[Buddha-l] Oops--Article is from NY Times

[Richard Hayes]

On Aug 27, 2010, at 21:10, "JKirkpatrick" <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:

> Really-- so where does paapa (usually pronounced as paap) in
> Hindi come from? 

It comes from Sanskrit pāpa, cognate with Greek pema, which means harm or injury. It has nothing at all in common with the word "sin" or the Greek & Hebrew words translated thereby. The focus of the notion of sin is failure to obey God, but there is nothing at all I pāpa implying failure to obey God. An atheist can have remorse about having harmed another person, but a sincere atheist can't have a notion of having failed in the eyes of God. An atheist (and Buddhists are necessarily atheists) can have a sense of pāpa but not a sense of sin. That makes an important distinction sélon moi. 

Harmfully but sinlessly yours,
Richard