Why?
I think I can speak to this a little having grown up in the 1950s.
I can remember meeting people who had grown up in the 1800s and if you asked them about those times and if they were honest about them like some of the older men were they would say things like this. (Now remember this isn't about rich people this is about poor or middle Class people).
This is what was often described: "Boys when I was growing up in the 1800s started smoking cigarettes between age 5 and 7 years of age often and started drinking beer in the mornings and throughout the day starting at about ages 9 or 10. If they were poorer they didn't go to school and instead were put to work in a factory by age 9 or 10 because their family had to eat, especially if their father had died or left for some reason and the 9 year old was the breadwinner for the family."
Now I know all of you can imagine what doing this to a child: smoking by 5 to 7 years of age and drinking alcohol (beer) by 9 or 10 years of age starting in the morning before going to work in a factory would do to a person. (Basically, it would destroy them and possibly make them a sinner or someone who might do illegal things because likely they would have no moral compass not having been to school past the 2nd or 3rd grade or maybe not even that much.
When I heard this described for me in the 1950s I was pretty horrified by the whole idea. But, I was one of the lucky ones with both a father and a mother who didn't smoke or drink because they were religious and ministers.
However, I had no reason to disbelieve the old people who had survived the 1800s and were now 80 to 100 years of age telling me about all this.
Then I went to India in the 1980s and actually met people who had never been to school ever and who had been working since they were children and then I more fully understood what it had been like in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s here in the U.S. as well.
But, if a child can not be smoking at least until they are 18 to 21 or never like now, and to seriously not be drinking alcohol until age 18 to 21, they can then have some kind of ethical criteria without having their brains so scrambled by having to support their family from ages 7 to 9 years old wihch will often destroy people or make them into some kind of slave state of mind.
So, these days especially in places like America and Europe the concept of a "Sinner" is much less relevant than it used to be when people starting smoking cigarettes at ages 5 to 7 and starting drinking beer (because the water was too bad not to get sick when you drank it where they lived ). And because of all this often died or were maimed in factories with no safety devices by the time they were 10 to 20 years of age and starting visiting whorehouses by the time they were 12 because their life expectancies were realistically about 30 to 40 years of age if they were lucky.
By the way this is common still in 3rd world nations around the wrold where there is no public compulsory education yet.
The reason people drank beer instead of water was that if you drank the water many places it could kill you because of various kinds of pollution or chemicals in the water various places. When you have outhouses everywhere and not modern sewage systems drinking water in bigger cities is often fatal too.
So, you get more why people drank beer instead of water just to stay alive to 30 or 40 and not just die as children instead.
It also makes the 1900 epitaph more relevant "Born died 20 buried 60" or in this case " born died 5 buried at 15 or 20".
So, if people can't get a decent education and learn the usefulness of becoming a moral and good person, they don't.
And that is what a sinner was in the old days. But, this is a much less useful concept now because of education often into a bachelor's degree or masters degree or sometimes even a PHd.
Degrees don't necessarily make you a more moral person. But, at least you will have studied philosophy and world history enough not to maybe wind up an Archie Bunker like in the TV show.
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