The Power of Fear
August 29th, 2006 | by Dr. Forbush |What motivates us? Is it the law of the jungle, animal instinct or practical planning for the future? Think of the next thing that you are planning to do after you finish reading this post. Why are you going to do it? There are several motivating factors that I can think of: curiosity, love or survival. From my experience almost anything that you are planning to do, or even don’t intend to do, is the result of some form of fear.
This is a major realization on my part. But this revelation hit me while I was thinking of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. Susan Cheever, the author of the book My Name is Bill: Bill Wilson–His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous was being interviewed and she said that she believed that every addiction was based on fear. I hadn’t thought of addiction in this way before, but she went on to use the example of overeating. She said that personally she knows that she could easily go without eating, but at some point during the day she begins to think about something she would like to eat. Then, she puts it off, but the thought keeps coming back to her stronger and stronger each time. She begins to create a fear that she will never be able to eat whatever it is that she was considering earlier. Rationally this fear makes no sense at all, but to the addict the fear is very real and it won’t go away until it is acted upon.
So, I began to think a little more about fear. When we imagine fear, we often think of things popping out at us and surprising us. We think of sudden terror as we reach the summit of a roller coaster. But, there are other fears that are not so dominant. For example, the fear that you won’t make the rent payment, or the fear that you will be fired from your job. There is the fear of being beaten and robbed at gunpoint. There is the fear that someone you trust will do something against you because you trusted them. The list of fears goes on and on. In fact, if you think of something that you plan to do, it is most likely that you are going to do it out of the motivation of fear. People go to church because they fear going to Hell. People follow traditional customs because they fear that their family and relatives will look down on them if they don’t follow the traditions. People vote because they fear who will get in office if they don’t. People exercise because they fear death and sickness. People skip exercise because they fear that they will miss their favorite program on the television or they fear the pain and exhaustion after the exercise.
The fears are not all equal, and that has a lot to do with how you deal with each fear. People who fear dark places will avoid dark places and plan what they do accordingly. People who fear crowds will do likewise. People who fear violence may carry a gun to protect themselves. But one thing is certain—people do not deal with their fears rationally. This is because fear is an emotional response to the unknown. People can guess the future, but they can not know with certainty how the future will be. Nature has given us the ability to construct a scenario in our minds to predict the probability of something happening in the future, but this ability is often being challenged and the result continues to be unable to know the future.
Fear can make a person do strange things that they will be embarrassed about later. Fear can make you hold on to the car-door handle with white knuckles when your daughter drives you down the street for the very first time. Fear can make you drink alcohol to relieve the fear. In understanding the global nature of fear it is obvious how alcohol or drugs can become so addictive for some people. No matter what the fear is, enough alcohol will make you pass out and forget the fear. It also explains why drugs like LSD were never very addictive; your fears become supernatural under the influence of LSD.
What Susan Cheever also explained was why the spiritual aspect of Alcoholics Anonymous was the secret ingredient that helped members succeed where other methods did not. Spirituality brings into focus the big picture. You no longer feel that you need to control your fear. Instead, there is nothing to fear because there is something greater than your petty fear.
In fact, the point of religion in general tends to be a way to control fears by reminding us about God. Different religions do this in different ways. The authoritarian method is to tell us that God has a list of laws. If one follows God’s list of laws, then there is nothing to fear because God will take care of everything. The maternal loving method tells us that God created us and therefore he loves us as His son or daughter and we should feel comfortable in knowing that He is always there protecting us as a mother protects her children. Both methods aim to alleviate fear from our lives by telling us not to fear.
The authoritarian method ran into trouble even in Jesus’ time. The Jewish religion had many laws and they made life more difficult in some ways. People found themselves breaking the laws unavoidably from time to time and then they found themselves in fear again. So the problem became if one breaks the law what will happen to them. Some people believed that they would be punished for breaking the laws in different ways. For example, the parents of the man born blind believed that their sin had caused the blindness of the man. Guilt and fear ran deep in the culture because following the list of laws proved nearly impossible and most people had broken them and they assumed that they could not be forgiven. Fear was back and religion was no longer the solution.
