The Greek word that gets translated as “sin” is ἁμαρτία, hamartia, which is better translated as “a mistake.” In the context of Greek tragedy, hamartia is the big error in judgement that the protagonist makes that leads to their tragic downfall. If interpreted as a mistake, sin shouldn’t have as much of a connotation of shame attached to it. Mistakes can be devastating, but everyone makes them, and it’s too much to expect a person to be perfect and never make any mistakes in their life. That is actually part of the point — we humans are of the world, and it is expected that we do worldly things, therefore sinfulness is our “natural state.” Some denominations of Christianity teach this explicitly. Humans are sinful by nature, and we have to fight against that nature in order to live in a state of godliness. It’s supposed to be an impossibly high bar, because you really are aiming that high. That lofty goal is supposed to be the thing that distinguishes Christians from pagans, the thing that Christians are supposed to model for everyone else in the world. Christians seek to better themselves to an inhuman extent, because the pursuit is worthy in and of itself, even if you are inevitably doomed to fail.
In an esoteric sense, sin is that which disconnects us from God. Sin is part of the condition of being alive because it is the condition of being alive — you cannot live in your flesh and be fully connected to God. It’s not possible. At minimum, you have a body that needs to eat and sleep and have sex. That remains true even if you isolate yourself on a mountaintop or join a convent. If you don’t, then you have your other mundane concerns like work and school and taxes. Life is hard, life is unfair, life is full of all kinds of demands that will take you away from divine bliss, and one day you will die. “Worldly things” are sinful because all of these day-to-day mundanities are part of the state of disconnection from God.
With this in mind, there’s two problems with Christianity’s approach to sin. The first is shame.
One of my favorite video games is called Blasphemous. It’s set in a dark fantasy version of medieval Spain called Cvstodia, and the whole game is an insider’s pointed satire of Catholicism. In particular, it satirizes Catholicism’s emphasis on guilt and suffering by exaggerating it to the point of grotesque absurdity. The inhabitants of Cvstodia practice a fictional religion that’s clearly modeled after Catholicism, and they are subject to a kind of divine curse that causes their sins to manifest externally. The curse twists their bodies into gigantic, monstrous forms that the player, a silent warrior-monk known only as the Penitent One, has to fight.
This boss’s name is Ten Piedad, “Have Mercy.” The “Pieta” posture is one of the game’s less subtle moments.
None of the characters’ sins are ever specified — we never learn what, specifically, the Penitent One is undergoing penance for. You learn very quickly that it does not matter. Everyone is doing penance for something, and everyone believes that they deserve their suffering. Within this culture, suffering is in and of itself a sacred act, almost a sign of divine favor. The people of Cvstodia refer to this curse, this curse that gruesomely punishes them for their sins by turning them into monsters, as “The Miracle.” The protagonist believes that The Miracle is not a good thing, and seeks to end it, which is the titular blasphemy that he commits. But he’s not immune to his religion’s martyrdom culture, as he clearly takes his penance very seriously, and wields a sword called “Mea Culpa” (with thorns in its hilt that dig into his hand). Even this world’s analogue to Jesus is an unnamed young man who was (painfully!) turned into a tree after admitting his guilt, and is worshipped for being the first recipient of the Miracle. Again, we never learn what he was being punished for. It doesn’t matter, because his subsequent suffering matters more than whatever he was punished for in the first place. And while he becomes a sacred tree that leaks golden sap, he is not resurrected, nor redeemed.
Christianity is at least nominally about redemption from and transcendence from sin. The Cvstodians have none of that, or if they ever did, it’s not what they choose to focus on. Intense masochism seems to be their preferred method of expressing their spirituality, to the point where they venerate the example of a person who was unfairly tortured for seemingly no reason or purpose. On that note, the cruelest example of “The Miracle” is that of Socorro, who heard the cries of prisoners being tortured and prayed for them to be relieved of their suffering. The Miracle responded by inflicting their lashes upon her, so that she is eternally tortured for her compassion. She becomes a saint, “Our Lady of Perpetual Agony.” She is essentially put in Christ’s place, but not by choice, and she’s worshipped more for the fact that she suffers rather than for her compassion. The Penitent One has the option to grant her succor by killing her.
This game is not particularly subtle in its commentary, but it is nuanced. The gorgeous visuals, detailed and authentic-sounding lore notes, and the sheer abundance of references to Catholic art, architecture, literature, prayers, iconography, etc. show that the creators have great respect for Catholicism. Being Spanish, they’re likely either Catholics themselves, or so immersed in its culture that it still forms part of their identity. But they’re still quite scathing in their critique: the hyperfixation on suffering for one’s sins comes at the expense of true spirituality. This level of masochism isn’t spiritually healthy, let alone mentally or physically healthy. There are more, and better, ways to express one’s faith than this. One interpretation of The Miracle is that it actually is a divine blessing, and it only manifests as punishment and torture because the Cvstodians expect it to. Either way, the worship of suffering creates an endless, painful cycle that would be abjectly horrifying if everyone wasn’t so convinced of its sanctity. It takes the sacrifice of the one guy who can see how unproductive it is to finally end that cycle.
