What exact sins did I commit?

[February-Saturday]

Are you serious? I don't think this answer would be acceptable even to Gnostics. Why? Because another human being was hurt without cause.

I would like to respectfully request you read my entire post before insulting me.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Harming innocent people is definitely a sin. This was not an innocent joke -- it was bullying. Bullying can cause lasting negative effects. We don't really know how this affected the guy.

He was a human making a humam mistake. Yes, it withkut doubt caused a deal of harm, but showing remorse, resenti g and regretting the actions, I see no reason to attach special words of transgression and guilt.

 

[The Hammer]

In the past I’ve done something horrible that I know (and knew then) was wrong. I’m not proud of it indeed it’s totally shameful. I've felt incredibly guilty about it for years now, and I believe that because of this I cannot call myself a "good person", even though I'm now a totally different person than I was when I did those horrible, cruel things to such a kind and gentle soul.

But there’s something I am unsure about: I know what I did was wrong but according to your religion, what exact sins did I commit?

This is what happened:

In 1996 I transferred to a new high school

I was put together with a lad called Gerald and in time we became friends

In 1998 me and a friend who was not as nice as Gerald played an elaborate trick on him because we thought he was naive and gullible:

Basically, we made him believe he was in a society for gifted young people, we called it The Calderdale Design Club - or CDC. I made stuff up using the desktop publishing program on my Windows 95 PC and mailed it to him, through the post.

At its height, we gave him an assessment to complete. We had him designing aeroplanes, writing essays, and gave him all other kinds of exercises to complete. I wrote a biography of a Formula One racing driver who used to be a pilot in the US Navy and made him answer questions about him and spot all the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. He was called Ernst Fibenger. He was supposed to do this assessment under examination conditions but he cheated.

We then broke the news to him that the CDC did not exist. We were going to send him on a mission to find a non-existent house party on a local council estate but thought better of it as we didn't want to jeopardise his personal safety.

This is what happened:

Me: “Do you believe in fairies?”

Him: “No”

Me: “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Him: “No”

Me: “Do you believe in the Loch Ness monster?”

Him: “No”

Me: “Then why did you believe in the CDC?”

He then burst into tears and ran off to the teachers

They were shocked and could hardly believe what had happened

One of them suggested that he should get a certificate for his efforts, but I was adamant that he’d cheated

We went before the Head Teacher but didn’t actually receive any punishment whatsoever for what we had done. Not a single minute's detention.

I later had to go to a meeting where all our mothers (mine, Gerald’s, and the friend’s) were present and it turned out that Gerald cried himself to sleep when he went to bed on the day we told him the CDC wasn’t real. Which was something I could relate to as in the past I too had cried myself to sleep because of awful things people had done to me.

But the thing was, at this meeting I took all the blame, not the friend who wasn’t even there, he was away on a school trip. But his mother told him to stay away from me. Which he didn’t.

This was in 1998 and I was at that school until 1999. After all this happened the atmosphere there was awful and unpleasant. We had to share classes with Gerald and it just felt horrible. I was glad to leave that school.

At that time I disliked him intensely, but looking back he was a lovely, kind, soft person. He was totally benign. A lovely, lovely person. And I feel very bad about what we did to him.

I’ve found him on Facebook and have considered contacting him and apologising for being such a ****. But having seen his profile, he is a more successful human being than I am so he’s probably had the last laugh.

I wish him well and am pleased for him.

So, that’s the story.

Question: What sins would you say I committed against him?

I did something very similar to a cousin of mine, except that it involved letters from and acceptance into the fictitious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I was about 12 when I started to convince my then 10 year old cousin that he had gotten into HP. You see HP was just starting to get really big around this time, it was just around the time the 3rd or 4th book was coming out.

Don't beat yourself up to hard. Guilt is an awful burden to carry, when one has no idea what the long term impacts of their actions are/were. I would recommend writing an apology letter to this person, in as much detail as you can. What you do with that apology letter is up to you (I tend to burn mine if I am unable to give them to the person).

As for a sin. You didn't Sin IMO, but you did lie. Honesty is important, because a lack of honesty hides the Truth.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

He was a human making a humam mistake. Yes, it withkut doubt caused a deal of harm, but showing remorse, resenti g and regretting the actions, I see no reason to attach special words of transgression and guilt.

Human beings making human mistakes are called wrongs or sins. To diminish the harm of his action is to add to the humiliation of his victim all over again by saying "Oh, you really weren't hurt that bad."

If a person is a former bully, who did awful things in their youth, but they've improved as an adult, they need to accept responsibility for what they did. To deny their responsibility is to run away from it. They will not fully heal from it until they face it gravely and not try to excuse it by "it was just being young" or "we all make human mistakes."

 

[Shadow Wolf]

To diminish the harm of his action is to add to the humiliation of his victim all over again by saying "Oh, you really weren't hurt that bad."

Im not. I just see no reason to attach a word of a serious religious transgression to it. For the wages of sin are death. Thats just way too harsh and severe for what Eddi did.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Im not. I just see no reason to attach a word of a serious religious transgression to it. For the wages of sin are death. Thats just way too harsh and severe for what Eddi did.

See that is where you are wrong. Bullying IS serious. I'm frankly really tired of people diminishing it.

That you are stuck in your "wages of sin are death" is for you to figure out. It's not part of my religion. We all of us die.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

See that is where you are wrong. Bullying IS serious. I'm frankly really tired of people diminishing it.

That you are stuck in your "wages of sin are death" is for you to figure out. It's not part of my religion. We all of us die.

I did not mean or imply that. I am stating my objections to this silly concept of "sin." It is a religious concept. It is described as something that warrants death and hellfire. Eddie just ****ed up. He's sorry. No threats of hellfire and angry gods and major trangressions against that god, all those things attached to this absurd notion of "sin," they are not needed.

 

[dybmh]

Seems to me that being connected to a demon in anyway would be the worst sort of hell imaginable.

@Eddi appears to be figuring that out, and is climbing his way out of it.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I did not mean or imply that. I am stating my objections to this silly concept of "sin." It is a religious concept. It is described as something that warrants death and hellfire. Eddie just ****ed up. He's sorry. No threats of hellfire and angry gods and major trangressions against that god, all those things attached to this absurd notion of "sin," they are not needed.

All sin means is thta you have done something morally wrong. You have violated "Love your neighbor as yourself" in some way. I see no reason even for non-religious to be scared of the word sin.

I'm not sure that God is angry with him -- he has changed his behavior (repented) and his conscience is sensitive enough to now that its wrong. That's very, VERY good material for God to work with.

I tend to think of God as a loving Father. If he does meet out punishment, it is only for the purpose of teaching us, and teaching us is a loving thing. It means he cares about how we treat one another.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

All sin means is thta you have done something morally wrong. You have violated "Love your neighbor as yourself" in some way. I see no reason even for non-religious to be scared of the word sin.

Its the religius origins, connotations, attachments, and implications behind it that object to the word. The definition does include religions and gods, such the violation of "divine law" or "religious law." We're human. Thats hard enough without adding extra.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Its the religius origins, connotations, attachments, and implications behind it that object to the word. The definition does include religions and gods, such the violation of "divine law" or "religious law." We're human. Thats hard enough without adding extra.

Weeeeell, In my very humble opinion, I think you are being oversensitive about the word. Even if I didn't believe in God, I would still practice Judaism, and still call the infractions "sins."

 

[Katja]

I was bullied in junior high. When I was an adult, one of the girls came by my home and apologized to me. It meant a lot to me.

I've had a lot of people who were jerks to me as well. I don't need or want their too-late useless remorse or their desire to waste my time for their own selfish reasons.