There was an interesting quote in the movie 'kite runner' which I saw this afternoon. This may be quite confused because I'm still mulling on it, but I thought I'd post it as food for thought anyway.

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There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.

I found this so interesting. It made so much sense. And then I was wondering why, and I guess it aligns with my belief that something can only be 'wrong' if it harms another. The theft analogy didn't 100% work for me because it really puts the onus over onto the idea of 'rights' and what a person DOES have a right to - lots of people think they have rights that impinge on others rights or are just plain stupid. But I wonder if it can, at least, be the 'necessary but not sufficient' filter... something cannot be 'wrong' unless it is, for a start, depriving someone of something...

I dunno, just thoughts rattling around my brain.

I read this book earlier this year and it deeply affected me. Thank you for bringing it up.

This book brought up so much about guilt and repentence...and absolution. It's been 7 months since I finished and I ponder the book often in my thoughts.

I'll dig out my copy tomorrow and put some thoughts together. Heh...my brain is squishy now.

Off to bed - night everyone.

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it aligns with my belief that something can only be 'wrong' if it harms another

So then ... tell me what action you could take, or thought you could have, that would not have a universal dimension?

P

Hmmm. Good point - I suppose like what you said on the other thread about how do you know the effects of your actions.
But I think there is SOME distinction between something that can be 'reasonably forseen' to directly harm another, versus something where that outcome would not reasonably be expected. For instance in kite runner the topic where it came up was drinking alcohol - and for the average social drinker I'd say it would be reasonable to expect this not to cause anybody harm. However to physically hurt someone, steal from them, etc.... well it's pretty much guaranteed to cause harm. I mean maybe by some stroke of luck your hitting them prevented them from going out that night and getting hit by a bus, but the forseeable impact is that you harmed them, and did it with knowledge of that outcome.
I'm not sure I believe EVERYTHING has a universal impact... (I have an itch on my leg and I'm pretty sure the universe is affected negligibly by my scratching it) but I do agree it's hard to tell what does/will.

I guess there's a lot of grey in the forseeability aspect of stuff. Kind of like the other thread on polyamoury etc... an affair one could pretty much take for granted WILL hurt the betrayed party, and that harm is a forseeable consequence. Polyamoury... hmmm... well the intention is that nobody would get hurt... yet there's arguably an increased risk of somebody getting emotionally hurt... so the forseeability aspect in that case is probably very much a matter of personal philosophies. Then again, I suppose somebody who has an affair with the intention of the betrayed partner never finding out (and hence never feeling hurt) could argue the same. Maybe the way he phrased it with rights was actually more apt than harm. But I find a lot of grey with the concept of rights too...

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(I have an itch on my leg and I'm pretty sure the universe is affected negligibly by my scratching it)

Are you sure?

Let's say you scratch the itch. When you do you move your hand that waves away the fly that was going to rest on the table near you. Instead it flies nearer the door and leaves the house when otherwise it might not have. Since it leaves the house at an entirely different time than it would have had you not scratched the itch on your leg its path of flight is forever altered. So the fly may land on something carrying a dread disease and it might infect someone who is at risk and they may sicken. AND .... along every nano second of that tiny scenario are hundreds of thousands of other choices, thoughts, and actions by millions of other beings all intersecting and connecting and interacting. Each having an impact on all the others .... and none of which can be controlled by us once its out of our brain/body.

Being aware of the web and how we are all connected (as physics so clearly tells us) is one of the great mysteries of life. As the Dalai Lama says in my favorite quote of all time "Our every act has a universal dimension."

So ..... to assume that we can predict the outcome or the possibility of harm from our limited view - which tends to be isolationist - is ..... naive. In the case of the social drinker the action and the choice could possibly be seen as somewhat larger than whether or not to scratch and itch. (I could make a bigger case for universal dimension if we were to talk about not scratching.) Just one beer, in a man, significantly decreases his ability to regulate emotions. Huge impact with universal dimensions - and the outcome is not predictable. The outcome - whether its something as thoughtless as when we blink or as profound as how much we drink - is largely out of our hands.

BUT ...... the state of mind and heart we hold is within our control. Now we can talk about social drinking and whether it is ethically positive or negative ... or neutral. Same with scratching or blinking.

I personally have a hard time with the word 'sin'. At first blush I agree that so many things we see as destructive can be brought back to the idea of stealing. Interestingly it's one of the definitions a student once had for the concept of harm: stealing (or destroying - the book you reference would align it to stealing and I wouldn't disagree) another's ability to evolve and grow in a positive manner.

