Of course I more or less assume that sin and crime are identical. But you made me do it, since you jumped to the idea that liberals/ACLU/ defense attorneys are somehow all about encouraging sin as something that is good for business. That Mandevillian possibility is forclosed by legal ethics. In this sense of course neither liberals nor the ACLU are concerned with sin that is not also a crime. I was answering the question in terms of “sin” that is also “crime”.

Technically speaking liberals say: Go and commit crimes no more. On the other hand given the fact that lawyers tend to er on the safe side, they might also say: Go and Sin no more. Also lets not underestimate the ego effects of echoing Jesus.

So “Sin” really encompasses a much broader field of behavior than “crime”… also who is to say that liberals shouldn’t be all about the blasphemy of “Go and sin no more”…after all blasphemy is a “sin”, but not a crime*!

Actually some forms of blasphemy are potentially crimes against toleration, albeit I might lump them more into the trademark or the reputational intellectual property sphere, as a crime against reputation…or in this case as the evil “liberal” ACLU purposefully trying to dilute the “brand” of Jesus, by echoing an invocation to go and sin no more! So Blasphemy is dilution?

In what sense do you want to make sin a crime? Very generally it seems that we have made those sins a crime which cause harm to a specific person. Murder cause harm to a particular person, but blasphemy in point of fact doesn’t touch God, but at best harms a property interest some faction has in ascribing to God certain exclusive characteristics. In this sense what you call toleration, vis a vis blasphemy isn’t far off from unfair competition.

If sin can’t exist outside of crime(or a criminal structure), how can blasphemy exist under the first ammendment? There exists a whole world of sin, that no one needs to recognize, or that grew up outside the american legal framework.

Also an objection:

“At the limit, we are asked to hold that adultery is an awful sin in the eyes of God.”

False, adultery is an awful sin in the eyes of pre-modern Man. To some extent also in the eyes of modern man. blasphemy is a sin against God…but adultery is a sin against your parents capacity to contract you out, in an arranged marriage for a dowry. It is actually a sin against your own reputation, or your servicemark. If someone else owns you as property and is in the act of alienating you for a dowry, then adultery is a sin against “God” (albeit here I would argue that you are engaging in blasphemy), because in truth you are using “God” in a rather instrumental way to advance your interests.

Adultery is punishable in large measure by the reputation of being a slut. (where is the guy, Jesus would say?) Hypothetically it is bad “servicemark”. In many cases adultery is presumed to be bad servicemark, and thus grounds for blackmail…so in cases where you actually are an important person, i.e. your servicemark matters more…you can get entwined in complex legal difficulties from being adulterous. case in point: General Petraeus.

So Adultery is a crime against your own servicemark, going to your capacity for restrain and self discipline. Having such a servicemark/reputation is much worse for generals, and almost imperative for porn stars.

So Blasphemy is a sin against God’s servicemark, and Adultery is a sin against your own servicemark.

The crux is whether the pregnant girl values her place in the community and respects her parents/peers/co-religionists. If she does, then her pregnancy is a rebuke to her behavior in and of itself and she has to bear her shame (which raises the point of abortion. If we don’t build in a second sin to get her out of the consequences of her first sin, then her promiscuity does have repercussions). If she doesn’t, then not even an enforceable law will solve the deeper problem she and her community face.

If postmodernism has taught us anything, it is that all worldly moral authority IS relative, especially the closer that authority comes to political, coercive power, where the inevitable human failings of egoism enter in. For Christians to enforce morals that in the here and now they consider absolute, then they have to do it through persuasion and through having a community that is desirable enough that wayward individuals will submit to discipline voluntarily because of the greater good they see in being a part of Christian faith.

Jesus Christ, ACLU Superstar! i.e. translation: Jesus made a due process argument.

“But here is the hard question I am trying to ask: if all the authoritative Jews (or Rolmans, or Christians, or upright ruling persons generally) were thus convicted and demoralized (as well they might be), then where would we be?

Exactly where we are! Namely prosecutors very much inclined to follow due process. That no guilty party may ever yet again escape on a technicality or loop hole!

Ralph, quit trying to get republicans in trouble! The concept of “healthy hypocrisy”, or undue process simply feeds aggregate demand for more Jesus Christ Superstars. In truth then we can simply say that the ACLU makes prosecutors more virtuous. In turn it is ironically the prosecutors that make the people more virtuous. At least theoretically.

I also think you need to update your views of the ACLU and liberals. I am pretty sure that 99% of them would sign on to a petition for the proposition that you should “go and sin no more”. I am pretty sure of this, because I am pretty sure most of them realize they are just rooting out undue process or “healthy hypocracy”, as a result the “next time”…the prosecutor will be better and really will get you. Prosecutor, minus healthy hypocracy, equals right side of History. Go and sin no more, because you are innocent due to a mistake on the part of the prosecutor…but next time the prosecutor will come back stronger than ever, purged of “healthy hypocracy” and he will bury you. In fact the prosecutor is a very mean person, and by sinning you are just stimulating aggregate demand for prosecutors. Don’t you want revenge for being brought to justice in the first place? Do your part to make sure the prosecutor starves…go and sin no more!

Also in terms of political economy, what you are saying opposing christianity to the world strikes me as similar to the teachings of Bernard Mandeville. I maintain that it isn’t liberals or really the ACLU who opposes the idea of “go and sin no more”…but rather Bernard Mandeville.

The ACLU certainly doesn’t oppose the idea of “Go and Sin no more”, in part because to do so would be way too ambulence chaser, and in truth it is against public policy, legal ethics, et al.

So anyways, that is fairly off topic perhaps.

It may seem too simple an answer, but I think Christians should interpret the mandate to “Render unto Caesar” as a mandate from Christ to know your place and role as a human in this life. We can’t forgive and achieve justice in this life with the perfect Misericordia of God. One of my Cathechists told me growing up, “God forgives and forgets the sins we tell at confession. Human beings at most will can forgive sins committed on them by other people.” We can’t fully forget sins because of our human nature, and the nature of evil since its effects go on and on. As the band Iron Maiden once sang, “The Evil that Men Do Lives On and On”

I’m not accepting this, though: “…and in fact [Christianity also] declares that world to be …devoid of spiritual meaning.”