Friday, September 12, 2014
Virtue
Being virtuous is something that cannot be judged by man. If we look at a person's actions only, we might think that person is virtuous but in reality he is not because he has not done virtuous things for the correct reasons. Since we are unable to truly know the hearts of other individuals, it is not possible for us to decide if someone is virtuous or not. There are many people around the world who do virtuous things and just by their actions, they seem to be virtuous people. If we knew their heart, however, we might find out that all of their actions are done for the wrong reasons. This makes their actions no longer virtuous and our entire perception of that individual would change. In my opinion, God is the only one that can judge the actions of man. We overstep our boundaries when we begin judging each other. If a person considers himself to be more virtuous than someone else, he might become arrogant or think he is more valuable than someone who is not as virtuous. Mindsets like that create strife and unnecessary conflicts amongst people. What is considered virtuous to one person might not be virtuous to the next. Since it is impossible for any of us to be completely virtuous, we should make sure we are not judging people solely on their actions. Virtue is something that we should strive for everyday. We should not focus so much on being virtuous in the eyes of other people, but instead focus primarily on being virtuous in the eyes of God. This will create a more peaceful world.
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I like the interesting angle you chose to take. However even though God is the only one who can "judge" us, he did give us some authority through him to some degree by which we as humans can correct our own actions. The point i think that your trying to make is that people often times get so wrapped up in trying to label other peoples actions that don't try to help people but choose to just talk about them. This is where i believe the strife and the friction that you pointed out arises.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I believe He didn't give us authority over others, only ourselves, and that the authority which we claim to have over one another is only given to us by our own sinful minds in a shallow attempt to make ourselves feel better about our lack of closeness with our Creator. We think that we have the right to judge others, but the reality is that God intended for us to all live together in peace and harmony and equality. God intended for us to have the perfect virtuous communities with the Guardians, Workers, and Rulers, where there was no hierarchy, but everyone just did what they were designed to do, and there would be no sin or delinquency.
DeleteNot to be picky here but you said say that we as humans have given ourselves authority over each other by our own "sinful" minds. To that I only ask how to you explain the parent-child relationship. The mother or father clearly have the authority over the child as given by God himself in the bible. One could even go further with the elderly to young relationship. Whose authority was also given by God. So then, considering these circumstances, if God really didn't want us (as humans among ourselves) to correct our own mistakes, then why would he deliberately give people older than us essentially permission to "judge" us and correct our actions?
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