Greetings Toadies.
Today I am going to be talking about a topic which I know is dear to each and every one of your hearts. I will be talking about sin. And could I choose a more exciting topic? Have you first tastes and nibbles at the sins of your patients not been exquisite these past weeks? Is there anything quite so profoundly gratifying as the sight of their disgusting souls shriveling and devoloving as they move from one sin to another? If you really want a treat, try seeking a glance at the enemies camp just as you patient let's himself wallow in gluttony or pride in direct rebellion. Watch as they throw his warning back in his face and slice off another sliver of their own essence. Gloat over them as time and time again they choose misery and destruction over the joy, peace and wholeness he offers them. It is indeed a delight to the miserific palate. Once you really learn to savor it, nothing will give you quite the same thrill as watching the self-mutilation your patient inflicts on himself in sinning.
Clearly, the topic of sin is far to great to be treated in a single lecture. I will not even make the attempt. In this lecture I will be focusing on the perception of and best usages for the concept of sin in modern american culture. And in fact, even that is a rather broad topic (I see two clear divisions which each ought to be addressed in addition on one, growing trend which I find especially worrisome) so, depending on how this works out, I may end up splitting this lecture into two parts.
I begin by discussing the modern american secular perception of sin (as opposed to the modern american religious view) and already I had better warn you that there is considerable seepage between the secular and religious. There are almost no committed christians, jews or muslims in modern america who are not, at least a little, influenced by the secular perception; neither are there many atheists who are not influenced by the religious. Now clearly, neither of these views bears much resemblance to your own understanding of the subject. Keep that in mind! Over estimating your patient's understanding can be as disastrous as underestimating it.
Once, we had our hands full trying to keep people from thinking about sin at all. For nearly 1900 years the mere mention of the word was a disaster. Back then, americans identified "sin" with shame, with guilt and finding themselves guilty of "sin" was something they genuinely wanted to avoid. Thus, if we wanted them to sin, the last thing we wanted was for them to attach the label to the particular act. Those americans would be abusive until someone convinced them that abuse was sin. They would cheat and have grand affairs, but all the while they would be trying to justify the behavior os "OK". "This isn't sin" they would tell themselves "these are special circumstance".
Not that no one ever purposefully sinned. It happened all the time. But when they did, they always felt at least nervous about it. You could say they felt they were doing something they "ought not do". That is no longer the case. This history is important so that you understand what your patients attitude is reacting against (in most cases). In fact, neither the secular or the religious american still subscribe to the old perception but both are descended from it.
If you consider it for a moment (it will probably take some of you considerably longer) you will see that some of our best fun was had in making men into pharisees. Convincing them that some perfectly innocuous or (even better) actually beneficial behavior was "a sin" had several worthwhile results: it caused them to expend all sorts of effort and time trying and even praying for the strength not to do things the enemy thought they out to do. He does not spend much effort assisting them in resisting his own blessings - keep that in mind. Thus, these neo-pharisees tended to become judgmental and proud when they succeeded and despairing when they failed. Additionally, pharisaic tendencies usually managed to push the humans at least a little off course of the center by confusing them about the direction. Best of all, it built on one of our long-standing, lies: the lie that some code of conduct, some "law" rather than our enemy himself is at the centre. The value of this lie cannot be overemphasized. Our enemy wants the humans coming to him to find their life, freedom and joy. Confusing them, convincing them to head towards some law, however like the enemy's will that law may be, is always to our advantage. Don't you see that in orienting themselves around a law they are orienting themselves around their own ability to keep that law, that is around themselves! The old conception was invaluable to this project. With it we built fences along the "way to keep the law"; walls which served admirably to keep their feet firmly on our highway to self-obsessed destruction.
But now we have moved on. Of course this took some discussion in the lowrarchy. Feuerkrote's methodology is ascendant in our current american battle tactics (really I know he is mind numbingly self-agrandising in it but you really had better read his Overwhelming Advantages of a truth-ignorant Culture it takes 4-5 thousand pages more than are strictly necessary to explain the development of our current doctrine; and several of his anecdotes on the lives of Nietzsche and Sartre are decidedly entertaining). As a result, modern americans (I will not submit to foolish progressonymns by calling them post-modern) think of "sin" as something of an archaic term. Telling a truly modern american that her behavior is sinful would produce nothing but a curious glance and an assertion that she isn't really very religious anyway and besides, it's rude of you to judge her. She very much associates "sin" with antiquated and intolerant, fundamentalists and generally regards is as referring to "fun things religious people don't want you to do; usually some form of sex". Her reaction to the word itself will nearly always be in our favor. In the mouth of a Christian, it will distance her from them by verifying that they are callous, intolerant blowhards. In the mouth of an authority figue is will serve as a challenge to display her autonomy (what a delightful word) and carry out the proscribed action. All to our advantage.
