If a man lives in sin, away from the Church and its sacrament of confession, his soul becomes burdened with the cumulative weight of his transgressions. Simply put, he feels bad most of the time but doesn’t know why, and continually searches for worldly solutions to relieve his internal pain, guilt, and strife. He does not know—or does not want to know—that it is the soul which demands healing from prodigal and sinful living by getting right with God. Satan ensures he does everything except seek a true alleviation of that guilt through the Church and instead pushes him into various tricks and schemes that soothe the soul only for a brief moment.
The soul is facing eternal death, but the prodigal instead seeks solutions that delay physical death. The soul knows it has transgressed before God and is “bad,” but instead seeks behaviors that make it feel “good.” Healthy living and false virtue quiet the soul just long enough to continue transgressing, but offer no meaning to life or eternal salvation.
Below is a list of behaviors that city dwellers use to temporarily but uselessly relieve a burning conscience. They all fall into the categories of health or false virtue. Note that I’m not judging individuals who commit the various behaviors but the sentiment behind them, and the only reason I understand that sentiment is how regularly I used it before becoming an Orthodox Christian.
1. Buying organic food
“In spite of living far from God, to make sure I live a long and healthy life, I pay extra for organic avocados.”
The idea of organic food is sound: it’s rationally better to eat foods that have not been laced with various pesticides or genetically modified. (I have previously preached the dangers of eating seed oils which are common in the American diet). However, one must look at the intent behind eating organic foods to see if it reveals a spiritual problem. Those far from God eat organic and pay exorbitant prices at Whole Foods because they fear death and disease. They want to prolong their life and decrease the chances they will get cancer or strokes. Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, avoid goyslop and industrial food because they’re fake, unnatural, stupid, and likely demonized. I’m ready to die in whichever way the Lord wills, whenever He wills, but I hesitate to eat canola oil because I know it’s not actually food.
2. Buying ethically sourced food
“In spite of living far from God, I make sure to spend more money on foods I love to help those who live in racially and economically disadvantaged countries.”
It’s not enough for the city dweller to perceive they will live a long life from healthy foods—they also have to “feel good” about the foods they eat and how they’re incorporated into their lifestyle. There is no other better way to do this than to put the word “ethical” on a food package next to a picture of a short African, Central American, or Asian man holding a burlap sack of the product. The city dweller does not struggle against his sins, yet paying $2 extra for a bag of coffee allows them to think, “I am a good person helping those who are less fortunate.” Needless to say but sins are not remitted from purchasing ethically sustainable foods.
3. Recycling
“In spite of living far from God, I go out of my way to put plastic bottles in a special container so that I can save planet Earth.”
It’s rational to recycle and reuse materials, but the intent behind those behaviors will tell you if the person is doing it out of practicality or trying to alleviate a filthy soul. If you’re trying to save the planet, but you’re not trying to save your soul, you’re terribly deceived.
4. Exercising multiple times a week in a gym
“In spite of living far from God, I have faith that my yoga and meditation wellness routine will allow me to live a long, happy life.”
When it comes to exercise, a blameless intent is to do just enough to serve your mission before God, but you only need to step foot inside MegaCorp gym for five seconds to see that this is rarely being done. Those who spend most of their time in the cardio area fear the looming specter of death from heart disease and want to live longer. Those in the bodybuilding area want to vainly show off their physique with tight clothing and feel a false virtue for being the most attractive version of themselves. Exercise enough so that you can stand for five hours during a festal vigil. Bodybuild enough so that your legs can handle unlimited prostrations. Other reasons, however, may be a way to feed vanity or placate a soul crying out in pain.
5. Engaging in two minutes of internet hate
“In spite of living far from God, I have the discernment to state we should go nuclear against Russia because they’re baddies, and also I’m qualified to declare that the police officer who killed a black man on duty deserves the electric chair for his racism.”
City dwellers fall into judgment because judgment feels good—it’s a way to assert your superiority over others and inflame the notion of being a somebody. Even though they are facing a severe judgment that will cause weeping and gnashing of teeth, while in the body they can pretend to be righteous and on the side of good by shaking their fists on social media with the encouragement and approval of the elites.
6. Not using plastic bags or straws
“In spite of living far from God, if I see you using a plastic bag in the supermarket, I will give you a dirty look because of the harm you are causing to the environment.”
