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No sin.  No sinners.  No “born flawed”.  No “born to sin”.

How would that impact upon religion/faith and the different deities embedded in everyday living both for believers and non-believers?

Where the need for salvation … the need for ologiies and isms … the dog(ma) fights … the doctrine wars … the splinters and factions … the splinters of splinters and the factions within factions … ?

And what if the bible is actually a testament warning against setting oneself up as a Chosen People? The journeying to and from “godliness” … the waying and straying from “The Way … the eternal tussle between right and wrong … All driven by sin and sin-avoidance.

Imagine all that without any sin at all.

And I differentiate between “sin” and evil.  Sin is a listing of tick-box behaviours.  Evil is a state of being. Just as love is a state of being.  And we are beings first, second and always.  I have seen evil.  I have felt evil.  I have felt the force of evil just as I have felt the force of love.  But that is not “sin”.  Sin is not a state of being.  Sin is a label we have created and refined to measure things.  To measure us.

Unconditional love.

The creation of life – of relationship – of community.  Of breathing the air of another – of hearing the words of another – of sharing everything with another.  Sharing the significant and insignificant.  The headlines and gossip of living.

But with sharing comes something greater than me.

For me to share with you I have to desire your happiness rather than just mine.  And you the same for me.  And what you consider the gossip of my living I consider my headlines.  And sharing becomes not just bigger than me – but works better with “love”.

Love that is my choice to allow freedom of thought, of word and action to and of all.  Love that does not demand that we “trade” sharing – but that is devoid of “trading” – love devoid of “transaction”.

So why the transaction of the Garden, the tree and the eviction?

Why the label of “sin” birthed in that moment (and forever more making all of us “flawed”)?  Where is the unconditional love in that?

Where is “love” in that?

And so the perils of being a Chosen People are birthed. The interchangeability of “sin and love” with “love with sin” – and threaded throughout everything: the “trading of transaction” where none existed before.

Unconditional becomes “conditional unconditional” – and can only happen with the birthing of “religion”.  And then “religion” rejects the very God which the Chosen People waited patiently to see.  Why?  Because “religion” dictated and demanded that the Messiah fulfilled the demands of religion”.  Except “that” (this) religion didn’t because “that” (this) religion never accepted as valid in (now) “their religion”.

Deity is unconditional – but deity is defined by religion.  And religion needs  “conditional unconditional” – needs “sin” – or else religion becomes irrelevant.

And that changes everything.

Needs us to be the reason – because God is perfect in every way.  Which means God should never exclude us – so only does for our own good (or now “tough love” as it is known) – which means we had to need excluding.  Why?

Because of our “sin”.

And once sin is created we then need “salvation”.  And that needs the cross.  Which is the biggest transaction of all.  Why?

Because conditional salvation is no more than conditional love.

I believe in God but I am not sure I believe in sin anymore.

I believe in love and I believe in evil.  Both are part of my choosing.  But sin … ?

I do this and have sinned.  I think that and have sinned.  Or have I?

If the circumstances of my being dictate I have not sinned – then I have not sinned.  But you might have – dependent upon the circumstances of your being.

And that distinction need rules and laws.  And enforcers.  And enforcers of the enforcers.  And clarity.  We must have clarity to know right from wrong.  And that is called being “biblically correct”.  And that also needs enforcers.  Because we need to be “biblically correct” to avoid sinning – because “to be right with God” we need to avoid sin.

And someone has to measure our sin avoidance.

So “conditional” becomes The Way.  And “Love” becomes this (dismissed) “frothy cultural nonsense of lust and sex”.  Which means who we sleep with becomes another public tick-box of sin avoidance.

And the perfect being I was born is now unconditionally screwed!

I now have no chance to be “perfect” … no chance to love perfectly … no chance to love unconditionally … Which means I can never love unconditionally – only God can do that.

A God kept so safe by all the different ologies and isms of “religion” that God is actually quite hard to know.

Until you remove sin.

And then …

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