I, unlike the cat, sin. If I don't clean up my bathroom, or clean up after my horrible aim, that is on me. Even worse if I let it become someone else's responsibility to clean it.
It's one of the sins I deal with...is the laziness of my past. But not only are you right about cats, but about people with mental issues as well. Can you blame someone who has dementia for crapping on themselves? Can you blame someone with bipolar schizophrenia for banging on your door at 2am in the morning saying they are going to beat your @$$ because you are keeping them up at all hours?
I don't think fear of eternal damnation should be the impetus to "do the right thing." I think just having the mindset of "treating others how I would like to be treated" is a good step in the right direction not only for selfless reasons, but for selfish ones as well. Do you know how good "doing the right thing" feels?
The whole external entity comes in when the question becomes: saved from what? And "How much can I do to save myself? The lyrics from this 77's song get to me.
Can the dirt in the ground
Sprout a seed all alone?
Can the dirt in my heart
Go away on its own?
You can't really effectively wash a dirty car with a dirty rag. And as good as people can be, we also have great capacity for incompetence, laziness, apathy, and even malice. Can you honestly look around now and think "we are all basically good?"
I, unlike the cat, sin. If I don't clean up my bathroom, or clean up after my horrible aim, that is on me. Even worse if I let it become someone else's responsibility to clean it.
It's one of the sins I deal with...is the laziness of my past. But not only are you right about cats, but about people with mental issues as well. Can you blame someone who has dementia for crapping on themselves? Can you blame someone with bipolar schizophrenia for banging on your door at 2am in the morning saying they are going to beat your @$$ because you are keeping them up at all hours?
I don't think fear of eternal damnation should be the impetus to "do the right thing." I think just having the mindset of "treating others how I would like to be treated" is a good step in the right direction not only for selfless reasons, but for selfish ones as well. Do you know how good "doing the right thing" feels?
The whole external entity comes in when the question becomes: saved from what? And "How much can I do to save myself? The lyrics from this 77's song get to me.
Can the dirt in the ground
Sprout a seed all alone?
Can the dirt in my heart
Go away on its own?
You can't really effectively wash a dirty car with a dirty rag. And as good as people can be, we also have great capacity for incompetence, laziness, apathy, and even malice. Can you honestly look around now and think "we are all basically good?"