๐ฒ๐๐๐'๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ "๐บ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐"
"Whenever you set out to build a creative temple, whatever it may be, you must face the fact that there is a tension at the heart of the universe between good and evil. Hinduism refers to this as a struggle between illusion and reality. Platonic philosophy used to refer to it as a tension between body and soul. Zoroastrianism, a religion of old, used to refer to it as a tension between the god of light and the god of darkness. Traditional Judaism and Christianity refer to it as a tension between God and Satan. Whatever you call it, there is a struggle in the universe between good and evil.
Now not only is that struggle structured out somewhere in the external forces of the universe, it's structured in our own lives. Psychologists have tried to grapple with it in their way, and so they say various things. Sigmund Freud used to say that this tension is a tension between what he called the id and the superego. Some of us feel that it's a tension between God and man. And in every one of us, there's a war going on. It's a civil war. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there's something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It's going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There's a civil war going on.
There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us. And we end up having to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, 'I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.' We end up having to agree with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, wanting to go in different directions. Or sometimes we even have to end up crying out with Saint Augustine as he said in his Confessions, 'Lord, make me pure, but not yet.' We end up crying out with the Apostle Paul, 'The good that I would I do not: And the evil that I would not, that I do.' Or we end up having to say with Goethe that 'there's enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.' There's a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.
In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives. In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right." - Martin Luther King Jr., _The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr._, Chapter Thirty-two, "Unfulfilled Dreams"
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__King's Thoughts on Nietzsche, Gandhi, and the Fundamental and Liberal Interpretations of Christianity__: https://lemmy.world/post/43175379
Now not only is that struggle structured out somewhere in the external forces of the universe, it's structured in our own lives. Psychologists have tried to grapple with it in their way, and so they say various things. Sigmund Freud used to say that this tension is a tension between what he called the id and the superego. Some of us feel that it's a tension between God and man. And in every one of us, there's a war going on. It's a civil war. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there's something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It's going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There's a civil war going on.
There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us. And we end up having to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, 'I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.' We end up having to agree with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, wanting to go in different directions. Or sometimes we even have to end up crying out with Saint Augustine as he said in his Confessions, 'Lord, make me pure, but not yet.' We end up crying out with the Apostle Paul, 'The good that I would I do not: And the evil that I would not, that I do.' Or we end up having to say with Goethe that 'there's enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.' There's a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.
In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives. In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right." - Martin Luther King Jr., _The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr._, Chapter Thirty-two, "Unfulfilled Dreams"
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__King's Thoughts on Nietzsche, Gandhi, and the Fundamental and Liberal Interpretations of Christianity__: https://lemmy.world/post/43175379