And if you think of it this way, Christ’s “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” acquires a slightly different meaning. Not only has everyone sinned, but they sin most all of every day.
Sinning is falling short; that is all it is. And seen this way, it is not something to be judged, but a situation to be rectified. It is like teaching someone a flip turn in swimming. Some people will get it sooner than others.
Morality is intrinsically the best way to live. I define it that way. It is what generates the most qualitative pleasure and happiness, and these are innately what our spirit craves. Clearly, it craves adventure, excitement, discovery, danger and other such things, and I am not in the slightest diminishing these needs. It craves sex and connection. These are therefore intrinsically not sinful, until they cause immorality, which is hurting others.
This means that virtue is a skill not unlike riding a bike, or ballroom dancing. And what creates skill is AWARENESS. Lack of awareness is what causes a lack of skill.
It can be frustrating dealing with stupid people. I have an IQ significantly above average, and not infrequently find myself angry at how short sighted, self interested, self absorbed and stupid people can be. But is this reaction not a species of stupidity in me? Should I take it personally when dogs bark at me, or birds shit on my car?
My point is that judgement exists on a continuum, and EVERYONE exists on that continuum, so our moral failings differ in scale, not the fact of their existence, and this means that judgement is inherently hypocritical, with one exception: those who encourage others to sin, and take pleasure in the pain it causes them.
This is how I define evil. Evil is not cheating on your wife, or lying, cheating and stealing. You do these because you are unwilling to consciously face the full consequences of your actions. You are unwilling to feel the pain of those you have hurt. You are unable, on the positive side, to access positive feelings of the sort which would have made you happy without doing those things. You don’t know that happiness surrounds you, so you reach for small and dark things.
Evil is deciding finally that the Light is beyond your reach, and should therefore be beyond the reach of anyone else. It is my feeling that this sort of evil should be dealt with through violence.
I wish I could say I advocated infinite tolerance, but infinite virtue is in my view impossible in this world, and the essence of spirituality is practicality, and practically this is the reality. Love does not in the least in my view imply pacifism, or allowing others to abuse you. Quite the contrary: virtue consists precisely in building the best, most resilient, happiest You that you can.
I have dealt with these issues before, and am not sure I’m not repeating myself, but I suppose it’s impossible to walk even the same road exactly the same way twice.
Edit: you know, in some respects I just described Avidya. But it is always worth doing things in your own voice, in your own vernacular, because this word can mean, in subtle shades, an infinite number of things, even if they all approximate the same thing. What I need is MY shade, and what you need is YOURS. This is how life becomes and remains interesting, at least in the social sphere.