But, Jesus changed all that when he began to forgive people. When people began to feel forgiven their fears left them. Or, at least they lost the fear of being punished by God for breaking a law on the list. They could go back and begin to follow the laws once again with a clean slate. The power of forgiveness was able to overpower fear. Jesus brought salvation.
But, unfortunately there is an epilogue to this story. Some of the followers of Jesus never really understood what Jesus had done. Some thought that He brought new or better laws, and if those laws were followed to the letter, then there would be no fear. But these people did not learn the real lesson that Jesus had taught. A new list of laws would result in the same creation of fear over time as people continued to be human and make mistakes in their lives. Forgiveness is the salvation that Jesus brought, not new laws. The rationalization of fears by putting them in the proper order is what religion seeks, and realizing the power of God is the key to this reorganization. When one realizes this there is no longer a need to drink to forget one’s fears. With proper fears put in proper order one can manage his or her life putting the emphasis on projects that will make a difference, instead of wasting time on fears that make little difference or may even be destructive to one’s life.
But, fear is powerful and leaders are always seeking power. Leaders should have the goal to lead the people for the common good, but given a little power these people sometimes demand more. Fear is one method in which leaders can guarantee more power. This is because people are mobilized by fear. Announcing a common threat will ensure that the people will not only unite but also sacrifice personal liberty and material goods. Security is seen as safety from an unknown threat. Leaders in quick response to a real threat can use this fear, but it is also used to consolidate power within the leadership. The truth is that this fear can be abused. But, fortunately people will gradually lose their fear and be able to respond to the leaders and take back their power. And it is time to do just that in November. Don’t forget to vote!
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Don’t forget what Stephen Colbert said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit
34 Responses to “The Power of Fear”
By Rifleman on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
It never fails, I point out the fallacy in your logic and you wait and try the same thing again. You define a word in a narrow way and and then make dubious conclusions based upon that narrow definition. Fear is simply an emotion, a neutral emotion, not good or evil. Fears not based in fact, are unfounded and willcause suffering and panic needlessly. Fears based in fact, can help us avoid death or injury. Everyone uses fear to motivate others and it is not necessarily bad. Environmentalists would argue that a fear of gloobal warming will help save the planet. The rationality of the fear, is based on the reality of the threat, not the fear itself. You are not paranoid, if everyone is actually trying to kill you. in the same way, Jesus did not offer salvation as freedom from fear, but actual salvation from hell. If fear leads ultimately to salvation, then it is a good thing.
By christopher Radulich on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Rifleman
You said
Fears not based in fact, are unfounded and will cause suffering and panic needlessly. Fears based in fact, can help us avoid death or injury.
Since all religion is based on faith not fact, then by your own words it will cause suffering and panic.
By Jersey McJones on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
“What Susan Cheever also explained was why the spiritual aspect of Alcoholics Anonymous was the secret ingredient that helped members succeed where other methods did not.”
AA and all the other “12″ step plans have been unmitigated failures for all but a small fraction of people who came to them. Submitting to a higher power to escape what in your mind is another higher power, and admitting that you are weak and that only God can help you is an alomost guarenteed recipe for failure. And, though AA and it’s ilk have been around for 70 years and have counted millions of members, addiction rates remain unchanged if not higher.
Alcoholism may be fear-inspired, but what comes first the chicken or the egg? Insecurity=Fear, or vice versa? Fear=Depression, or vice versa? Also, alcohol is psychologically and physically addictive, effecting our blood sugar, our neuropathy, even our regularity (yes, that regularity).
Here’s something:
Here’s what a cognative behavior therapy suggests:
Of course! Telling people such nonsense is actuallly dangerous to them! For a person to defeat addiction they must believe that they have all the power they need, that there is nothing to fear from ending the addiction, that a single relapse - or even ten - doesn’t mean it’s all over for them, and that complete sobriety is unnecessary.
