Usually prescribed to the "big sins". But, if I remember my readings correctly all sins are "mortal"? Is "venial" sin an irrelevant concept?
I'm posting the below because I'm willing to bet that the sins listed in these scriptures would be considered non-mortal by today's standards but they are described as ones that certainly separate one from God.
Thoughts?
Mathew 25:34
34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40 "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'
41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44 "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45 "He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
On a human scale too Stephen!
There are so many grey area's in the 'mortal sin' arguments. If a pilot crashes his plane into a pine tree, intentionally, is it mortal? What about the pilot that has his plane shot up in combat and decides to splatter some of the 'bad guys' with it? Is that mortal sin? What about the Blue Angel pilot with an aircraft malfunction who deliberately stayed in the plane and flew it into the ground? Mortal? No? Does intent count? If so how much, and who gets to keep score? Will paying for a few extra masses absolve the sin? What about masses for the dearly departed? What happens if your not rich enough to pay for the mass? Do only the rich get absolution?
Now apply all that I wrote to non-Catholic's, how does this compare.
Quote from: TheCat on August 12, 2014, 05:40:21 PM
I'm posting the below because I'm willing to bet that the sins listed in these scriptures would be considered non-mortal by today's standards but they are described as ones that certainly separate one from God.
I recognize the current emphasis is upon the idea of "mortal sin", but before I engage it, I must clarify my opinion that the above statement by "thecat" indicates he or she either believes in the existence of some kind of god in our universe, or at least has a wish that others believe he or she believes in one of the many gods in fashion currently, or was in fashion at various times throughout history. The capitalization of the word "god" also encourages an undeserved validity to the concept of a god.
"Thecats" belief is quite acceptable of course, as anyone can, by whatever reason, learning, ignorance, need, or desire -- believe or not believe anything. My purpose is only to point out to any impressionable ... mentally vulnerable ... individuals ... either children and adults, that they use caution as they read the above statement, as within it -- along with tens of thousands of similar statements made each minute by the deluded and the charlatan throughout the world -- is the embedded and subtle pressure giving undeserved validity or credence to the existence of something ... a god ... that has not an iota of support from anything in science or in the facts of history.
The statement offers a subtle and casual assumption to the impressionable that the belief in a god is in good fashion and acceptable by individuals of sound reason in the 21st century, as it was by a population crippled by ignorance and superstition in the 10th.
Shouldnt this be discussed on the religion section?..
Quote from: Rob68 on August 13, 2014, 08:02:04 AM
Shouldnt this be discussed on the religion section?..
It is in that section ???
Ron,
You seem (otherwise) to be a thoughtful and rational person. Perhaps you have set forth the logic errors in Anselm's ontological argument for God elsewhere. If so, I apparently missed it. Could you kindly direct to that refutation, or re summarize it for me? Because frankly, I happen to think that Anselm made a more compelling argument than what I have seen you put forward thus far.
Stephen, how does this stack up in the view of your own upbringing? Pentecostal? Or how does this get interpreted by non-Catholic Christians?
QuoteIf a pilot crashes his plane into a pine tree, intentionally, is it mortal? What about the pilot that has his plane shot up in combat and decides to splatter some of the 'bad guys' with it? Is that mortal sin? What about the Blue Angel pilot with an aircraft malfunction who deliberately stayed in the plane and flew it into the ground? Mortal? No? Does intent count? If so how much, and who gets to keep score? Will paying for a few extra masses absolve the sin? What about masses for the dearly departed? What happens if your not rich enough to pay for the mass? Do only the rich get absolution?
The basic definition of mortal sin requires 3 items:
- it must be of a grave matter
- it must be done with full knowledge that the action is sinful
- it must be done with deliberate consent.
"Full knowledge" brings into account what is called "unintentional ignorance," where someone through not fault or choice of their own did not realize the action could be wrong. "Deliberate consent" brings the idea of being forced into an action - if someone is holding a gun to my head, then any action I take does not have my consent. It is also worth pointing out that any of these items not being true doesn't make an action "less wrong" or "not sinful." It is a question of diminished culpability.
With that, I'll try to answer what I think Ock is asking:
Quote from: Ocklawaha on August 12, 2014, 10:53:16 PM
If a pilot crashes his plane into a pine tree, intentionally, is it mortal?
Is this a suicide, or take out the passengers with me move (or, say, 9/11)? Then likely - "you shall not kill" implies it's grave, it was clearly intentional, and a pilot would be expected to know the action was wrong.
QuoteWhat about the pilot that has his plane shot up in combat and decides to splatter some of the 'bad guys' with it? Is that mortal sin?
Oof...any time you start talking sin and war, all sorts of other issues come into play, not the least of which being "just war theory" and such. Can we agree to not go too deep at first and/or come back to this, as it's probably a bit of a landmine?
QuoteWhat about the Blue Angel pilot with an aircraft malfunction who deliberately stayed in the plane and flew it into the ground? Mortal? No? Does intent count?
Intent matters to an extent - the idea is "you should not do evil so that good may come of it." The scenario you present here brings into play the idea of "double effect" - that in taking an action for a positive reason, an unintended negative effect may come of it. If memory serves, double effect has a couple conditions - the original action must be morally good or indifferent, the bad effect must not be the means to achieve the good, the positive reason must be significantly greater than the negative effect, and the intention must be only for the positive effect. In this scenario, I think double effect may apply - the pilot intentionally removes the danger to the crowd that is watching, and while the result is the loss of property and the pilot's life, the effect of protecting the crowd is proportionally greater.
