| Thye Biblical definition of sin is not what most people seem to think. Sin generally means a distance between man and God. In the Old Testement, this distance was defined by the extent to which men followed God's laws (the ten commandments and addendums); in the NT, it's far less clearly defined. The common thread is that one sins when one acts in ways that are not in accordance with God's will. However you define sin, in a Biblical sense, it requires God for the concept of sin to make sense. From a Biblical perspective, if there is no God, there is no sin.
For a Christian, sin is the same as immorality. This is because God determines the moral rights and wrongs of society -- and acting against his will means acting immorally, which is sin. For non-believers, the concept of sin is very similar to the concept of moral behaviour -- with the difference being the absence of God as the referrent for that behaviour. For an atheist, talking in terms of sin is meaningless; but talking in terms of morality is not (although many Christians argue that without God, there is no morality; but this is generally not a very constructive line of argument).
Rather than defining what is 'sin' it would be more useful to understand what individuals use as their criteria for morality. |