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Mara wrote: Neither morality nor virtue can be advanced by governments.
That’s right. You can’t legislate morality. Nor, can following dogma to the letter make you virtuous. What makes a person virtuous? I think we easily recognize it in other people, and we certainly recognize when it is not there at all. Both are pretty easy to see.
One of the hallmarks of religious living is being able to recognize virtue in others. So many people think that we’re supposed to be looking for one another’s indwelling Spirit, or their souls, or some secret hidden thing within them that marks them as a fellow son of God. But I think what we are supposed to be looking for are other people’s virtues, the fruits of the spirit we’re told about so often.
It is difficult to see one another’s virtues on a forum, but sometimes they shine through by the nature of one’s words. Likewise, it is easy to see another’s lack of virtue by their words. Words are important in reflecting inner virtue, which is why I think people like to use flowery language when attempting to appear virtuous. How does that quote go about affectation? Ah yes . . .
48:7.17 Affectation is the ridiculous effort of the ignorant to appear wise, the attempt of the barren soul to appear rich.
Words are important in reflecting inner virtue . . .
I always thought virtue was some highfaluting word the philosophers waxed and waned about ad nauseam in college. Honestly, for some reason I do not have much interest in it. But I recognize it in others. It’s an inner beauty demonstrable in one’s demeanor and one’s words – words that proceed from one’s thoughts.
Mara wrote: Honestly, for some reason I do not have much interest in it.Maybe it’s because you’ve seen so much false virtue in your life, so much affectation parading around as virtue? I think you see this in cults.
Speaking of philosophy though, Plato espoused four so-called “cardinal” virtues: temperance, prudence, courage and justice. I don’t know why he picked those four, but I can certainly think of many more.
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Words are important in reflecting inner virtue . . .
I always thought virtue was some highfaluting word the philosophers waxed and waned about ad nauseam in college. Honestly, for some reason I do not have much interest in it. But I recognize it in others. It’s an inner beauty demonstrable in one’s demeanor and one’s words – words that proceed from one’s thoughts.
No one knows of another’s virtue or lack of it. The hypocrite’s words cleverly hides a rotten interior. Do not judge a book by its cover.
The hypocrite’s words cleverly hides a rotten interior.
Manny, the way I read this portion of your post, is that you are inferring that either one or both of the persons who you quoted have a rotten interior? If so, the gloves are off, grow up.
Manny, the way I read this portion of your post, is that you are inferring that either one or both of the persons who you quoted have a rotten interior? If so, the gloves are off, grow up.
I was not wearing gloves to begin with. I do not infer, I am direct. Others here infer plenty but they think that if they are polite with their barbs that it absolves them of the guilt. It is not the case. It just makes them hypocrites.
Grownups do not beat around the bush. Let it go.
Here’s another definition of virtue, it’s about choosing to do God’s will:
16:7.10 Moral acts are those human performances which are characterized by the highest intelligence, directed by selective discrimination in the choice of superior ends as well as in the selection of moral means to attain these ends. Such conduct is virtuous. Supreme virtue, then, is wholeheartedly to choose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
Also implied in the quote is that virtue is characterized by the highest intelligence used in discriminating between ends and means. I take this to mean that one’s intentions and motivations are crucial to utilizing one’s highest intelligence. We are told that our highest intelligence comes from the Holy Spirit, our supermind endowment – the soul. Virtue comes from thinking with the soul level of intellect, not the self-centered material intellect.
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Virtue comes from thinking with the soul level of intellect, not the self-centered material intellect.
What you are saying is that even the illiterate that cannot read TUB are capable of virtue.
I am glad that words on paper mean nothing when it comes to virtue.
To be virtuous, word symbols are meaningless and unnecessary.
Are those that subscribe to the academy of TUB and devote themselves to its study, are they self-centered and stuck in material intellectualism? That’s what you say. Bradly, Bonita does not agree with you.
16:7.10 Supreme virtue, then, is wholeheartedly to choose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
Reading the UB just might be God’s will for an individual. Words have transformative powers if they are internalized and allowed to reach down to the spiritual root of the soul. Within the soul each person has enormous help with this process. It’s resistance to the process that is evil.
16:7.10 Supreme virtue, then, is wholeheartedly to choose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
Reading the UB just might be God’s will for an individual. Words have transformative powers if they are internalized and allowed to reach down to the spiritual root of the soul. Within the soul each person has enormous help with this process. It’s resistance to the process that is evil.
Word symbols are dead and cannot be internalize or take root in the soul. The Living Word is a living seed that can take spiritual root in the soul. The words in TUB have no power to transform because God is the only power and that power to transform is the Living Word of God.
0:12.13 We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience — God-consciousness.
Words are part of language and language is a valuable means of communication. It’s so valuable that God gave it only to humans, humans with personality. Words and language are one of the ways that personalities relate with one another. But when divine personalities attempt to use words to communicate with human personalities, there is difficulty because human words do not always have the proper divine meanings. But as stated above, this lack is made up by the presence of the Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth within the human mind. These spirits of Divine Presence are personalities capable of communicating in ways other than language, and in a receptive human mind, are capable of attaching divine meaning to words, also known as truth. So human words in a book written by divine personalities have all the potential to be comprehended in terms of divine meanings and values. The transformation of the meaning of those words occurs within the soul, it’s called spiritual insight. And all we can do, when it comes to spiritual insight, is to discover, recognize, interpret and choose.
So reading a book filled with words pregnant with divine meaning is a valid exercise of one’s spiritual insight. Spiritual insight allows a personality to discern truth and the discernment of truth leads to virtue.
So reading a book filled with words pregnant with divine meaning is a valid exercise of one’s spiritual insight. Spiritual insight allows a personality to discern truth and the discernment of truth leads to virtue.
Does God discriminate against His children that have language but are illiterate or have no access to books?
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.
But as you said on another thread, “even a CAVEMAN can do it”.
We’re told in 16:7.1 that virtue is indigenous to human personality. That means that virtue is native to personality. All personality comes from a high source, and one would assume that is the reason virtue is it’s native state, if not tampered with. This blows away all the teachings of original sin. Humans are born with virtue. It behooves us to nurture it at all costs.
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