But no. The government continues to unconstitutionally fund these failures and most people, including the politically wishy-washy AMA continues to look at alcoholism as a disease. It is not. It may well be that some people are genetically predisposed to abusive drinking (alcohol consumption predates humanity) in that they are physiologically inapt to handle the substance as most do, but it is not a disease. And, whether or not you want to call it a disease or not - imaginary gods have never shown any success in curing anything.
Besides, God does not ease fear, he allows his followers to wallow in it.
JMJ
By H. Evers on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Dear Messrs. Mc Jones and Radulich,
Golly but you two can get side tracked by your bigoted views on religion. How about you bring in back home to Mr. Rifleman’s contention that when fear is reasoned it is a useful motivating force? Do you people agree or disagree?
All the best
By H. Evers on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Dear Mr. Dr. Forbush,
Do you ever get tired of repeating the same old tired one note song?
All the best
By Jersey McJones on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Evers, his point about fear is well-taken by me. The depression and insecurity that are often hallmarks of addictive personalities can certainly be said to be inspired by fear. Electing a retarded monkey to the presidency could be said the same of. Over-reacting to terrorism is OF COURSE inspired by fear. Terrorism is no more dangerous to you as a US citizen than taking a shower. Yet millions of people are cowering in fear and giving away their childrens’ futures to military contractors out of fear of a handful of international organized criminals, while the drug cartels are a thousand times more dangerous to those very children!
And Evers, you say I’m biggotted one more fuckin time and I’m through with you. My stand on religion is based on reason and study. I provide ample proof of all I say. Don’t fuckin bait me and don’t insult me. I don’t do that to you.
JMJ
By christopher Radulich on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
H. Evers.
Are you contending that religion is based on fact and reason instead of faith?
Secondly while fear is a motivator it is a bad motivator. Do you truely want your children to obey you because they are afraid that you will hurt them. It was fear that made NYPD put 43 bulletts in a man reaching for his wallet.Any good derived by motivating by fear will be negated by teaching someone to rely on fear.
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Rifleman,
You wrote: “Jesus did not offer salvation as freedom from fear, but actual salvation from hell.”
Are you afraid of Hell?
The fact is that people at the time of Jesus had little worry about Hell. They believed that they would be punished for their sins in more Earthly ways. The example of the man born blind as I mentioned demonstrates how his parents believed that they were being punished for their sins with his blindness. The fundamentalist fear of Hell has developed over the last thousand years, not so much the first 4000 years of Jewish/Christian history.
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Jersey,
You make some very valid points. But, you paint religion here with a very broad brush. As I tried to point out there are actually two ways that religion attempts to alleviate fear. One is the paternal or authoritarian model where a recipe is prescribed and the promise is that if you follow the rules all will be well. This is the main conservative model, which is repeated in family structure, and government structure. The flaw in this model is that people will always break the rules and forgiveness is frowned upon here, because it takes away the fear that drives this model. And, this flaw compounds the fear issue by adding more fear to the puzzle.
AA, may not work for everyone, but anicdotal evidence suggests that it works for some. The problem with all programs like this is that the program can not force a person to become well. Even if the physical part of the addition is treated in a hospital, if the psychological part isn’t treated the person will be off the wagon in no time. Obviously the idea case is to treat both the psycological and physical aspects of this disease.
Now imagine for a moment that a person has a disillusioned belief in an “Alcohol god” perhap Dyonisis. We can all agree that this god is not “real” whether we are Christian, atheist, or Hindu. But, if this person uses this imaginary god to build a will power to avoid alcohol it will certainly be helpful in his fight against alcoholism. The point is that whatever fear the alcoholic has they choose to rid themselves of the fear by using a crutch in their imagination. Because their god is not real in any real world sense does not mean that it can not help them in any way. It could just as well be an imaginary fairy godmother, but it still helps them.
By H. Evers on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Dear Mr. Mc Jones,
Unfortunately statements like; “Besides, God does not ease fear, he allows his followers to wallow in it.” Is a gratuitous bigoted (utterly intolerant of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own) statement. It was completely unnecessary for your argument and is your interpretation not a substantiated fact. What do you suggest such comments be called?
