According to Dimsdale why did men keep their sins hidden from the world?

Answer 1

It's rather simple: 1) there are no sins in the Bible, the Ancient Testament. You find just the RECOMMENDATIONS of what SHOULD not be done (The 10 commandments GIVEN to Moïse), none of punishment for violating them is mentioned there!

The sins are first mentioned-invented in the St Augustinus writings in the 4 century AD. Reading this writings you clearly see his personal paranoïc fears-obsessions based on his voluntary-self imposed celibacy, which CAN provoke the paranoïa, the FEAR of his own sexual pulsions. What kind of pulsions (future sins) had-refused the Saint?

Nowadays the sin notion is mostly linked with the sex practices - and in St Augustinus' days and for 600 forgoing years there were no ESTABLISHED notions of sin. So logically he could practise any kind of sex without being a sinner. But he refused-feared it anyway. Let's see which sex he refused. Have you ever or anywhere heard of illegality of sex with a woman? - No, you can't find it in any times nor in any culture or religion, just on the contrary. So St Augustinus could have sex with a woman without being a sinner.

Anyway the Saint was obsessed with the refusal of the sex. So what kind of sex feared-obsessed St Augustinus? - Just one is left - homosexual phantom of sex. Take any phychatry textbook and you'll find that most paranoïc fears (like a Black man or smth like which is permanently watching your every action is the very symptom of paranoîa, taken by the God's eye) start with the patient refusal of his homosexual desires. This mere refusal provokes the paranoïa - the fear of being punished by the God. That's where, when and how the sin starts! The homosexuality largely spread in ancient polytheistic Greece and Rome (just perished in the times of St Augustinus) has been seen as a non Christian pagan reprehensive sexual practice which he couldn't afford but which always existed ans exists, particularly in the Saint nature.

The notion of the sin ans its varieties were largely developed and established by the 9 century AD in the writings of the other monks. Who becomes a monk? - The one who feels that he CANT live with and LIKE the others, more simply the one who is not able to marry. So the one who has the same diagnosis as St Augustinus had - there no paranoïcs or sad persons among hustlers. That hustler's behaviour didn't suit to the church as the fear is the best dog collar for everyone. Then the (mostly homosexual) monks intruded in the bisexual relations. The woman has started to be considered as an impure and even devil's creation. Any sex practice has been prohibited! BUT for A MOMENT of procreation. At the procreation MOMENT just a hole in the sheet or a night dress was allowed for inserting the man's seed (the same is observed by orthodox Jews up to now)! This practices engendered almost EVERYONE'S neuroses, depressions, fears. All kinds of amusements were prohibited all through the Middle Ages: music, even Musical Instruments as devil's creations, theatre (legal up to the French Revolution of the 18 c). The justiest (the homosexual monks) will have their rejoicement in the Paradise!

Little by little the humankind has liberated itself of the dictatorship of the crazy monks of the almighty church. But realm of the bourgeoisie in the 19 c, when one prefered the rich bride to the beloved one, brings back the same neuroses based on the natural sex refusal. Was anyone happy? - Men used brothels, wives got massive hysteria (the main concern of Freud, disappeared in the 20c) - that's what has been hidden from the world - not the sinning itself, but the impossibility being natural. Were the MODERN notion of sin and hiding it comes from?

Regardless of the awful bourgeois family reality the virtuous candy image of family has been created & diffused by the petty bourgeois German Queen Victoria. Widow very young, she's been dressed in black - everyone in the WORLD has dressed in black - that was a mourning for a natural sexuality both for men and women. That hypocrisy of SHOWing out a happy family exists in almost every married couple up to now. But the virtuosity of the Queen had been revenged be the nature - her heir, King Edward VII, the most playboy of the SAME time, lived in Paris brothels and invented so many sex toys still preserved in Paris museums.

But your own feeling are they so cloudless as those you read in novels and see in soap operas? So you might be a sinner, at least your are in doubt? Calm down! You're not the exception. Talk to your real male and female friends. Your are still doubting of your own sinning and hide them from the world? Referring to figures of statistics (of divorces, etc) of any country will be of some help. And to finish with your abnormality go to the psychi - he'll give the self assurance that any of your doubts are quite human and normal.

Finally you're not a sinner and you have nothing to hide from the world BUT once having understood that don't mix with the stupid hypocritic people to CLAIM to be SINLESS.