Moral Flame
What is the point of a religion? Is it to dictate morality, or to define and aid in connection with the Divine?
FlameKeeping does not speak directly of morality. There are moral implications, but not a code of defined behavior. The only true moral stricture is that we must all treat each other as Divine, with all the respect and care that implies.
So how will people be moral? That is up to each individual, as it always has been. There are extremely immoral people of all religions, and moral people with no religion whatsoever. God does not and really never has inspired any to be truly moral people.
FlameKeeping believes that humankind is Divine. This implies that we are good people, or at least have within us the ability to be good people. Lists of rules, and an assumption of humanities "fallen" nature, does nothing but encourage lists of laws, and just as many attempts to get around these laws. Assume humankind is fallen, and it will live up to that assumption. Assume we have within us the ability to be Divine and surpass ourself, and we will do our best to live up to what is expected of us.
So there will be no lists of rules, no commandments. Those who need them would probably not follow them anyway, and those who do not need them would be more likely to be led astray by those things that are not mentioned than guided by those things that are. There are only two clear moral strictures, and all else comes from them.
1. We are all Divine, and must be loved and respected as such. By this I mean that we need to treat ourselves and other humans with as much respect and love as we can. Every time we treat another person as a means, every time we denigrate someone because they are not what we wish they are, we are going against our own nature and against the Divine. We are ALL holy, not just the people we like, not just the people like us. Everyone. Even the people we hate. And we need to respect them as such.
2. We must improve the Divine as we can. The Universe is not already perfect, it moves towards perfection, and we are a part of that. When we see something we think is wrong, we should act to fix it as we can. And we should also be aware of what lies behind the problems we see whenever possible: it is easy to say poverty is bad and to place a few dollars in a fund drive once a year. It is much harder to look at the systems that benefit us but encourage poverty, and to try and find ways to change the system to keep poverty from happening. (In the meantime, of course, we should also continue to give those dollars. There is no virtue in working for the long term and letting the short term suffer needlessly).
Questions:
What does morality mean to you? Do you judge it in positive terms (you should) or negative (you should not)?
What does it mean to see everyone as Divine? Is this hard for you? What moral strictures does that rule impose on you?
What does it mean to improve the Divine? Is this one difficult? Again, what strictures does this impose on you?
FlameKeeping does not speak directly of morality. There are moral implications, but not a code of defined behavior. The only true moral stricture is that we must all treat each other as Divine, with all the respect and care that implies.
So how will people be moral? That is up to each individual, as it always has been. There are extremely immoral people of all religions, and moral people with no religion whatsoever. God does not and really never has inspired any to be truly moral people.
FlameKeeping believes that humankind is Divine. This implies that we are good people, or at least have within us the ability to be good people. Lists of rules, and an assumption of humanities "fallen" nature, does nothing but encourage lists of laws, and just as many attempts to get around these laws. Assume humankind is fallen, and it will live up to that assumption. Assume we have within us the ability to be Divine and surpass ourself, and we will do our best to live up to what is expected of us.
So there will be no lists of rules, no commandments. Those who need them would probably not follow them anyway, and those who do not need them would be more likely to be led astray by those things that are not mentioned than guided by those things that are. There are only two clear moral strictures, and all else comes from them.
1. We are all Divine, and must be loved and respected as such. By this I mean that we need to treat ourselves and other humans with as much respect and love as we can. Every time we treat another person as a means, every time we denigrate someone because they are not what we wish they are, we are going against our own nature and against the Divine. We are ALL holy, not just the people we like, not just the people like us. Everyone. Even the people we hate. And we need to respect them as such.
2. We must improve the Divine as we can. The Universe is not already perfect, it moves towards perfection, and we are a part of that. When we see something we think is wrong, we should act to fix it as we can. And we should also be aware of what lies behind the problems we see whenever possible: it is easy to say poverty is bad and to place a few dollars in a fund drive once a year. It is much harder to look at the systems that benefit us but encourage poverty, and to try and find ways to change the system to keep poverty from happening. (In the meantime, of course, we should also continue to give those dollars. There is no virtue in working for the long term and letting the short term suffer needlessly).
Questions:
What does morality mean to you? Do you judge it in positive terms (you should) or negative (you should not)?
What does it mean to see everyone as Divine? Is this hard for you? What moral strictures does that rule impose on you?
What does it mean to improve the Divine? Is this one difficult? Again, what strictures does this impose on you?
posted by Vieva @ 7:40 PM
1 Comments:
At 7:27 AM,
Vieva said…
They are still of the Divine. But they are also twisted, yes.
I believe (I have to believe!) that there is a way for even the most twisted person to come back to themselves. But part of the process of coming back to oneself is facing what one has done .. and most people aren't strong enough to face that easily when all they've done are normal things. It's hard to imagine being able to face having been a monster.
Even still, we need to treat these people fairly. Fair = jail, and making it so this person can't harm anyone else ever again .. but still fairly. Punishment for the sake of punishment just brings us down to their level .. which is very different than an attempt to rehabilitate.
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