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Morality is that which sustains life. | ||
| Christian Morality | ||
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Why Being Effect is the Moral Way Christ taught morality as being effect rather than cause. An example is the precept which says turn and offer the other cheek, when struck on a cheek (Mat 5:39). Being effect means allowing something to happen to oneself. It's not being cause, which means doing something to someone else. Most persons assume that this standard is naive or stupid. So the purpose here is to explain why a small group of persons is right and everyone else is wrong. The first point is to properly interpret the precept. In turning the other cheek, a person allows a tolerable event to be forced upon himself. The critical point is to not return the act of violence. One then uses truth instead of force as the method of coping with the injustice. To explain these points, the significance of force must be understood. Force is the basis of sin (same as injustice). To return a force through retaliation is to reciprocate the sin. It makes one no better than the original perpetrator. It's important to understand how justice plays itself out. Whenever an injustice is perpetrated, a counterforce of justice automatically develops, and it keeps increasing until the source of injustice is subdued. The perpetrator of injustice (or sin) acquires a force in his own mind opposing the counterforce of justice. It never goes away, unless repentance occurs. Such forces in minds are quite detrimental creating a need to rationalize the sin and oppose truth and justice. If that result does not occur, the sin is not sin, it is virtue. So Christ was teaching how not to sin. Truth is the general method of correcting injustice. Sin cannot exist in the light of truth. So truth is the only way sin is really overcome. The precept admonishing against retaliation has the purpose of teaching how to be effect rather than cause in dealing with tolerable forces acting upon oneself, so truth can be used as the answer. It does not explain complexities, such as protecting other persons from intolerable injustices, which requires police force. Christ was teaching people how to overcome sin by replacing bad habits with moral habits. Learning to be effect is important, because it is almost impossible to be cause over anything without perpetrating injustices. Also, wanting to dominate is the most basic cause of sin. Reversing such corruptive tendencies was Christ's purpose. |