The reason why I’ve gone on this long tangent about Blasphemous is — well, it’s because I love the game and having an excuse to talk about it, but it’s also because it helped me to realize how pointless my own spiritual and emotional masochism is. I was not raised Catholic, but for some reason (maybe I was Catholic in a past life, idk), I’ve got this deeply-ingrained sense of sin and guilt that the game comments on. I feel guilty over the smallest things, even imagined or fictional scenarios. When I make a mistake, I feel like I need to confess to someone and receive some kind of external absolution. I also have a hard time keeping secrets, even other people’s, because I feel the need to be completely transparent all the time. Blasphemous helped me to realize that this is not healthy. I’m not actually doing anything by going through this cycle, I’m just hurting myself and then patting myself on the back for doing so. I make up reasons why I don’t deserve happiness, and then hold fast to them. I wallow in my negative emotions. I wallow so often that it’s become my default response to bad feelings.
You know what you’re doing, when you’re wallowing? Not connecting to God.
I speak from experience when I say that it’s nearly impossible to connect to God when you’re preoccupied with your bad feelings. You can’t contemplate the beauty and bliss of the Divine if you’re so focused on the opposite, and if you’re convinced that you’re not worthy to experience the Divine, that just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s especially the case if your inevitable failure to connect to God in your state of suffering convinces you of your unworthiness. If Hell is perpetual torment, then you put yourself in Hell every time you choose perpetual torment over literally anything else. It becomes almost like an addiction — God Himself can descend from on high and tell you that you need to stop, and you’ll still struggle to do so (again, speaking from experience). And for what? Nothing. Without being able to forgive yourself, you’ll be stuck there. I mean, isn’t that why Jesus died in the first place? So that everyone can be forgiven and redeemed, regardless? So that you don’t have to punish yourself?
Maybe the Blasphemous devs removed that aspect from their fictional version of Catholicism to distance it enough from the real version, but maybe it’s part of the critique: maybe Catholicism (or at least Spanish Catholicism) is so focused on the suffering over the redemption, that it may as well not include the redemption. I don’t know, I’m not Catholic. But one thing I have observed is that most Christians treat sin as something shameful, something you have to punish yourself for. Sin isn’t just a mistake, it’s a personal failure. It’s a personal failure to meet an intentionally impossible standard. So many ex-Christians retain a sense that God is breathing down their necks, waiting to catch them in a transgression. I’ve seen so many frantic posts from newbie pagans about how they’re terrified that their gods will punish them because they missed an offering, or failed to keep their altar properly, or because a candle sputtered. This concept is completely inconsistent with pagan theology, but these poor kids have no way to know that, because Christianity is all they’ve been familiar with. It’s deeply sad to see that they fear the wrath of their gods over the most petty things. That sort of mindset, that any minor transgression warrants full-scale divine retribution, or will send you to Hell, can absolutely fuck up someone’s mental health and sense of self.
Sin cannot be both a natural state of being alive and a source of shame that makes you unworthy of contact with the Divine. If that’s the case (and unfortunately, it often is), then everyone is doomed. There is a difference between the idea that you are human and therefore prone to mistakes by nature, and the idea that you are corrupt and depraved by nature. If you will fail no matter what you do, and failing makes you a bad person bound for Hell, then you will fall deep into self-hatred. Thus, the self-fulfilling prophecy — it’s ultimately not the “sins” that prevent you from reaching God — it’s the anxiety, depression, and self-hatred.
The second major problem with Christianity’s idea of sin is that things of “the world” are not necessarily removed from the Divine.
The tradition of Christianity I was raised in is descended from Calvinism. The version I was raised with was actually pretty good across the board, and the only real reason I left is because it wasn’t spiritually fulfilling for me personally. Calvinism itself horrifies me. Calvinists believe in predestination, the idea that God has already decided whether you are going to Heaven or Hell. There’s no actual way to know until you die, but to prove you’re one of the heavenbound “elect,” you need to shun everything that could possibly give you any joy or happiness. If you’re of the elect, then you will be able to resist all of the pleasures and vices of the world that a hellbound person would not be able to resist. (Now you know why the Puritans were Like That.) That leads to Calvinists, and many American Protestants whose ideas are derived from Calvinism, constantly fighting a losing battle with their natural inclinations to prove that they’re not going to suffer forever.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Say what you will about Catholics, at least they have monasticism — the people who want to shun all worldly things for the sake of pursuing God can actively choose to do so, and live amongst other people who have dedicated their lives to that pursuit. (Also, medieval monks and nuns got to be educated, and made some of the most beautiful books I have ever seen in my life.) Calvinism basically forces you to be an ascetic, not for the sake of stripping away all worldly distractions so you can better focus on God, but rather on the off-chance that you might be one of the ones who’s saved. Contemplating God in the hopes of receiving a mystical experience is not the point — some versions of Calvinism actually teach that God hates humanity (see “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” an eighteenth-century American sermon). Calvinism has no guarantee of salvation, no promise of forgiveness, no path to redemption. It’s somehow even bleaker than the Soulslike world of Blasphemous. The only way to maybe get into heaven is if you somehow manage to not enjoy anything while you’re alive. And then, what’s the point of living?
