It is easier to blame someone else than accept one’s own failings. It is easier to fault some external evil rather than accept one’s own sin. This is no less true now than it was at the dawn of humanity and will continue to be just as true until its sunset. It is also true that quick easy solutions often cause more problems than they do repair.
In ancient times, this blame fell upon some symbolic sacrifice. The Greeks would drive a cripple or beggar out of their city after a natural disaster, believing that individual to carry whatever imagined sin that had brought the wrath of the Gods upon them. The Ancient Hebrews were more merciful; they would drive a goat out into the wilderness, carrying with it their collective transgressions, to die under the desert sun. Of course, the people of these towns were not be any more pious after their sacrifice than they were before, necessitating that this act be adopted as a yearly ritual. It is from this cultural oddity that we get the word “scapegoat.”
According to most Christian denominations, Jesus was conceived and died as the perfect sacrifice with which to absolve the sins of all mankind. This makes Jesus Christ the greatest scapegoat of all, in perverse sense… This may be part of the reason why I cannot accept him as anything more than a prophet of God; it just makes more sense to me, theologically, to accept Jesus as a wise teacher rather than as the savior of my immortal soul. However, this isn’t about my theological differences with Christianity. I want to emphasize one Christian idea which I agree with – Repentance.
Repent! It means accepting responsibility for your own actions. There is also, within its shades of meaning, suggestion of making amends and seeking forgiveness, which is all well and good, however these gestures ring hollow without acceptance of responsibility for your own actions. Responsibility is the cornerstone of morality – the bedrock on which all good laws sit – and no one should be spared from its burden.
Yet, repentance is squarely at odds with the scapegoat mentality that currently permeates American society. While some have shout for repentance in the streets, they have privately been guilty of the very sins they decry. When caught, it was the temptation of the devil and weakness of the flesh – anything other than a forward admission of guilt by the guilty.
We are always on the look out for next individual to blame and not enough time on fixing the root of the problem. Pro-life advocates place blame on women who seek abortions and doctors who provide abortions, instead of focusing on the root cause of teen pregnancy; ignorance and naiveté. Gun advocates and opponents alike argue over whether weapons prevent or promote crime, blaming the other for street violence, ignoring the common thread of poverty and hopelessness which push young men to become drug dealers, and gang member. Instead of focusing on recovering from the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, politicians worry more about pinning accountability for the financial mess on the other party.
Everyone wants someone to blame and no one wants to admit responsibility. No one wants to repent for the part they played, and yet repentance is what makes the world go around. If it was not for individuals choosing to take responsibility for their actions nothing would ever be accomplished. It is the repentant ones, good men and women, who view their own prosperity in contrast with the poverty around them, who view their own health in contrast with the suffering of others, and then chooses to help end these discrepancies. It doesn’t matter who is more to blame for these problems – if they played even a small part, they embrace responsibility for that issue.
Think about that the next time you want to say an error isn’t your fault or say issue is not your problem – and repent.
loading...
First off:
Where the heck you been?
Secondly:
Amen to this post!
Hello Kay,
I’ve been busy getting back into the swing of things at work and… wasting time playing video games. **Sheepish Grin** NOT at work mind you – just every other spare moment I can find…
I’m glad you like this post… the first version was quite a bit more in your face, so I’m glad I found a way to tone it down a bit.
Namaste.
Long ago, before eternity, truth inflicted upon itself a wound, and from that wound darkness and demons sprang, and never has it closed, for man has never forgotten that unbearable pain called sin…
Staring into the abyss of eternal darkness I cannot help but choose to remain far from the light that has abandoned this place. Because the deeper these eyes fall, the closer do I come to harmonizing with the pain around me in praise of the almighty.
Staring into the abyss of eternal darkness, where the abandoned sing
The music of wounds mesmerizes me as the poetry of demonic hands reaches out to my chest.
Staring into the abyss of eternal darkness, where the abandoned sing, she finds freedom on the wings of their song to be a whore with God.
To have the luxurary of truth without a price.
To rape the fruit of abundance that was toiled for by the hands of cowards.
A divine, sexual perversity.
I hate how they religiously feed on her waste.
She throws more of it day by day to them, as if it is food for the dogs.
Staring into the abyss of eternal darkness, the poetry of pain serenades my heart, and binds freedom under love, an intoxicating union with separation.
In the abyss of eternal darkness truth forever shines and cries out in agony as the scars of it’s sin bleed.
It is here that you can enter hell if you wish
And attend a sermon by Hopelessness
It is here where the separation of pain, sorrow, and insanity shall never be liberated out of the prisons of truth.
