Intergalactic Summit

If the objective to punish is sincere and true, what difference does it make if the Master is holding the scourge, or you holding it instead?

It is a gruesome struggle to overcome the hesitation in delivering yourself unto pain. We have known no greater exceptional circumstance. As they say, no one is harder on yourself than you.

The cleansing pits are not self-inflicted. There are many Amarrians who think that the flesh is sinful per se, that you need to "endure, and endure, until you're basically a wisp of flesh and bone with a soul sort of flapping loose in the breeze, attached in place by a pin." But that's really a fringe view - though I'm not surprised to find a far above average percentage of those flaggelants amongst the capsuleers of the Ermpire.

Remember: The very flesh of the royal Heirs is considered sacred. How could this be, if the flesh is inherently sinful? No, the flesh in itself is neither sinful nor sacred.

The flesh is, very much, as Pieter suggests, rightfully to be considered a tool first and foremost. If your foot steps astray all the time and your eyes are usually blind to what is right, then this is because they were not cultivated by you and your educators to step right and to look true. It's also not the foot that feels the pain or the eye, but the one possessing the foot or the eye. You can't strictly punish the flesh - you can only punish corporeally the one who has a body of flesh.

Self-flaggelation might thus have a place, but it is quite limited in the scope of what it can actually achieve. Some people surely put too much energy into punishing themselves, energy that would be much better spent in actions of righteousness - which are also much more fit to atone for sinful deeds.

The true hardship is never found in self-centered punishment that further disrupts the harmony of the body, but in action on the behalf of what is Good, True and Beautiful and which thus relates ourselves to others in harmonious and productive ways.

As I explained once before, this particular Scripture has been modified by the wayward liberals within the Empire, changing it from a tale about a man who got closer to God by flagellating his slaves into one about a man who got closer to God by flagellating himself.

Don't flagellate yourself. Flagellate slaves. Amen. Amarr Victor.

The body, though, is not an enemy: It is a tool. It needs to be used in the right way. And right usage of the body depends on cultivating inner virtue. The enemy are urges that are out of measure and improper and those one can't strike with the leash

Self-flagellation isn't internal reflection either. At best it is an external result of internal reflection. Not forgiving yourself committing a sin doesn't neccessitate self-flagellation.

Also, it's not whether God is watching or not: It's about choosing good over evil for the sake of goodness. If you only follow God's command because of fear of punishment, rather than out of understanding the wisdom of His command, then you remain an imperfect tool.

Indeed we need to start with our souls - not our bodies. If the soul is in order and predisposed to do as is right, then the body will follow. Because the body is to the soul as a hammer is to the smith. And who would blame the hammer for a failed workpiece and not the smith?

Yes, punishment has a place: And to some minor extent does self-flagellation. But ultimately both are crooks to shed. The aim is to cultivate the spirit to be predisposed towards the good and that is an encouraging, positive, creative process - it's a goal that can't possibly be reached by the discouraging, negative, destructive process of bodily punishment. Bodily punishment is for slavish creatures - but it is that above which man can and should rise. We're not supposed to merely avoid foul deeds for fear of (self-)punishment, but we should strive to do good and engage in noble acts for the value that lies in them.

Also, no: If someone steals from me, I'm not punishing them. That'd be vigilante justice. I turn him in to the proper authorities for punishment. My place is rtaher to find forgiveness for that poor soul - and maybe to find out why he stole and to enable him to make a living, righteously. At least to find a way for him to reimburse me fairly.

The true act of righteousness, if you stole, is not flagellating your hand in private, but to make amends, to humble yourself publicly and to reimburse the one who got damaged by your foul deeds. Or even better, to not desire what is rightfully anothers in the first place and thus not to steal. That desire is not in your hand, though, but in your soul.

The foundations to which a man has to be stripped are thus not corporeal, but rather within the soul. Envy, vanity, egotism - these are enemies not only to be controlled but to be overcome. (As the single human is not an Empire: The Empire needs 'merely' to control the enemies on the inside and defeat those on the outside to allow the individual faithfuls to overcome their flaws in the cultivation of spirit - the ultimate goal of the Empire.) If we shed those trappings we lay our soul bare and come closest to God.