I think, though, if I were to play with a definition of sin it would have to be deeper than that. (This got me into trouble in Catholic school when I was 14 btw) - that sin is not the action - that is simply the outer manifestation of something that has already occurred in the heart and the soul ..... a violation of conscience/Values that allows you to act with malice (or negligence!) toward another. I almost said toward *self* or another --- but the malice or negligence toward Self is already perpetrated when the conscience/Values are violated.

P

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Kind of like the other thread on polyamoury etc... an affair one could pretty much take for granted WILL hurt the betrayed party, and that harm is a forseeable consequence.

Oh dear .... this is going to get me into a whole lot of trouble .... I can feel it coming .... but here goes. I'm not sure I agree 'harm' is the correct word. Hurt - most definitely. Harm? I'm not sure. Which is NOT to say I think it's acceptable ..... I don't ..... I'm just not sure I agree it causes harm to another. To Self? Absolutely! Which will take us in a circular path back to your suggestion that harming self is ok ..... and the concept of universality .... and that harming Self will inevitably lead to pain in others -- and possible harm on their part as well.

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Polyamoury... hmmm... well the intention is that nobody would get hurt... yet there's arguably an increased risk of somebody getting emotionally hurt...

Mmmmmm ...... it's not intent I suggest as the determinant factor --- it's state of heart and mind. WHY does one want to take the action in question? What is the motivating state of heart and mind that drives and informs it? Not the same as intent at all.

P

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Are you sure?

No... BUT I'm not a big believer in the whole big outcomes to little things butterfly flaps it's wings stuff. I do believe that everything interacts... but I feel that in the majority of cases, those little things kind of cancel out and add up to very little. Of course, can't tell which are the ones that don't...

I find 'sin' a much more loaded word than 'wrong' for some reason - maybe the fact that it's usually religiously associated.

That's an interesting point about the action as manifestation of something that has already occurred. Reminds me of some previous conversation (here or elsewhere?) about some biblical quote - hmmm let me go find it.

Ah here it is

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whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart

- I remember being young and reading something similar and thinking "geez that's a bit harsh - the person hasn't actually done anything" and while I still think there's a point to be argued there - I read and now see that there's also a point to be argued that once that permission has happened in the brain, the body often follows (if given opportunity). So in some way the deed has already been done, whether or not opportunity follows. I guess what opportunity tests though, is whether full permission really HAS been given in the mind or whether it's one of those cases of "but when it came down to it I just couldn't do that..."

On a tangent, I must say there's a lot of stuff which I kind of imbibed through my childrens bible that took on a nursery rhyme-like nature - in that I'd know the quotes/principles but never really have thought fully about their meaning. Watching Kite Runner yesterday made me realise another of these - there was a scene where these horrible child abusers stoned a woman for adultery - and suddenly the whole "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" hit me like the wisest thing I'd ever heard. I mean it always made sense in a "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" sort of way - but I never really got hit by it the way I did yesterday - imagining a whole lot of people caught up in righteous indignation about 'punishing' a 'wrong' in such an extreme manner... and what it would mean for somebody they respected to just stand up and say - "ok who's going to start... err... who has never done anything wrong?". It was a very interesting image.
I guess one of those areas of life it would be nice if I had more time to devote some study to.

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Watching Kite Runner yesterday made me realise another of these - there was a scene where these horrible child abusers stoned a woman for adultery - and suddenly the whole "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" hit me like the wisest thing I'd ever heard. I mean it always made sense in a "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" sort of way - but I never really got hit by it the way I did yesterday - imagining a whole lot of people caught up in righteous indignation about 'punishing' a 'wrong' in such an extreme manner... and what it would mean for somebody they respected to just stand up and say - "ok who's going to start... err... who has never done anything wrong?". It was a very interesting image.

I didn't see the movie, but I read the book. And the book definitely conveyed the writer's dismay at the violent results of religion on his home country of Afghanistan. I think he was saying that our betrayals DO have universal consequences...that what we loathe in ourselves, we take out on others. Those that stoned the adulterers, had committed heinous sexual acts themselves.

I was floored reading Rahim's final letter to Amir about Amir's father's passing. The father had committed adultery with a friend's wife, creating a son that he could not recognize as his son because the mother came from a tribe that was seen as less than human. He could never admit that the servant boy in his home was his son, even to his other son, who he was quite hard on throughout the son's life. And yet, his recognized son lived a life of privilege due to discrimination. Each "sin" morphed into a larger betrayal.

