Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ssc-vax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david From: david@ssc-vax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Guilt Message-ID: <791@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 30-Jan-84 17:38:49 EST Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.791 Posted: Mon Jan 30 17:38:49 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 2-Feb-84 01:26:30 EST Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle Lines: 57 Laura Creighton said this in an earlier article: > I think that this is horrible. It is one thing to be responsible for the > NOW, but must one carry all one's past misdeeds with one? Certain moral > theories would have this. I remember being told that "god will sit there and > tell you all your sins, every last one, on judgement day and you will be > responsible for eery one". Hmm. I did a lot of awful things as a child, > most of which I would not do now. I am not the same person. I find it hard > to take responsibility for things that "the-I-that-was" did -- I have enough > to worry about with "the-I-that-is". > > I can sit with an amused detatchment and wonder at the person that I was, > but I feel very little (perhaps none? it is hard to say) attatchment for > that person. I feel the same sort of detatched copmpassion that I can summon > for any human being. As I move closer to the present I feel more of an > attatchment, and the sins of 2 years ago still weigh upon me -- but I can see > that in a few years they too will be gone, as I commit them to the past. Isn't this a very dangerous position? Using this approach, I can justify murder: "No, I didn't kill him! The Dave Norris of January 29th killed him; to-day is the 30th, and I am not the same person." Ok, one day isn't that much. But does four or five years of "commiting sins to the past" make the child whose father was murdered any better off? Admittedly, this is a very emotional argument. But where do we draw the line? A day? A week? Ten years? What kinds of guilt-ridden sins do we include? Murder? Rape? Picking your nose? This argument has the appeal of softening the guilt for past sins (*not* mistakes) and making one's conscience feel better. But it has two flaws: it makes the (perhaps false) assumption that guilt is a totally bad thing and serves no useful purpose. Remove the guilt, feel better. This has somewhat of the "EST" flavor which has always left me cold; indifference to guilt is one thing, indifference to the act that caused the guilt is another. What about the fellow whose wallet you stole? No matter that his vacation is ruined, let's just worry about our own feelings. Secondly, it ignores the fact that there are consequences of sin. Before anyone starts flaming, ignore any religous viewpoint at all and just consider the average drug addict who steals to support his habit. The first theft must have been very hard. But after time, he becomes callous to his feelings of guilt, and it is easier to steal the next television set; he no longer worries about the people he stole it from. Remember "Holocaust"? The first Jew killed is the hardest. The next ten are not so bad, after 100, it gets real easy... The horrors committed by the Nazis were easier for them to do the more they did them. Laura, pardon me for being sarcastic, but I know where you are coming from. But for such a belief to work, men (read *all* men) must abide by the "Golden Rule." As is usually the case, however, someone will use the law to their own advantage (the case of the fellow who was acquitted because he did not know his 'rights' is a prime example.. a new law was created requiring police to read rights verbatim from a card.. what was his name? Any lawyers out there?). And if all men abided by the "Golden Rule", there wouldn't be any guilt to worry about, would there? (Laura knows where this is leading :-) Please take all sarcasm in the humorous vein in which it is intended. -- David Norris -- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david