All the best
By windspike on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
My goodness, the means do justify the ends. So, I some have learned well the lessons of the W, Rove and Co.
Fear is not neutral, which does indead make it a very useful tool in the political hucksterism sponsored by the W, Rove and Co. But in the end, if it leads to the ruin and coorpuption of Constitutioanally protected liberties and freedoms, then maybe it does not actually lead to the salvation your claim.
Oh, and H, Dearest, you may want to diverge from your current commentary strategy - again, another page out of the W, Rove and Co. presidential propagand playbook - simply becuase you say it does not make it so. Perhaps you aught base your arguments on logic and make a rhetorical argument that substantiates your conclusions before you state them.
By liberal vet on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Fear is merely a biologic response to a perceived threat. When one is frightened the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in. Adrenalin is released and a fight or flight response ensues. I am sorry to disagree, but alcoholics only fear themselves and usually suffer from low self esteem. In addition a biological component is present in most addictions. Now I could say religion is a addiction frequently perceived a a so called crutch. No need for the Fundy’s to respond.
Now the fear I speak of is the most basic. I do not argue with the good doctor. As an atheist if I suddenly became a crack addict or alcoholic I could not very well go to a 12 step program. Our nation suffers from a lack of treatment for the addicted and the mentally disabled. As you may or may not know many addicts suffer from a personality disorder. Males are frequently antisocial and blame others for their shortcomings. Females have been known to suffer from dysthymia or borderline personality disorder. I conclude the term fear is being used out of context. LV
By H. Evers on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Dear Mr. Vet,
Good post
All the best
By Jersey McJones on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Forbush, AA works for a very few. There are far better options out there for most.
Evers, my friend, read the Bible.
JMJ
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
LV,
I agree 100% that fear is a biologic response to a percieved threat. That is why the use of fear can control the masses. In fact, as I have said we are motivated by fear to do almost anything. But, what we must learn is how to arange the fears so that we deal with the most significant and learn to ignore the less significant. But, our human bodies respond to what we see in front of us instead of what logic tells us is statistically more significant. We see this over and over again when the Republicans believe that cutting funding to FEMA while they vote on anti-homosexual and flag burning legislation. Do we have a rash of flag burners running around the country? Yesterday I heard a young woman on the radio saying that if homosexuals are allowed to marry each other it will be the end of the human race. Does that sound like a rational fear?
If we just accept the fact that we are influenced by our fears, then we can better organize our fears and respond accordingly…
By liberal vet on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Agree doc being a medical person since the age of 19 has narrowed my perspective. Irrational fear is pervasive and rampant. Fear is used by most governments to control the masses. Currently many Americans fear a second 9-11. The fear I spoke of is a defense mechanism developed over millions of years. The created fear does not produce the same response in mamals as a clear and present danger would. In the long term this irrational fear creates hypertension, heart disease and most likely cancer. Thank you, LV
By Paul Merda on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Sorry Rifleman,
Michael Shermer put it best:
One woman tells her fiance, I am marrying you and I will never cheat on you because I am afraid I’ll go to hell. Another woman, a non-believer, says to her fiance, I am marrying you and I will never cheat on you because I made a promise to you. Which women would you rather marry??
Fear of something as abstract as a place called hell can easliy be cirumvented, just ask our Red State countrymen who claim that they are christian and all and yet tend to cheat on their spouses, have more abortions and murder more often than the godless heathens of the Blue States…
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/004/32.70.html
http://www.ctlibrary.com/bc/2005/janfeb/3.8.html
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2005-11.pdf
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Paul,
Thanks for the study. There seems to be quite a coralation between sexual activity and religiosity. The more religious a country is, measured in several different ways, then the higher the sexual activity, also measured in several different ways. And, it is quite linear, which is surprising to me.
Good stuff!
By ken grandlund on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Well, fear certainly isn’t the base motivation for most of my actions. When it comes to my political leanings and actions, the prime motivator is disgust. Disgust with what our so called leaders are doing (or not doing) for this country. Disgust at the fact that they have abandoned the concept of public service in favor of self service.
