Not just because of the trichinosis risk; but pigs have a digestive tract scaringly similar to our own. That means, they eat pretty much exactly the same stuff that we do. If farmers fatten up pigs, they will use food that could be eaten by humans. (Unlike cows and sheep, who will gladly eat grass.) So a society that does not eat pigs, will have more food for its humans, and be less prone to famine. (Each pig eats about 10 kilo food to gain 1 kilo weight, so it is not really a good trade if there is enough protein and fat available from other sources.)

There are several other ritual sins that were useful sometime in the past. For instance, the ancient Hebrews were commanded to bathe and wash their hands and various items for the slightest excuse, from spontaneous nightly orgasms to death in the family. These hygiene rules were quite good for their health, but they became religious rituals who interfered with people's spiritual life. The condemnation of homosexuality was probably motivated by the need to mark a distance to the old goddess-worshipping religion in the area, which had ritual homosexuality and even castration among its rites. (Unnatural lust by both men and women is still described as an effect of idolatry by the apostle Paul, in the New Testament.) There was also a law against jumping over the door sill, which we know was a Philistine religious custom, and burning sacrifice on the hills and on the roofs, which was typical of the Canaanite worship of the "Queen of Heaven".

Other sins have their origin lost in time. For instance, the law of Moses slapped down really hard on using clothes made from two types of fiber. This was reason enough to exterminate people. It is listed along with crossbreeding different species of animals, or sowing different types of seed in the same acre; but no rational person can ever have imagined that their clothes would start to breed while worn. Really. Perhaps God just really likes to keep some things separate?

***

For reasons unknown, some sins have stood the test of time, while others have been quietly put aside. For instance, the world religions descended from Judaism still condemn homosexuality in general; but the rules against jumping over thresholds or wearing mixed fiber are gone. Or even a sin such as taking interest from loans, which was never ritual at all but a moral sin (a kind of theft). Well, actually Islam retains this, though there are ways around it. But in Christianity, the more interest the better, and nobody bats an eye.

My best guess is that homosexuality is still forbidden in most christian churches because it is icky. Well, isn't it though? (While greed is not.) Notice that icky things can go from holy to sinful without any added notice from Heaven Above. St Paul exhorts his readers to greet the brethren with a holy kiss; you don't see that often in your church, do you? That's not because God has released an addendum to his rulebook, but because it is icky. The foot washing ritual that Jesus instituted has gone the way of the northern penguin, while the sharing of bread and wine instituted the same evening is considered exceptionally holy. One is icky, the other not.

Sometimes I wonder why there hasn't been an update to the Bible in like 1700 years or more. I mean, God just has to notice that people have changed his religion a lot during that time, and the difference between the handbook and the practice is rather painfully obvious by now. Has he given up? Has he tried to release an update but got it refused by the publisher? Or has he decided that by now we should jolly well be able to find out what is right and wrong?

After all, it's not more difficult than this: "Do to others what you would want them to do to you." This is the Law and the Prophets.