I think most Christians just make up whatever they feel ought to be a sin based on the vibe.
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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No. but you could losely apply thou shall not worship false gods. However learning, and worshipping are two completely different things.
Christianity was formed long before there was media, so there are no scriptures that prevent you from enjoying media, and last i checked nothing that prevented you from learning.
The sin is saying someone like Donald Trump is Jesus, and worshipping him in your home and the house of god. That's what's sending everyone on a first class ticket to hell. You're cool tho. Coming from a Catholic with a lotta guilt.
Here's a list of sins with the biblical citations. You tell me if watching zues documentaries is a sin?
Nope! Watching a movie about Thor or something is fine. It only doesn't work when you begin to worship Thor over God, which breaks the first commandment
Though comically, in Iceland they got the populace to convert to Christianity by saying it was okay to worship Thor in private.
Chris's glorious beard though. How can you not?
Its only a sin if you feel empathy for the other gods.
You realize Christianity is not one thing?
It is one thing with a massive amount of variation, like pizza.
Is mormanism the one with pineapples?
Not as far as I know. My mom was Christian and read plenty of mythology, visited Egypt and learned about their ancient gods, it's my understanding that they just aren't supposed to worship or believe in other gods. Not that they are supposed to be ignorant of the past or of other current religions either.
I don't know about more fundamentalist sects, but she was Christian her whole life, well read and into learning about history and religion in general.
No, although this is a fringe belief among some fringe sects.
Christianity IS ancient mythology.
Ipso facto it’s a sin to be a Christian, per Christianity.
But if you apply logic to any of these devoted superstitions none of them make any sense.
Plenty of writers in the early Christian church continued to draw heavily on Greek and Roman mythology as a source for literary analogies—so a background knowledge of classical mythology is necessary to fully understand foundational Christian literature.
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It's a question?
Based on the username and formatting of the title, I'm guessing OP's native language may be Japanese, where questions are often statement+question word.
Shitsumon desu - It's a question.
Shitsumon desu ka - Is it a question?
Thanks.
It's a hobbitses?
Filthy, tricksy hobbitses, they stole our syntaxes
No.
Jesus may have quoted Aesop a few times, although those fables' earliest recording are around a thousand years later.
However, take for example the Ark of the Covenant:
It bears resemblance to Egyptian arks to their gods, like one found in King Tut's tomb
To the Israelites when asked to construct their Ark, the concept would have been familiar to them, as it's something the pagans would have done. Big difference is that the pagans put a depiction of the god on theirs, while the Israelites have angels blowing down to Seemingly Nothing - an unseen God. This still would have been drawing from pagan beliefs and traditions.
Or, take for example, the narrative of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in Genesis 22. The followers of Molech would have commonly sacrificed their children to their idols to show upmost devotion to their god- so God tests Abraham to see if he has the same level of devotion to his God.
However, it is worth noting in both of these cases, God makes a point of doing something differently (unseen God on the ark, cancelling the sacrifice, verse 8 "God will provide for himself the lamb" foreshadowing Jesus)
There's probably many more examples of this. But it shows the Israelites would have been well acquainted with pagan culture instead of shelter, and even God was willing to adapt it.
Sin is a myth. There is no god to judge you.
Consider the harm your actions and beliefs cause. The rest is bullshit.
I One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
V Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
VI People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Nice guidelines, I like them. Satanism?
"Ours" are a bit more complex and long winded but have quite a few paralells:
I'll copy paste them from here.
Right Speech
Right speech means abstention (1) from telling lies, (2) from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, (3) from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, and abusive language, and (4) from idle, useless, and foolish babble and gossip. When one abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech one naturally has to speak the truth, has to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful, and useful. One should not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place. If one cannot say something useful, one should keep “noble silence.”
Right Action
Right action aims at promoting moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct. It admonishes us that we should abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and that we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way.
Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks or poisons, killing animals, cheating, etc., and should live by a profession which is honorable, blameless, and innocent of harm to others. One can clearly see here that Buddhism is strongly opposed to any kind of war, when it lays down that trade in arms and lethal weapons is an evil and unjust means of livelihood.
These three factors (right speech, right action, and right livelihood) of the eightfold path constitute ethical conduct. It should be realized that the Buddhist ethical and moral conduct aims at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This moral conduct is considered as the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral basis.
Mental Discipline
Next comes mental discipline, in which are included three other factors of the eightfold path: namely, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. (Nos. 6, 7 and 8 in the list).
Right Effort
Right effort is the energetic will (1) to prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising, and (2) to get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen within a man, and also (3) to produce, to cause to arise, good, and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen, and (4) to develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present in a man.
Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is to be diligently aware, mindful, and attentive with regard to (1) the activities of the body (kaya), (2) sensations or feelings (vedana), (3) the activities of the mind (citta) and (4) ideas, thoughts, conceptions, and things (dhamma).
The practice of concentration on breathing (anapanasati) is one of the well-known exercises, connected with the body, for mental development. There are several other ways of developing attentiveness in relation to the body as modes of meditation.
With regard to sensations and feelings, one should be clearly aware of all forms of feelings and sensations, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, of how they appear and disappear within oneself. Concerning the activities of mind, one should be aware whether one’s mind is lustful or not, given to hatred or not, deluded or not, distracted or concentrated, etc. In this way one should be aware of all movements of mind, how they arise and disappear.
As regards ideas, thoughts, conceptions and things, one should know their nature, how they appear and disappear, how they are developed, how they are suppressed, destroyed, and so on.
