tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7880575224552835226.post3287772278718095929..comments2023-11-02T02:07:05.009-07:00Comments on the playground: Spiritual JusticeJamilahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291434727158884556noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7880575224552835226.post-39918509008327978222007-08-10T12:48:00.000-07:002007-08-10T12:48:00.000-07:00i believe that there are two basic spiritual camps...i believe that there are two basic spiritual camps - those who believe that man is inherently evil, and struggles to do good, and those that believe man is inherently good, and that evil is the result of chemical imbalances, over/under-attentive parents or anything other than himself.<BR/><BR/>i will try to say this as gently as possible - you've run into the complex world of spirituality and religion (note that these two worlds are separate, yet overlap quite a bit) and in response to the huge cognitive dissonance those two worlds provide, you've made up something warm and fuzzy so you won't have to think about it anymore.<BR/><BR/>what you and millions of other people who, not surprisingly, have come to similar humanist conclusions don't ever seem to understand is that you are not rejecting the idea of God, you are rejecting religion and the unfathomable. your response to what you don't understand is to deify yourself. and again, this is a typical response to hypocrites and the old testament given the centuries of greek (western) culture that we come from, which oddly enough, seems to produce spirituality of a decidedly eastern flavor, although i submit (once again, with as much gentleness as i can muster) a pretty superficial one.<BR/><BR/>like a coffee house where everyone accepts everyone else's bad poetry because they need to validate their own, modern spirituality has dumbed down in order for us to avoid any contentious moral dilemmas, to erase the cognitive dissonances that plague the modern scientific mind. it's much easier to reject the idea of God (and there are a million reasons stemming from a few basic fallacies) than to face the moral inadequacy of our own nature. every person has a sense of spirituality, of a greater truth, but the idea that it might go against their own inclinations is typically the first in a series of steps toward self-worship.<BR/><BR/>when you decide that you can determine good and evil by yourself, you turn yourself into a god. you seem like a pretty nice person, so overall i don't see this as a particularly bad thing for you (although as you can probably tell, i don't agree with the idea at all). however there are people who have come to the same conclusion you have and sometimes the results are not as good: they become serial killers, rapists, terrorists, cult leaders, popes and bigots. they oppress, steal, murder and brainwash. some of them do it in the name of religion, some in the name of poverty, and some in their own name.<BR/><BR/>i believe that man is inherently evil. if you don't believe me, never discipline your child and see what he turns into. studies of serial killers show that they either come from violent and abusive homes, or from homes where they were given whatever they asked for. once you believe that man is inherently evil, you either believe in a higher moral power (whether it be God or a set of moral codes), or choose a life of spiritual emptiness.<BR/><BR/>if you believe man is inherently good, then religion ceases to matter and you can make up whatever feels good to replace it. this has prompted many "scientific" studies on the various parts of the brain that cause us to misbehave, which share the same common fallacy - that our brain affects us but we don't affect our brain. every week a new study comes out which magically turns another human deficiency into a chemical imbalance or environmental flaw, and another roadblock to self-worship is knocked over.<BR/><BR/>really, it's the ultimate straw-man argument - we make up an idea of God in our heads, and then reject him because we don't like it, self-assured in our circular epiphany. after all, who would know better than us? if we can't understand God, well there must not be one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com