Okay time for a philosophical debate my friends. I have not had one of these for a while, last one Justice, hopefully made sense to you. Now I am going to speak about being a good person and how it changes between individuals and gets slightly corrupted between need and want. People knowing bad things will happen to someone, because of their actions, justify the bad behaviour. They say things like, “It’s my job,” “I didn’t have a choice,” “I had to look after myself and can’t save them over myself.” If you are ever wondering about what it means to be selfish, I’d like you to see how many “I’s” and “my’s” you use to justify your actions. Basic factors are if it’s more than zero, you have made a selfish choice.
I do understand self-preservation. Survival is a strong instinct. Hatred and sadness also have their say when it comes to morality. You can justify a choice because you either hate or blame someone for something they did to you, or as you see it “me”. See, how it suddenly becomes selfish. Now, I do know without being a saint, that humans are corrupt when it comes to morality of any kind. Could be because since we developed cognitive thought our nature is at war with what we determine as human civility. Our animal instincts to survive are alive and kicking, but our moral code or the justice laws and morals fight against our own instincts. We made it a horrible system, where the ape would normally show dominance, especially during adolescence to assert their right as pack leader. What we call this now a days is being aggressive. Humans have not lost the aggression; they just show it in different ways. Where we used to have brawls, then as teens soon act out their aggression by words and causing horrible harm that way. Adults do this as well. But they have learnt the morals, the morals we all have growing up. Some call them fables, some call them myths, some call them fairy tales. Then some call them religion. Religion was a morality comfort within the days when people did not worship technology. But they twisted the original morality to become about power. We see now that they committed the same sins that were preached against.
Top moral perch is “Thou shall not murder.” Yet kill millions in the holy wars and no sin has been committed? I hate hypocrisy. It’s one of my bug bears. Let’s look through the supposed things that we are meant to uphold to be ‘good’ in the pure sense from the bible?
No other gods before Me.
This is not a choice of theirs. There were millions of gods before. Do not blame man for your hubris as warned against at point ten. Pride is a sin and if you preach it, don’t do it. Every country, belief system has preached to numerous gods and deities throughout centuries. The only thing that happened, was that humans became lazy at remembering them all and combined them into a singular one God.
No idols or carved images to worship.
Okay, this one hurts me. You put a huge idol of Jesus in front of your churches hanging from a cross. How is this not going against the second commandment? Now also think of the children, who go to church for the first time and see a man pinned to a cross with nails looking sad? Is that not the beginnings of a childhood trauma right there? Their parents don’t explain why you are apparently worshiping a man nailed to a cross and looking sad! Just that you must prey to this scary image. They know the story, unfortunately the priest or congregation or parents feel a simple sentence of a random, almost naked man, dead on a cross only deserves the explanation of, “Oh, he died for your sin.” You ask what sin is and then they tell you the commandments, which make you question why they are ignoring the second one and 6th…
Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
We all do this, I try not to, as the point above scared me for a lifetime. I say ‘goodness’ instead of his name. If I have to, and this is when I am reading out loud to someone or because the sentence doesn’t make any sense otherwise, I have to say the name of ‘goodness’. I then have to prey and ask forgiveness. It’s a clear rule which I cannot cross. I know it’s silly, but I do not think my eternal soul is worth taking a risk in case I am wrong. No one explained the rules to me, so I just have to try my best. Really messed up sense of logic, but since I grew up with these rules in my head, I can’t seem to shake them.
Remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
Nope, sorry. This one I think is silly. Rest on the seventh day? Yes, if you need it. But me I work hard all the working week. I do my work day, my exercise, clean the house. I then drink on Friday and rest on Saturday. Then Sunday is used to prepare for the next week. It makes work easier. Think this was just a way to get a day off every week from back breaking labour. “Hey dude, I cannot work today or I’ll go to hell…” Better than a sick note, basically telling the boss they will be cursing you to eternal hell flames. Wonder if HR will accept a ‘don’t want to go to hell note’ – Dear HR, She was unable to work today because unfortunately she started counting the days on Tuesday and so didn’t have a rest on Sunday. She’ll be taking Monday as the rest day this week. She has advised that going forward she will try to incorporate it into the ‘weekend’ but since it takes a long time for daylight savings to change, you might want to adjust your calendar year instead? We did talk to her about adjustments and she said that seven was the day said in the bible, so it must be adhered to, otherwise you may be compromising her soul by making it burn in eternal hellfire. Thanks so much for your time, Tracy from the Union.
Honor your father and mother.
