Immorality?

Question

Why do we readily accept immoral behavior,but profess to fear and love GOD.

Answer 1

because to me that is the essence of religion...immoral behaviour is bad but god forgives me if I believe in him anyway so its ok to be immoral because really I will never be punished for it because god is all about forgiveness.

According to the answers posted to another question "good atheists go to hell?" the answers of the majority of religious people were along the lines of "yes because even if they were morally pure thier whole lives if they dont let god in thier heart they will be punished by going to hell" but "even if hitler repented and believed in god in his heart he would be forgiven and go to heaven"

This kind of mentality is a reflection of the kind of people who are attracted to and profess to believe in god, they dont believe because they believe in the morals of religion but rather because they have done bad things and need to clear thier conscience by being able to say to themselves " I did bad things because of the devil but as long as I believe in god I will go to heaven" This allows them to 1 blame thier immorality on something else 2 ease thier conscience by saying they are sorry for doing something they knew was wrong because they can be forgiven at anytime just for saying "i believe"

This is not how all religious people are but far too many have forgotten that it is better to never commit immoral behaviour and that god doesnt say "go ahead do what ever you want I will give forgive you no matter what as long as you believe" they are missing the whole point which is really.."try to live by higher moral standards but if you slip once in a while I will forgive"

Answer 2

It's a natural animal impulse. Not all people are like you or want to be like you. They have their choices. Besides what is immoral is debatable question because it changes from society to socity.

Answer 3

double morality it is. On one hand you talk about moral and how good you are, on the other hand you act immoral and not the way you speak.

Sounds good, looks bad. Seem less ...what should I say... less thought through...

Answer 4

Because we though God is not watching at that tiny moments.

Answer 5

Hey, I don't fear or love god!

Answer 6

it is because sin or vices are easy to do... but it's too hard to good... like it is easy to tell a lie than to tell the truth....,.,.,
:-<

Answer 7

goodbye

Answer 8

BECAUSE WE ARE HUMAN

Answer 9

In this letter, I would like to discuss a topic that seems very popular these days and that is the question of morality and immorality. It seems that the floodgates have been opened up and the world has been turned upside down. Crime seems rampant; all control on behavior is challenged as stifling freedom.

At the very outset, I think it important to define two useful terms: immorality and amorality. Immorality is the condition under which a code of behavior is accepted but not followed whereas amorality says there is no code of behavior to be followed. These two terms are not unrelated but go together with immorality often preceding amorality. You have expressed concern about this matter and are worried about where we are heading, and, with good cause, I may add.

Let me begin the discussion by stating very clearly the position held by those who challenge the existence of various aspects of moral behavior: morality is invented by society and each society makes up its own morals so, why should the morals of our society be binding on me?

On the surface this seems a logical position to hold but, we must be objective and see if there is a basis for it. Is it really true that morals vary so much from society to society? What we will find is that there seems to be a fundamental agreement between various civilizations that certain behavior is deemed right and certain behavior is condemned. On searching through rules of morality for a variety of religions or cultures, one is struck by the repetitiveness of it. There is a basic behavior that is accepted as proper by a wide variety of societies. In a sense, morality is very basic to civilization and those who think otherwise should study a little bit more of history.

As with many other things morality has two main failings - when we take it too seriously and when we take it not seriously enough. These two polarities are related, with one leading to the other. When things become too lax, a stricter adherence to moral rules comes into play. When things become too rigid, there is a counter movement to a more lax position. But throughout it all, we must remember that morality is a road, a path and not a destination. You remember the warning given in the New Testament not to be pharisaical. This simply means that we are not to become overly concerned with morality because this leads to pride which itself is disastrous for us.

Paradoxically, one of the major roles of morality is to grant us freedom. This seems a very strange position to take but it has a lot to support it. Suppose that you want to do something that may be considered sinful and here, let us take a simple example of overindulging in food. By being conscious of the fact that it is wrong to overindulge you are asserting your will - you are putting yourself into a position of decision maker. Otherwise you become a slave to every whim and desire that happens to arise in your psyche. The striving to live a moral life, the struggle against sin is an assertion of your freedom, of your ability to choose and making this choice on a rational basis rather than on the basis of blind forces.

Any talk about morality must touch on that most disliked topic of sin. Many see the idea of sin as outdated and an attempt to curb the freedom of man. Taking this point of view then leads to the position that there is no need for repentance, no need for salvation and redemption. But I think that life speaks loudly and clearly that this position is false - there is something wrong with humans and it will repay us to find what this is. Christendom, with some slight variations, is agreed that there are what can be called the deadly sins and maybe it is time that we talked a little about them.

In each of the sins that we are going to consider, man acts in such a way as to make his relationship with God a little bit more precarious. In a sense, sin is not just some disobeying of a rule - it is an attack on a relationship involving God and our fellow men. The idea of sin is predominantly a Christian idea and with this idea came a redefinition of what it means to be human. It is again paradoxical to realize that when we take sin and its effects seriously we are paying tribute to our potentialities - the real tragedy of sin is that it attacks the wonderful potential of being completely human. Sin, in a nut shell is life-betraying and signifies more a traitor than a criminal. Sin underlines our own responsibility and in this, it underscores our freedom.

