Crime and Punishment

Absolute sin. Know what it is? It's a reprehensible act that would be equally immoral for everybody. A lot of people say that absolute sin does not exist. If it did, why would something be considered a crime in one culture and not another? And when I say crime, I do not necessarily mean an act punishable by law, but rather, an act punishable by conscience. Why is it not sinful to marry a cousin in Islam, but looked on as incest in other cultures? Dozens of such examples exist.

I think absolute sin does exist. Absolute sin has been defined in all religions, and it's uncanny how similar moral tenets are across religions. Personally, I believe that this moral framework was perfected in Islam, but that's just my opinion. Not to stray from the point, absolute sin exists, but I claim that man is not born with a sense of it. Man is born with a conscience, a clean slate ready to be written on, a machine ready to be programmed. As man grows, his conscience is shaped by the way he is nurtured, by what he sees and deduces from his environment, and so on.

In a "macro" sense...in the sense of society or religion as a whole, crime is defined by laws. When you break those laws, you've overstepped your bounds and committed a crime. Whether you get caught or not is a totally different matter. However, in a "micro" sense, at the individual's level, I think crime is defined purely by your conscience. Crime is anything that goes against your conscience. And what defines your conscience? Again, your upbringing, your nurturing, and so on.

That's why it's so important for the conscience to be programmed properly during one's formative years. If I've seen the people around me take bribes, if I am brought up to think that society cannot function without bribes, I will not feel even a prick of conscience taking or receiving one. If, on the other hand, I was raised and programmed with Islamic values, there is no way I'll reconcile myself to bribery without guilt. Guilt...the ultimate punishment! You need no court of law nor a prison cell to be punished by guilt.

Taking things up a notch, do you think a cannibal feels guilty murdering and eating another human being? I honestly don't think so. Do you feel guilty when you sit down to a meal of roasted chicken? I don't...I can say that for sure. And yet I know people who won't touch meat because they feel sorry for the animal. It's all a function of conscience. Conscience is relative, not absolute. That's why one's conscience has to be raised on good values.

I think conscience is the main reason why atheists and agnostics do not morally fall apart. I've discussed this once with a good friend of mine. He doesn't believe in God. I asked him what stops him from going out and, say, robbing a store or something. He claimed it would be bad for society. I think that at the most primitive level, the force keeping both of us in check is the same: the conscience. I don't commit sin for fear of Allah, but at the most basic level, I don't commit sin because of my conscience. For there are many things I do that Allah probably dislikes, and yet I continue doing them...because my conscience does not prick me. It's not a crime for me anymore.

Quite amazingly, the punishment administered by consience is a strange one indeed. As everybody knows, the guilt of committing a crime (and when I say crime, it can be anything that goes against your conscience...even something very paltry) dies down as the crime is committed over and over. But here's the thing: it's only when one stops committing the crime that one realizes the hell one was living in. So it's not that conscience stops punishing you....it's more like you grow used to the punishment, just like you might grow used to living in a 10x10 prison cell. But it's only when you get out that you realize the shit-hole you were in.

I'd like to sum up by recommending a movie and a book (yeah yeah, I can't do without my recommendations, can I?). The movie is The Machinist starring Christian Bale. The book is Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Both explore similar themes, but leave you mind-blown.