Is One Sexual Sin Worse Than Another?

[Lindy]

Originally posted by sgallan@Mar 12 2005, 06:03 PM

Lindy - cool. That works for me. I am really not looking to be contentious or debate this. I am mostly trying to get away from that anymore. I got enough on my plate. I have to learn to be nice again. 

what? huh? topic forgotten....erased.

So how's the weather?

Oh, and Cal......you hade a great list to pick and chose from, some are very, very true .

[Cal]

Originally posted by lindy9556+Mar 13 2005, 01:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (lindy9556 @ Mar 13 2005, 01:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--sgallan@Mar 12 2005, 06:03 PM

Lindy - cool. That works for me. I am really not looking to be contentious or debate this. I am mostly trying to get away from that anymore. I got enough on my plate. I have to learn to be nice again. 

what? huh? topic forgotten....erased.

So how's the weather?

Oh, and Cal......you hade a great list to pick and chose from, some are very, very true .

So, what is your flavor of the month?

[Lindy]

Originally posted by Cal+Mar 13 2005, 01:43 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cal @ Mar 13 2005, 01:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--lindy9556@Mar 13 2005, 01:38 PM

what? huh? topic forgotten....erased.

So how's the weather?

Oh, and Cal......you hade a great list to pick and chose from, some are very, very true .

So, what is your flavor of the month?

Well, to avoid any further problems with what I deem as true.....

Let's just say that I find truth that.....

6) The TBM test: Everything is a sin, so don't bother making any distinctions

really ties in with....

9) The how do I feel test: The worse you feel afterward, the worse the sin.

But I laughed out loud at.....

14) The "identity of the accuser" test: If the accuser says its wrong, find out how much damage the guy can do you if he finds out about you. If he can't excommunicate you, its not a sin.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Cal,

I'm not taking a firm position that all sins are the same. Intuitively, I sense that they're not. And rationally, I think there's a world of difference between slapping your teenage son for mouthing off and strangling him. (I know I didn't object to getting slapped a lot less than I would have to being strangled.)

In the natural-law, moral sense, of course not all sins are the same. I wonder, though, whether to God, it makes all that much difference.

After all, in Christian theology, one's standing before God doesn't involve a tallying of whether the good in your life outweighs the bad -- although the Mormon variant does teach that people are judged based on their works AFTER they get past the basic question of whether they are repentant, and thus receive the grace of the Atonement.

I think of this subject this way: Imagine that righteousness is the color blue and sin is the color red. There are lots of gradations in the color red -- you can be dark red, Trojan crimson B) , magenta, or pink. Ultimately, how red you are doesn't matter; what matters is whether you're blue or not. Godliness, in other words, isn't on a continuum with wickedness; it's a completely different species.

Which leads me back to my conclusion: It's possible -- I don't say it is so, but it's possible -- that some sins, though they may be lesser on the natural-law scale of seriousness, may actually be more spiritually dangerous, because they're less likely to be repented of. I have in mind some of the subtler aspects of selfishness that may not even be noticed as sins, because they don't necessarily involve discrete events.