A. On a very simple level, you can judge things like this:
- You have ethics, moral code, religion. You do good.
- You live without them, you do good or you do less good. You have options.
B. On a little more complicated level:
- You have ethics, moral code, religion. You try to do good. You fail & do something wrong.
- You live without them, you do good or you do less good. You have options.
Most people stop at this. “Uuu, look at that person! That person has a moral compass, abides by the rules, has a moral code, follows a religion. If that person does something wrong, the system is wrong”. Actually, I think that it’s quite natural for the religious person to do wrong. It’s a very simple step.
C. I think there’s a third level to all these, in which nothing is what it seems, anymore. I’ll detail this in this article.
You see, I define life as having liberties. And having a moral code / religion / ethics is this:
- There are some rules to be held (don’t do this, don’t do that) – external.
- There are some rules to be held (I impose myself not to do this) – internal.
I think that by working on the internal rules more, you become more free. So, if you accept that doing deed X is a sin, and to you too this is a wrong thing, and you do it, this is internal. If you think that deed X is a sin, but to you personally, you don’t think that this is actually wrong, this is having an external rule.
Can you have more freedom by following rules? Yes, you can. As long as they’re your rules. Basically, most rules imposed by religion are – “love your God, love the people; praise the Lord, don’t do evil things to others; (and a more difficult rule …) don’t let sex take over your life”. If you can think of these external rules as also your rules, religion actually helps you become more free. Freedom is not a state in which you look at a dot and say to yourself – “I can do anything in the world, including doing nothing at all, and I am free when I can do absolutely everything”. Freedom is when your internal set of rules are matched. And if you look at the rules which God gives (except for sexuality, which is trickier), you see that there are mostly rules that you can internalize as your own rules. Most people would agree that doing wrong deeds to others is not a good sign of liberty. If you believe in God, praising Him is a sign of good liberty. Give some space to sexual things and you got a system in which God gives you rules (external), which, if you can internalize are actually helping you in becoming more free. By imposing yourself not to do some things, you should likely get more energy & commitment in doing others. You see, the problem with the person who has a moral code & fails at it, is most likely due to the fact that the rules are external. It’s very hard to internalize religion. And it’s very human to fail at it. Lots of things, lots of paradoxes, it’s easy to fail. Actually, the same situation can be winning & failing, at the same time.
Let’s go back:
“Actually, I think that it’s quite natural for the religious person to do wrong. It’s a very simple step.” (note – yes, I love quoting myself, great feeling).
A religious person is likely to go wrong when the external and internal rules are not clearly understood.
God asks for many things, some of them are contradictory. It is easy, for example, to be a successful religious person and go into pride. Actually, the system of “I have success, thus I am proud, thus I do wrong things” applies to other fields also (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.“).
If a religious person looks at the external conditions and tries to abide them, at some point, that person will run into a contradiction. External rule = hard to impose to yourself, you will always find an excuse to fail. If the rule is not internal, it’s likely to fail.
Real-life examples:
- #1. You want to help some people. You put some money aside, and with the right context, you give the money away to some charity. You did good.
- The twisted evil question – how do you know, in this life, what’s a good action and what isn’t? Who are you to decide who in this world deserves the precious gift of receiving your help? How can you discriminate between two situations and say “these deserve the money, these don’t”?
- More twisted evil – you have two options – helping people / helping yourself. As the airline says, you first need to put the air mask on yourself when there is an incident in the plane, and only afterwards to your child. This seems legit – you need to take care of yourself first. Question – why are you so much better than the people who only take care of themselves? Why is your solution better than the others’ solution? Why do you deserve your life more than other people?
- Even more twisted evil – see the two options above – you have X money, you can put some aside for you, you can give some aside for others. Who are you to decide that you deserve X money, and the others deserve Y money? Who gave you this power?
- A final twisted evil question – could it be possible that, while your intent was pure & right, your result be actually wrong? Could it be possible that you tried to help, and actually did wrong?
- #2. You work yourself to do good. To have virtues. To live a righteous life. You do as much as the person in the Bible:
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
- So, let’s say you do your best to do good. You’re something like this guy, trying to do good from his childhood, all his life.
- Twisted evil question #1 – will you be proud of this and consider yourself better than others?
- Twisted evil question #2 – will those virtues prevent yourself from failing, which would give you the stubbornness required in life to succeed? (Read about this – “In follow-up studies, Mischel found unexpected correlations between the results of the marshmallow test and the success of the children many years later. The first follow-up study, in 1988, showed that «preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the self-imposed delay paradigm, were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents who were significantly more competent».” + more on the subject) Will you be happy with your life, avoid improving it, have a warm, cozy, calm view on your life, avoid becoming better, keep your current level? Will those virtues prevent you from becoming better than what you could have been?
- Twisted evil question #3 – will focusing on the big issues in life prevent you from seeing the small faults, which add up, also, in the big picture?
I think most people have a reply to my twisted evil questions above. I think , wrongly perhaps, that this would likely involve something like common sense – “it’s obvious that good is good and bad is bad”. Yes, it’s true. Except for the case in which it isn’t. Except for the case in which you do the good thing and you’re the good person, except that on a particular level of a complex thing which is religion, your deed also has a bad consequence, and your overall attitude, while correct and just, isn’t just where it should be, yet.
Let’s go back to where I wrote this:
“Most people stop at this. «Uuu, look at that person. That person has a moral compass, abides by the rules, has a moral code, follows a religion. If that person does something wrong, the system is wrong». Actually, I think that it’s quite natural for the religious person to do wrong. It’s a very simple step.” (again, with the quoting thing?)
I became much more flexible to this kind of error. God doesn’t say a single thing, there are things which need to be done, and at times, things are contradictory (help the others, help yourself; love God, love the others; work, but don’t overdo it; help, but there is this thing which is helping too much). There is more than one option, and it’s easy to fail on something-isn’t-what-it-could-be. So, when I see a person believing in God, but, still, failing on some level (twisted logic – am I any better? Any?), I am much more flexible in saying that that person is good/evil, the action is good/evil.
I also become more flexible on systems – I try not to enter any single one, not even the one in which it says not having a system. I avoid certainties, even the certainty of having no uncertainties.
The final twisted evil question – does trying to correct the thing which you see as wrong do any better? Is it OK to give feed-back “Hey, you are wrong!”? I’m not so sure, anymore, even of that.
So, the conclusion of all this? Try & do good, do judge on what you are helping and not, do your best, consider you are failing. Leave room for some pride and inherent error. Try your best, you’ll fail, anyhow, there are too many things to be accounted for. Try & break your will, to be free. Know which rules are external, and which are internal. It’s highly likely you’re doing something more wrong than the person you judge so harshly. There may well be no single answer to what is good and not. Try to do good, of course, whichever that may be. Give feed-back, but know you can fail miserably at making things any better. If you see any rule without the paradoxical rule which opposes it, question it, and try if there isn’t really an opposite.
Coming back to the affirmation in the title:
“«A religious person does something wrong». Ooo, that’s complicated to analyze. This is quite simple, actually.”
It’s very common for a person to fail at something. It’s natural & typical. It’s human nature. What’s worse than that is that you’re no better.
The problem of this person is not that it did something wrong. That’s a very specific thing. The problem is, most likely, that the internal and external rules don’t match.
Also, the problem is also looking from an external point of view and judging. You’re in no place to judge. You can tell it is wrong, but not to say that you are better. The two are (ah, so well!) paradoxical – you want to tell the person they do wrong, but when you do so, at some level, you imply you are better. You’re not.
You, actually, are free.