Theophane, since you’re new here, let me explain this rule: you are allowed to criticize a person’s argument, but comments about the person - like "You can’t think straight with all that rage and hatred inside you. " and “That’s some frothing hatred you’ve got there” - are generally against the rules, and when they’re not, they’re still strongly discouraged. They contribute little or nothing to the discussion and usually serve to drag it off-topic and turn it into a flame war. You can do that in the Pit, but not in Great Debates or other SDMB forums. Der Trihs, this also applies to your comment about “Says the person who follows a religion that got to where it is.”
I will be more careful. Just tell me this is not example-making or singling-out. :rolleyes:
Straigh Dope has many posters besides myself.
Yes, exactly! A sin of omission is a failure to act when action was required.
I’m addressing your conduct specifically since you were making those kinds of comments and other posters were not.
Required by whom, your subjective morality or someone else’s or mine?
If I failed to help you when you were in need, that question wouldn’t interest you.
The problem with that claim is that just because someone is in need doesn’t mean you should help them. “Would you help me hide my wife’s body?” is generally not a request you should go along with. “Always help” is an amoral position, not a moral one.
You perform some amazing mental gymnastics to maintain a contrarian position. 
It doesn’t take any gymnastics at all; you are the one insisting on a simple, absolute moral rule and rules like that cause absurdities when attempted in the real world.
The thing is, religion has used to concept of sin to instill fear and control church members. You do something – it’s a sin. If you just think about doing it, but don’t – it’s still a sin. You don’t do something they think you SHOULD do – oh man, yet another sin. And somewhere there’s a sin odometer and if the count gets too high and then you die before some kind of repentance rolls it back, you are fucked for eternity.
It’s like your life is a small boat, and you have to keep bailing out your sins, but the church owns the bucket.
Absurdities? You mean disagreements.
Helping in the name of morality someone get away with murder because you have a “moral” rule of “always help anyone who asks” isn’t absurd?
Being an accomplice to murder isn’t absurd. It’s criminal. A simpleton might be tricked into helping a murderer because he is a good-hearted simpleton, but a simpleton nonetheless. Wisdom without compassion is just as bad as compassion without wisdom.
Or both.
Except that’s exactly what you are proposing, compassion without wisdom. You’re just dancing around trying to avoid addressing it.
I think you are referring specifically to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. In Catholicism, the Catholic Church, according to the article, has always taught that indulgences do not apply to sins not yet committed. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes, “[An indulgence] is not a permission to commit sin, nor a pardon of future sin; neither could be granted by any power.” So, if you are Catholic and have committed a sin, then you can repent (ask forgiveness) and be acquitted from punishment by receiving an indulgence and using them. Also, just because a Catholic person is using an indulgence, that does not guarantee that the person in question will stay out of hell in the afterlife. That person may or may not go to hell, depending on the circumstances and the Catholic god’s mercy. I am not sure what is the penalty for sins not yet committed. It looks like those things are not under the indulgence coverage. You can, however, repent for your sins not yet committed and then try to turn away from merely thinking about sinning. If you can think about turning away from sin, I am sure you are just as able to think about a kind and merciful god who can forgive all your sins and welcome you to the kingdom of heaven, even though other people may tell you otherwise.
I am not talking about a sin “not yet committed”. I am talking about the idea of sinful thought. Once you have thought the thought, you have committed the sin whether or not you’ve taken any actions related to the thought.
Your description of a sinful thought reminds me of a famous story by Oscar Wilde. There are three main male characters in this novel: Basil Hallward, Dorian Gray (the titular character), and Lord Henry Wotton. In the first or second chapter, I recall that Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray were having a polite conversation with brief descriptions of sin and shame. I think Oscar Wilde was a Christian, so he might be using the word “sin” in a religious sense, not in a secular and metaphorical sense. What I find striking about Dorian Gray is that he defines marriage as an “irrevocable vow” and then cruelly breaks his vow with Sybil Vane, simply because she performs poorly. When he returns home from the theater, he realizes that the painting has changed: a sneer emerges. That is when he gets freaked out and starts writing an apology letter to express his feelings to her. While he is writing, he fears that the letter that Lord Henry Wotton has sent him in the morning may encourage him to do more bad things, even though the letter is to inform him that Sybil Vane is dead. So, the idea of having a “sinful thought” and “sinful action” is somehow intertwined together in Wilde’s novel (yes, this guy is a literary genius). I suppose one can argue that Dorian Gray commits the sinful action, whereas Lord Henry Wotton commits the sinful thought, even though it is the sinful action that deserves more harm in the end than the sinful thought. There are many interpretations to this story; I am simply providing one of them. Every time I read this novel, I interpret it differently every time. It would be interesting to read about what others have to say about this story and its concept of sin and shame or the concept of “shameless sin” – a type of sin that one commits but does not repent for or feels shameful for.
NOTE: Oscar Wilde’s novel is NOT immoral. According to him, books are neither immoral or moral. They can only be well-written or poorly written. In other words, you can disagree with all your heart about this book, but you cannot declare that it is “immoral”, because books cannot be judged that way. That aside, let’s judge this book by its literary style! Hopefully, that’s what the author expects us to do!