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      %ACHIEVE SALVATION CONFORM SELF OTHER CONTROL 890718

     If  salvation  is  achieved  through  some  kind   of
conformity to some standards of conventional behavior,  it
follows that control of self and other must play a central
role in the community of the people saved.

     If being authentically one's  own self with integrity
is  not  the way of salvation,  then there  must  be  some
exercise of external control to achieve salvation for self
and/or for others.

     Such control must entail some form of coercion to get
self  and/or  others to behave in  conformal  ways.   Such
coercion  must violate natural tendencies to be one's  own
self with integrity; for being authentic with integrity is
by hypothesis not the way of salvation.

     Thus  by  hypothesis the way to salvation  entails  a
conflict  between  being  one's  self  authentically  with
integrity;   and being in conformity to some  conventional
way  of  behaving.   Thus the means to  salvation  entails
conflict  between  one's  deepest nature and  the  way  of
salvation.

     Is  it reasonable to believe that a supreme power  of
love  would create us so that we would have to achieve our
salvation through doing violence to our deepest nature?

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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