I ask this in the "Other Religion" category because I don't want it to be solely focused on, say, Christianity, as opposed to any other religion. Just looking for some thoughts on the subject...

When is it okay to sin?

When is sin justifiable for the cause of the "greater good"?

"Sin" is a christian concept. I don't use that word of course. I do make a discernment between making a mistake (getting drunk, giving the cute secretary a kiss) and doing something consciously wrong (defrauding/robbing someone). I can't imagine what can justify doing the latter.

Only on Tuesday mornings at 8:42. (just kidding)

Now you're talking about (inChristianity) something called situation ethics -- "My child was starving, so I stole a t-bone steak from the grocery store." There were huge debates over this line of thinking during the 1960s when I was in college. The "hard-line Christians" always believed there is a better way to, for instance, feed your child than by stealing.

from apologeticspress.org --

In the mid-1960s, Joseph Fletcher published the book, Situation Ethics, thereby securing for himself the dubious distinction, “the Father of Situation Ethics” (1966). Of course, Fletcher was by no means the first to advance the ideals of situationism. Men like Emil Brunner (The Divine Imperative), Reinhold Niebuhr (Moral Man and Immoral Society), Harvey Cox (The Secular City), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Ethics), and John A.T. Robinson (Honest to God) promoted ethical relativism before Fletcher's popular expression of the same. Existentialist philosophers like Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger promulgated this same subjectivism... However, we need not think that situation ethics is a twenty-first-century phenomenon that was invented by modern theologians and social scientists. Situationism goes all the way back to Eden when Satan posed to Eve circumstances that he alleged would justify setting aside God's law (Genesis 3:4-6).

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Situation ethics means that there is no ethical standard that can be consistently applied. Each situation demands its own standard of ethics. Under that theory, you may commit adultery (or almost anything else) if it is done in love, and no one is hurt by it. You may lie, if you think it appropriate to spare the feelings of someone. If your host wants to know if you enjoyed the party, but you were bored stiff, you may say, "I had a wonderful time" for you are trying to do good to him. There is no action you cannot perform if, in your judgment, the action is for a good cause and if you have the proper motive when you perform it.

Well true but the concept is what is important.

What if there were millions of lives at risk and the only way to save them was to pretend to be someone you weren't so you could sneak in to somewhere and steal whatever was causing the threat?

I don't mean to get all 007 on you but putting it to the extremes... when is it okay?

Very interesting take, Wondergirl...

What of those that murder in the name of God? There is a lot in history that has happened that we, as the outside eye, see as insane or sinful... but the doer does feeling they are doing the right thing by God?

I suppose it is relative... so who are we to judge? Should we all just do what we think is situationally okay if we feel it is the right thing to do?

Jesus' second greatest commandment is to love one another. Situation ethics is ruled by agape (unconditional love) for others. We act out of love, trying to do the best to serve their interests. This means that rules don't always apply, but depend on the situation. Rules like "Do not steal" become relative to love – so if love demands stealing food for the hungry, you steal. However, it doesn't mean "anything goes." In situation ethics, there are no rules about what should or shouldn't be done. In each situation, you decide there and then what the most loving thing to do is.

There only problem is, loving others is the second great commandment. The first great commandment is love God. Loving God means obeying the Ten Commandments, the guidelines for our life as a Christian, to the best of our ability. Situation ethics puts people above rules and puts human judgment ahead of God's orderly plan for our lives as we adhere to the morality that lies in the Ten Commandments.

Can situation ethics lead to complete chaos as each Christian decides for himself how he can show his version of love by deliberately sinning as he feels he needs to ?

Ok, well, since you said you wanted a broader cross-section than just Christian...

Let's try Goddess-centered spirituality. The Goddess is ultimate Oneness, and the universe is Her living body. We are all connected. Choices and actions that reaffirm that connectedness are good, choices and actions that are from a place where someone denies that connectedness, acting as though he or she were an isolated and independent man in a state of nature, entering into social contracts in which he gives up a minimum amount of his liberty so as to preserve his remaining freedom from other individuals, are evil. Wait, did I just say John Locke's philosophy, which was the basis for the principles the Federalists used to write the U.S. Constitution, is the basis of evil? Huh, imagine that.

Switching gears to Taoism, there is a basic "way" of being in the universe. We keep trying so hard to do things, when if we just let them be and simplified our lives, things would naturally flow into that way of being. Instead of seeking ful-fillment, we recognize that being empty might have value, because we then have room to let something higher inspire us.

Well, 'nuff said. "More words count less." ;)

I am a Christian and that is EXACTLY what God has been showing me!

You have to be taught what sin is in order to sin.

Let's say you were born in a tribe who was completely cut of from western and religious influence; it had never been discovered by modern man. There are some historical examples:

Cannibals for instance. Was it a sin for them to kill a member of a neighboring tribe and then eat their flesh? No, it was a cultural norm and perfectly acceptable and even admirable in their society.

