Reg
07-31-2007, 06:27 AM
Hi Abbey,
I mentioned this to you on your thread about thinking God is punishing you. This may help you understand it a bit more.
Here is what I posted about this 01-24-2005. Black and White Thinking
I continue to communicate with a friend of mine in New York who also left my former group.
We have had a dialogue going on for a several years now. Here’s one of her latest posts. I
thought it might help us here by my response.
M,
U wrote: it's not your faith - it's the need for the obvious (whether or not it's obvious) "good"
and "evil" - the existence of duality explains away - or rationalizes - a lot of things people cannot
connect with.
---
I understand that a lot of things that are not good or evil. Just like there are a lot of colours beside
the extremes of B/W. In fact most of life is between the two. So don't keep labelling me as a
good/evil - B/W thinker. It may help you explain me to yourself but you would be very far from
being accurate. I realize we came out of the WCG and that kind of thinking. You still seem to
refer to me in that context. I'm not anywhere near there anymore. It's been nearly 7 years since
I've exited and been enlightened.
I read “Changes That Heal” a few years ago that talks about that kind of extreme thinking.
Chapter 4 "Sorting Out Good and Bad"
He talks about "duality" and "splitting".
The world around us is good and bad. We are good and bad. The problem enters in when our
natural tendency tries to resolve the problem of good and evil by keeping the good and the bad
separated. We want by nature, to experience the good me, the other good, and the good world as
"all good". To do this, we see the bad me, the bad other, and the bad world as "all bad". This
creates a split in our experience of ourselves, others, and the world around us - a split that is not
based on reality and cannot stand the test of time and the real life.
This splitting results in and inability to tolerate badness, weakness, and failure in ourselves and
others. It leads to two basic problems: sometimes we deny the existence of bad; at other times ,
we deny the existence of good. We feel like we are all bad when we fail, or we think we are all
good when we are doing well.
In addition, we blame and punish others for failing to be the all-good person we want them to be.
At other times, we deny the real badness they exhibit and end up with an unreal relationship with
them that ultimately fails.
In the world around us, we require perfection, and we devalue any church, group, or job that fails
our expectations. Either we withdraw from church, group, or job, only to move to another
imperfect and disappointing situation, or we idealize situations in a way that blinds us to their
bad points. In short, if we do not have the ability to tolerate and deal with the simultaneous
existence of good and bad, we cannot successfully deal with and live in this world, for the world
and we are precisely that: good and bad.
So you see, we and everything is a combination of both, good and evil.
However, there are very good things as well as very evil things. I know you don't believe it but
there is pure evil. I know. I've met it before. It gave me the willy's when I was in the bike gang.
Reg
I mentioned this to you on your thread about thinking God is punishing you. This may help you understand it a bit more.
Here is what I posted about this 01-24-2005. Black and White Thinking
I continue to communicate with a friend of mine in New York who also left my former group.
We have had a dialogue going on for a several years now. Here’s one of her latest posts. I
thought it might help us here by my response.
M,
U wrote: it's not your faith - it's the need for the obvious (whether or not it's obvious) "good"
and "evil" - the existence of duality explains away - or rationalizes - a lot of things people cannot
connect with.
---
I understand that a lot of things that are not good or evil. Just like there are a lot of colours beside
the extremes of B/W. In fact most of life is between the two. So don't keep labelling me as a
good/evil - B/W thinker. It may help you explain me to yourself but you would be very far from
being accurate. I realize we came out of the WCG and that kind of thinking. You still seem to
refer to me in that context. I'm not anywhere near there anymore. It's been nearly 7 years since
I've exited and been enlightened.
I read “Changes That Heal” a few years ago that talks about that kind of extreme thinking.
Chapter 4 "Sorting Out Good and Bad"
He talks about "duality" and "splitting".
The world around us is good and bad. We are good and bad. The problem enters in when our
natural tendency tries to resolve the problem of good and evil by keeping the good and the bad
separated. We want by nature, to experience the good me, the other good, and the good world as
"all good". To do this, we see the bad me, the bad other, and the bad world as "all bad". This
creates a split in our experience of ourselves, others, and the world around us - a split that is not
based on reality and cannot stand the test of time and the real life.
This splitting results in and inability to tolerate badness, weakness, and failure in ourselves and
others. It leads to two basic problems: sometimes we deny the existence of bad; at other times ,
we deny the existence of good. We feel like we are all bad when we fail, or we think we are all
good when we are doing well.
In addition, we blame and punish others for failing to be the all-good person we want them to be.
At other times, we deny the real badness they exhibit and end up with an unreal relationship with
them that ultimately fails.
In the world around us, we require perfection, and we devalue any church, group, or job that fails
our expectations. Either we withdraw from church, group, or job, only to move to another
imperfect and disappointing situation, or we idealize situations in a way that blinds us to their
bad points. In short, if we do not have the ability to tolerate and deal with the simultaneous
existence of good and bad, we cannot successfully deal with and live in this world, for the world
and we are precisely that: good and bad.
So you see, we and everything is a combination of both, good and evil.
However, there are very good things as well as very evil things. I know you don't believe it but
there is pure evil. I know. I've met it before. It gave me the willy's when I was in the bike gang.
Reg