This is http://www.essayz.com/a9804182.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.}
==========================================================

  %INADEQUATE GUILT SHAME PUNISH COOPERATION LISTEN 980418                                                                     
                                                                                                                               
     Some people feel guilty when they do not feel  enough                                                                    
guilt,   shame  or  punishment.   For them  the  means  to                                                                     
salvation  are  guilt,  shame and  punishment.     In  the                                                                     
absence of guilt, shame and punishment --- they think that                                                                     
they will not be saved;  or that others will not be saved.                                                               
Such   people   seek  additional  guilt,    shame   and/or                                                                    
punishment;   or seek to provide what is lacking to others                                                               
as a service to insure their salvation --- and maybe their                                                                     
own salvation.                   
                                                                                                                               
     Different  people have different conceptions  of  the                               
nature  of  salvation and damnation.    What seems  to  be   
salvation to some people, is quite evidently damnation  to                                                                    
others ---  and vice versa.     What some people regard as                                 
the essential means to salvation, are to other people  the                  
clear  indications of evil relationships which are  crying                                       
out for a valid conception of salvation --- which pertains                               
to personal  and  communal  integrity  within  cooperative                             
relationships.                                                              
                                                                                                                               
     Some  people  regard righteousness as  a  competitive       
sport;  for  only a few can win righteousness ---  because       
only  the  best  can  be righteous when it  comes  to  the       
competitive sport of righteousness.   Of course the  rules       
of  the  game  are  always being improved ---  and  it  is      
becoming  harder  and  harder to win in  the contests  for                
superiority  in self-righteousness.    Needless to say the       
winners in  the sport  are always the best friends of  the      
losers; in fact they rarely are best friends.    The sport                                                                     
promotes  more  alienation,   than  reconciliation;   more                                        
purification and sorting out, than bringing together; more                                                                     
conflict, than conflict resolution.                                              
                                                                                                                               
     People  who  engage  in  the  competitive  sport   of                                                                    
righteousness  more  often split into smaller and  smaller  
teams,  than  they  come  together  in  larger  and larger                                                                     
cooperative  endeavors.     Many  support  the  sport   as               
spectators;    giving encouragement to the competitors  by                                                            
their presence as bystanders --- who legitimize  the sport                                                                     
and the often coercive conflicts which it engenders.                                              
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================