tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post6299701865909230376..comments2024-03-29T15:13:42.610+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Dishonesty - The biggest, most important sin in the world?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-16396691323987081612020-11-06T22:54:59.212+00:002020-11-06T22:54:59.212+00:00Thankyou Bruce. A very helpful and enlivening resp...Thankyou Bruce. A very helpful and enlivening response. For your reminder of repentance. And your final paragraph about not encouraging sin in others. Most important of all. Priests and businessmen.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03946091504543472643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-69384589693132892882020-11-06T21:42:01.957+00:002020-11-06T21:42:01.957+00:00Comment from CM:
"How do you make business d...Comment from CM:<br /><br />"How do you make business decisions based on truth (and a necessary regard for the bottom line) in an environment where the external parameters are changed frequently by the government with massive financial consequences. Based on lies? <br /><br />Government has changed the rules of business and is reconfiguring the financial incentives that form business decisions in an unprecedented way. Based on lies and huge arbitrary policies and complex rules.<br />It is not easy to intuit truth and good action amidst."<br /><br />If the government has decided that your kind of business is 'inessential' to he Great Resent world; then I suppose Their plan is that some combination of birdemic rules, affirmative action, carbon tax or sheer bureaucracy will drive you out of business as a matter of strategy. But deniably. <br /><br />I can't see how we can behave with integrity in this world. But we can repent our failures, and luckily that will suffice. <br /><br />I sometimes find it helpful to imagine being a slave. As a slave, it may be that one's actions (including speech) are compelled - the choice is obedience or death. But so long as the slave knows truth and virtue, and repents his lies and other compelled sins, this situation is not a problem for salvation. Our situation is not so different, except in degree. <br /><br />The main temptation to avoid is encouraging sins in others - the specialty of intellectuals. To be an apologist for sin (like a journalist, author or movie maker who glamourises or encourages sin - or inversion of values) is, I'm pretty sure, morally worse than doing the sin itself. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-25083838676886177802020-11-06T18:33:42.152+00:002020-11-06T18:33:42.152+00:00@Andrew - Well said - and this is very important i...@Andrew - Well said - and this is very important indeed:<br /><br />"This seems to make the most sense from the understanding that this is part of the process of damnation. If even if the demonic forces loudly proclaim their plans, and you acquiesce, it implies damnation. A little obfuscation, the salesman's lie, but you still chose evil with full knowledge."<br /><br />We are, indeed, being told what They will do. If we *then* deny that They are indeed doing it (or have-done it) then we are complicit; and just-are on the same side. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-46477827486255710002020-11-06T17:59:21.061+00:002020-11-06T17:59:21.061+00:00I suspect America may have been the last piece of ...I suspect America may have been the last piece of the puzzle before the full "Great Reset" plans are laid bare. The fraudulent candidate openly promises a "dark winter", and stated "America is dead." This will begin with the stated plan of forcibly shutting everything down again, and indefinitely beginning in early 2021.<br /><br />This would, of course, result in the expected food shortages and general collapse, while permanently enforcing the virtual reality on all citizens.Andrewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-52593774641457255422020-11-06T17:56:23.065+00:002020-11-06T17:56:23.065+00:00I've found it interesting that both with the c...I've found it interesting that both with the current election, and in general the pandemic response / "Great Reset" / 2020 - all the plans were public and in the open before the incidents occurred. Anyone who wants may see all the plans.<br /><br />https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/transition-integrity-project-report/<br /><br />The Left was very clearly, and stated vocally before the election, that they would not concede and would not be defeated no matter what, and then laid bare their plans - including and up to using violent force to remove the President.<br /><br />This seems to make the most sense from the understanding that this is part of the process of damnation. If even if the demonic forces loudly proclaim their plans, and you acquiesce, it implies damnation. A little obfuscation, the salesman's lie, but you still chose evil with full knowledge. Andrewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-88141466977221625112020-11-06T13:54:35.018+00:002020-11-06T13:54:35.018+00:00@Gary - Excellent comment!@Gary - Excellent comment!Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-65758608597278902242020-11-06T12:53:58.231+00:002020-11-06T12:53:58.231+00:00It is not in vain that much is said of the devil a...It is not in vain that much is said of the devil as being a liar, the father of lies, as having no truth within him. Other things are said of him, but this characteristic is perhaps the most salient of them all.<br /><br /><br />The main modus operandi of the devil is indeed fakery, because truthfulness would lead us to God, would cause us to love Christ and desire to follow Him. This, by necessity... a man who sees the truth... who comprehends the truth with his heart cannot but wish to follow Christ. Those who want "other things" are those that still have a "blocked heart" on some speficic level... as you have said in other writings, God may well give these people what they want after dying, but that will always be lesser than what could´ve been.<br /><br />Having lived the bulk of my life in South America, outside of a decade in my 20's living in the UK (during the 2010's), I´ve have a lot of experience living in cultures of dishonesty - cultures where people really don´t care about honesty, where honesty is seen as a fool's errand, and where this has always been the case and where everybody knows it and nacknowledges it. Even though I am referring to South America, the UK I experienced was quickly on its way in the that direction. I am well aware that it hadn´t always been that way, because I was raised, both at home and at school, under the old-school British standards of education, and honesty was still a very big deal... <br /><br />A real moral, bottom-line, matter.<br /><br />What we are seeing now is that these "pockets of honesty" (As far as I´m aware, anglo culture mainly, probably some others which I'm not familiar with, in any case, not the rule) are gone, and all countries are now "banana republics". The consequences of this will be monumentous and catastrophic, no doubt, on a global scale. Because, truthfully, the only reason Banana republics are even republics in the first place (as opposed to something much less sophisticated), is because they have attached themselves to cultures of honesty, and depend upon these for sustenance, especially economic and technological sustenance.<br /><br />The main difference between historically dishonest societies, and newly dishonest societies, is that the newly dishonest societies still hold on to the vestigial shame of being accused of dishonesty. This makes the dishonesty even harder to root out once it has set in, because as you have mentioend in your post, people are extremely dishonest but have still a need to be felt as being honest. Thus they lie to themselves as much as to others, and will doggedly refuse to accept that they are lying through their teeth, both outwardly and inwardly, almost the whole time, out of shame.<br /><br />When people who used to be honest, become dishonest, their dishonesty becomes harder to root out, and more dogged, because they still feel shame at accusations of dihonesty without the "interior drive" to actually be honest. This, ironically, makes these people(s) enter into a deeper sin.<br /><br />"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required". In this case, if you have previously had the privilige of belonging to a culture of honesty, with the great fruits that that brings forth, when you finally decide you're tired of it and can´t be bothered to care, your fall will be even greater.<br /><br />In conclusion, I agree that the holding up of Honesty as a key, bottom-line virtue is something which is a necessary precondition for Godliness, rightousness and salvation... perhaps more than any other. And for this to flourish among the people, this needs to be seen with the eyes of the spirit, then needs to be enforced seriously, firstly by and within the ruling classes and then, by example, by the rest of the population. If it isn´t, then it won´t happen, because the costs of honesty will be too big for most people, and the (percieved) advantages of lying, too tempting and "obvious".<br />Gary Bleasdalenoreply@blogger.com