17 November 1996
shortened 22 Dec 1996
RI-738Si 'Christianity - Love, and Guilt solved'
from Ambassador for Mankind
Message # RI-738Si for Internet
(Shortened and revised version)
Christianity teaches you
that you should not pay back evil with evil.
I quote from what I wrote on 16 June 1994:
"It is in fact the basis of the success Christianity had:
that an insane or evil act should
NOT be repaid
by the recipient of the evil or crime,
NOT repaid
with [the recipient] now also
having to become evil or insane [TO the criminal].
"The philosophy of revenge and of
'now we have to be evil to the criminal',
is similar to
'This person is so bad -
now we deny him the right
to study how to become sane and decent.'
"As I have described elsewhere,
such a philosophy is utter insanity,
BECAUSE
it demands of decent people to become evil
to (minor or major) criminals or to insane people.
"It is an insane act
to leave an insane person insane
or to make him more insane,
and
committing such an evil act,
directly backfires onto the person who does so, or
onto the person who makes others do so."
Christianity teaches you
that you should not pay back evil with evil.
That's one of the great great things of Christianity.
There is something else, and that is similar,
and
that is "Love thy Neighbor".
You should handle and help people
with understanding,
with TRUE understanding that is,
not with sympathy.
In order to generate
TRUE understanding of a person,
you have to be able and willing
to generate a large amount
of love, affinity, for another.
That is 'Love thy Neighbor':
Have a great affinity for others,
which will enable you
to (simultaneously) see their actual (good AND bad) intentions
and
to act accordingly.
Getting angry with someone
in order to make him
stop his destruction
of himself and others,
IS a great act of love,
of affinity for that person,
but ONLY
after you have understood precisely
what his intentions are.
I quote from what I wrote on 10 November 1996:
"Stopping a criminal from committing crimes
is making a criminal LESS overwhelmed.
"I hope that some people finally get that idea through
to some of their egocentric friends and acquaintances:
"Stopping a person from committing crimes
- from spreading hate, or
from taking drugs, for instance -
is making that person LESS overwhelmed."
This is actually the same as
'Don't pay evil back with evil',
Christians who really get to understand this concept,
experience an enormous upward surge in their life.
In fact,
they have acquired something
that is one of the most precious things in life,
for their own well-being, and
for the well-being of the people around them,
which again is directly reflecting back onto their own well-being.
GOD
Of course there is, in Christianity,
the concept of God,
of being part of some higher Ethics,
of being part of some higher Awareness,
of being part of some higher Cause,
of being part of Eternity,
and
that - no matter how small, or forgotten maybe -
one is still a part of this.
CONNECTION TO GOD
You see,
people who have NOT lost or destroyed all awareness
of their 'connection to God'
(as described above,
that they have some connection to
higher awareness, higher cause,
higher ethics, and to eternity),
do have the desire
to act ethically, meaning
doing survival things
for themselves and for others,
for all aspects of life.
In fact, you might know of people
who 'found back to God', or
who 'found Jesus Christ'.
It practically changed their life completely
at that point.
They suddenly became ethical,
they suddenly cared for others again, etc.
They discovered again
that they ARE connected in some way to God.
And that is
what many people experience by going to Church
- they find back, they re-establish
their connection to God.
GUILT
Then there is the concept of Christ
- which lends its name to Christianity -
and that is for a good part
the concept
that one's sins are forgiven.
Meaning,
that one, through Christianity,
can and does get
out of the vicious circle of guilt,
out of the trap of guilt,
out of the trap of
debilitating and
laming and
(making one crazy)
effect of guilt.
And when they see
that they did something quite destructively,
- whether intentionally or unintentionally,
or even
while intending something good that turned out
to be the opposite (for whatever reason) -
they feel guilt.
CONSEQUENCES OF GUILT
Now,
when you set the ship on a new course
in order to get out of a war-zone faster,
so as to save the lives of the passengers,
but
the new course got the ship wrecked on some iceberg,
THAT IS NOT THE TIME
TO SIT DOWN AND SAY
'I AM TOO BAD A CAPTAIN, I AM OVERCOME BY GUILT
- I CAN'T LEAD THESE PEOPLE TO SAFETY ANYMORE,
I MUST NOT GIVE ANY ORDERS ANYMORE!'
instead of ordering the lifeboats out,
and evacuating the passengers.
