Recently we had many crimes that were committed by very faithful Christians.
So I got curious about the relation between Christianity and crime.
Hypothesis
No.1 His false belief he is sure to resurrect or ascend to heaven might have made him feel as if he can do whatever he wants including crimes.
No.2 He had to willingly embrace the moralistic teachings of Christianity to calm down his evil mind.
No.3 He might hide himself behind the Christian church or by wearing a mask of hypocrite to act freely in a wicked world.
Most Christians don't believe - or they traditionally didn't - that they'll go to heaven no matter what. On the contrary: they believe in a God who'll punish them.
ReplyDeleteYour point 3 is true of whatever ethical system people claim to adhere to. So is 2.
There's no specific relation between crimes and Christianity, or between crimes and atheism or any other religion or philosophy. All those systems are ideas sitting mainly in the intellect, and that's simply not what determines most of our behaviour.
I tended to believe that Christians are morally good people and always trying to do good things. I had thought that Christianity and crime are opposite word, not synonym. So all the more I was very amazed to find recent many crimes were committed by humble Christians.
ReplyDeleteSecular people don't normally feel the feeling of sin. Two reasons - They are not sinful(not guilty), or they just don't care their sin(guilty).
Christian often feel the feeling of sin. Two reasons - They are really sinful(guilty), or they are just too careful to be sinful(hence not guilty).
These largely depend on individual cases -but what I pointed out is what general tendency has been.
Well, there is a lot of crimes in traditionally Christian countries - always has been.
ReplyDeleteChristians are taught that they are sinful by nature, the result being that they feel guilt about things I just consider normal (e.g. sex without marriage, or getting angry with someone). The least guilty may feel more sinful than most others because they focus so much on small mistakes.
People who commit crimes either justify their acts in some way that is independent of their religion, or they justify them by their religion (e.g. Al-Qaeda), or they forget all about their religion because they become overwhelmed by their emotions, e.g. that murderer you blogged about.
I don't believe religion makes people better or worse. If you're a good person, you'll be so whether you're a Christian or a Buddhist or an atheist or whatever - and vice versa.