I work for a living not because I fear starvation or homelessness, but because I want to have more than just the basic subsistence I could easily receive through public social programs. So you could say I work primarily out of a motivation of greed. (Though that’s not to be confused with the same kind of greed that leads CEO’s to screw over consumers so they can get multi-million dollar bonuses.)
I behave in a moral manner not because I fear a fiery afterlife, but because I simply treat others as I’d like to be treated. Being non-religious, I have no fear of a vengeful god nor do I have a need for omniscient forgiveness. So here my motivation is to act moral so that others will act morally towards me.
Now I certainly have some irrational fears, as the human mind is a crafty thing. For instance, I fear being plunged into a swimming pool filled with mayonaise. Not because I think I would die, but because I find that particular condiment repugnant. However, that ‘fear’ does not rule my life or underlie my daily actions. And I am susceptible to the same kinds of biological fears as most people, like when you are in mortal danger. But that is, as has been noted, an inate reaction more than a psychological one.
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Ken,
I could easily translate your disgust into fear that the current leaders will maintain control of our government. You work because you fear that no one else will do the job that you know needs to be done. And, through empathy you have taken to feeling the fear that another might feel if you were to act in a selfish way toward them. Every action can be reduced in some way to an action out of fear. But, like I have said there are rational logical fears and irrational fears that move people to irrational actions.
It makes more sense to understand the way we think and to order fears so that we may concentrate on the important ones and disregard the unimportant ones.
By H. Evers on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Dear Mr. Mc Jones
Which one and whose interpretation? Details do count.
All the best
By steve on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
For the record, H. Evers is not me!!!
Proof there is more than one person that thinks like me on this blog.
Hey Hank, (Can I call you Hank, Mr. Evers?)
I saw comment #5 and I have asked Doc that same question for the last year!
By Rifleman on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Dr. Forbush has an honest, but incorrect view of Jesus. Jesus himself discussed “hell” and told people that HE was the only way to salvation. This doctrine was more in agreement with the sect of the Pharrisees since the Saducees did not believe in an afterlife, in spite of the teachings of the prophits. The Pharisees didn’t fear Hell because they thought they had an automatic ticket because they were Jews. In the same way, you guys have misinterpreted my statement. Jesus did not offer salvation as a way to end fear, but as actual salvation. Christianity mentions hell, but teaches that a faith and love of God are what really pleases Him. The Bible urges believers to “fear God”, but means it as a matter of respect. The overall point is that the term “fear” is a symbol of an emotional state, not an entity into itself. When you make a word into a thing, you miss subtler but important concepts. There are purely emotional fears and there are intellectual fears and the intellectual fears don’t necesarily involve intellect. In most cases, an individual can control his or her intellectual fears to some extent, unless they are pathological. Emotional fears are a bit more difficult. Try explaining to some New York City residents that they have no reason to worry about terrorist attacks! My wife lived near the deadly and devastating Tornado that hit Xenia, Ohio and had relatives that lost thier homes there. Is her fear of Tornados unfounded and silly, or based in reality. Maybe I should take tornados more seriously, even though I really don’t have a fear of them. Which is my point!
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
Rifleman,
You say that I have an incorect view of Jesus. I am sorry to break it to you, but there are many views of Jesus and yours is not the only correct view. Yes, Jesus mentions Gahena, but the entire idea of Hell derived from that idea grew up long after Jesus died. Salvation and what it actually means is also debated and not understood universally. Your Christianity is not the only Christianity. Whether you emphasise Paul or Jesus, the Old or the New Testament you can draw a wide range of views of Jesus, God and religion. If you honestly study what Jesus says in historical context you will come to a different conclusion than if you follow the teachings of Jerry Falwell or Jimmy Swaggart. Your honest opinion might be that I have an incorrect view of Jesus, but I have many people who agree with my view and disagree with yours. It doesn’t really mean much in the big picture…..
By steve on Aug 29, 2006 | Reply
I just figured out… Doc, you are using fear against your own people!!! You want to scare the shit out of all us with your writing.
