"You are bad and you should feel bad about it" - a core Christian belief?

Great Debates
1

I know that each of the many Christian denominations may contain a multitude of views… but in my (perhaps inaccurate) observations it appears that most Christians would agree with the following, except they would use the words “sin” or “sinful” where I’ve said “bad”. (More on that in a moment.)

Now I know Christians would generally say “you are a sinner” and not “you are bad”, but as far as I can tell, “sin” basically means “badness that is offensive to God”, and anyone who sins is a sinner (whether they’re sinning at this particular instant or not). The Christian belief seems to go beyond “everyone has done bad things” to a belief that these bad things have left a residue of badness on you, a sort of stain on your soul. Otherwise, the emphasis on Jesus being “without sin” doesn’t make much sense; it makes sense because sin is a state of being, not just an act.

So, I think “you are bad” is a fair paraphrase of “you are a sinner” into more secular language. But feel free to dispute this point.

The main questions I want to raise are:[ol]
[li]Is this an accurate characterization of Christian belief?[/li][li] Is this actually a good thing for people to believe, or not?[/li][/ol]

Of course it’s hard to define “a good thing for people to believe”. But maybe I can clarify what I’m getting at by using myself as an example:

When I was an adolescent and a younger adult, I had a lot of guilt issues, and I was very hard on myself for making mistakes and not always being as close to perfect as I wished I could be. Over the last decade I have mostly worked through these issues, and I now am able to see myself as a good person. I’m not perfect, of course, but on the whole I am honest, kind, hard-working, loyal, dutiful, loving, etc. The fact that I am aware of this basic goodness doesn’t just make me feel substantially happier, it also makes it easier for me to admit to my flaws and errors (because doing so doesn’t pain me as it once did), makes it easier for me to accept criticism, makes it easier for me to recognize that other people can also be fundamentally good in spite of their flaws, and makes it easier for me to be understanding of the imperfections and struggles of the people around me. Because I feel good about who I am, I am both happier and kinder to others. Moreover, because I now believe that I deserve love, I am much more able to accept the love of others as genuine and sincere, and my relationships have benefitted as a result.

So, when I look (for instance) at how I’m raising my daughters, I certainly think I want to raise them with a belief that they are good, and that they are deserving of both happiness and love (but no more so than other people), and that the fact that they aren’t perfect is not something they ought to feel bad about (but they should still always strive for further self-improvement). So maybe that means pushing back against the Christian viewpoint?

You might say: Tim, what you’re describing is just your personal issues; the Christian view of sin doesn’t affect people that way. Perhaps not, which is why I’m asking… But at least anecdotally, it seems there are many Christians who experience feelings of guilt associated with their religion (e.g., “Catholic guilt” is something of a cliché). And Christian “forgiveness” of the flaws of others seems to often be expressed in a form that suggests “Well, we’re bad too” (e.g., “judge not lest ye be judged”, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, “there but for the grace of God go I”), rather than that people may be basically good and deserving in spite of their flaws.

So, what’s your view? It would be great if, when replying, you let me know if you’re a Christian, and whether you belong to a particular denomination. I’d be interested to get a sense of if there’s a denominational split in how people answer. But I appreciate your reply, regardless.

[partially inspired by Qadgop’s thread on Jesus’s sacrifice, but I didn’t want to hijack]

2

I was fairly careful in the blockquoted section of the OP to only use “bad” where I thought it was a replacement for “sin”/“sinner”/“sinful”, but I was less careful about the thread title. In Christian terms, I think it would be “You are a sinner and you should recognize that you deserve punishment and death” - a core Christian belief? But I went with a secular paraphrase because I think it makes more plain what I find troubling about this statement – namely, that it equates to the view that people are bad, and that God loves you not because you’re good, but in spite of the fact that you’re bad.

I’m not trying to caricature Christians or Christian belief here (although perhaps I am in spite of myself). I know well that many Christians spend a lot more time talking about the “God loves you” part than the “even though you’re a sinner who doesn’t deserve it” part. But I’m supposing they actually still believe the second part, particularly because it seems central to the Christian understanding of the Crucifixion, which seems to be an essential component of Christian belief.

3

Sin means to ‘miss the mark’. In means we don’t measure up to God. That’s all it means and that meaning should be obvious almost by definition of ‘God’ and ‘human’.

