Sin and Reason

One problem with being an atheist is that you don't get to sin. It's not that you do stuff but it's not a sin because you don't believe in sin, you actually don't do the things that most religions consider a sin because you can understand the perfectly sensible reasons for not doing them.

Most of my friends who grew up Catholic go through a sinful phase, and I think it's because when they realize the nuns and priests have been lying to them, they wonder if everything was a lie, and they start experimenting. Bondage, three-somes, group orgies, multiple wives, and who can imagine what else. For us sensible atheists (and especially for those of us who grew up Protestant, and then among those especially all of us who grew up in that purely theoretical and extremely low-commitment denomination Episcopalian (US version of Anglican)), there's no sin, we are ruled only by common sense and scientific fact, and so we don't do all those experimental things because we know in advance the very good reasons why not to. Makes the Catholics exasperating. "No, the Hell bit was a lie, and it's okay to masturbate or be a homosexual, but that bit about three-somes and orgies and multiple wives being a bad idea, that was all actually true."