So if sin is solely determined by your own exposure to what sin is through religion or your culture; then since sin is a personal judgement about your own behavior, then it's up to you to decide whether the behavior you are considering is in fact a sin based on your own set of values. For some, breaking their set of values in the face of the greater good is unthinkable as sin is sin; unchanging from what they've learned and so repugnant against the set of values they've CHOSEN for themselves that they would never compromise.

However, there are those who find sin more fluid and situational. For instance, say there is a girl who is in her 30's and has never had a lover, and she want's you to be her lover as you've recently become friends; but not romantically involved. She understands that the relationship will never go further, but she trusts you enough that she wants you to be her first experience.

Do you proceed under the justification that this is a gift to her and that you can make the experience a loving one in friendship and helping her fulfill a long held desire. Or do you say no because either your religion doesn't promote sex without marriage, or you don't believe in sex without a romantic connection, or do you say know because you think it's an easy mark because she is vulnerable, or do you say no for a variety of virtuous motives?

Take away anything that is spelled out in the bible; and how do your define sin in the first place?

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To me on a personal level, I have always found sin to be selfish and self-serving often pleasurable; not always at the expense of others, but most times that is a component no matter how slight an expense that might be. Often sin is apparent to me after the fact; because I was not willing to see the selfishness of my behavior prior to the action.

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So in my mind, if I truly have to commit a sin in order to serve the greater good. It would depend on the harm to the individual or the group that I would be selfishly committing. If that harm is irrepairable, then I won't chose the greater good. For instance, I couldn't kill, in order to save lives; I couldn't kill a single person in order to save 100. I simply cannot take a human life. That is how much I value the individual and how greatly I would avoid what I consider a sin against a person.

But your cannibal culture may have a rule that you must share your food with others in your tribe. If you don't, you are committing a sin according to your tribe's norms.

So which is it? Your religion/culture determines sin, or you yourself decide what is sin? It can't be both.

That is the definition of sin no matter what culture in what period of history or in which country. This negates your very first sentence, that humans have to be taught what sin is in order to sin. I say that humans sin without being taught since all humans are sooner or later selfish and self-serving.

A pickup truck is running amok and is now on the sidewalk headed toward you and your child. You push the child toward safety and fall under the truck's wheels. You sacrifice your life for your child's. You have killed a person to save another human.

Which only proves that sin isn't the same within different cultures; if it is not the same, is it truly sin? On one hand it is a sin, on the other it isn't; couldn't this be used as justification for committing a sin, by knowing that sin isn't absolute? Hence, the decision to commit a sin for the greater good, in fact may not be committing a sin at all; since we haven't established what is a sin to anyone in particular.

Sure it can be both as culture and/or religious values learned through our childhood from our parents and our experiences as an adult whether accepted or rejected help form our internal values.

You have to be taught that being selfish and self-serving are sinful or undesired traits. Children are selfish and self-serving, it is only through what they learn either from parents or negative reaction of others to they learn that being selfish and self-serving aren't socially acceptable. These traits selfishness are desirable if you are competing for resources in the wild and have little or no concern for the well being of other if your own survival is threatened; they are not generally desired in society with the exception of business to some degree.

I haven't killed another person against their will to save my own, or further myself in anyway. I would have willfully given my own life to save another, that is not selfish, in fact it is considered the ultimate in unselfishness.

Is sin an absolute, or does it depend on the norms of a culture or of our parents or of something else?

Are selfishness and egotism (no matter which culture or historical era) sin? A baby is selfish and egotistical. Unless taught otherwise, a human will continue to be selfish and egotistical. Yes or no?

You are with four other people in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. You have been out of food and water for two days. You will allow them to kill you in order to survive longer, that is, to drink your blood and eat your flesh, in hopes that they will be picked up or find land. Are you then condoning murder? Is there a better way?

Sin according to social relativity does not excuse sin in God's eyes.
Sin because you didn't know better I believe is determined by God knowing your heart and intent.
The Bible says we are not given a license to sin just because we are forgiven either.

There you go with the bible, without the bible, is there sin?

I already said that God knows your heart and he has mercy on who he has mercy on.

A psychopath has no heart, no sense of guilt or sin; since they don't know what sin is, do they sin? In societies eyes, of course they do, or the criminal equivalent.

However, they could be sinless :D

They know by the laws of the country that murder is wrong and IS punished so that argument really doesn't hold up
That is like saying a drunk driver should get away with killing somebody because they couldn't help it.
Nobody wants to be held accountable because they always have their excuses

Has this thread defined sin? Is the definition of sin
1. dependent on the individual
2. dependent on the culture/society
3. dependent on the historical time
4. dependent on the family
5. dependent on the religion
6. dependent on the situation
7. absolute, no matter what

It's about time someone asked that question, thank you. Difficult to answer the OP without a proper definition.

Ooo I like this thread, I would like to hear the OP's definition of sin as well...