The problem we have is ‘God is Love’ and when we miss out in being loving we miss the mark of God. The universal concept is Karma, or biblically ‘you reap what you sow’. When you reap you reap more than you sow. That is the concept of farming. So one who misses the mark of Love, will reap a multiple of what they put out.

And here is the thing - that (sin) is fine as long as the person (soul) can handle it.

But we can’t and neither can God for that matter, so the reconnection of God and man as parent and child is needed. In this way God is responsible for us, and being God, can correct our ‘errors’ to bring everything in line to Love, in which case there is no sin (everything we do is under God’s perfect Love - thus is Love). The saying ‘one is none, two is one’ is very applicable here man by himself is nothing and can not save, but man with God can.

The punishment is just a universal law at work just like F=ma or E=mc^2. Throw a perfectly elastic ball against an immovable wall and don’t be surprised when it bounces back and hits you upside the head.

4

Thanks for the reply, kanicbird, although I’m not sure I completely follow you.

If sin is just “missing the mark” and not actually “bad”, then why does it require punishment?

5

No, it doesn’t. No dictionary defines it that way, and none of the churches I have ever attended came close to defining it that way.

6

The T in TULIP is far from a universal Christian belief.

7

To the extent that doing the right thing is difficult, I think instilling some doubt about your own ability to instantly know what is right could have some benefit. Having everyone feeling morally certain is probably a worse alternative.

8

I think your summary matches my experience with Christianity.

I was taught that Jesus saves us from the otherwise inevitable fate facing all unrepentant sinners: eternal hell. You can define eternal hell however you want, but ultimately it serves to punish people. People don’t get punished for actions they’ve committed (because otherwise people wouldn’t fret about baptizing babies), but for–as you say–their state of being. For not being cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.

I didn’t really understand why there is such an emphasis on the inherent “badness” of humans until I started teaching in graduate school. One day I was leading a discussion group about evolution, and one of the students said she didn’t believe in evolution because the whole concept renders Jesus pointless. Curious, I asked her to expound. Her argument boiled down to this: Evolution means that there was no Adam and Eve, which would then mean there was no serpent and no biting-of-the-apple, which means humans never “fell”, which means there was no need for Jesus to come down and save us, since there would be nothing to save us from. So essentially she refused to even consider the reality of evolution since it would require her to question everything she “knew” about Jesus’s purpose.

I thought that was…interesting. Don’t know how prevalent this notion is, but it is certainly consistent with the brand of Christianity I was raised under.

9

You can google it yourself but here’s one example: Facebook

10

It’s the result of the action (or thoughts), it’s what we have put out that has returned to us. So it is us punishing ourselves. That is the cycle God wants to stop though the sacrifice of Jesus in our place.

Those people in the bible shouting ‘crucify him’ were not shouting due to Jesus’ sin but condemning their own sins that they have transposed on Jesus. They were condemning themselves in their shouts. This goes on today as those who accuse others are often the ones guilty of that very thing. But we can’t deflect that forever onto others and will bear the consequences of our own condemnations and will not be able to stand against it, thus enter what some may call hell.

11
  1. Who the hell is OSHO, your supposed source?
  2. IF it meant that a couple thousand years ago, it certainly doesn’t mean that NOW.
12

That girl’s short argument looks to be very accurate, in a relatively crude way. The idea of Adam and Eve’s “Original Sin,” which caused them to be cast out of Eden; the idea in turn, that Jesus died (rather paradoxically, to my thinking) to “balance the books” with God; and therefore no need for Jesus if no Original Sin.

Of course it’s a VERY big religion, having itself evolved over two thousand years, after starting out as an offshoot of another much older belief.

But I think the OP missed a very big point, and went off to a very wrong line of reasoning, by failing to recognize that there is tremendous SUBTLETY involved with a decent comprehension of Christianity. By oversimplifying it in an effort to make it understandable, he accidentally created a falsehood.

As an historian, I would liken it to how a lot of History is accidentally mistaught to most children. An extremely simplified version of World War One that is commonly taught early on, is that it was caused entirely by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, by anarchist Victor Princip, in Sarajevo. That small group of facts are all accurate, but by using only those facts to tell the story, it actually is closer to being a lie than it is to being the truth about WW1. Had not a thousand and more other events not set everything up as it was, the assassination would have been so unimportant that it would have been forgotten long ago.

In Christianity, the idea that everyone is born into sin IS a fundamental element, however, there are many nuances and facets to that simple statement which are necessary to understand, before you can begin to characterize the overall religion accurately.

