Christian Morality Thread

When I was little, I used to tell Christ I loved him in prayer. It then occurred to me that I haven't been tested like Job to make those words have merit, so I started questioning this practice. It began to feel manipulative like I was trying weasel grace out of God.

I think when it comes to morality, sometimes being "good" is the road of least resistance. Sometimes you're not actually rising above anything. I've struggled for a long time with the question of this manipulative behavior towards God. The feeling of excitement at "opportunities" of proving your goodness to God. It does seem to me, I'm not the only one who dabbled in these kind of thoughts.

How can you truly know you are good when you're aware you're being watched?

It seems like when the heart actually does reveal itself, unbeknownst to yourself, it's not a pretty picture.
 
Cuchulainn said:
I can think of scenarios where I would never forgive and would enact such vengeance as I would be labelled a psychopath.
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This is what I'm talking about. The truth. God made us this way. There is good and evil. There is right and wrong. We are designed to defend ourselves, and the problems that we as a people face today are because we have laid down our arms and lost our warrior spirit. Again, I am not advocating for violence, hatred, or retribution. However, it takes a certain ancient skill set buried deep in our DNA that we have lost to immediately punish and even wipeout every wrong and evil deed we witness.

Sandalwood Peak said:
It seems like when the heart actually does reveal itself, unbeknownst to yourself, it's not a pretty picture.
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Exactly. And again God made us this way for a reason. To give good people the rage necessary to defend themselves against those who wish to unjustly do them harm.

We are in 2025 and must use common sense. Squabbling over what this or that verse that was written 2000 years ago says about forgiveness or what this church or sect of Christianity says versus that one is somewhat futile. By all means read the Bible and seek it's meaning. Attend the "Marine Corps Of Churches" if you are drawn to it and it makes your life better (which it clearly does for many). But some Christians are loners who just sit in the woods praying and reading the Bible without any structure or formality. Nothing wrong with that as long as a few common sense steps are followed. First, one defines oneself as being Christian and accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior. Second, one sees oneself as being good. Three, being on the side of good, one then uses one's judgement to identify and punish evil.

Forgiveness is for those who repent. Forgiving someone before they've repented and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior is very feminine in nature and not part of God's natural order. It is literally putting the cart before the horse. Not only that, like many other things surrounding Charlie Kirk's televised memorial, it is very strange.
 
I have a problem with forgiveness. I come from a culture that holds grudges. I can forgive small day to day things, but betrayals and bigger things I can’t no matter how hard I try. I haven’t gotten much advice from my priests on the matter and regular church advice is just too simplistic…(You just need to forgive, etc.) It’s not causing me a large psychological impact as I’m not dwelling on the matter seeking revenge or flying into a rage when I think about it, but in my heart I know I haven’t forgiven the person and probably never will.
 
Sandalwood Peak said:
When I was little, I used to tell Christ I loved him in prayer. It then occurred to me that I haven't been tested like Job to make those words have merit, so I started questioning this practice. It began to feel manipulative like I was trying weasel grace out of God.

I think when it comes to morality, sometimes being "good" is the road of least resistance. Sometimes you're not actually rising above anything. I've struggled for a long time with the question of this manipulative behavior towards God. The feeling of excitement at "opportunities" of proving your goodness to God. It does seem to me, I'm not the only one who dabbled in these kind of thoughts.

How can you truly know you are good when you're aware you're being watched?

It seems like when the heart actually does reveal itself, unbeknownst to yourself, it's not a pretty picture.
Click to expand...
I thought earlier today that I was using Christ, and all the benefits of the Church, its fathers, and the insights they have earned by their blood and shared with us, all in order to make the best version of myself, when instead I should be denying myself, taking up my cross and following Jesus.

I do this because I somehow feel entitled to these benefits and am not grateful to God for all things. I resent what I think is bad for me and take for granted what I think is good.