I live in a state that has passed extra laws to “protect” abortion while banning all disposable bags from supermarkets, even paper bags. So in my state you can kill a baby but you cannot obtain a disposable bag of any sort. Satan, the enemy of mankind, has somehow figured out how to make people feel virtuous for not using disposable products while simultaneously supporting the killing of human beings.
7. Practicing “safe” sex
“In spite of living far from God, I just engaged in a ‘safe’ act of mortal sin with someone who is not my wife because I covered 0.5% of my body with a piece of latex.”
The copulatory act is all-encompassing. There is no part of your body that does not interface with the other. It is known that many diseases can occur outside of the groin area, yet just because a condom was used, participants think it was “safe” and blameless. Sadly, considering that fornication is one of the gravest sins, and puts you most at risk for condemnation, it is absolutely impossible to have “safe” sex outside of marriage. And it goes without saying that masturbation is never safe.
8. Taking care of a small pet
“In spite of living far from God, I’m a good person because I take care of my little pug by dressing him up and even cooking vegan dishes for him.”
It’s hard to become a mother when you idolize your career and use apps like Tinder to meet a lot of men. Motherhood means taking on real sacrifice by putting others above yourself, but this is impossible to do when your pleasure comes first. However, the nurturing instinct in women is so strong that they seek out domestic house pets as an easy substitute. A woman can get a dog, retain her self-love, feel like a good mother, and get all the societal benefits from being a mother after sharing TikToks or Instagram Stories of her cute dog online.
9. Attending a gay pride event
“In spite of living far from God, I like to attend gay pride events to give moral support to a group that has historically been maligned, treated unfairly, and for some reason accused of spreading AIDS.”
The phenomenon of straight women going to gay pride events is very real. In fact, I believe that gay pride is a psyop primarily targeted toward straight women, to bring their lifestyles more in line with the extreme promiscuity of homosexuals while fomenting distrust against the potential source of their salvation: a good Christian man who is not gay.
10. Getting vaxxed, wearing face masks, and sanitizing hands until they’re raw
“In spite of living far from God and facing imminent spiritual death, I made sure to get the coronavirus vaccine because I don’t want others to get sick and suffer physical death.”
I’m certain the coronavirus vaccine is from Satan—it’s a perfectly demonized construction that is perhaps his best work after the theory of evolution, because it helps the city dweller think he’s escaping death while being a good person who “saves lives.” In the end, hundreds of thousands of people will die due to this demonic elixir before they can repent. Meanwhile, the vaccinated man can browbeat you while soaking in virtue and “scientific” knowledge that he is making the right choice for his health and the health of those he cares about. Talk to people who got the vaccine long enough and very soon you find that it’s not just a vaccine to them but an ideology that makes them feel good about who they are.
Conclusion
All these tricks to alleviate secular guilt are done in vain. Their effects are so fleeting that the person has to essentially create a lifestyle of guilt alleviation that will perfectly coincide with what the world—and the dark prince of this world—wants them to do. The reason why those in the city are so quick to latch on to the latest cause (even if it happens to be a massive war that could potentially kill millions of people) is that it contains an implicit promise to soothe their conscience. “If you believe in this thing, you will feel good for a moment.” Or it will be a new health fad that has the implicit promise to live a day longer, postponing a divine judgment that cannot be avoided.
Because a person cannot stand feelings of guilt in their conscious, they repress them into the subconscious and unconscious where, as psychology says, they acquire an independence and from then on cause continuous torment. Though the person throws these guilty feelings there, the feelings do not want to stay there, they want to escape. They also deserve to be exposed. They continuously prod and poke, until one day they erupt in some way and the seriousness of the sickness is exposed. That is, others can see that this person is sick. It is not that before this the person was well, but simply that there was a basement where all of these things were hidden. —Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos in Anxiety
For those who participate in these behaviors, their sins grow deeper and their soul becomes more malformed. There’s only one way to alleviate the guilt of a sinful life and that’s through participation in the sacraments that our Lord Jesus Christ has given us through His Church, the Orthodox Church. Outside of the Church, there is absolutely no way to remove your guilt, even if you do everything on the above list and please the head of the Anti-Defamation League with your displays of online virtue. The path that our Lord has laid out is clear: if you have fallen, you must repent, be received into the Church, and confess your sins. Only then will the guilt fade, and only then can your soul be saved.
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