This is http://www.essayz.com/a8607041.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
                              %SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS-2 860704

Self righteousness is a reflexive condition sometime
achieved  by  people who seek to save themselves by  their
superior beliefs and actions.

     People who succeed  in  achieving self  righteousness
know  that their beliefs and actions are superior to those
of most other people.   They know that they are different,
set aside,  in a good way.   As good people they know that
they should not associate with evil people,  so they avoid
social  intercourse  with  evil  people;   and thereby set
themselves  aside  for  self righteousness  and  reflexive
salvation.

God has only limited resources.   Heaven has only so
many rooms.   There is not  enough room in heaven for  all
people.    Only  some  can be saved.   The  standards  for
acceptance into heaven are high.   Only those who know for
sure  that they  are very near perfection in righteousness
stand  a chance of getting into heaven.   It is thus  very
important  to  be sure you know what are the standards for
salvation, and to do your all to live to those standards.

     When  you sacrifice the pleasures  of  life fully  to
achieve conformity to the standards for salvation you need
the reward of knowing that your efforts have paid off.  It
is  unthinkable  that  those who have  done  the  most  to
achieve salvation would not know whether or  not they have
succeeded.  They look with self confidence upon all others
who  have  done less,  knowing that  they  themselves  are
better than such other people who do not measure up to the
standards  for salvation.   They know that they are  among
the most select.

     From another perspective things look different.

     The  self  righteousness  are  alienated  from  their
neighbors in whose service they might find fulfillment and
meaning far greater than  they find in self righteousness.
The   self  righteousness  sow  the  seeds  of   distrust,
resentment  and  alienation  as they  set  people  against
people  in  competition to  get  into  a heaven of limited
accommodations.    They  lead  people  into disintegrative
behaviors  rather  than  into  integrative efforts.   They
sacrifice  the joys of entering into I-Thou  relationships
for the  loneliness of self righteousness. Having narrowed
their vision to achieve favorable self judgments  in spite
of  low self esteem they  can not  see the tragedies  they
occasion.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================