Posted by Skep on April 06, 2011 at 16:40:59
In Reply to: Re: A Little Reflection off Skep's Thoughts on Free Will posted by CB on April 06, 2011 at 08:20:40:
A difficult subject indeed.
The way I tackle my answers is not so much self-centric, as in trying to understand "my freedom". That is tricky. I don't think we'll stop wrestling with our freedoms as we expand our experience of God, maybe until after we move on from this life.
I examine freedom by looking at the extent it gets deliberately limited by others. This normally happens through barriers such as laws, practices and regulations. Peer pressure was effectively used in TFI, where some people had enough clout to claim exceptions.
All human organizations and communities develop acceptable behaviors. Unacceptable are punished. Membership to a social construct is determined by contract between each individual and the community as a whole. By definition, when we accept the limitations placed by the community's norms, we are already voluntarily curtailing our own freedoms.
From a self-centered perspective, maybe we make errors in judgment and join a group, any group. But from the perspective of the natural and spiritual ethos of the community, when some one in a position of leadership forces certain behaviors on others, the virtue of the community is affected.
Just like each one of us is not an island, neither are communities. They exist within a community of communities.
Being oppressed is the effect of others "sinning against the Hole Spirit". The spiritual fight is for us not to succumb to that attitude. If we are free then we will not oppress, even if we are oppressed. We are members of many communities now, but in TF we were only citizens of one community. As members of that community our only contact with outsiders was through the filters of people we trusted. We trusted them, we made a mistake, but we were not sinning against the Holy Spirit. They were.
I don't find anything in the Gospels that is contradictory. If you do, please let me know.
This is just work in progress.