George Saunders

I think sin is what we were just talking about.

This is not the Catholic understanding, but my understanding is sin just means you're out of step with truth.

whatever it might be.

And the world has a way of either internally or from outside of punishing sin in that way.

So again, if I think I'm a really tough guy and I'm still me and I go out and challenge somebody and I get my ass kicked,

I've committed a sin, the sin of misunderstanding who I am, and then there's a punishment.

So for me, in the book, sin is just being out of touch with the way things actually are.

That's it.

And so, again, in Buddhism, karma, but what that really means is cause and effect.

So basically, the view is cause and effect is absolutely undeniable.

When you do something, there's a reaction.

Now, the sort of comic tragedy part of it is that we aren't very good at predicting causes from effect.

We think this action will cause this reaction, but we're often so wrong.

So cause and effect is God, basically.

God acts by cause and effect.

And in every moment, if we're out of alignment with cause and effect, we suffer.

It may not be overt, but we suffer.

That's what my idea of sin is now.

Yeah, truth would be just what is.

So whatever you do, whatever your action is, the universe reacts to it as it, however it likes.