Modern psychology continues to attempt to catch up with Jesus. He knew that people hate to be called hypocrites, thus he says in Matt 23
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
That is just one of my favorites, it is a litany of "you hypocrites", with the "whitewashed tombs" being a metaphor that stings me hard enough to be more memorable -- I'm a tomb lacking even decent whitewash.
Strangely though, while the amoral poltical left, who proudly proclaim that they are not hypocrites since they have no values, love to talk of "Christian hypocrisy", no true practicing Christain can be a hypocrite. Why?
Because if we really believe what we say before at least some of our communion rituals, we don't ever claim any form of sinlessness -- we proclaim our SINFULNESS and beg for redemption.
I confess to God Almighty, before the whole company of heaven and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned in thought, word, and deed by my fault, by my own fault, by my own most grievous fault; wherefore I pray God Almighty to have mercy on me, forgive me all my sins, and bring me to everlasting life. Amen.
The article talks a lot about why hypocrites are hated, (it's all about falsely signallying morality), then goes on to recommend that we say things like "I think it is morally wrong to waste energy, but sometimes I do it anyway". This would seem to be tautalogically true, since if wasting energy is morally wrong, all the energy wasted by the computers involved in typing the artitcle in and spraying it over the internet would clearly be "immoral".
"Morality" used to be something special -- murder, lying, infidelity, etc. Improper use of a resourse was once about efficency, engineering trade-offs and such rather than "morality".
So given this latest NYT view, is hypocrisy possible without talking? When Al Gore flys to a warm climate on a private jet to discuss global warming, is is action "moral hypocrisy", since he clearly did not use the most energy efficient conveyance possible?
And some thought that medieval theologians were wasting time as they discussed how many angels could fit on the head of a pin!
"Morality" used to be something special -- murder, lying, infidelity, etc. Improper use of a resourse was once about efficency, engineering trade-offs and such rather than "morality".
So given this latest NYT view, is hypocrisy possible without talking? When Al Gore flys to a warm climate on a private jet to discuss global warming, is is action "moral hypocrisy", since he clearly did not use the most energy efficient conveyance possible?
And some thought that medieval theologians were wasting time as they discussed how many angels could fit on the head of a pin!
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