By Jersey McJones on Aug 30, 2006 | Reply
Evers, any of the mainstram versions - James, New Int’l, etc.
We are bron of sin, from sin, into sin. We are told that only in death can we meet our maker and be truly with him. He is a blatantly patriarchal god, with all that infers. When Jesus said “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” he meant everyone, and no stones were cast.
Guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt.
JMJ
By Liberal Jarhead on Aug 30, 2006 | Reply
JMJ,
I have to disagree with you - I am a psychotherapist who has spent as much time treating addictions as any other issue, and I am a recovering alcoholic myself. Regardless of my personal bias, the data show that the 12 Step programs work better for more people than anything else. It’s true that the majority of people who show up in meetings today relapse, but that’s because the majority are now court-mandated, and the courts don’t mandate them to go for long enough. For most people who actually apply what they’re hearing, it works. And every treatment program I’ve ever seen that had a good success rate involved, among other things, getting its patients or clients involved in 12 Step programs. The majority of people who get sober through AA have tried other methods and failed. Few people who get sober via other paths have given AA a sincere try.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is great, and there’s no conflict there. AA has a strong cognitive-behavioral flavor. A great deal of it is based on changing a person’s thinking, not only about the addiction but about his/her approach to life in general - there are clear-cut addictive patterns of thought, emotions, and behavior, and the 12 Steps force a person into introspection and change in these areas as well as the actual ingestion of the chemical.
Re powerlessness, there is considerable scientific evidence that due to genetically based differences in biochemistry, alcoholics actually are unable to control their drinking. Alcoholics do metabolize alcohol differently - it has a much more intense effect on their brains. This is hereditary; in studies where twins born to alcoholic parents were adopted at birth, and one went to a family with an alcoholic parent while the other to a family where no alcohol abuse was present, the twins’ rates of alcoholism in their own adult lives matched those of their biological parents rather than the families that raised them. Likewise, when twins of non-alcoholic parents were adopted at birth, they were no more likely than average to become alcoholic even when raised by alcoholics. So for alcoholics, to tell them they aren’t really powerless is a disservice. It’s like telling people with insulin-dependent diabetes that they are not powerless over their insulin levels without intervention. The admission of powerlessness over alcohol is not the same as saying a person is powerless in general; it’s simply accepting a reality.
A lot of the criticism of the 12 Step programs comes from professionals; I can’t read their minds, but I suspect that many of them are coming from the same place as a psychiatrist who admitted to a friend of mine in a moment of candor that AA really pissed him off because he couldn’t understand how a bunch of amateurs succeeded where he, with his many years of education and his M.D., couldn’t. Some churches also attack the 12 Step programs, because they are frightened by the Steps’ focus on each person coming to his or her own understanding of, and relationship with, a higher power, without the need for an intervening hierarchy. The typical understanding of God people talk about in AA is of a loving, supportive, non-punitive God - a lot of people will half-seriously refer to themselves as recovering Catholics/Baptists/ etc.
The best way to get an accurate understanding of AA is to sit in on a few open meetings and listen to the people for whom it’s working, which will be most of the people there. Movies tend to present a weird idea of AA, as if everyone’s desperately depressed and hanging on grimly, white-knuckling it as we would say in the field. That’s not how it is. I’ve never been to a meeting where I didn’t get at least one good laugh. In a healthy group, people tend to have a lot of fun. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t keep coming.
By H. Evers on Aug 30, 2006 | Reply
Dear Mr. Mc Jones,
Can you look around the world and not think that maybe something is wrong? May this original sin thing has some traction? Have you ever thought that the concept of God might be a little hard for people to grasp?
