Are you accountable for your thoughts & feelings or only your actions?

Question

How can someone fault you for what you think & feel? You may be able to control your actions and your words, but not what goes on inside? Am I right...?

Answer 1

We are often LEGALLY accountable for our thoughts.
IN fact EVERY crime involves a mental component.[1]
An easy illustration
Burglary is traditionally defined as breaking and entering into a building in the night-time with an INTENT to commit a crime.
Note that INTENT is purely inside your head(it is a thought) -- and you get PUNISHED for it. If you break into a building with NO INTENT to commit a crime(say you do it to prevent a fire hazard) -- you are not guilty of burglary.
Thus we do and should SOMETIMES punish for bad thoughts.

Answer 2

There are mental diseases/disorders (eg. Tourette's) where what's going on in your head comes straight out whether you like it or not. If you're sitting there at a dinner with your in-laws and it suddenly occurs to you, "Wow, wouldn't it be inappropriate to say 'balls' right now?" These people can't help but yelp it out. They are not more crass or crude than the average person, they just can't keep things as thoughts. We've all had awful things cross our minds, like "Mrs. Soandso is such a cow and I hope she gets hit by a bus", or you find out your husband's been sleeping around and you think, "I'd like to crush his head under a brick". This doesn't mean you're going to knock down the nearest wall to get your instrument of murder...
it's human nature to not think the nicest things all the time, but luckily, most of us never act on the more malicious thoughts.
so no, I don't think we're responsible for thoughts, as long as they remain thoughts and don't impact on other people by influencing or causing actions in any way.

Answer 3

The thing is, what goes in your head comes out of your mouth. There's a proverb that says "As a man thinks, so he is".

If you spend your inner thought time being sarcastic, mean, abusive to others, etc., then that will reflect in your actions.

You CAN control what you think, it's just a matter of applying yourself to the task.

Answer 4

no nevr judge a person by only his actions . it start from millions of mind vibrations. os many feelings attached to the thoughts like rose flower thght can create pleasent mood. dead body create different mood. like that many permutations and combinatioons would combinely make particular conclusion in form of result like actions. cricketer is not sure when he hit six. director not sure about his success of movie. it is state intenal atma soul state that produces actual best performance of life.so get into the gamble of life very carefully. never underestimate the internal feelings. just sex violence romance frienship are very serious feelings effect the personality of actions.

Answer 5

One is accountable for what they DO with their thoughts. Even if that is dwelling on or owning said thoughts. I may have many thoughts that cross my mind - it is what I do with them that define my character.

An initial controlling of thoughts does occur by what we entertain our mind with though... If we fill our head with garbage - we can only expect to dwell on garbage. After dwelling on garbage for so long - one can only expect garbage actions. Therefore - there is a measure of accountability to be upheld in what we put in front of ourselves.

Answer 6

Yes you are responsible for your actions, but you can also be responsible for what you think and feel.
Fro example if you are raised one way doesn't mean you have to think and live that way.
You can chose the way you life, act and think.

Answer 7

your thoughts and feelings is what brings own your actions...If you think it you may as well go ahead and do it...to me yes it is as bad to think it as it is to do it......

Answer 8

You are accountable for anything you do that you can control.

Answer 9

just your actions,