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Are Unconscious Acts Considered A Sin?

Kahalachan

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Kahalachan
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May 21, 2007
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Usually I don't have to ask religious people about their doctrines cause I was raised Christian so I can just reflect to how I would've thought or what I'm sure someone from church would've said, and then answer my own question.

But I've never gotten a good answer to this question.

The Bible talks about if you sin in your heart it's just as bad as committing the sin. So if you look at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery.


But I never got an answer about dreams or any thing that could be described as a sin occuring unconsciously.

So those of you who are religious or aren't but know an answer to this question, please chime in.


If I have a dream about having sex with a married woman but never act on it and don't commit any conscious sins based on that dream, was the dream itself a sin?

I've heard responses like "You had that dream cause you had sin in your heart" but that just goes back to the whole Adam and Eve and magic fruit story about us all being born with sin.

It doesn't speak to the moral correctness of the dream.

Mental illness could also tie in with this. If a schizophrenic thinks he's Jesus, is it blasphemy?

I'll usually hear a red herring like "God judges the heart and only god can judge that person" but it still doesn't offer any realization that certain acts need to be prevented in order to live a more godly life.

Edit:

People could talk about intent being god's demarcation, but then on that same token homosexuality wouldn't be an issue since no one intends to be a homosexual, since sexual orientation is not willfully chosen.

So it appears that on some level, unconscious acts or feelings can be sinful.
 
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It's been a long time since I was involved in Christianity, and that was Catholocism. In their view (at the time) such "involuntary" things as dreams could not be considered sinful.

However, if you found the dream to be particularly lubricious, and used it as fantasy material while having naughty activities, then it would be...
 
As much as Ive spotted so far in modern websites, it says sin starts with thoughts. So you have to tackle bad thoughts so they dont lead to temptation. No act comes without the thoughts leading up to it. So it isnt the thoughts but what they can lead to if you dont try to stop thinking them!
 
Kahalachan said:
Usually I don't have to ask religious people about their doctrines cause I was raised Christian so I can just reflect to how I would've thought or what I'm sure someone from church would've said, and then answer my own question.

But I've never gotten a good answer to this question.

The Bible talks about if you sin in your heart it's just as bad as committing the sin. So if you look at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery.


But I never got an answer about dreams or any thing that could be described as a sin occuring unconsciously.

So those of you who are religious or aren't but know an answer to this question, please chime in.


If I have a dream about having sex with a married woman but never act on it and don't commit any conscious sins based on that dream, was the dream itself a sin?
Click to expand...

No.

What matters are intentional acts which harm other human beings, or unneccesarily harm non-human living things.
 
If you lust in your heart, you may as well go ahead and do it...according to some self-serving dogma. Nevertheless, heart-lust won't get her pregnant or spread any diseases. Yet, is still a sin. Pretty much everything you want to do is a sin. Even doing nothing is a sin. We are in a heap of trouble with God...or so I'm told.
 
It depends on which particular denomination you belong to, and on their particular interpretation of the scriptures. I was a student at one of N. America's most conservative Bible Colleges, and this topic was a popular one for debate, with people taking both sides.

An unconscious act IS sinful: It doesn't matter whether an act is voluntary or involuntary, conscious or unconscious. God never has involuntary feelings of lust, or unconscious dreams/feelings that contravene His laws. In order to have the perfection necessary to reach Heaven without Jesus' intervention, we must attain the same level of purity. Anything less is 'sin', and requires Jesus' cleansing blood to take away that sin. This is plainly illustrated by Jesus' instruction that a man who lusts after a woman in his heart -- a reaction that may be entirely involuntary on the part of the individual feeling it -- is just as guilty of adultery as the man who has sex with her (which, by the way, would seem to support the argument that if you've felt lust for a woman, you might as well have sex with her...you're sinning either way).

An unconscious act is NOT sinful: Dreams, or feelings that arise without our bidding, are not in and of themselves sinful; they are simply a reflection of our sinful nature. It is our duty to resist those things...and if we do so successfully, then no sin has occurred. Just like when you go into a store, and you feel like shop-lifting something...you're not actually guilty of anything unless you actually act on that desire. In regards to the whole thing about lusting after a woman in your heart, it was not meant to mean simply feeling lust when you see an attractive woman (which can be an involuntary reaction resulting from our flawed, sinful nature), but rather after that initial involuntary feeling of lust, continuing to nurture and pursue it (which makes it a voluntary and conscious sin).
 
Wolf that's a good post. It pretty well sums up the arguments that can be used for both sides.
 
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