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Morality is that which sustains life. | ||
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Attitudes Christ primarily focused on attitudes. What do attitudes have to do with getting saved? Or was Christ talking about something other than getting saved? Christ said "Treat others the way you would have them treat you: this sums up the law and the prophets." (Mat 7:12) Was he stating this as a requirement or a suggestion? If people do not sin, and they expect to get saved, why bother with such requirements? First, attitudes need to be defined. Attitudes are orientations of realities in the mind. They influence the way realities are acquired, evaluated and acted upon. They create the direction in which a person moves. Attitudes are created by subconscious forces in the mind. Forces are created in the mind by sin. Most sin is not recognized as sin, but it is sin by the criterion that it creates forces in the mind which misdirect behavior. Dealing with those forces is the concern of God, Christ and the prophets. The subject of sin is extremely complex, subtle and illusive. Christ taught a complex subject using parables and examples to clarify abstract principles unlike anything humans could ever do. Some attitudes which sin creates are pride, jealousy, envy, lust, hate, selfishness, bigotry and elitism. They are subconscious forces which create sinful acts. They are created by sin, and they create sin. They are also sin in themselves. They might be referred to as the cardinal sins. Such attitudes fit the definition of sin as that which destroys life. So not all sin is listed in the Ten Commandments, which of course was one of Christ's main points. Without a lot of moral understanding, the Ten Commandments could not even be interpreted properly, as demonstrated by crucifying Christ for blasphemy. One of the problems of the attitudes of sin is that they are assumed to be virtues by the persons who have them. In fact, such persons assume that their acts of sin are virtue, because they are aligned upon the attitudes which are assumed to be virtue. In other words, when an elitist promotes oppression, he assumes it to be virtue, because it advances the motives of elitism. When the end of everything occurs, and the sheep are separated from the goats (Mat 25:31-46), the basis is who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, etc., and the Ten Commandments are not mentioned. The Ten Commandments continue to describe sin, as Christ indicated, but the cumulative effects and objective test is in oppression. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-26), the rich man ended up in a place of pain because of his wealth and attitudes. There are two ways to view religion. One way is to determine what happens to people, how and why. The other view is to find the button which takes care of everything. Christ focused on the larger things, like the causes of sin and the end results. The button pushers nit-pick over trivia. In other words, they strain out gnats and swallow camels (Mat 23:24). It is a question of having the right attitudes. Correcting attitudes is very demanding. It requires a path which is hard to find and follow (Mat 7:13). It leads to life. Getting saved is being able to live. Rationalizers tell themselves that elitism is no sin. But their elitism creates enemies, and their whole lives become a war. They can tell themselves that the war is virtue, but it destroys them. If they can't live with their victims afterwards, what good are religious gimmicks? They think God is going to show them favoritism. God's favoritism has nothing to do with it, because the forces in their minds destroy their relationship to other persons. If they can't live properly in the human society, they can't live properly anyplace else. All sin creates forces in minds which are psychologically conditioned, which means they function on a stimulus-response basis without control of awareness. There is no other test of sin; there is no other test of pleasing God; there is no other test of favoritism; and there is no other test of getting saved. So rationalizations mean nothing; quick fixes and gimmicks mean nothing; and lightening means nothing. Teaching how to overcome those forces was Christ's only purpose. |