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%SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS ARROGANCE DISOBEDIENCE OBEY GOD+990609
%CREATIVE LOVE DEADLY CONFORMITY REBELLION LEGALITY+990609
%DISHONESTY PRETENTIOUS SUPERIORITY EXCLUSIVITY SIN 990609
Personal and communal integrity are threatened and
decay --- when we are confused about the web of
manifestations of sin and evil.
Often people have regarded disobedience as the
primary sin --- and have seen other sins and forms of evil
as flowing from disobedience. People have pointed to
Adam and Eve disobeying God and being thrown out of the
Garden of Eden. Usually little has been made of the
possible symbolism of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, and of WHAT WAS FORBIDDEN in the command not to
eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. Consider that eating of the fruit leads
to self-righteousness and alienation with the pretense
that others are inherently inferior to self.
The significance of non-conformity/disobedience
depends much upon what has motivated the non-conformity:
1. Arrogant self-righteousness with the pretense
that no power can transcend self?
2. Ignorance of what is expected, required and
proper.
3. An effort to transcend: unimaginative, deadly,
boring, unsympathetic, coercive, and/or unloving
enslavement to legalistic laws, demands, and/or
expectations?
4. Gracious moves to interpret laws, expectations
and commandments in integrative and loving ways?
5. Responding appropriately to unique individuals,
relationships and situations --- which transcend the
possible scope of articulated laws, commandments and
regulations?
6. Desires to transcend traditional conflicts,
contentiousness and prejudices --- where the desires are
expressed in creative ways which go beyond living
slavishly according to the laws and expectations of
traditional communities?
The web of manifestations of sin and evil involve
many inter-connecting threads which form an alienative
pattern that entails self-righteousness, arrogance,
pretentiousness, prejudice, coercion, violence, and
preoccupations with issues of control. Usually the pieces
of the web are not connected linearly --- as a single
strand in a cause-and-effect pattern through space-time.
We cannot helpfully identify a unique beginning, middle or
end.
Anyone who truly seeks to find examples of the above
manifestations of tragic patterns of sin and evil ---
can readily find them in ancient myths, stories,
scriptures, parables, fables, novels, operas and their
neighborhoods. People who are not truly seeking to find
examples of the above will easily succeed in not finding
them --- or if they should stumble into them, fail to
recognize what they are.
(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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