I leave you with a quote from C.S. Lewis from is book Miracles: “Why are many people prepared in advance to maintain , that what ever else God may be He is not the concrete living, willing and acting God of Christian Theology. I think the reason is as follows: Let us suppose a Mystical Limpet, a sage among Limpets, who (in a rapt vision) catches a glimpse of what man is like. In reporting it to his disciples, who have some vision themselves (though less than his) he will have to use many negatives. He will have to tell them that man has no shell, is not attached to a rock, is not surrounded by water. And his disciples, having a little vision of their own to help them, get the idea of man. But then here come the erudite Limpets, limpets who write histories of philosophy and give lectures on comparative religion, and who have never had any vision of their own. What they get out of the prophetic Limpet’s words is simply and solely the negatives. From these, uncorrected by any positive insight, they build up a picture of man as sort of amorphous jelly (he has no shell) existing no where in particular (he is not attached to a rock) and never taking nourishment (there is no water to drift it toward him). And having a traditional reverence for man they conclude that to be a famished jelly in a dimensionless void is the supreme mode of existence, and reject as crude, materialistic superstition any doctrine which would attribute to man a definite shape, structure, and organs.” C.S. Lewis
By Dr. Forbush on Aug 30, 2006 | Reply
Mr. Evers,
The origional sin described in the Bible is man becoming aware of himself and his relationship to the world around him. The Biblical story tells us that God told him not to eat from the tree of knowledge. Obviously this is symbolic meant to show us how now that we know about the world around us we now have responsibility. That responsibility is a burden that we all must bear. Unfortunately many Christian groups focus on the personal sin aspect of the story rather than the moral and ethical responsibility that we have for the pain and suffering that we witness in the world. It should be obvious from the story that we, as Christians or Jews or any religion that puts any faith in this story have a responsibility to stop man’s destruction of the environment. But, unfortunately conservative Christians tend to support the Bush administration’s belief that there isn’t enough evidence that man has caused a problem yet…
By Rifleman on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply
Jesus preached a specific doctrine and not just what you refer to as only love. If people choose to ignore that doctrine of Jesus, that is their choice, they are simply NOT following the teachings of Jesus, they are following something else, no matter what they claim. I was simply pointing that out. To say that Jesus didn’t imply a salvation from Hell, is simply false. There is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, among others: The parable of the seven vigins, the list goes on. The faithful are saved, the unrepentant are lost.
By Chris on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply
The basic problem with all the religions I know of is that they are based on fear. Therefore the evil they cause always outweighs any good that they do. In the end when you let fear be your guide you will inevitably go to extremes.
By Paul Merda on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply
You guys and your Jesus loving selves kill me. No one practices christianity as outlined by Jesus.
Do you follow all 613 OT Laws? Matt 5: 17-20
Have you sold everything and given it to the poor? Luke 18:18-22 and Matt 19: 16-22
Have you renounced everyone you are about? Luke 14:26-33
Please go follow Jesus, I bet ya can’t.
By Craig R. Harmon on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply
Paul,
“I bet ya can’t.”
I bet we can’t either but that’s the point of all of those laws, to show that you can’t measure up to God’s expectations and, therefore need the deliverance from sin provided by Jesus. Very few Christians say that they are able to live wholly holy lives here on earth. There are a few perfectionists but they are self-deluded. There is a strain of Christianity that teaches that a Christian is, by faith, wholly pure and holy before God but that is so because of the purifying faith in the sacrifice made by Jesus once and for all and it also posits that the same Christian is a sinner, utterly ruined by the fall and incapable of pleasing God apart from the faith that I just mentioned.
So following Jesus isn’t about living up to the requirement’s of 613 laws and, simply giving all of one’s possessions to the poor and thereafter sponging off of the rest of society for one’s continued existence seems, well, neither good for the poor (for very long, at least — how long does a fish last if you give it to a starving man?) or for the Christian or for society. Maybe Jesus meant quit hanging on to your wealth as though it was yours rather than what God has allowed you to earn for the good of the poor. If you give everything away, you help a few for a while…if you give 10% of your earnings on an ongoing basis (one of those OT laws), you can help people over an entire lifetime and if you give up your accumulated wealth at your death into a fund, you can continue to help people for much longer than a lifetime.
By txdave on Oct 15, 2006 | Reply
Lots of good ideas in your blog.
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thnks dave