Redefining the Seven Basic Principles: Freedom

The Principle of Freedom

started this small series of posts in an effort to retell my own story in a more positive light. To try to "re-experience" my youth in a way that made those years not feel quite so wasted. Up to this point, in my mind, I have largely succeeded, but this very post has been a headache for me for weeks. I am beginning to believe that there are some things which have no redeeming value, and this is one of them.

Saturday at the Seminar brought a new and exciting definition to a concept as old as humanity...Freedom.  The Principle of Freedom was posited as Enjoying the desire and power to do that which is right, rather than claiming the privilege of doing what I want. This definition was strengthened by tying it to "moral purity".

The thing is, under the guise of freedom and moral purity a litany of rules and regulations, or as Bill like to call them, "convictions" regarding personal behavior were laid down and "Others may, I cannot" became the mantra of the faithful, the battle cry of the Christian elite. Injunctions were given against all but certain types of music, against dating, divorce, remarriage, family planning and a multitude of other "worldly activities" Even higher education was targeted because it gave a sense of accomplishment(translation: PRIDE).

Of course what invariably happens when you give people lists of objectives, happened. We took up the battle cry and dashed it against our peers, placing ourselves on pedestals of holiness, cloaked in the fine garment of "freedom", looking down on the world and other believers muttering to ourselves the exact same words as the Pharisees of old "Thank you God, that I am not like other men...."

To be fair, Gothard was partially correct...Freedom is not "exercising the privilege to do what I want", but neither is it "the desire and power to do what is right" Those two things are actions and freedom is a state of being. Freedom is something you have or do not have, not something you do. Freedom is quite simply the ability to make a choice.

The logical fallacy of the definition is in the implication that "what is right" and "what I want" are opposing factors. That the "right" is somehow appropriate while my desire is inappropriate. One could go into questioning who gets to decide what is "right" or "wrong" at this point, but that argument is neither here nor there. The reality of the situation is that piling rules, whatever you want to call them and whoever chooses to make them, on anyone, whether yourself or someone else, does not a free man make.

I have tried to find a positive here in what I was taught and I cannot do it. Because of these teachings I do not know how to create a meaningful relationship of any type. I second guess my every move even to this day, I judge others by a standard they know nothing about and does not even apply to them.

It has taken me years to learn the true definition of freedom and several more to learn that "right" is just as subjective as "desire".


 But maybe the biggest lesson to be learned here is that if there is "only one course to choose between" then there is no choice, and by extension, there is only slavery.