On top of that, there is another almost unrelated force moving Christianity’s various tenets, and that force is the intersection of the SECULAR attempts to use Christianity in support of government, as well as the attempt by many Christian leaders, to try to use Christianity to get people to behave well in general.

And those forces also are at odds, with a common human behavioral trait, which makes everyone’s tasks even harder: the natural human drive to KNOW THE FINAL WORD. It is in the nature of humans, to WANT to simplify things, as an essential part of the most fundamental human behavior of all: the urge to feel as though you are “on the right track.” Efforts to get the EXACT meaning of what are said to be Holy Texts, have led to the reinterpretation of the same sets of words, over and over again, with various people deciding that THIS or THAT one phrase, encapsulates the entire belief system.

Hence all the people over the years who have gone to their church leaders and asked
them to tell them WHICH FEW THINGS DO WE HAVE TO DO TO BE OKAY?

That human effort was what drove religious leaders and scholars to add libraries full of interpretations of almost every individual word and phrase in the Bible (not to mention extended discussions of why the Bible includes only those writings that it does, and not others).

In short, the answer to the opening post is “yeah, sorta, but then again, no, not remotely correct.” Or maybe “yes, there are FACTIONS within the larger Church who would say that you have exactly encapsulated the primary thrust of the entire system of belief, and others who would say that your cartoon-like oversimplification is nigh unto an abomination to have said out loud.”

13

This is my experience as well - that we are sinful and worthless simply because we exist. My parents used to remind me about the bible verse that says even the good things I do are like filthy rags and make sure I really got the fact that I was worth less than dirty menstrual rags.

Let me tell you, that shit takes years to undo :frowning:

14

But it does.

“Sin is a failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods,” per the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Besides, as a point of order, all you’ve said so far is “no it doesn’t mean that, it means what I say it means.”

15

Different sects obviously have different views, but Martin Luther had a more positive take on the matter: “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” Basically, don’t strive to be perfect – because you can’t be – and trust Christ to save you, whether you deserve it or not.

16

Something I can answer!

OSHO is a guru, a new-age mystic type. Dead now, but was pretty popular for quite a while. He has written on Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Tao, meditation, philosophy, and other such subjects.

ETA: And is still popular, though dead. Apparently his OSHO meditation center brings in 200,000 visitors per year to India.

17

I think this is more or less on the right track. I think it might be helpful to think of sin(fulness) as like a disease. It’s not so much “You are bad and you deserve to be punished for it” as “You are sick with an illness whose natural result is pain, misery, and death.” I know some writers have written of sin as (literally or metaphorically) an addiction.

I think this is fairly common in many people, to a greater or lesser degree. And I don’t know how much of this can be attributed to religion, how much to “society,” how much to one’s parents, how much just “comes naturally,” etc.

I do think that, for people who are burdened by such feelings, the Christian idea that Jesus saves people from sin can provide a way to overcome such feelings.

I think that many mature, emotionally healthy Christians (as well as non-Christians) have similar attitudes to what you’ve described.
There’s perhaps more I could say, but it’s getting late. Maybe tomorrow.

18

Martin Luther’s an interesting case. As I understand it, he was tormented by guilt feelings in his youth, until he worked out his own, “new” (but based on the Bible and especially the works of Paul) understanding of Christianity.

19

Bob Altemeyer wrote a free book titled The Authoritarians (PDF). It relates his various studies of the authoritarian personality type, which in America includes a large overlap with Protestant fundamentalists. The section “Life Without Guilt” may be of interest to the OP, as it describes ways that sin and easy grace lead fundamentalists to cleanse themselves of guilt while remaining self-righteous, which is a prelude to the release of authoritarian aggression towards others.

The idea that humans are inherently bad isn’t necessarily a religious belief. Plenty of atheists have a similar misanthropic view, only with different ways of addressing the problem.

I would think the usefulness of different psychological outlooks would depend on the person. If they’re a selfish jerk, maybe being told they’re a sinful POS who needs to shape up could be good. If they’re at a low point in their life, that probably wouldn’t be the right message.

20

The language of “sinners” seems very old-fashioned now, but the view of humans doing whatever they think they can get away with is still very common IME.

So the police is the only thing stopping Joe Atheist from killing his neighbour and raping his dog, and it’s only the police + fear of god stopping Bob Christian from doing the same.

It’s a pretty scary view of humanity, and I’d say it’s demonstrably false, but it’s common regardless.