This-essay is a7706262.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %SPIRIT VERSUS FLESH-1 770626 In Galatians 5 the Apostle Paul portrays the human dichotomy to be one between flesh as evil, and spirit as good. While he was speaking specifically to a specific human community, many today take his words to have eternal and perfectly general significance---transcending the unique situation to which Paul was speaking and becoming general everlasting truth. In this view flesh is eternally evil and untrustworthy, and spirit is eternally good and trustworthy. This is in turn generalized into the view that all sentient foci are less worthy of consideration than are spiritual, rational, intellectual, abstract, and other non-sentient foci. In the extreme the view is adopted that it is impossible for sentient foci to be proper, and impossible for non-sentient foci to be improper. Evil is equated to sentient, and good to non- sentient. Such a naive and simplistic characterization of the human dichotomy overlooks the great amount of alienation (sin) which is promoted by people who exclude sentient considerations from their lives and focus exclusively upon spiritual, rational, intellectual, abstract, and other non-sentient concerns. Many religious readers in the name of spiritual development have gathered about themselves communities of self-righteous followers who have alienated those excluded. Their spiritual focus and activities have been just as sinful (full of alienative effects) as have been the sentient activities of those they despise. The presumption that either the world of spirit or the world of the flesh is superior to the other is an arrogant presumption which promotes sin and sinful behavior. For those who excel in one world and believe that their focus should rule over the other---is foolish in the extreme. It is an act of political domination rather than an act of love. Love acts to promote dialogue, not to promote exclusiveness. Genuine dialogue involves both sentient and spiritual communication, or it is incomplete. To look with disfavor upon either type of communication is to block communication; blocking communication is the antithesis of love. Perfectionists of either world (flesh or spirit) who see evil as primarily resident in the other world, thereby block communication between the two worlds and so perpetuate the sinful dichotomy which can poison the kingdom of heaven. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================
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