So don't encourage your patient to sin. Play the reverse psychology game; whisper to her "you know some people call that sin, are you sure you want to?" she'll buy it every time. There has never been a more contrarian creature than the modern american young person; not since our Father announced the Grand Repudiation anyway. So long as your patient thinks of sin as a list of rules the enemy has arbitrarily (never let them suggest that He had their good in mind) set up to keep humans from having too much fun, they will remain eager to discover the "tainted glee" of freedom from such arbitrary lists. If these humans believed any of that genesis story, they would celebrate eve for casting of the shackles of arbitrary theistic morality and discovering for herself the secret knowledge of good and evil. And don't worry that she might notice how her conception denies the very knowledge she exalts. She won't.
Now, as with all of our tactics, this one, admirable and effective as it is, does create a vulnerability you will have to be on guard against. These secular americans are, by our own methods, unfortunately tough to turn to pharisaism. Oh Duckaltoad and some others make claims that they can work legalism into their worship of tolerance but I think his case is overstated. In some few instances it may be worth the attempt but generally you will find you efforts better rewarded by other approaches.
The real danger is that without a concept of sin defining a "false way", these americans are vulnerable to certain elements from the church who have begun talking, not about christianity, but about the enemy himself as the "way". Instead of the old method, telling people how bad they are and then offering them a sort of cosmic forgiveness if only they will accept christianity to whatever degree the preacher feels necessary, these infuriating milksops just talk about how thrilled they are to know and follow the enemy and then invite the hapless initiate to join them. Predictably, our enemy is delighted to pour himself out in entirely immoderate portions to any creature who so much as glances towards him for help. His book is full of the most wheedling, undignified promises to delight those who will just taste him.
Once we had defenses against this sort of thing. We had the humans pretty well convinced that a "relationship" with the enemy meant "committing to become a person who doesn't sin" (sin in the old sense of the word). There is a remnant of this floating around popular culture which you mat still be able to use. If your patient is approached by one of these weak-willed toadies do you best to point out that the evangelist is a christian. Fill your patient's mind with words like "fundamentalist" and "sin". Try to make the invitation look like a disguised attempt to convert your patient to a religion. You must not let your patient see an open invitation to explore an exciting new way of life! Even if you succeed thought, the situation is desperate. These people keep coming back and they are so damnably earnest.
Regarding these twits I can offer only two pieces of encouragement on this topic at the present time. They are still a relatively small group (mostly on the east and west coasts) and they haven't really worked out a firm doctrine on much of anything yet. As to this second point, it has it's own dangers but I will address them in some future lecture. What you need to understand is that they are only beginning to see sin as the enemies list of poison labels.
You must have thought it very unfair (we all did), when you first read the enemy's book, that he gave them such a clear list of what sorts of things would damage them. It looked as though he wandered through the entire cosmos pasting "sharp edge" and "poisonous compound" labels on everything remotely dangerous to his precious beasts. And if that weren't enough he gave them the "guiding principle" of, well,of love for one another to help them judge when and how the labels make a difference. From this, it was clear to you that what the enemy meant by "sin" was "actions, in-actions and directions of mind and spirit which damage a human self and force them to separate from the wholeness he represents" (never forget that he has created them dependent on him for their fulfillment). You saw this, but only a few of them really ever do. Since eden, we have been busy convincing them that "sin" means "irritating god" and "righteousness" means "doing the things that make god like you". Of course he is forever letting the secret out to troublesome people like Socrates and Lao Tzu but thanks to the historical point of view (see Screwtape for a full treatment of this device) we usually only have to deal with one or two per generation. In this generation, for reasons you can well see, it is possibly less well know than ever before. In the past, people misunderstood sin and loved their own desire to follow a law; today people don't even know what sin is but hate any mention of it. All praise to Our Father Below that so few have ever seen sin as warnings against our aims and have loved the enemy for giving them such clear protection.
Ah, well we have certainly dragged on for some time with this lecture. Next week I will give you a full explication of part 2: the american religious conception of sin and how you can use it to push your patient away from the centre. In the meantime, I want 6000 words on your own patient's understanding of and reaction to the term "sin" concluding with your plan for using that understanding to draw them away from the enemy.