I wasn’t raised with any of these ideas (and thank whatever god was responsible for that), but many of them are simply baked into American culture, because the first wave of English colonists were mostly Calvinists. If you look, you can see a secularized version of this dismal theology as an undercurrent to most American cultural ideas, like the idea that work is inherently more fulfilling and a better use of your time than pleasure. The influence of Calvinism on American culture deserves a much more thorough analysis than I have space for in this answer, so I’ll leave it there for now. The point is that Calvinism is the ultimate expression of “worldly things are inherently evil,” and I somehow internalized that despite not being explicitly taught it.
I’m no longer Christian. I worship Dionysus.
On the surface, Dionysus is more-or-less the god of worldly things: drinking, dancing, parties, sex, hedonism in general, pretty much all the things that your average Calvinist would think were sinful.(And he has horns!) Dionysus showed up in my life to break my natural inclination towards asceticism, to help me enjoy myself and live a little without shaming myself for it. He tells me to stop punishing myself (or, if I must, to at least sincerely enjoy it), and has given me plenty of good advice to break these self-destructive habits and improve my mental health. Sometimes he’ll jokingly put it in Christian language (i.e. “Do something that makes you happy! So sayeth your God!”) to put it in perspective for me. Most of all, he’s taught me that authentic spirituality expresses itself through joy and not through suffering. I have the advantage of a direct line to the gods, so I should take advantage of it and do things that enable me to access it, regardless of what those things are or how I’ve been taught to feel about them.
What surprised me the most about Dionysus was that he’s a lot more than just a god of wine. He had several entire mystery traditions dedicated to him (some of which were ascetic and others of which were not), and there are so many spiritual, mythical, and philosophical layers to him. I’ve talked about Dionysus and the more complex aspects of his nature in many other answers, so I’ll just focus on the most relevant piece for right now: Dionysian spirituality mostly makes use of ecstatic trance techniques, like drinking wine or ecstatic dance, as a means of connecting to the divine. Dionysus’ mother died in a moment of epiphany, in which she came face-to-face with Zeus in his unfiltered divine form. Her son’s gift of wine enables mortals to have similar experiences without being consumed by celestial fire in the process. Through Dionysus, I have come to understand that “worldly things” do not have to be an obstacle to having mystical experiences, and can in fact be a direct avenue towards them. Joy is a powerful thing, and encountering the divine is easier when you’re already feeling joy. Therefore, things that produce joy can facilitate encounters with the divine. Sensuality and spirituality are not mutually exclusive (in fact, nothing is), and intense sensory experiences are often necessary to produce those altered states of consciousness. And it works. I’ve had more epiphanies and other mystical experiences using these methods than I ever did as a Christian.
For a person like me who’s inclined towards asceticism, learning how to engage with “the world” is healthy and necessary. I am alive, I exist in my flesh, and that is a good thing. It’s not something I need to transcend or despise, it’s something I need to learn to work with for as long as I’m on earth, and part of that is learning how to enjoy myself. That’s why I’m here. Denying myself that for the sake of shame is a waste of time and just produces an unhealthy, self-destructive cycle. If I want to access the divine, the most effective way to do it is through pursuing joy, through hedonism essentially. The eventual end goal is a state that is both divine and mundane at the same time, both above and below, both connected to God and able to engage with the world.
You exist in the world, so it is expected that you will do worldly things. Whether these worldly things get in the way of your ability to connect to the divine, or can be a direct path to it, depends on who you are as a person and how your own spirituality functions. Either way, you shouldn’t feel any shame over them. Enjoy being alive. That’s why you’re here.
I leave you with the words of one of my favorite Catholic writers, Julian of Norwich, a thirteenth-century anchoress:
So it is God’s will that we should hold on to gladness with all our might, for bliss lasts eternally, and pain passes and shall vanish completely. Therefore it is not God’s will that we should be guided by feelings of pain, grieving and mourning over them, but should quickly pass beyond them and remain in eternal joy, which is God almighty, who loves and protects us.[…]He supports us willingly and sweetly, by his words, and says, ‘But all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’ These words were shown very tenderly, with no suggestion that I or anyone who will be saved was being blamed. It would therefore be very strange to blame or wonder at God becuase of my sins, since he does not blame me for sinning. — Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
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