Well, I am kinda awesome. But humble.
Are you a good person?
by Xanthippe 40 Replies latest jw friends
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BackseatDevil
@Xanthippe "good" is subjective. What is good for a cat is bad for the mouse. What is good for the mouse is bad for a home owner. You see where this pattern leads.
Just and decent are subjective but less so as they go beyond personal boundaries and and more linked across different domains and are not limited to the world that we are personally invested in (as a cat, a mouse, or a home owner). It's more about the bigger picture and our part in it and less about what we want to be or what we present to the outside world.
LOOKING like a good person i and shiny. BEING a good person is sometime dirty and hard. PRODUCING good can sometimes be a balance between worlds of light and dark. That's where I come in. "Dark" is my specialty. "Light" is my goal although it is not always my path.
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BackseatDevil
@Xanthippe "good" is subjective. What is good for a cat is bad for the mouse. What is good for the mouse is bad for a home owner. You see where this pattern leads.
Just and decent are subjective but less so as they go beyond personal boundaries and and more linked across different domains and are not limited to the world that we are personally invested in (as a cat, a mouse, or a home owner). It's more about the bigger picture and our part in it and less about what we want to be or what we present to the outside world.
LOOKING like a good person i and shiny. BEING a good person is sometime dirty and hard. PRODUCING good can sometimes be a balance between worlds of light and dark. That's where I come in. "Dark" is my specialty. "Light" is my goal although it is not always my path.
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Xanthippe
LOOKING like a good person i and shiny. BEING a good person is sometime dirty and hard. PRODUCING good can sometimes be a balance between worlds of light and dark. - BackseatDevil
This I find interesting BsD. I hate it when people are all appearances but no substance but I agree it can be a dirty world and sometimes producing good is not a straight path. Politicians know this, charities working in under-developed countries with corrupt governments know this. This has made me very thoughtful.
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John_Mann
Everyone thinks they're good in their own minds. Because you can always justify evil acts by guilting others.
Evil act in my own definition: force someone else to do what it does not want to do.
Good act: be indifferent to other people by default. Always react against evil acts against you. Keep always questioning what is your wants and try to detect what is someone else wants that you think is yours.
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Fernando
According to both Psychology and the Bible we are all dysfunctional (fall short of a perfect standard).
Just to varying degrees.
The "Good News" especially according to Paul is that a right and clean standing is imputed as a free gift by grace.
This opens our heart up to the transforming power of love.
We are gradually regenerated, and naturally become "good" or at least better than before.
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Xanthippe
Fernando psychology does not have a perfect standard. There is no normal.
a right and clean standing is imputed as a free gift by grace. This opens our heart up to the transforming power of love.
We are gradually regenerated, and naturally become "good" or at least better than before.
This just sounds weird to my ears, like standing in a Borg regeneration unit. We naturally become good? What we have our minds wiped?
So in the vid the guy who devoted his life to helping others but looked at pornography was rejected by heaven?
Same old nonsense.
On the sixth day God created man with a penis.
On the seventh day He said don't touch it!
And on the eighth and on the ninth ..................
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Fernando
A good observation I believe, Xanthippe.
I was however thinking of CBT which it seems distinguishes normal/rational thinking from aberrant/irrational thinking.
In CBT aberrant/irrational beliefs lead to aberrant/irrational thinking, which leads to aberrant/irrational emotions and feelings, which leads to aberrant/irrational behaviour, and finally destructive/unhelpful outcomes.
In extreme cases the behaviour would include the likes of road rage, senseless violence, divisive sectarianism and shunning, murder, rape, incest, legalism, moralism, ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, and supremacist Gnosticism.
BTW I believe the video is making a very different point. To me it actually seems to be an anti-moralism, anti-legalism, and anti-self-righteousness message. The video it seems portrays religious people being shocked, scandalised and offended by the last guy, the worst offender of all, being accepted, on the basis of grace, despite all the religiously untoward things he must obviously have done with his penis (especially receiving oral sex).
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Xanthippe
I think it is a flawed concept. People make a religion out of anything- even society- thinking there is a level of goodness to attain to to gain some mysterious intangible benefit somehow, and it is just a dream. It is better just to be natural, to help a blind person across a road, for example; but also to take our 'guilty pleasures' when we want them- without feeling guilty, of course. I have given up on the concept of good & bad- it doesn't work for me. - Transhuman68
Transhuman I think you're right it's a flawed concept. It is better to be natural and let myself feel compassion when it rises up inside me and motivates me to do something for someone. Sometimes I don't feel compassion for people, especially if they wallow in self pity. There are so many families struggling so hard all over the world just to get enough to eat I can't cope with people who moan endlessly about stupid things like the weather.
Also there is still something deep down inside me from the religion that there is some mysterious intangible benefit to gain from being a good person. Good point, I didn't realise I felt that. So much stuff still in there from the indoctrination. Just follow my heart is the answer when it comes to compassion and use my reason to decide how best to use my time, energy and money. Oops speaking of money gotta go to work!
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transhuman68
I left the Witnesses when I was 20, because I thought I could never be a good person- or at least, be good enough to get through Armageddon! And it is difficult when someone leaves a high-control group like the JWs, as virtually everything is labelled either good or bad; and when you leave... then there are no rules any more. But by throwing away all irrational belief altogether it is then possible to be a good person by just being the person you always were, or were meant to be- before getting screwed up by other people.