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Amir, I know how hard your father was on you when you were growing up. I saw how you suffered and yearned for his affections, and my heart bled for you. But your father was a man torn between two halves: you and Hassan. He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he longed to, openly, and as a father. So he took it out on you instead. - Amir the socially legitamate half, the half that represented the riches he had inherited and the sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them. When he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt. You are still angry and I realize it is far too early to expect you to accept this, but maybe someday you will see that when your father was hard on you, he was also being hard on himself. Your father, like you, was a tortured soul.

I cannot describe to you the depth and blackness of the sorrow that came over me when I learned of his passing. I loved him because he was my friend, but also because he was a good man, maybe even a great man. And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father's remorse. Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is was true redemption is Amir, when guilt leads to good.

Amir, who lived the privileged life...betrayed the servant friend/brother (who he didn't know at the time was a brother). He ran away when the boy was raped by neighborhood bullies. And the universal consequences of that betrayal created such sadness and harm....a guilt he could not escape even through punishment. Until he gave himself to selflessness and adopted the son of his brother, only then could he begin to repair the pain.

And the end made me cry...when Amir ran the kite for the boy, in the role of the servant. The end line was: "I ran." He ran as a kite servant, instead of running away from the rape/betrayal. He committed to selflessness which was the only reprieve from his guilt.

It was such a beautiful book.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: GS_SYMC,

Thanks for posting those quotes from the book. I've been wondering whether to read it, but I avoid things I find emotionally traumatic so I haven't yet. I guess it's moot anyway - I haven't had time to read since K was born!

But I like that explanation of why the father acted to Amir the way he did. I hadn't thought of that - I guess that is something the movie missed portraying (or I missed catching). What struck me about the whole thing was more the father being disappointed in him for not being brave and standing up to bullies - yet in the end he wouldn't stand up for his illegitimate son.

Hey since you've read it, can I ask you - why did Hassan and his father leave? I didn't quite understand that from the movie... did Hassan's father know about what had happened?

It's an interesting point, about when guilt leads to good. I can see how it would apply to Amir - there was no way he could undo what had been done after a certain time. So he made amends another way.
But I wonder about the father. When guilt leads to good... but at any stage instead of giving money to orphanages etc he could have chosen to risk his reputation and recognise his illegitimate son at any time... but yet he didn't... I don't know, the good seems more like a way of running away from the guilt. He could still make amends to the actual injured party... but chose to try and 'offset' it in socially acceptable ways to other parties... I'm not sure what I think about that. It's not quite the same as guilt leading to good, somehow.

It was a good movie. I think I will have to read the book. Maybe when K is 18 or so I'll have some time...

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I haven't had time to read since K was born!

I hear you on that one! Honestly, I haven't read much since my children came along...and they are 11 and 7 now. That's a long time without many books and I miss them. I look forward to making it more of a priority soon...but I don't regret being with the little ones when they needed me. The end of the day would come, and I would be too exhausted to do anything else but crash (only to get woken up several times during the night). Still get woken up. Ah well..I'll miss them when they aren't small anymore.

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why did Hassan and his father leave? I didn't quite understand that from the movie... did Hassan's father know about what had happened?

Yes, I believe his father did knwow what had happened...but that wasn't why they left. Amir couldn't stand the guilt of having Hassan around, so he was really mean to him. Didn't want anything to do with him after poor Hassan was raped...Hassan's presence reminded Amir of his own betrayal. To finish the deal, Amir planted some money and his watch in Hassan's bed and accused him of stealing.

And when Amir/Hassan's father asked Hassan if he stole the watch, he said yes. His last sacrifice for his friend who he loved so much. The father would have believed Hassan if he denied it...and Hassan knew his presence made Amir mad, which meant he knew that Amir had seen the rape (Amir tried to hide that)....so he knew Amir betrayed him yet he was rescuing Amir again.

The father said he forgave Hassan for the theft...which surprised Amir because stealing was unforgivable in Afghanistan. This is where your quote came in Mags, that "when you kill a man, you steal a life..etc." Stealing is bad news there.

Ali (who Hassan thought was his father) then said they were leaving the house. Ali wanted to protect his son from Amir....and it was then clear Hassan had told Ali everything. Ali knew everything Amir had done, yet he couldn't call him on it because of the discrimination issue and the fact he owed Amir father's so much. Amir's father never knew why they left, but the rest of them did know.

One lie/betrayal/wrong....turned into so much more...and more...and more. So much hurt.

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But I wonder about the father. When guilt leads to good... but at any stage instead of giving money to orphanages etc he could have chosen to risk his reputation and recognise his illegitimate son at any time... but yet he didn't... I don't know, the good seems more like a way of running away from the guilt. He could still make amends to the actual injured party... butI chose to try and 'offset' it in socially acceptable ways to other parties... I'm not sure what I think about that. It's not quite the same as guilt leading to good, somehow.

