Good Friday

Quote: Wizard

Earlier you wrote, "no need for guilt at all." This doesn't seem to jive with the post above. If you got drunk, killed a straight-A college student, would you feel guilt?

What has the fact he was a straight-A student have to do with guilt. I hate this putting some people on a pedestal over others. Everybody who is productive in society deserves the exact same treatment whether they are a bathroom attendant or an Astronaut, actually the bathroom attendant is probably has a tougher job to get up and go to in the morning.

Quote: Wizard

No. Sounds like his fault. Maybe if he was an A student though ;-).

My point was, either of us would feel terrible for hitting either of them. The conversation started about guilt. I would feel awful for killing someone, but not guilty in the second students death, bad but not guilty, because I don't know how to have avoided the killing.

In the first instance, why would we feel guilty? It's not the death that causes the guilt, it's thinking we could have performed better, just like the B student. I don't want to go through life blaming myself for things out of my control or already happened. If in either instance we could have changed the outcome, of course we would. Guilt won't help anything, it makes it worse.

Quote: kenarman

What has the fact he was a straight-A student have to do with guilt. I hate this putting some people on a pedestal over others. Everybody who is productive in society deserves the exact same treatment whether they are a bathroom attendant or an Astronaut, actually the bathroom attendant is probably has a tougher job to get up and go to in the morning.

That sounds great but the hard truth is some people contribute more to society than others. If you had to save either a brain surgeon or the hospital janitor, all other things being equal, who would you save? I would save the brain surgeon. I'm sure the janitor leads a tougher life, but the brain surgeon is more of an asset to society.

Quote: petroglyph

My point was, either of us would feel terrible for hitting either of them. The conversation started about guilt. I would feel awful for killing someone, but not guilty in the second students death, bad but not guilty, because I don't know how to have avoided the killing.

I agree.

Quote:

In the first instance, why would we feel guilty? It's not the death that causes the guilt, it's thinking we could have performed better, just like the B student. I don't want to go through life blaming myself for things out of my control or already happened. If in either instance we could have changed the outcome, of course we would. Guilt won't help anything, it makes it worse.

We should feel guilty because our drunk driving killed somebody. A feeling of guilt is healthy when it is our fault we hurt somebody else. That feeling makes us better people and thus the world a better place.

Quote: Wizard

A feeling of guilt is healthy when it is our fault we hurt somebody else. That feeling makes us better people and thus the world a better place.

Old English gylt originally meant "crime, sin, moral defect, failure of duty" but the meaning moved from the actual act to the current meaning of a sense of remorse. The transition took hundreds of years. Today you can "feel guilty" regardless of actually done any crime.

Remorse is verb of Latin origin related to Spanish verb "morder" which means "to bite". The literal meaning of "remorse" is to bite back.

Quote: Pacomartin

the current meaning of a sense of remorse.

The sense of remorse can be avoided
by thinking before you speak or act.
Which many people never seem to do.

Quote:

Today you can "feel guilty" regardless of actually done any crime..

You can blame that on the Church, they
institutionalized guilt. This is or was the
Cahtolics:

Sex was dirty. Sex was shameful. Sex was unnatural. Thinking about it was wrong. Premeditation itself was a sin, and so was flirting. Sex had one purpose: procreation, the joyless act of breeding. “The sixth commandment forbids all impurity and immodesty in words, looks and actions,” was admonition No. 256 in the Baltimore Catechism, the standard text used to teach the faith from 1885 to the late 1960s.

The guilt heaped on you from masurbation
alone was enough to keep you guilty for
a lifetime. The Church ruined lives and it
still does.

The Church is not to blame for guilt. Guilt is a natural and healthy response when we have sinned. Or when we have done something we know we shouldn't or not have done something we know we should have. I resonate with Evenbob that he doesn't like the feeling of guilt. Nobody does. I also feel his dilemma about how we overcome and move past these uncomfortable feelings of guilt. This is where Christ comes in.

God does not cause our guilt. You don't feel guilty for looking at porn and masturbating because of the Church. It's not something we are proud of and we know the destructive evils of porn. Same thing on a much bigger scale with drunk driving. No Church needs to tell you its wrong or makes you feel guilty. The Church offers to us a way to transform our guilt into repentance, conversion, and good actions. It frees us from guilt through God's forgiveness and love and replaces that uncomfortable feeling that all of us from Bob on down experience because of our sin, with a renewal of our goodness and encouragement to strive to do better. For the life of me I can't understand why Bob or anyone hates Christianity so much when all Christ is offering is freedom from sin and guilt and encouragement to be the precious and awesome people we were created to be.

Quote: FrGamble

You don't feel guilty for looking at porn and masturbating because of the Church. It's not something we are proud of and we know the destructive evils of porn.

Why should we feel guilt about that? What is so destructive about it?

Smells like a new thread.

Quote: Wizard

That sounds great but the hard truth is some people contribute more to society than others. If you had to save either a brain surgeon or the hospital janitor, all other things being equal, who would you save? I would save the brain surgeon. I'm sure the janitor leads a tougher life, but the brain surgeon is more of an asset to society.

I don't think we have enough information in our scenario to make a decision on your criteria. Does the brain surgeon beat his wife, abuse his kids, does a shitty job in the operating room. If the janitor doesn't clean the OR properly you can still die from your operation. Society is a triangle like the human pyramids you saw. Who is more important, the small person on the top that touches the goal or the strong ones on the bottom who support him?

I don't have trouble with "hard truths" but everyone has a different list about who contributes more to society. Teachers are often put near the top and I think they are closer to the bottom. Firemen and police are usually well up the list for their dangerous jobs. Construction workers die at a much higher rate doing their job. Your university A student is liable to end up as a barista at Starbucks.