At this point I should mention this is me thinking through some scenarios, not giving a definitive statement. YMMV on some of these...which leads us to...
QuoteIf so how much, and who gets to keep score? Will paying for a few extra masses absolve the sin? What about masses for the dearly departed? What happens if your not rich enough to pay for the mass? Do only the rich get absolution?
There's only one scorekeeper, and that is the big man upstairs. At the time of death, the score is final, but that score is between you and God. The idea of "paying for masses" and "buying forgiveness" are both a misstatement of what actually happens and and misunderstanding of the purpose. Praying for the dead is a spiritual work of mercy - something we are called to do regardless of our impression of the state of a person's soul. Requesting that a Mass be offered for the deceased is one way of doing it - it doesn't merit more forgiveness or anything, it is simply a prayer for their soul. Also, it's why you'll never hear the Church say "this person is in hell" - it's a recognition nobody knows the final score. There should always be the hope of redemption and salvation, and that's what prayer for the dead is about.
OK, I'll get off my longwinded amateur theology soapbox now...
Gravity, intent, full knowledge, complete consent, all factors in the determination of "mortal" sin. But I found this sentence that wrapped up the discussion of mortal sin in the Catholic Catechism to be of utmost importance, "However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgement of persons to the justice and mercy of God."
Quote from: stephendare on August 12, 2014, 10:48:46 PM
It's based on the doctrine of Confession, TheCat.
A mortal sin is one which can damn you if you die with it unconfessed, and a Venal sin is something that you work off with penance. There are other downsides. For example a Catholic cannot in good faith receive Communion if they have an unconfessed mortal sin.
Its based in the idea that the old Testament broke sins down in two basic ways in the Torah. Sins which called for death, and since which called for restitution.
That's not quite accurate. Sin is never something that can be simply worked off by our efforts; we receive forgiveness as a gift from God. Sin can either weaken or totally destroy our communion with God which is why Catholics delineate between mortal and venial sins. Which only makes sense because obviously there is a great difference between doing something like murder and and something like gossiping (which you rightly pointed out).
When someone commits a mortal sin they lose the sanctifying grace that they received in baptism, and the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) restores that sanctifying grace and puts them back in full friendship with God. Of course, even though the sin is forgiven there are some other effects from sin such as damage we have inflicted on others or perhaps we have built some bad habits that need to be fixed. That's where acts of penance come in. They are there to fix those other effects of sin not to earn forgiveness. You can't buy your way to forgiveness by having Masses offered or doing acts of penance. We still need to ask God for forgiveness of these venial sins through prayer. I'm really tempted to go on to explain how this ties in to purgatory, but I don't think I have the energy right now. lol.
Quote from: Starbuck on August 13, 2014, 09:38:37 AM
Ron,
You seem (otherwise) to be a thoughtful and rational person. Perhaps you have set forth the logic errors in Anselm's ontological argument for God elsewhere. If so, I apparently missed it. Could you kindly direct to that refutation, or re summarize it for me? Because frankly, I happen to think that Anselm made a more compelling argument than what I have seen you put forward thus far.
My concern is not errors in logic Starbuck, but errors in the assumption of a valid premise. If there are any errors in Anselm's ontological argument, I will leave you to discover them in Hume, Kant, and others. You might agree that good logic in an argument is set impotent as a consequence of absurd beginnings or premises within it. Therefore, to argue the merits of another's logic is only an exercise unless there is substantial validity in the premise.
I prefer to avoid endless circles of debate about a particular argument's logic, even though there is good logic within, unless the beginning or premise of the argument is valid.
You ask me to discuss the positional relation between two fragments of steel, and the texture of each, while you do not provide me with the steel. Where is the steel sir? Show me one shred of evidence in the existence of this god which you seem to believe exists.
The evidence is that the god somehow still worshiped, feared, and admired by so many, was created via the needs of man long ago, in a time of ignorance about nature, imagined by those most inclined and having the most need ... perpetuated by priests and charlatans who gain the most from the belief.
Anselm might offer the appearance of a compelling argument, but it is ultimately and finally rendered useless to the rational individual by the fact that the origin of it, the premise, has no basis in fact.
The careless use of the term "god", as described in my original post, gives a false validity to the existence of such a entity. It amazes me that so many apparently mentally sound individuals can be persuaded by habit and convention to assume and believe in the existence of some kind of god, when the belief is supported by absolutely no evidence.
Show me the steel sir, and I will discuss its qualities. Until then, I will expend only measured energy on the argument that there is some kind of a god who has concern for a small group of humans on this planet.
The obsession with the various imagined gods, as exhibited throughout the world, is a consequence of human needs. To expect rational people to believe in the existence of these imagined gods, created in the minds of man centuries ago, during a time of ignorance and fear, is to expect the rational to become irrational.
We talk of sin ... and this alone, gives undeserved validity to the existence of a god. Absurd and sad.
Shame on the individuals who, via a lazy mind, and/or a quest for money, persist in giving support to a wasteful and ultimately destructive belief system far overdue for retirement.