Too often we base the moral rightness of something on whether it feels right or not. If our conscience is intact and working correctly, and if our knowledge of a situation is adequate and correct, than we can probably go with that gut feeling. But if a conscience is seared into silence by continuing to break moral laws, then gut feelings can be wrong.
Some years ago a friend of mine justified an affair with a married man with the statement, "How can something that feels so right be wrong?" Country western fans, do those lines sound familiar? Feelings can blind a person to the truth and consequences of a situation. This dear friend had to raise a child on her own ever since that lying buzzard abandoned her when she became pregnant.
Lust is not the same thing as love. Emotional dependence is not the same thing as love. Lust is based on feelings and self-centeredness. Love is based on commitment and self-sacrifice. Lust is conditional. Emotions are conditional. Love is unconditional. I believe too many of us have truly lost the meaning of that word, or possibly never knew it in the first place.
- I must be out of love because I don't feel like I love you anymore.
- I don't love you now because you don't fulfill my needs anymore.
- I don't feel like doing anything for you anymore because you don't do anything for me.
- I don't love you anymore because you don't look like you first looked when we were married.
Another feeling to watch out for is urge. Some people pattern their whole lives on urges. Just because one gets an urge to do something doesn't mean one has to act on it.
The same goes for anger, another strong emotional feeling. I once heard a teenager say to a friend that she was going to beat up another girl. I asked her why she thought she had to get physical about a disagreement. She said she couldn't help it-- that all of her family had bad tempers and were fighters. I told her that was baloney. Maybe her family set bad examples for her to follow, but she was the one who could control her own temper. Just because one gets angry at another doesn't mean a person has to act out feelings of rage and violence towards another. But we see daily in the media where too many people have yet to learn that.
I believe everyone is capable of having dangerous or illicit thoughts at one time or another. One can choose to snuff them out immediately and do the right thing, or one can choose to allow those thoughts to continue visiting one's mind until that harmful urge, lust, or rage causes one to act on it.
Doing the right thing involves doing the responsible thing, whether one feels like it or not. Our society used to have clear lines of right and wrong as well as defined roles of responsibility, but the lines have blurred, primarily because we've let feelings control more and more of our actions. And the desire to assuage our guilt makes us want to strike out at any person or group attempting to hold up a standard of morality.
Whether we choose to believe it or not, there are moral principles in place just as sure as there are scientific and mathematical principles governing our world. And until we latch onto a solid rock foundation of morals and live by them, we are doomed to be influenced by every whim and urge that come our way, justifying our actions by fickle feelings that change from one day to the next.
tudorhistory.org
I think England's Henry VIII would be the ideal poster child for living life based on lust, anger, and his ever-changing moral relativism. And we see how well that worked for him.
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