From: athe nonrex (athenonrex@godisdead.com)
Date: Sun May 18 2003 - 18:15:41 MDT
~Preface~
though we find ourselves in this contrived religion of ours,
and we renounce the "natural" memetic doctrines of other faiths,
mostly for the fact they take the pretense that their religion('s doctrines)
are in fact unique and natural and true, etc... how am i, how are we,
any less like these other religeions at our base? we still have our
sins, and we still have our virtues; we have no clergy, which in a
sense makes us all clergy; we have no morals save for the morals that
we create for ourselves, and we try to keep those morals to ourselves,
not judging eachother and others by our personal standards... save for
those few details, how is our base concept any different than other
religions?
and it is for this purpose that i find it necessary to engauge in
confession, as we are all (somewhat) clergymen/clergywomen in this
church, and we do have our sins. and it is my purpose to confess my sins
to you clergy of the CoV, as i have sinned. i find myself guilty of
apathy, dogmatism (the least of my sins), and of hypocracy. there are
other "lesser" or "minor" sins that i feel i have commited as well. not
to imply that i am a bad person or a bad virian, but rather that i have
not reached the non existent state of perfection that many strive for.
also not to imply that i do not follow the virtues of reason, vision and
empathy, but when i find myself sinning, i notice that i also find it
more difficult to continue practicing these vitures of mine.
to change yourself you must first realize that you have qualitites or
behavioural patterns you wish to change, so this is step one. step two
consists of reasoning why you have these qualitites; step three combines
the realization of these qualities, the desire to change, realization of
why you posses these qualities, as well as the conscious effort to
change. i ask not you clergy for forgiveness or repentance, but rather
to hear me out so that i might be able to change myself...
~Apathy~
i find myself constantly guilty of apathy. this is such a broad thing
for me, so i shall narrow it down. i find myself refusing to care about
outcome of a situation (for example) when i know that i can make it a
positive outcome for myself and even others if i put effort into it,
merely because i lack the will to expend that effort, for fear that it
infact won't turn out the way i would like it to. this expouses two of
the "lesser" sins i spoke of: fear and laziness.
~fear~
fear is a rampant lesser sin in everyone's life. it's impossible to
excape the feeling of fear, so i consider the feeling of fear to not be
a sin in and of itself, but rather allowing fear to control you and your
actions. i notice myself doing this on a regular basis. i second guess
my intuitive decicions, and even my thought out, well organized and
reasonable conclusions. i find myself second guessing my second guesses.
i even catch myself from time to time second guessing those second
guesses. this is all done of of my fear, and allowing it to control my
actions. for this i have sinned.
consequently, i consider courage to be the adjacent "lesser" virtue of
fear. (perhaps we should revise the sins and virtues to include agreed
upon "lesser" sins and virtues?) courage not being the absence of fear,
but rather the ability to walk through fear and overcome the urge to
allow your actions (or rather inactions) to be out of fear.
~laziness~
laziness is also another lesser sin i am guilty of (as i just mentioned). (the appropriate adjacent "lesser" virtue for this i would
imagine would be along the lines of "motivation" or "initiative.")
the utter lack of motivation, bred by my fear, i feel in many areas of
my life will eventually be my undoing and my ultimate sin of apathy.
~After note on Apathy~
i notice these three sins in tandem all too often in others, and as of
late, in myself as well. true it is a bit ironic and antithetical that
apathy, a lack of emotion, would breed the emotional state of fear, but
then i find many antithetical concepts to be true. tangent.
~dogma~
though i will preach out against dogma, i notice that (1) i still have
my own lingering dogma of my former christian upbringing and that
(2) i am allowing my personal ideas and values to become a sort of
dogma in and of themselves.
like i said, dogma is the least of my sins, but i am still guilty of it.
~hypocracy~
where do i begin? i'm a huge fucking hypocrite. i quite possibly am one
of the best sources of advice for my friends and family, and even for
total strangers. whatever the situation, i find myself able to give
someone invaluable advice, full of insight and of compassion and of
empathy. but for some strange reason (i think previously stated sins may
have some accountability for this), i cannot seem to give myself advice
and stick to it. i'm afraid of my own medicine, but i feel no hesitation
to prescribe my medicines to others.
i also have a habit of breeding large amounts of confusion for myself.
whereas i do not consider confusion a sin, it is definitely a symptom
of one of our sins. (side note, treating the sypmtom instead of the
cause is far easier and far more appealing, but as we all know:
treating the symptoms instead of the illness doesn't make the illness
go away and the symptoms come back in time anyway.) philosophically, i
fall closest to the existencial ideology of relativism and solipsism;
i do not believe that anything is absolute and that therefore anything
could (according to context) be appropriate and proper.
this breeds a mass of confusion for me at times. example: the ethical
awareness that innocent people should not be killed, versus the
statistical awareness that there needs to be population control in an
extreem degree. so a bus full of children die and i hear about it: do
i laugh out of my sense of reason, or do i cry out of my sense of
empathy?
~After note on Hypocracy~
my hypocracy isn't an intentional and singular sin. i feel that my
hypocracy is the result of my apathy, fear, laziness and pity (pity
being another one of those "lesser" sins, and often confused with
compassion, the relative "lesser" virtue).
~quick side note on lesser virtues and sins~
lesser virtues and sins seem to be products of a particular sin or
virtue, making them i suppose not necessarily sins or virtues in and of
themselves, but more like symptoms. however, i suggested the whole
adding them to the sins/ virtues lists for the purpose of recognization
and realization. if we classify them under the appropriate "major" sins/
virtues, then one is more likely to realize that they are commiting one
of the major sins, and can find the appropriate virtues to try and apply
to change their actions if that is what is sought.
~epilogue~
like i said, i am not looking for your forgiveness. if you understand
that or not is not important. these are things that i have had need to
acknowledge and reason out, so that i may change the fact that i
behave this way. i would hope to see others realize sins that they are
committing, and change their actions accordingly. whether or not people
follow suit with my confessional, or with my proposed amendment to the
sins/virtues doesn't particularly matter to me either, so long as i
might be able to help someone else, as well as myself, by saying these
things.
as much as me claim that we are different than these other religions,
and as much as we may believe differently, act differently, speak
differently, and live differently than they do, some of the things that
they do are still useful tools that can be emploied by ourselves for
self improvement. not to say that we should become more christian or
more buddhist, or more this or that...but rather that we should become
more virian at the least, and more ourselves at the best.
may my heart be rational and my mind be passionate.
-Athe'Nonrex
"i envision a different man, than the one i've become/
pray the ocean will undetstand, that my time isn't done/
everyone's leading but nobody's dancing/
we stand on this stage to turn all alone/
i've been waiting this way for a lifetime of days."
-"morning sun", savatage (from the CD "Wake of Megellan")
(with a little effort, i intend to kick my legs up and start dancing)
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