These four forms of mental culture or meditation are treated in detail in the Satipatthana Sutta (Setting-up of Mindfulness).
Right Concentration
The third and last factor of mental discipline is right concentration, leading to the four stages of Dhyana, generally called trance or recueillement. In the first stage of Dhyana, passionate desires and certain unwholesome thoughts like sensuous lust, ill-will, languor, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt are discarded, and feelings of joy and happiness are maintained, along with certain mental activities. Then, in the second stage, all intellectual activities are suppressed, tranquillity, and “one-pointedness” of mind developed, and the feelings of joy and happiness are still retained. In the third stage, the feeling of joy, which is an active sensation, also disappears, while the disposition of happiness still remains in addition to mindful equanimity. Finally, in the fourth stage of Dhyana, all sensations, even of happiness and unhappiness, of joy and sorrow, disappear, only pure equanimity and awareness remaining.
Thus the mind is trained and disciplined and developed through right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Wisdom
The remaining two factors, namely right thought and right understanding, constitute wisdom in the noble eightfold path.
Right Thought
Right thought denotes the thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts of love and thoughts of non-violence, which are extended to all beings. It is very interesting and important to note here that thoughts of selfless detachment, love and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom. This clearly shows that true wisdom is endowed with these noble qualities, and that all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred, and violence are the result of a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life whether individual, social, or political.
Right Understanding
Right understanding is the understanding of things as they are, and it is the four noble truths that explain things as they really are. Right understanding therefore is ultimately reduced to the understanding of the four noble truths. This understanding is the highest wisdom which sees the Ultimate Reality. According to Buddhism there are two sorts of understanding. What we generally call “understanding” is knowledge, an accumulated memory, an intellectual grasping of a subject according to certain given data. This is called “knowing accordingly” (anubodha). It is not very deep. Real deep understanding or “penetration” (pativedha) is seeing a thing in its true nature, without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and is fully developed through meditation.
From this brief account of the noble eightfold path, one may see that it is a way of life to be followed, practiced and developed by each individual. It is self-discipline in body, word, and mind, self-development, and self-purification. It has nothing to do with belief, prayer, worship, or ceremony. In that sense, it has nothing which may popularly be called “religious.” It is a Path leading to the realization of Ultimate Reality, to complete freedom, happiness, and peace through moral, spiritual, and intellectual perfection.
Do I just consider my beliefs and actions? Or my collective community through out history?
Anyone that tries to tell you the sins of the father pass to the son is full of it.
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When you start freaking out about every little thing in your life is when you should start questioning the usefulness of religion.
That's the start to understanding that all religions are just made up stories aka mythology
Been a Christian for a long time (1989). I've consumed copious amounts of ancient mythology and folklore. People who don't understand that you can read something that challenges your faith and still follow through with better understanding afterwards is the issue. If you read something and it doesn't make you think deeper about yourself, faith, world, or whatever what's the point? Those in the church (Christian or not) that tell you that reading something is a "sin" are probably ones that teeter on the edge of losing their grasp as it is and don't want you doing the same. Most of them can't explain why it's so challenging, they just know it's there.
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Depends on your particular brand of cult. The Jehovah's Witness in my work doesn't consume any non-approved secular media, so pagan stuff would be out of the question. He doesn't listen to music or read books apart from the bible and books about the bible from JW perspective. Has seen Terminator 2, randomly.
Did he like it?
Seeing that in sort of a vacuum has to be wild.
Depends on how fundamentalist you are.
Secular person who was formally catholic, so I will come from that perspective, and will for this post assume that the Christian view is correct. (In reality I don’t think it is)
Theologians have realized that people, even before Jesus have been good and have shown wisdom. Even those who were way outside of the Jewish tradition. For example, Aristotle showed prudence, wisdom, and ethics that are in accordance with the will of God.
The question at hand is how and why, if they did not know God?
The answer is that they acted in accordance with the natural law as given by god. Even without knowing god via the sacrifice of Jesus, they approached god in the best way they knew how, by doing their best to realize the natural law which was written by god.
More information on this at this link. I would read the section on Aquinas’ natural law theory.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/#NatLawDivPro
How does this apply to watching content about historic and mythological figures? The answer is that, in so much as the content approaches those divine values through the authors seeking to understand and act in accordance with the natural law it is good and just to consume.
This being said these historic figures did not have the true understanding of god brought through the sacrifice of Jesus so that must be kept in mind. So as long as you understand this and the content does not draw you from god it should be good to go.
Sure, why not?
My background in is in Islam, not Christianity. This doesn't answer your question but I hope it is helpful.
Most opinions in Islam are that: it is not a sin to read pagan texts or texts from other religions, but it is highly discouraged for non-experts in Islam, as, for example, it may weaken their belief in Islam. Many Muslim prostelyzers, for example, extensively read non-Islamic texts to help them convert other people to Islam.
However, I think a distinction is usually made between mythical texts and religious texts. Many believe that it is no sin to read Greek mythology because they see them as just fixtional stories, but that it is a sin or it is discourged to read the Torah or the Bible.
That entirely depends on your church/denomination.
I don't see why it would be considering Christianity stole their entire creation mythos from the Sumerians.
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I think tour getting confused with catholics.
Certain sects or denominations might have a problem with any non christian media, others don't care. Most Christians don't care if you watch Kevin sorbo play Hercules but some might try to push his more recent films. I'd say most christian groups would treat it similarly to watching xmen or superman.
Believe it or not: straight to Hell!
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