Could Society Function Without Sin?

[IrishCanadian25]

I'd like to thank a man with whom I have a very strong love-hate relationship with - Mr. Rob Zombie - for the inspiration to this thread.

I was driving into work this morning listening to my satellite radio, and on Sirius20 - Octane, Rob Zombie's song Dragula came on. I thought nothing of it at first, only connecting the dot to my vacation last week and the Friday Night viewing of Zombie's "Halloween 2. During that film, I decided to climb onto my soapbox and describe my issues with Zombie as a creative force, that being that he oversexualizes everything and turns almost every character into a flawed sinner. I explained the differences between characters from the original Halloween films changing from innocent protagonists into these broken individuals with a dark side. Some fans call it "more realistic." I call it Zombie's pessimistic view of society and gratuitous and often exploitative filmmaking.

Dragula comes on and the male voice talks about superstition and jealousy. "There he goes again..." But then I starting thinking - is he wrong?

If there was no sin, could society realistically function? Would evolution as we know it come to a halt?

The seven "deadly" sins are: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Yes, I just heard them in Morgan Freeman's voice too.

Without Lust, several immoral crimes disappear. Rape, certain forms of pornography, and harrassment may no longer be present if lust did not exist in society. So too would vanish the human tendencies of self-improvement in order to be more attractive to the opposite sex and possibly the most effective form of marketing in history.

Without Gluttony (described as consumption to the point of waste, thus withholding from the needy), well, we'd lose the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. Short of that, I don't honestly see society being damaged by a lack of gluttony. Maybe someone responding to this thread can shed some light.

Greed and Envy are far more clear. Our society - the societies of many of the people on these forums including the USA, Canada, the UK, Austraillia, Ireland, etc. - are based on the capitalist concept. In the harkening words of Gordon Gecko, "Greed is Good. Greed clarifies." Greed and Envy are motivators for people to work harder, think differently, and try to acheive. When I see someone passing my Ford Escape in their Bentley, I envy them and it makes me want success more. Sure, you'd lose theft and forms of charlatanism, too.

Sloth seems to be the sin we could most afford to lose. Sloth is laziness and the inability of one to realise their talents. Lose sloth, and you lose apathy, depression, and suicide. The only redeeming quality of the slothful is the concept that "the world needs ditch diggers, too" and that not everyone can be successful. But I don't see that as logical, as someone could make a very good living in a labor job and without sloth, they would still do the job but be happy about it.

Pride and Wrath round out the final 2. Wrath is the concept of vengeance, which is a massive part of society. When a person is wronged, they want to see the wrongdoer aptly punished. Wrath, however, is considered a perversion of "justice," where anger refuses to subside. Pride is boasting, vanity, etc, and is considered a perversion of the non-sinful 'confidence.'

So I ask - could society as we know it truly exist without sin? How does sin negatively and positively affect society each day?

 

[klunderbunker]

As we know it, no it couldn't. Throughout history people and their lives have been effected by all of those listed sins. Greed for example gave rise to money and capitalism, as without wanting something in exchange for a good or service rendered, there's no such thing as an economy. Without it, there is no point to push yourself. Why should a craftsman work harder and make himself/herself better if there's nothing to gain out of it?

Lust drives the power of love as among many things, the main reason two people love each other is that on some level, they're attracted to each other. I could go through each of these and point out how each of them could be seen as something positive. What it boils down to is that without a combination of all of these things, society could not function.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Society as we know it couldn't function without "sin" as described by religious doctrine because "sin" is as much a part of a human being as his/her heart and lungs.

The seven deadly sins have been forces that have generally shaped human society and civilization since we learned to stand upright and scratch our asses with sticks on the ground. Even good intentions can be somewhat clouded by underlying aspects of the seven deadly sins. For instance, if a man gives a small church a million dollars to built a larger house of worship and expects nothing in return, then that man will still have the "Pride" of knowing that his money made it all possible in the first place.

I don't think it's possible to effectively imagine a world without sin. I do believe in an afterlife and if it actually is "perfect", then I'd have absolutely no idea what to expect or how to describe what I hope that it is. That type of society simply can't exist in the physical world unless people were able to completely purge themselves of all emotion and desires. But then, what you'd have would be a sterile world void of creativity and humanity in and of itself.

 

[Xemmy]

Without sin, society woud indeed come to a hault. The problem I have is that these "Sins" reallly describe human aspects, and not all of them really negative. Obviously they aren't, you gave a list of their benefits to society. That's why I don't call them sin. I call them aspects of human nature. Without them, society haults. Without them, our existence begins to crumble, ultimately leading to our extinction due to the absense of lust, gluttony, and envy in paticular.

There is is only one Sin out of the 7 that should be done away with, because it is abused more than it is useful, and always will be. Wrath.

Keep the other six. They have their purpose in life.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

I always thought 'Sin' was basically another word for 'urges'. Greed is the urge to take what's not yours, lust is the urge to form a physical relationship with another person, wrath is the urge to smash someone in etc etc.

Basically, these are the elements of everyone's psyche that must be tempered and controlled. If people act upon these urges whenever they feel like it, then other people are going to suffer the backlash of that, or we'll all just up and kill each other to satisfy our own urges.

Anarchy would probably follow very quickly if everyone just stopped trying to control these feelings and let them run loose all the time.

 

[El Rev sXe]

As an atheist, most of the time I don't agree with anything involving religions and their principles and values. HOWEVER, I do think that the rise of christianity has something really admirable, the fact that the ten commandments define most of cultures, their laws and all jurisdiction.

Nevertheless, for the case of seven deadly sins it's a bit more ambiguous and subjective. You would take the essence of a human being, all the imperfections that implies bieng human, that sometimes can define our personality. But that is from an estrict personal/individual point of view.

Now, for the case of a society, it would be basically a utopian society. A perfect society if you will. I mean, peace would reign for crying out loud! lol So no man, I think I can see your point of view, but with reflexion it's hard to see it.

KB, without money there isn't a point of pushing yourself? So you study alot because not of the fact that you want knowledge, but because it can give you money? Not everything is about money, without it, many wars, civil wars could've been avoid. As you said there was a time when barter reigned. And yes it caused also confrontations but many pre-hispanic cultures lived pretty well with that system and believe me, they fucking pushed themselves!