I don't disagree. BUT...remember the location and the time. Adultry and illegitimate children in Afghanistan was taboo, especially when Hassan's mother was from a tribe that was seen as the bottom of the barrell. There was a great deal of shame and a very high price to be paid for his indiscretion. Very high. When the Taliban killed the adulters in the stadium - those feelings of Muslim/Afghan customs go way back before the Taliban. And the book goes into a lot of detail about how Afghans see family and proper customs. It's huge with them.

So..he chose the road less controversial and loved his son in the only way he thought he could. Right? Probably not, but understandable.

Again, in this book it isn't God that doesn't forgive...it humans. And the harm that creates has universal consequences, especially for those who don't recognize the harm and make amends. Even when Amir saves the boy at the end, the boy really didn't turn around until Amir stopped thinking about himself and his guilt and started putting the boy first.

It took me awhile to get into this book, but soon after I was riveted!

It had so many messages for WS's like me. The first was recognizing my harm.

And um...Penny, speaking of which, I don't understand what you said that affairs don't cause harm. I really don't. Huh?

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And um...Penny, speaking of which, I don't understand what you said that affairs don't cause harm. I really don't. Huh?

Actually what I mean is they don't cause harm to others. They cause a terrific amount of harm to Self.

That of course uses the definition of harm I've adopted for my ethics class which is something like: Halts or makes impossible the growth or evolution of a person. That's not exactly right but it's close. And of course the only person whose growth we can control is our own.

If that's the case then the only person we can harm (short of killing someone or completely incapacitating them) is ourselves.

It makes a lovely circle of energy when we take into account that we are most likely to hurt or cause pain to another when we are disconnected from our Core Value or most essential Self - the state of causing harm. So we cause harm (to ourSelf) when we act w/o compassion (aka in a way that is ethically negative) and cause pain or hurt to another person. That harm makes it more likely that we will continue to behave in a way that is ethically negative causing more pain / suffering to another.

If we add in the interconnectedness of all things it also creates the choice for the other person(s) to either respond with compassion in a way that is ethically positive or to perpetrate harm upon him/herSelf by reacting w/o compassion / from afflictive emotion / in a way that is ethically negative.

That is NOT to say that an affair is ok or that it does not cause pain, suffering, destruction, and a host of other undesirable things.

P

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That of course uses the definition of harm I've adopted for my ethics class which is something like: Halts or makes impossible the growth or evolution of a person. That's not exactly right but it's close. And of course the only person whose growth we can control is our own.

Ahh. Hmm. Well that's not the definition most people use for harm. I agree about growth, but what does that have to do about harm? That we should each grow no matter how much maliciousness is inflicted on us? Sure...and in fact, growth can be more remarkable in the face of malicious harm.

So, when a father leaves his wife/family because he became involved with someone else...lies, cheats, steals, is absent, creating chaos for little ones making them feel insecure, lonely and with plunging self-esteem...that's not harm? It's up to the kids to get over and grow up?

I really disagree with this concept. It's a huge excuse/rationalization for bad behavior in my opinion.

PS - this kind of conversation is exactly why I really couldn't handle philosophy classes in college. High brow conversations that are really disjointed from real life beliefs.

In this definition he causes pain, suffering, destruction to others - and to himself too. But he causes -harm- to himself only.

It's simply a way of differentiating between the energetic exchanges of an event. We could make up a word to use for this or pick something like 'apple' - he only 'apples' himself and perhaps remove some of the emotional baggage associated with the word - but it doesn't change the concept. And it doesn't make us think quite so deeply about our own emotional triggers.

Saying that any survivor of trauma needs to heal and move on is reality. No one can do it for them. The only person who can heal us - physically or otherwise is ourselves. That doesn't by any stretch of the imagination mean that pain, suffering, trauma, or destruction *malicious or otherwise* is excusable. Or that we can't rely on the support and care of others in our healing. But when the chips are down our healing is up to us.

So defining the words is really nothing more than the discussion of the pathways the energy takes as acts are perpetrated, escalated, healed, and so on.

P

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I really disagree with this concept. It's a huge excuse/rationalization for bad behavior in my opinion.

Or, it insists that bad behavior is unacceptable no matter what.

If we keep in mind that when we stop our own positive growth we are more likely to cause suffering to another (inevitable one might say) then it completely removes the rationalization of "no one will ever know so it doesn't matter."