Self-flaggelation - at least in itself - won't make anything right. Punishment, even if well deserved, doesn't reimburse or compensate a damaged party. It also carries the risk that the flagellant will think that after any misdeed, corporeal self-punishment will lead to God's approval of him.

But that isn't true. God doesn't want us to be punished for wrongful action: He wants us to choose righteous action.

Being righteous is not about self-flagellation if others don't punish you. It's not about not doing what is wrong, for fear of punishment. It's not about being deterred from wrongful action. Not doing what is wrong might just as well be found in inaction, rather than righteous action. It's about taking the right course of action and righting the wrongs you comitted because you aim for righteousness.

The question is, what do you learn from punishment? You learn not to act in a certain way.
But you should learn to act in a certain, even if another way. Punishment doesn't teach you to act righteously.

Also, again, if you get a failed workpiece from a smith, how will you teach the hammer to hit right? No, you need to teach the smith to wield the hammer in the right way and thus in the same way you have to start with the soul.

Of course anything the soul does uses the body as a tool: But destroying the tool won't make the soul any better, nor the body a better tool - just as damaging the hammer won't make a better smith, nor a better hammer.

How do you teach someone to do something right? Not by punishing, but by being a good example. Thus, if you want to better yourself, then seek for a good example and imitate that. The judgment of what is a good example, whether to imitate someone or not, to chose an action for it's goodness. All that are faculties of the soul and thus habituating oneself to do good starts within the soul. The same when someone else provides a good example, with the exception that it starts in his soul not yours.

This is why we all can and should strive to imitate God, who is not bodily nor perceptible by the bodily senses, but by the faculties of our soul: The Teacher of all teachers.

It's about accepting the fact that we all do sin, Vellum, instead of falsely and arrogantly believing that we can 100% avoid all sin. We are weak and easily tempted by the Beast. Self-flagellation is an active effort to better ourselves, instead of passively pretending we are without sin.


Ms. Mithra: If the smith is producing you poor workpieces, and is not improving, then you take the hammer away from him until he proves himself worthy to wield it again. If a worker is failing to do their job, then they should not be allowed to keep doing it.

Good examples only work on people who want to follow the example. Sin is far more tempting to most, and so when given the choice between following a good example or a bad one, most will seek out the bad one instead of the good one. Do you not punish them then?

In no way and in no place do I say that the act grants any sort of mantle of righteousness, or indulgence for sin.

If others say these things then let their guilt for vanity be upon them.

it' is not a sacrament for all to partake in, and in fact some I would caution away from it.

But for myself and the order I studied under... I have found it to be useful.

How would a smith prove himself worthy to wield a hammer, if he's not allowed to wield one? How can he show that he acquired skill with the hammer, if he's not allowed to wield it? And more importantly, how would he acquire skill with the hammer, if the hammer is taken away?

No, to acquire skill with the hammer, you need to make use of it to gather experience in how to use it and to make a habit out of using it right.



In my experience humans seek to follow good examples more than the bad ones: Only the most slavish of mankind chose to follow bad examples. Some people though have difficulty in exercising the faculty of the soul that discerns good from bad. That, again, isn't something you can change by corporeal punishment, but by education.

Either way, punishment won't lead to good actions on the side of the punished. The most it can achieve is deterring from vile deeds.

I would like to add that respondent conditionning is, in fine, not very different in its results than what TCMCs do. It tries to trick the mind by altering the senses provided by the body. It trains the mind to react a certain way to certain stimuli.

It is, indeed, a crutch.

I think though, that... cultivating the mind through ascetic values for the body, to aleviate distractful annoyances and provide a clean spiritual development, may have a lot of merits...

By the way, if there's any of you out there who have trouble with the whole self-flagellation thing pop over to Gallente space. We have plenty of clubs where people will be more than happy to help you with your punishment.