CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner

Saturday, June 13, 2009

this entry brought to you by minus the bear, "lotus"


I've heard "Love the sinner but hate the sin" used before, of course, and not always against homosexuals. I've heard it used in almost every context of someone doing something bad. And the thing is, when I was young and I first heard someone say that phrase, I got it, I understood what they were saying. In concept, it makes sense. But there was something that didn't sit right with me when I was a child and when I tried to evaluate what bothered me about it, I couldn't really articulate what it was. I just knew something made me uncomfortable about it.

Say your brother is a murderer and is away in jail. And you say, hate the sin, love the sinner. Well, yeah, that makes sense, he's your brother. Of course you'd love him. But would you let him in your house alone with your kids? If not, then are you really loving him? To me the word love implies the word trust. If you don't really trust someone, then what you're feeling isn't love, it's cordial tolerance. You don't need to love your brother. You can just know that you grew up together, and be happy with your happy memories. But if he's a bad person what you're loving is your memories of your brother, not the man himself.

There was always a sort of cognitive dissonance there where I always thought, you don't really mean that. You don't really love the sinner but hate the sin. I see how you would want to mean that, but you don't. Nobody does. As I've gotten older and heard that about gay people, I've really grown to resent it. It's a bullshit saying. I get what it means, but nobody means it, ever. Not in their hearts.
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with love from CRS @ 9:40 AM 

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