Vitrues

[Kess]

I'm going to post a series of different virtues and try to think through what the damage might be if they are not followed. I'd like to hear if anyone else has insights on why these are important. Here goes!

Honesty vs Deception

To be honest is to be credible. Liars and the honest have two different experiences of life. Those who are honest can go through life together, sharing their human experience. There is a safety with an honest person. There is a connection. There are those things that you may know of their heart that you could not have known any other way but by their admission. There is a sense of home. There is a steadiness that can last decades. Honesty is the means to discover every other form of goodness–what matters in life? Why am I the way I am? How should I live? Honesty acknowledges a person’s true self, allowing them to know and direct themselves. In groups, it eases the shackles of oversight that are necessary for the dishonest, and allows the group to run faster towards their goals.

Liars are bewildering to the honest, because we look at the trivial thing that they throw away a lifetime of trust and connection for and cannot understand. Even one lie, and a link in the chain of evidence–credibility–is broken. Everything this person says is in question. We are necessarily no longer communing and sharing experiences. We cannot collaborate with the same ease. We are guarded, defensive, scrutinizing. The burden of oversight and proofs exhausts efforts we are required to make with them. The liar is a marked person who must be segregated in our minds. This is not an easy thing to repair.

 

[Truster]

Virtue is a poor, wretched and very distant relative of justness and holiness, without which no man shall see The Almighty. Virtue is not the currency of glory. It is the currency of self-justification.

 

[TrumpTrainCA]

The four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice.
The Seven Heavenly Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence.

 

[Kess]

Truster, you make a good point, however virtue, like the law, is a tutor to bring us to Christ if we are unsaved ( because of our need for it, and because of our inability to get it on our own), and a goal if we are saved ( because God works through us to enable us to do it). What I trying to tease out is why these are virtues, by understanding some of the ramifications.

TrumptrainCA, I really like those. You could say if one has faith, then one also has hope and therefore reason for courage. And because life is more than the current evils, one can also have love, and therefore justice and temperance. Prudence would be needed to support and implement these cardinal virtues.

The ones I was looking at are more specific. I'll give you another one:

Goodwill vs Cruelty

Abuse is any act with the intent to harm. If someone ever acts in any way designed to torment you, to open up to such a person is to risk them using your vulnerabilities against you later down the road. They too, like liars, must be segregated, and this too is a difficult thing to repair. While apologies are appropriate, they do little to prove a change in character. There cannot be the same kind of closeness with such a person as with someone who consistently wants the best for you.

A person with goodwill is always searching for the best possible outcome. They are on the side of the best part of you. When something terrible happens, there is a temptation to dump rage and frustration on someone else rather than to find the solution. The person with goodwill will not use this as an excuse to abuse and destroy, or as a cop out. While they will validate those emotions, they are focused on being constructive. They shoulder responsibility. They work through the issues.

 

[Truster]

The Messiah came into the world to save sinners and not the virtuous.

 

[Kess]

Truster, I agree with you. I clarified the value of ethics in my first statement of my last post.

Are there any thoughts about honesty or malicious intent?

 

[Truster]

Truster, I agree with you. I clarified the value of ethics in my first statement of my last post.

Are there any thoughts about honesty or malicious intent?

Malicious intent adds to the scriptures and devalues the doctrine of salvation. For instance, adding the necessity of virtue in place of slavery to sin and Satan.

 

[Kess]

Alright. I'll add the next one. This one is a touch more complicated. Any thoughts on...

Manipulation vs Collaboration

Manipulation is weaponized deception aimed at creating reactions hostile to the interests of the target. This denies other person their right to self-direction. It hijacks person, treating them as a tool, a means to an end. As this action objectifies the victim, there is a disconnect. The experience is like meeting a person who has a delusion that you are a vending machine. They are very pleased to meet “you.” They examine you, find what they want, and then begin to poke. You find their actions bizarre, and want to make some gesture so they understand that there is a person here, but they merely take your words and actions to mean that they pressed the wrong button. They make adjustments and insert what they perceive to be the required input to get their treat. It is like they are looking past you. Talking about you but not to you. Waiting for their treat. Sometimes it is humorous. Sometimes it is horrifying, what they nonchalantly do to their “vending machines.” But no matter the case, there is no connection.

They will watch to see what you react to. There is misdirection, discouragement, ridicule, praise, threats, confusion, etc. Some attempt subliminal messaging, neural linguistic programming, or hypnosis. They treat you like a Pavlovian dog.

Manipulators often draw other people into their web–the most common varieties are cowards, dupes, and sadists. When narcissists do this, the tactic is called triangulation, and the people are called flying monkeys. Lenin called them useful idiots. There are several ways this can be done. One need only understand two well established phenomenon.

