Are you a sinner?

[FBM]

Thank Gwod for Buddhism. No sin. Just unskilled behavior.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The following is worthy of note - from the Wiki entry I linked to earlier.

There are certain procedures that have been formally set by the Church and civil governments that apply, without violating the seal of confession, if the penitent is a priest or other church official and is guilty of a civil crime involving the sexual exploitation or abuse of minors. These were instituted out of necessity during the sex abuse crises in the American church and in other countries.

As usual, the church fudges its inviolable, holy rules if it's threatened with getting its arse booted legally!

[anna09]

Ah, the confessional! I hated that when I was a kid, instead of just leaving right after the mass, you had to stand in a LONG line of people just to tell the priest how "horrible" you'd been. The conversations in the line were always amusing though, you'd have the old ladies practically TIMING people and judging how bad a person must've been based on how long they were in the confessional for. They'd just stand there shaking their heads. They'd also stare at you while you were sitting there with you're priest-ordered hail mary's as if they had a duty to supervise you. I never said any though, I would just sit there until I thought it would be an appropriate time to leave. I made the mistake one time of NOT praying right after I left the confessional and got yelled at by three people.

[Beelzebub2]

Me iz not a sinner.

[klr]

Ah, the confessional! I hated that when I was a kid, instead of just leaving right after the mass, you had to stand in a LONG line of people just to tell the priest how "horrible" you'd been. The conversations in the line were always amusing though, you'd have the old ladies practically TIMING people and judging how bad a person must've been based on how long they were in the confessional for. They'd just stand there shaking their heads. They'd also stare at you while you were sitting there with you're priest-ordered hail mary's as if they had a duty to supervise you. I never said any though, I would just sit there until I thought it would be an appropriate time to leave. I made the mistake one time of NOT praying right after I left the confessional and got yelled at by three people.

Tough crowd.

[CookieJon]

It's worth adding that I remember this so well because it was exactly the same each time - to the extent we joked that the priest was actually a tape recording.

Something like this...?

[JimC]

You can reject the idea of sin without rejecting the realisation that sometimes you have been an unpleasant twat...

[A Monkey Shaved]

I was raised a Catholic and I was seriously deluded as a kid into feeling I was in as state of perpetual "sin" with their guilt based theology. Well do I think I am a sinner now? I don't think so. At least I do not feel I am saddled with the burden of guilt to the point had to go running to the confessional to save my "soul". There has been nothing I have done in the past hour that should make me feel guilty and I feel my conscience is squeaky clean on that score. I certainly have not eaten any babies lately.

[Chinaski]

I never do anything to deliberately hurt people- usually because apart from the people I actively like, I don't care enough about anyone to make the effort to do anything.

Apathy ftw.

[MattHunX]

[Nickel]

Hahaha.

Anyway, away from Mr. Izzard and back onto OP's topic:

We are all sinners and need our sin washed away by the love of God (which must be the soap) and the flannel of Jesus (his loincloth perhaps).

Indeed. Of course, we're not actually sinners at all, because the mere concept of sin is so antiquated, obsolete, obscene and absurd that it has nor should it have any practical influence upon any of our lives. Morality has advanced beyond sin just like psychology has come a long way from phrenology.

>I've made some mistakes, some errors of judgment, but I don't think I've ever acted truly maliciously. I've insulted people, even been physically violent a few times... but every time, I think I was responding to their actions, or acting under extreme stress. At no point in my life have I ever purposely decided to be nasty. As far as I can see, I was always just trying to do what I thought was the right thing at the time, and sometimes responding irrationally due to the nature of the situation I was in.

No need to justify yourself to us, brah. Everyone is a dick to some degree. Hell, I still maintain you can actually be a dick and be acting ethically, to say nothing about any imperative that you MUST act ethically at all times. Follow your own code, and try not to cause more damage than you need to.