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Morality is that which sustains life. | ||
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Abolishing Reason Reason is making relationships between realities showing evidence for points. Applying reason to the problems of life is one of the most basic human responsibilities as evidenced by its application. But there is a pattern in religion which attempts to strip reason from the process. It consists of extreme legalistic, mechanistic and literal religion which is supposedly untainted by human minds. Nothing but God's word is allowed in such religion, and human reason is something less than God's word. This pattern showed up in the Pharisee version of the ancient Jewish religion, in Thomistic Catholicism and in fundamentalist Protestantism. The Pharisees designed a legalism which justified any corruption. Thomists claim reason is a threat to an infallible teaching authority which the bishops inherited from Peter. Fundamentalists claim to find absolute truth in quotes from the Scriptures, and reason is a threat to it. Christ said they "take away the key of knowledge, not entering themselves and inhibiting those who wish to enter" (Luke 11:52). Reason is the key to knowledge. Words mean nothing without it. Language is too limited to convey meaning without developing surrounding realities. The first thing noticeable in the standard of such persons is that they arbitrate and synthesize without explanations. They attack and accuse without clarifications. Functional communication is not possible at that standard. Reason must be a part of constructive communication. That pattern stems from corruption, which destroys reasoning ability in minds. Reason is making relationships between realities. It is needed to determine correctness of points, which is truth. It is also needed to locate realities in their appropriate context of surrounding complexities, which is understanding. Truth and understanding are in turn needed to create judgment and ability to predict. Corruption creates forces in minds. When sin is perpetrated, an opposing force is created by persons who feel threatened by it, which generally means normal and constructive persons, in addition to the immediate victims. The external opposing force creates a counter-force inside the mind of the perpetrator. This mechanism always occurs with sin. If not, call it virtue. The forces created by sin in minds cause realities to be handled improperly. False realities are used to justify, conceal and promote sin. The false realities and forces wall off sections of the mind resulting in dissociated reality, which means separate and conflicting aggregates of realities. Dissociatedness breaks up relationships between realities, which obstructs the reasoning process. Persons who are in such a condition find that they cannot trust their own judgment; so they look to sources of authority. How they pick authorities is quite simple. Their subconscious minds create an attraction to power, because power is the positive reinforcement for corruption. So the authorities which they align upon are those who show success at something in line with their values. Those reactions do not create a reliable sense of direction for corrupted persons. Charlatans lead them in every direction. Eventually, the dupes get burned. They then become more distrustful of someone else's reasoning and build up an ever greater resistance to rationality. Christ was the perfect example of the wrong person doing and saying the wrong things. He was a nobody from Nazareth. His healing the sick, feeding the hungry and raising the dead did not change his status, it only made him more threatening. Christ's central purpose was to add rationality to morality. He taught basic principles upon which all moral knowledge could be built. The examples of his own life serve that purpose. His crucifixion demonstrated the truth about sin, who perpetrates it, why they do it and how they justify it. When God has to be crucified for doing good deeds, the characteristics of sin are established objectively and clearly.The document of the pope's titled Faith and Reason (1998) is interpreted to mean faith and reason are interdependent. external link (9kb) Atonement Analogy Fundamentalism |