Was this just because they realised most teenagers were sociopaths and were scared their irrational mood swings would make them psychopaths? Could be why the next point is not to kill? But honestly we all learn our parents are flawed human beings. Freud wrote many, many instances of this. It goes against animal instinct to not accept that children will eventually see the flaws and realise they need their own pack/pride/life. Sometimes it is met with unwillingness to let go and harshness and possible fights ensue. Especially when now a days, due to external means, children are a drain on resources longer as they can’t afford the needed survival implements.
Do not murder (or kill).
Yep, this one seems the main law and thing to uphold. But then they came up with things like self defence etc. then juries have been letting murderers walk free ever since. So, apparently the moral theory is only if you don’t have justification or a highly priced lawyer? Again, human nature craves violence and death is a natural part of that. We have laws which tell you not to do that, but there is generally a good or selfish reason why the person killed, or if not they are mentally a psychopath.
Do not commit adultery.
This commandment is a bit silly, humans are not monogamous creatures. No primate is. I do know we all heard of mythical fairy tales of a husband and wife who never cheated on each other, but that was either because they were too ugly or because they stayed indoors and had little interaction with the outside world…
Do not steal.
This one again, feels like a sensible law same as not murdering. But then you have fables and it kind of says don’t steal unless you’re hungry? So, it seems to have gone against itself again. I had a homeless woman steal from me, even if I was doing everything in my power to help her. I consider this as making her a bad person, as I gave willingly and generously, yet she still decided to steal. Did I notice her stealing? Yes, but I didn’t say anything, because I felt I would give her a chance to do the right thing. But it failed and she didn’t. I don’t regret the lost items, just feel a sorrow from it. If a person does you kindness, please don’t take advantage of them. They are doing goodness, why try and stop their kindness by hurting them? Though I guess because life has shown some people injustice and harshness, they take it out on people, no matter their goal.
Do not bear false witness (lie) against your neighbor.
Do not lie. Hmmm, not possible I this day and age, where if you are honest with everyone they start to call you a bully. If you tell a girl her dress makes her look like a low class prostitute, you’ll not be thanked for it. Not really sure why it is specifying against the neighbour. Thinking the story was that the neighbour may have been committing adultery, stealing stuff and causing the person who wrote this down to envy them and so we have the last four commandments after he got snitched on, by the neighbour? Lying is necessary and it’s encouraged about personal things. However, lying about someone who is on trial, in anyway going to be accused or a bad thing happening to them, tell the truth. Not black and white, we have different methods of seeing the right and wrong here. Lying is a horrible hypothetic master and I cannot tell you what to do, just try your best to not hurt too many people…
Do not covet your neighbour’s house, spouse, or possessions.
Envy right? I don’t think this is a reasonable request. I mean honestly you see someone with a yacht, sports car and three story mansion… you aren’t going to say “Oh, please don’t curse me like that!” While it may be a deadly sin, I would only see if you stole or hurt them to get what they had as a problem. Envy away, it doesn’t hurt. It actually might help you to achieve more through motivation. Some people can act like petty assholes when someone gets something they want, but maybe just saying, “Don’t be a jerk” would be a more succinct way of saying it in a commandment… Oh but then everyone is already going to hell…
Sorry, I know I go on about the bible a lot. Not by choice, but by finding it a very odd tale from when I was young and finding questions everyday. I also have a lot of questions about other fairy tales, but luckily, since they are made fictional… I have less qualms.
These morals are important, but maybe its time we started writing them differently? We have goals to being a good person, one of the most important is to do unto others as you would do unto yourself. Right there, the knowledge of human selfish nature shines from them. “Do what you would ask for in the same situation!” I know it seems a foreign concept to most, but it’s just called empathy. You think in another person’s situation and feel what they would. Pretty simple. But people who can’t just judge in the harshest light.
This is the same way people view art. It is personal opinion for ignorance which makes them not empathise or understand and it annoys the hell out of me. It reminds me of a bickering wife and husband, they continue the argument, not because they want to prove a point, but because they want to prove they are right. If they could see the opinion from the other side, it would make a difference. It would end it in five minutes.
So social outcome means the laws which fight against animal instinct generally will release in violent ways. We do that in entertainment, look at some tv shows, movies, the video/computer games, books and social media. All are violent. For very relaxing hobbies all of them portray violence and relax a normal human. You can ask yourself why… but truth be told humans are violent apes. See our nature in the noble gorilla’s the chimps. We are not special, we are animals. We have heat cycles, dominance behaviours and behavioural instincts which keep us surviving.
“Damn dirty ape…”
