On the Road...

{rant}
Sin is an idea that makes very little sense to me, and I have very little patience for it. Why? (1) Mindless adherence to rules has nothing to do with spirituality; (2) There's no such thing as absolute right and wrong, any more than there can be absolute good or bad; (3) People become attached to the idea of "sin" and the label of "sinner."


(3) is the one that bugs me the most. Christians are stuck on being "sinners." They have no concept of being anything else. To my mind, this means they've missed the point entirely. The point is that everyone has fallen away from Tao (or God or the Way or the One; pick a label). The point is that once you've recognized this in yourself, you should begin moving back towards Tao. The point is that sitting there and screaming "We are all sinners!" helps no one. Christians get stuck at this point, and don't seem to realize that they need to progress beyond it. So long as they remain attached to the idea of "sin," they cannot progress.

What do I mean by progress? Well, that's hard to put into words. But when you deliberately try to progress you generally stay where you are, or go backwards. The idea is to close the gap that has opened up between you and the Tao. Being attached to an idea (of sin, of goodness, of closing that gap) will not allow that to happen. You have to let go of those attachments. So first recognize that you're a "sinner" if you must, but then forget that you even know what a sinner is. Then maybe there's a chance.

The thing that really bugs me about Christianity is that (most) Christians figure that once they're Christian, they're done. Boom. Nothing more to do. They're like people desperate to get out of town who finally make it to the bus depot and decide that's good enough. Oh, and now it's their sacred duty to get everyone else to the depot, but God forbid that anyone buy a ticket or actually get on the bus! (So they frequently try to drag people back who have gotten on the bus) The obsession with sin is nothing more than a bus depot on the road to enlightenment. It is not the be-all and end-all. So get a ticket out of there, and stop trying to drag everyone else in!
{/rant}

ADDENDUM: Inspired by the recent God or Not Carnival of Sin. On the plus side, the God or Not carnival is an opportunity for Christians and atheists (and others) to compare viewpoints on religious issues. On the negative side, I can only take so much nonsense before making some sort of rant, as above. I should probably note that the only definition of sin which makes sense to me is "that which separates a person from his/her deity."