The first is the Milgram experiments, which has been repeated many times with consistent results. Subjects are told they are participating in a scientific study, or game show, etc. They are told that as part of this narrative, they are expected to induce pain in a willing participant strapped down to a chair every time they get the question wrong. (The participant is an actor unbeknownst to the subject, and the shocks are fake.) There is always an authority figure with a straight face and a good story. The subject complies and starts to administer shocks. After each wrong answer, the intensity of the shocks increases. The subject continues. At some point, the participant says they no longer want to be shocked and demands to be released. The authority figure instructs the subject to continue. In every case, all, or all but one or a very few continue the shocks, even at lethal levels. Those few who refused to comply with the authority’s demands usually cite how the Nazi’s followed Hitler, and that they did not want to make the same mistake. But the objector is so rare as to barely exist. The reality is, humans, when given a narrative by an authority figure with a straight face will do unthinkably terrible things to each other. There was a reporter who wanted to test this theory, and told a woman that he was a detective, and that that child over there had been kidnapped, and he needed her help to get the child back. She complied eagerly.

But lets say for some reason that there is someone who is better informed. They are not willing to assist the manipulator. Then there is a second well established dynamic. This is the prisoner’s dilemma. In this case, the police are questioning two subjects. The subjects are separated from each other and unable to communicate. The police tell each that if they implicate the other, they will get a lighter sentence. If they do not confess and are not implicated, they will both go free. But if you are implicated but do not “cooperate” and implicate the other, then you will be given the most serious sentence and the other will go free. If the prisoners could communicate and come to an agreement, they could agree to not implicate each other, and would get the best possible outcome. But because they are isolated and under pressure, and not able to communicate to confirm the other can be trusted, then to save themselves from receiving the worst possible sentence, they implicate the other, and each receives the medium sentence. Without private communication, there would be no collaboration outside of the gaze of the predator. Each party is isolated, and when coerced, will almost inevitably fold. The reality is, when faced with a threat, people will look out for themselves and not the other person in almost every case. That’s not Jesus, but that is humanity. The result is that it is surprisingly easy to use ordinary people against each other. The more this is done, the greater the coercive force, and this dynamic can grow exponentially.

Collaboration does not deceive. It uses reason and evidence, impartial to intellectually honest minds. They empower and enable agency.

 

[Aimiel]

The four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice.
The Seven Heavenly Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence.

Amen. The most virtuous who ever lived, Jesus was described in Scripture...

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Jesus demonstrated virtue. His representation of God, in The Flesh, gives us a perfect example to follow. One would do well to emulate Him. God looks upon the thoughts and intents of our hearts. Those who follow virtue will have only good thoughts and intents of heart.

 

[Aimiel]

Virtue is a poor, wretched and very distant relative of justness and holiness, without which no man shall see The Almighty. Virtue is not the currency of glory. It is the currency of self-justification.

Amen: self-righteousness is a smoke in God's Nose, all day long.

I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the Lord, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.

No, the self-righteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God; only the humble. Humility, my friend, is the currency of Heaven. We are NOTHING without His Spirit. It is God in us Who is The Hope of Glory. Thanks be to God if anyone sees ANY virtue in any of us: it is Him in us Who gets the glory. There is nothing good in men except: God. If you see anything good in anyone, you're seeing God. :thumb:

 

[glassjester]

Malicious intent adds to the scriptures and devalues the doctrine of salvation. For instance, adding the necessity of virtue in place of slavery to sin and Satan.

Matthew 7:21 - Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What does God will for us to do?

 

[Truster]

“Virtue (Latin: virtus, Ancient Greek: ἀρετή "arete") is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting collective and individual greatness”.

“Eudaimonism is the classical formulation of Virtue Ethics. ... Aristotle, with whom Virtue Ethics is largely identified, categorized the virtues as moral virtues(including prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) and intellectual virtues(including "sophia" or theoretical wisdom, and "phronesis" or practical wisdom)”.

There is no salvation in virtue and anyone pursuing virtue is in the broad way that leads to destruction.

Paul: “Take heed lest there will be anyone taking you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the principles of the world and not according to Messiah”.

 

[Truster]

Matthew 7:21 - Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What does God will for us to do?

Be holy.

 

[Aimiel]

Jesus called out Nathaniel, for his virtue. He found no guile in him. He held nothing against anyone. He was rewarded by The Lord for this virtue. Jesus said that we are to be virtuous, by doing so. We are to be forgiving and without guile. This is a very important lesson.

 

[Truster]

I should add that the attainment of virtue to the end of securing salvation is impossible. Virtue is to be added to trust in which case it is precious but without trust it is a filthy rag.

 

[Aimiel]

I should add that the attainment of virtue to the end of securing salvation is impossible. Virtue is to be added to trust in which case it is precious but without trust it is a filthy rag.

Amen.

 

[glassjester]

Be holy.

And how can we do that? How can we (as Jesus instructs us) do the will of the Father?

 

[Truster]

And how can we do that? How can we (as Jesus instructs us) do the will of the Father?

Man is required to be holy. Man is told to repent. Man is advised to trust.

None of these necessities is intrinsic in man. Therefore man is helpless. It is from this state of helplessness and hopelessness that man needs to be saved. Thus in justification man is declared holy. In regeneration, man is granted repentance and trust.

In regeneration, a man becomes entitled to all the communicable attributes and blessings of his King and Saviour.

 

[Truster]

PS

In this state of grace, I know for an absolute fact that wherever I am, whatever my intentions, thoughts, words or deeds. That I am in the centre of the will of my Eternal Father for my life, His salvation and His glory.

 

[glassjester]

Man is required to be holy. Man is told to repent. Man is advised to trust.

Are we not also told to love God and neighbor?