The problem I have with anything positive and ’spiritual’ is that despite all the good things, and all the arguments a person can come up with, there will always remain the unfortunate and the abandoned who will bear the true darkness, the ‘truth’ of reality while the rest of us just go on with our lives. The cruelest part is you can save no one, not even yourself. You can run and hide, but eventually death shall find you. I’ve reach out, I’ve felt parts of myself die and I’ve touched others, but for what? For moments of peace until their stupidity kicked back in and life proceeded to screw them once more. The power of love is weak in this world. It has saved no one, they have not been able to reach out of their darkness and grab my hands. All the poetry on love is a lie. Love is pain and death, and then extending yourself out in union with those things. Love is embracing death in a Kiss and as it asphixiates you, you breath life into it. It is something which only Men are capable of and which women fear.
Just look at mother Teresa and martin luther king. Fear and stupidity rules. The truth is love thyself, spread the light of your sexual passionate self-love, embrace the wounds the world inflicts on you, and never pity any suffering soul, while not complaining that your alone. That is truth.
“Long ago, before eternity, truth inflicted upon itself a wound…”
Very dark, indeed. I disagree with this poetic assessment of reality – if only because it is impractical. To believe that the root of all things is pain, suffering, darkness, and perversity, I would have to believe that life isn’t worth living. I then have only two choices – end my own misery, or try to bring as much down with me before I go. There is no meaning within that; nothing to hold on to.
Now it could be argued that life itself is meaningless, so why avoid the truth? That’s like saying that a blackboard is useless because their isn’t anything written on it yet! It is how we choose to give life meaning that makes it worth living. It is what we choose to write on the empty blackboard that makes it useful.
Everything is unending pain and hopelessness only if you choose to turn a blind eye to the joys of living… and they do exist.
“The problem I have with anything positive and ’spiritual’ is that despite all the good things, and all the arguments a person can come up with…”
Shadows fall upon every heart… but there would not be shadow if it wasn’t for the light. There will always be suffering in the world, no matter how hard we fight against that suffering. It is only through how we choose to deal with that fact that we grow and become wise. One does what he or she can to save the world. At the end of the day, one can only try… This is the power of love. It is not weak, but it flows like a water. In small amounts, it seems weak, but even in small amounts it carves canyons and sparks life. And when love becomes a river, it sweeps everything up into its path.
Now, ROMANTIC love might be trivial at times… if only because it is love diluted with what we want to believe about the other person. If we fall in love with a delusion, and fail to love and accept the real person behind that delusion, then it can be very painful. That weakness is due to a clouded vision of reality which is only corrected with time and effort.
Pieter,
The truth is “Love Thyself”… because if you cannot love yourself, then the love you feel for others is a delusion. Fear and stupidity rules only where we let it – only where we do not shine the light of Truth. It takes patience and humility to change the world, Pieter… MLK, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and others have demonstrated that unyielding patience and humility can change the world for the better. But change isn’t a quick fix; it is a process that takes time. There are no silver bullets, cure-all pills, or magic beans – just time and effort.
Namaste.
It is a priveledge to be able to tell someone how I feel without them being weak.
“Very dark, indeed. I disagree with this poetic assessment of reality – if only because it is impractical. To believe that the root of all things is pain, suffering, darkness, and perversity, I would have to believe that life isn’t worth living. I then have only two choices – end my own misery, or try to bring as much down with me before I go. There is no meaning within that; nothing to hold on to.”
My question is “But what about Misery”. There have been times in my life where I have been like a ‘fairy’ not anything gay, but just very positive, but then I have to listen to the pain of others and their complaining. Seeing how my views have been limited, and expanding myself at the call of their negativity at what they perceive is the difference between us. After listening to it for a long time, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t save the ones I love from their pain. And that in truly embracing them I cannot cling to everything that is ‘me’ and be always positive. The truth is anothers pain, loss, negativity. It is forever dying and expanding. For example I have a very stupid mother whose stupidity is eventually going to bring her to ruin. Nothing I have done has helped her. I can only let her be. I have to somehow let her be? Just let it be. That fucking pisses me off. Even when I present the solutions in myriads of differnt pleasant ways, she still cannot herself choose to and follow through. So I just have to let her be. It’s sad people have very strong resistance towards embracing another’s differences. The paradox is I HAD (an still do) a resistance to embracing their negative differences in a positive light. But you have to, and the negative becomes positive I suppose. Another thing I don’t understand is just that choice in general. It only really serves me and no one else. So I don’t really understand it. There was a blind guy on here who was talking about something similar to it.
“And that in truly embracing them I cannot cling to everything that is ‘me’ and be always positive.”
This came out wrong. What I meant was I can’t cling to my ideas what is positive. I can stay positive, but it must incorporate and embrace them. I just don’t understand the choice to be negative. I remember one time in my psychology class we had been discussing “Self-esteem”. And they defined it by how we compare ourselves to others. Though that’s true in a sense, my passion and happiness never really was that way though. It came from an inner place. Just a love for doing what I love. I don’t know what it means though, and what meaning it holds. It’s strange to say that it torments me. I don’t like thinking about stuff like this cause it incorporates so many logical psychological and self-help concepts and makes thing exccesively wordy. When it’s not a logical step by step understanding, but just being despite the changes that occur.
[...] tag James McGrath, John, Eileen, and [...]