Reply To: Can the severity of a sin be learned from the severity of the punishment?

Ubiq I don’t know if I typed wrong or I just wasn’t clear
So let me state my position re the molech question. If I’m changing my stance, so be it.
Moloch is doing the same act repeatedly.
It’s not 2 times Moloch is worse than one so how can it be patur.
It’s you did it once. You are chayuv, how does that disappear by doing it again.
One does not need a source to ask the question, for you never negated the act for which you should be chayav.

Our discussion is when comparing / contrasting two disparate acts, can one rely on their own judgement to decide which is worse.
I still say no.
Human nature is diverse and fallible and fickle.
Taken Together that’s a horrible combination to be used for setting moral benchmarks.

Yes I did go to mainstream orthodox yeshiva.
One thing I learned is
First “what does it say ”
Before you discuss, understand, question,…
Make sure you know what it does and doesn’t say. (obviously I can’t know what it doesn’t say somewhere else. I mean on the spot where you are holding. People have a tendency to fill in blanks to have the text “say “what they think it should say.

I have, brought, and you were even in agreement with, multiple sources that the first line approach to creating the hierarchy of severity is to look at the punishment.
Of course there are multitudes of cases where this does not hold true.
My contention is solely that an average person is not capable of sufficiently deciding where that occurs.
I then allowed that to lead me wherever it did.
Another thing I learned from my main rebbe.
If the approach is sound , don’t be afraid to accept the outcome, no matter how bizarre it may seem. (this rebbe happens to be today from the preeminent poskim in Brooklyn today, but I won’t demean him by bringing him in here to get smeared by others, so yes I’m keeping him anonymous)
If there is a real issue with the conclusion, there will be a source to stop you.
Of course all I have said here is talking in learning.
I would not state it to act upon it as it’s extremely weighty responsibility and I don’t think I have the sufficient knowledge base to take that on.
But to have to come on to saying that I never went to yeshiva in order to be able to believe that I can have such an opinion?
The only! Thing you have brought up to directly challenge my opinion is your instinctive gut reaction.
If I’m so far off base you should have no problem finding multiple sources stating that even though there is no punishment clearly spelled out in the Torah, you should know that this sin is terrible. More so than many many others. (I think we could both agree it’s not the number one sin).
Yet you have not come up with a single one.