The sins we are to consider lie deeply rooted in our nature and it is therefore very difficult to root them out. It is characteristic of our age to talk a lot about love as if that is all that is necessary. The religion preached today is often cheap, with no cost involved to it, and therefore, very popular, but it omits much that is there in life such as the power and force of evil. This evil is associated in Christianity with the Devil who goes along the corridors of our souls trying to find a door that is unlocked. But, at the same time, the Devil has many passkeys. Shelley, an English poet, wrote that the Devil is a gentleman. Aside from this being a comment on the characteristics of gentlemen, it reminds us to be wary for the Devil was, after all, rather well born. Throughout all this we must remember that although we may be given our natures, we do form our characters and it is on this that we must work - it is here that we try to resist evil and sin. Permit me to clarify some terms that I will be using: sin is when we entertain a certain act which betrays our relationship to God whereas sinning, is when we actually commit the act. In our society, the most common defence is not that sin is right, although some people are heading in that direction, but that we are helpless to oppose sin.

All the sins that we are to consider involve love that has gone wrong and there sounds a warning to those who claim that all the world needs is love. What we will see is that all sins in fact are undergirded by love, but a love that has become unbalanced. If the sins begin in love, they inevitably end in lovelessness. They constantly remind us that if we are to love humans we must not expect too much of them. At the same time, we must be honest and call a spade a spade because, as Chesterton wrote: "Morality, like art, consists of drawing a line somewhere."

Pride is the queen of sins because it is present in all of them. Its basis is the denial for the need of community. Pride causes boasting, hypocrisy, scorn, arrogance, impatience, self-centredness. The devilish strategy of pride is to attack us at our strongest points and to blow these points out of proportion. One of its hallmarks is the presence of competitiveness. Pride denies human limitations. There is a story from ancient Greece about Narcissus who is punished by the gods for his vanity by causing him to fall in love with his image reflected in a pool. Herein lies the essence of the power of pride in that Narcissus falls in love not with his reflection because it is beautiful but because it is his. If it were beauty which captivated Narcissus, it would pass with the fading of the beauty; but, it is his pride which entraps him and this will not pass quickly or easily. What is truly frightening is to look at the advertisements on television. If you consider what they are saying, they are playing up to our pride and glorifying it and saying that it is right. The antidote to pride is humility which allows a person to see themselves as they truly are.

Closely akin to pride is envy whose appetite never ceases in endless self-torment. It is very common today, being fed and groomed by mass entertainment. Why shouldn't you enjoy and experience everything that everyone else is? We are somehow to be made magically equal and mediocrity reigns. If we can't paint, well we will deny any canons of painting and lump everything into one. There in no greatness in a painting - it is all subjective and everything is cool. Envy is insidious because it is unhappy specifically because of someone else's joy; this seems its only raison-d'etre. The only defence of the envious is to denigrate the achievements of others. What seems to dominate here is the absence of love of oneself because one cannot accept oneself as one is but is constantly comparing oneself to others. There is no more tormenting sin than envy which is riddled with fear. One of the fruits of envy is discord and what it tends to result in is the loss of friendship, sowing strife in its wake. It is the source of murmuring and gossip and innuendo and suspicion. The antidote to all this is to love God and our neighbor and what we will find with this is that we learn to love ourselves properly, as well.

Hard on the heels of envy we have anger which brings with it menace and threat, and sets out to make an enemy. Anger comes easily to us, even at a very young age and is often tied to vengeance. It is a consuming sin sometimes being called the Devil's furnace where the other sins are fuelled. Anger is fuelled by an exaggerated sense of one's rights and the affront to these rights placed by those we interact with. Most unwanted pregnancies, for example, result from a temporary loss of control over the bodies of women involved whether in the heat of passion or whim or lust and it is interesting that the answer to this is the reassertion of control through abortion. This is now an angry right. There are many rights of this type today where perceived wrongs of the past are now used to legitimize all kinds of violence. The harm of anger is that whether with deeds or words, the intent of anger is to harm, to hurt. The irony is that it is we who are harmed, we who are hurt by our anger which is like sulfuric acid within us which was contained within bounds of our morality but now spills and corrodes and eats away our insides. The fuel of anger is fear and frustration and in this it is closely related to envy. Where envy bites its nails, anger scratches and tears with them. Wrath is particularly a sin of impotence arising from a perverted love of justice which has become a desire for revenge. Ironically, anger can also result in impatience with oneself and with one's own faults. The sin of anger has become potent in our time because of an exaggerated sense of the individual and the capacity for this individual to have his whims satisfied. The antidote to this is to learn to love our enemies as we love ourselves - in this is our salvation from this sin.

I think there is enough for you to mull over in this letter and I will continue with the other sins in the next one. Meanwhile, I remain, as always,

Yours truly,

Bar-Abbas