GrecoRoman said:
I have a problem with forgiveness. I come from a culture that holds grudges. I can forgive small day to day things, but betrayals and bigger things I can’t no matter how hard I try. I haven’t gotten much advice from my priests on the matter and regular church advice is just too simplistic…(You just need to forgive, etc.) It’s not causing me a large psychological impact as I’m not dwelling on the matter seeking revenge or flying into a rage when I think about it, but in my heart I know I haven’t forgiven the person and probably never will.
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I have not forgiven someone and therefore I can't be grateful to God for what He did for me through them, since I focus on the their mistakes, while denying my own.

I must be grateful for them, forgive them, and be grateful to God for all things. They are all for our salvation.
 
Read_Lives_of_Saints said:
I do this because I somehow feel entitled to these benefits and am not grateful to God for all things.
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This kind of circles "something" alongside the topic of forgiveness. You're disqualifying the human experience. I don't think feeling entitled is always "wrong" and "should" be grateful in a lot of cases would be disingenuous. It's a self-flogging way to perceive reality. I don't think this type of mentality does a lot of service to God, where you're tripping over yourself trying to fit in some kind of box. Perhaps this may sound anti-Christian but there are a lot of Christians that build a mental house of cards, end result being them just leaving the faith.

When it comes to forgiveness, it may be something that has permanently altered your life, or it may be a memory. When I was younger, I realized that I preferred people that I had bad experiences with to be dead. I bring this up for philosophical consideration. Not necessarily purely in a malicious way but the idea of them being dead gave me peace of mind. It's like a release from regret. If they're dead, then I'm free from the burden of hateful resentment. I can bury the memory because it no longer exists. There's no other party keeping it alive.

If you have someone that causes you harm on a regular basis, how can they be forgiven? You forgive them for what they did on a Monday, only to resent them again on a Tuesday?

We are dragged down by physical things, and we're dragged down by metaphysical things like memories. I don't think you want to tie your future to serve your past memories, just like you also don't want to be dragged down by physical evil. At the end of the day doesn't God desire for us to embrace and value life? Shouldn't we fight all things that extinguish "life", whether internal or external?
 
Sandalwood Peak said:
If you have someone that causes you harm on a regular basis, how can they be forgiven? You forgive them for what they did on a Monday, only to resent them again on a Tuesday?
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It depends on the harm and what you think their intentions are. Individually, we harm Jesus with our sins, yet when we fall, he calls us to get back up and try again. I think emulating this practice in regards to others is how to carry my cross.
 
GrecoRoman said:
but in my heart I know I haven’t forgiven the person and probably never will.
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I think you have to define what this means to you, this idea of "forgiveness".

I've talked about this before, and it's not trying to defend or justify myself in any way, but in modernity especially as I get older, I tend to desire distance and avoidance. from people I consider low level/buffoons/annoying/inconsiderate, etc. The reason I say this is because of temptation and because of my weakness, but if I'm honest, I don't know how anyone deals with the modern person who is totally indifferent about people around him and tries to feel pride and ego from the only thing he can, which is to be annoying or bother others.

Being a very secure person, I don't tend towards shame - I can't identify with this at all, since I don't find outsiders objective or all that smart. Shame for me would be the same as guilt, because (not trying to act like I can't be deluded), because if I wronged someone, I'd be quite aware of it and would feel guilt.

Even with forgiveness, this would have to be a family member essentially that wronged me that I couldn't avoid, and luckily that hasn't happened. But with most others, my strategy is just avoid. It's the whole "better not to be tempted" but also quite practical in that one doesn't hang out with people that aren't friends when they've shown them who they are. Once I avoid, I don't think about what happened and also don't worry about it because I'm not a victim and don't perseverate on things.

The tricky thing is what I led with and the discernment one needs with this. I don't fall into the whole "getting mad that someone wronged me" even though they didn't ask for forgiveness, so it's hard for me to understand that scenario. If the person tries to reconcile a relationship because they wronged you, of course you are to forgive them. At least they made an effort to try to remedy the issue. I don't find that all that common either. I'd be interested in others thoughts on this because I think I'm different in that I can't identify with being so bothered that someone did something shitty. It sucks many times but that just seems to be part of the territory in life and dealing with humans; it's bound to happen some time or another.
 
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