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| Is there such thing as an action that results in no negative consequences?
I’m not asking this in some high and mighty philosophical sense. I would honestly like to know if there is anything that a human being can do that does not have negative consequences.
I don’t think there is such a thing. I’ve come to the point that I am realizing that I can do nothing without harming someone else. It does not matter how pure my intentions might be. There is no winning.
So what’s the point of trying then? If everything that I try to do ends up hurting someone, perhaps I should lock myself in my room and call it a day. How can I justify doing anything if I know that it is only going to end up offending, upsetting, or hurting someone else? Why say anything if, chances are, it will only offend? Why do anything if it will only result in insult and hurt? I’d lock myself up, but even that would end in terminated friendships with people who feel abandoned.
Is there really anything that can be done? Should I lock myself up or should I get used to the sensation of crumbling people and crushed toes under my feet.? I don’t know. It seems that either way is another loss.
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| A half-held orthodoxy is just as damning as a fully believed heresy.
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| I'm giving in and posting on my xanga...
post.
post.
post.
I'm done.
goodnight kids.
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| Sorry to be posting more of what another man wrote than what I've written, but I've been trying to figure out a way to say this, and Coleridge does it much better than I ever could.
APHORISM XXIV
WORTHY TO BE FRAMED AND HUNG UP IN THE LIBRARY OF EVERY THEOLOGICAL STUDENT
Where there is a great deal of smoke, and no clear flame, it argues much moisture in the matter, yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire there; and therefore dubious questioning is a much better evidence, than that senseless deadness which most take for believing. Men that know nothing in sciences, have no doubts. He never truly believed, who was not made first sensible and convinced of unbelief.
Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition to believe, and doubt in order that you may end in believing the Truth. I will venture to add in my own name and from my own conviction the following:
APHORISM XXV
He, who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all. | | |
| I read this today in Coleridge's book Aids to Reflection. I will post thoughts on this when I have time to think and write them. Enjoy Coleridge's genius.
APHORISM XXII
KNOWLEDGE NOT THE UNTIMATE END OF RELIGIOUS PURSUITS
The Hearing and Reading of the Word, under which I comprize theological studies generally, are alike defective when pursued without increase of Knowledge, and when pursued chiefly for increase of Knowledge. To seek no more than a present delight, that evanisheth with the sound of the words that die in the air, is not to desire the word as meat, but as music, as God tells the prophet Ezekiel of his people, Ezek. xxxiii. 32. And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well upon an instrument; for they hear thy words, and they do them not. To desire the word for the increase of knowledge, although this is necessary and commendable, and being rightly qualified, is part of spiritual accretion, yet, take it as going no further, it is not the true end of the word. Nor is the venting of that knowledge in speech and frequent discourse of the word and the divine truths that are in it; which, where it is governed with Christian prudence, is not to be despised, but commended; yet, certainly, the highest knowledge, and the more frequent and skilful speaking of the word, severed from the growth here mentioned, misses the true end of the word. If any one's head or tongue should grow apace, and all the rest stand at a stay, it would certainly make him a monster; and they are no other, who are knowing and discoursing Christians, and grow daily in that respect, but not at all in holiness of heart and life, which is the proper growth of the children of God. Apposite to their case is Epictetus's comparison of the sheep; they return not what they eat in grass, but in wool. | | |
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