But that's how guilt works,
and guilt can even work much worse.
Because, now you are really open
to letting destruction follow its course.
The First Mate, junior to the Captain,
happened to be the traitor
who steered the ship into the enemy war-zone,
and now this traitor shouts to everyone
"This bad Captain - he is guilty!
I take over!"
And the traitor sends out a radio-message to the enemy
that they can come now and capture the passengers.
I am trying to illustrate the concept,
the example might not be ideal.
But please bear in mind
that it is just an illustration
to get across
how guilt, the very natural feeling of guilt,
can really get things much worse, and
that this very real feeling, guilt,
can be truly devastating
for a person himself
AND
for the people around him.
GUILT FORGIVEN
Now somebody, Christ, comes along and says
"Your sins are forgiven."
And the Captain jumps up and says
"Really? You mean
that I don't have to live the rest of my life
in shame of myself and
with the shame others will put on me?"
He jumps up and
gets the First Mate, the traitor, locked up, and he
orders the lifeboats out, and he
sends a radio-message to his friends, and he
brings the passengers to safety,
as he tried to do all along.
Well, it's just an illustration,
but
I think that from this you see
how it can be a tremendous relief for a person,
that he has been forgiven
for the things he feels very guilty about,
and you can see
that in actual fact
this could inspire him
with new vitality and responsibility
for himself and for others, couldn't it?
BORN IN SIN
Now let's be very very truthful about this and
assume - as I do -
that a person has lived before,
- even though that is not the current and open doctrine
of Christian Churches, to my present knowledge.
Let's assume
that he has lived many many lives before, and
that that is what the Christian Theologists refer to
when they say that
one is born with sins, or
'born in sin'.
Let's assume
that a person actually IS burdened
with some considerable potential feelings of guilt
about things he had already done
before this lifetime in which he became a newborn child.
And now you are made to realize
that your sins
- through a God-like act of Christ -
are forgiven.
Meaning
'Don't feel guilty, but
be alive,
be as good as you can be,
and
live up to
your full abilities and
your love for life and for others,
because that is the only way
you will have enough
vitality and care for others
to make up or set right
the things that you have done wrong'.
REAL CHRISTIANS
I think that is what some people experience
when they decide to be real Christians.
Or more precisely,
when they decide that they ARE real Christians.
It gives a tremendous resurgence in their desire
to be alive and
to live life fully again,
freed
from the dark shadows,
from the debilitating effect of
the feeling of guilt.
Now, I have not studied present-day Christian Theology,
and so I might be off at some points here.
But I think that
this is what is happening, and
I think that
the things I described in this Bulletin
are
those things which are
basic valuable concepts
given by Christianity.
Koos Nolst Trenite - Ambassador for Mankind
Copyright 1996 by Koos Nolst Trenite
Personal Web-page:
http://ArtOrg.com
Personal Web-Library of writings by Koos Nolst Trenite:
http://Art-Org.com
References:
RI-379i 'Religious Tolerance' of 1 Nov 1995
RI-592i 'How To Look At People' of 5 June 1996
RI-734i 'Orienting Children' of 13 Nov 1996
RI-704Ri 'Real Art is not hard to understand' of 30 Sept 1996
RI-126Ri 'Koos Nolst Trenite - identity' of 29 Mar 1995
RI-631i 'Definition of "Woman"' of 12 July 1996
RI-629i 'Definition of "Care"' of 12 July 1996
RI-602i 'Definition of Power' of 20 June 1996
RI-705i 'Society Resurgence, Use of Rules' of 9 Oct 1996
RI-449i 'A Rule For Freedom' of 14 Jan 1996
RI-714i 'State of Sanity, Definition of' of 24 Oct 1996
RI-537i 'The Right to Demand Awareness' of 15 Apr 1996
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