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The belief in punishment, even within Spiritism (or the Spiritist Movement) and the belief in nothingness lead man into two very complicated situations. Let's see:
When you believe in nothingness, you focus on enjoying the present at any cost. This is what Kardec shows us in Heaven and Hell (FEAL):
"Is there anything more despairing than the idea of absolute destruction? Sacred affections, intelligence, progress, laboriously acquired knowledge, everything would be undone, everything would be lost! What is the need to strive to become better, to repress our passions, to enrich our spirit, if we are not to reap any fruit from it, especially in the face of the idea that tomorrow, perhaps, it will no longer be of any use to us? If that were the case, the fate of man would be a hundred times worse than that of the savage, who lives entirely in the present, in the satisfaction of his material appetites, with no aspirations for the future. A secret intuition tells us that this is not possible.
By believing in nothingness, man inevitably concentrates his thoughts on the present. There would be no point in worrying about a future from which nothing is expected. This exclusive preoccupation with the present naturally leads him to think of himself first and foremost; it is therefore the most powerful stimulus to selfishness. The unbeliever is coherent when he comes to the conclusion: "Let's enjoy it while we're here, let's enjoy it as much as we can, because after us it will all be over; let's enjoy it quickly, because we don't know how long it will last," as well as to this other, far more serious conclusion for society: "Let's enjoy it, no matter at whose expense; everyone for himself; happiness down here is for the shrewdest." If religious scruples restrict the actions of some, what restraint will those who believe in nothing have? For them, human law only reaches the foolish, and so they devote their talents to ways of evading it. If there is a harmful and antisocial doctrine, it is certainly neo-antisemitism1, because it breaks the true bonds of solidarity and fraternity, the foundation of social relations.”
KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and Hell, Editora FEAL.
Something diametrically opposed to the nihilistic thinking glorified by Nietzsche:
The discovery of Christian morality is an unparalleled event, a true catastrophe. The sacred pretext of making humanity better appears as the cunning to exhaust life itself, to make it anemic. The concept of the afterlife was invented to devalue the only world that exists - to strip our earthly reality of all purpose, all reason, all purpose! The concept of the soul, of the spirit, and finally of the immortal soul, was invented to despise the body. Finally - and this is the most terrible thing - in the concept of the good man, one sides with everything that is weak, sick, a failure, everything that is passive in itself, everything that must perish - the law of natural selection is contradicted, and an ideal is made out of the opposition to the haughty and successful man, the man who says yes, the man who guarantees and is certain of the future - this now becomes the bad man... And all of this was believed to be moral.
NIETZSCHE, 2008, p. 99-100
On the other hand, when man believes in the idea of the fall through sin or in human life as a way of "paying off debts"; in other words: when he believes in the idea of divine punishment, he becomes unable to deal proactively with his problems. A woman who, for example, lives with a bad partner who physically or morally abuses her, may believe (and many tell her so) that she is living a "ransom" from past lives. She must therefore submit to inhumane conditions in order, they say, to "pay off her debts".
This way of thinking is often taught from a child's earliest days, when they are subjected to punishment instead of being encouraged to develop their own rational autonomy. We've already dealt with this in the article "Punishment irritates and imposes. Don't educate for reason."
The fanaticism of credulity creates unbelievers, because it answers nothing. It takes the individual out of control of their responsibility: if they do evil, it's the devil's fault; if they do good, it's divine grace.
The fanaticism of unbelief, on the other hand, goes in the same direction and produces the same thing as the first: the individual, whether he does evil or good, is because of his DNA.
Both turn people into automatons who are left with nothing but worldly pleasures and the prospect of nothingness or eternal damnation. The middle way, in its rational excellence, is Rational Spiritualism and Spiritism (in its origin). See this study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCD2_iAQySw.
We recommend the following study to everyone:
Reading Recommendations (Books)
- Free PDFs by Kardec – https://bit.ly/3sXXBxk
- Autonomy – The Untold History of Spiritism: https://amzn.to/3PIvbyy
- Allan Kardec's Legacy: https://amzn.to/3RIn2gv
- Final point – the reunion with spiritualism with Allan Kardec: https://amzn.to/48PLaE7
- Neither Heaven nor Hell – The Laws of the Soul According to Spiritism: https://amzn.to/3F2voYO
- Genesis – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism (unadulterated): Free PDF or https://amzn.to/3RM91hF
- Heaven and Hell: Or divine justice according to Spiritism (unadulterated): Free PDF or https://amzn.to/3ZGrcal
- Spiritist Revolution. Allan Kardec's forgotten theory: https://amzn.to/3t7HIUH
- Mesmer. The denied science of animal magnetism: https://amzn.to/3PYc1X2
- The Book of Mediums: https://amzn.to/3PDNTHK
- The Spirits' Book: https://amzn.to/3QkcFx9
- Spiritist Magazine – complete collection: https://amzn.to/48Uxh7s
- Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations: https://amzn.to/3QiR8Gc
- Spiritism in its Simplest Expression: https://amzn.to/3M6fXT5
- Doctrine of Nothingness, Nihilism [↩]
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