Are you beyond corruption?

[TurtleAnne]

I find it becomes easier to resist corruption and temptation the older I get. I think that I was born as a rather empathetic person but only in some ways, which are sometimes severely offset by my weaknesses. Then came at different times severe regret and remorse, which I think changed me one regret at a time. Like it created a greater hesitation for future, similar circumstances, being reminded of the past experiences that, naturally, I hadn't had before I had them. And in that longer span of hesitation I have more time to cool my jets and contemplate, which is what makes it easier. But looking back, I know that I never knew that I didn't know something, until I the moment actually came that I knew it, and so there is the permanent possibility that there are things that I just don't understand yet, and won't until they have become past experiences, so I can only assume that I will make more mistakes in the future and continue to add to my list of regrets. Which is all a very long-winded way of explaining that yes, I am corruptible.

 

[bhsmte]

Some of us will never know because we will never be tempted.
Times in your life when you were tempted to cross the line of decency? When you were tempted to compromise your self-respect? Was it power? Lust? Drugs? Desperation due to lean times?
Without going into detail, I did cross that line a few times in my life. It proved to me that I am indeed corruptible. That my actual "ethics" were based on "out of sight, out of mind".
Maybe I am paying for those sins of the past now. I don't know. All I know is, you think you are incorruptible, until the temptation actually catches you at a weak point. I'm not as saintly as I thought I was. I don't think I am essentially evil either but every time I say the prayer containing "deliver us from evil", I mean it. because I know how weak I am.

In the right situation, everyone could be susceptible to corruption. We all have our price to where we would sacrifice our moral compass. The difference between people is; some have a very low price.

 

[durangodawood]

Are we talking about eating too many cookies, or killing someone for money?

 

[bhsmte]

Are we talking about eating too many cookies, or killing someone for money?

Is eating too many cookies being corrupt?

 

[durangodawood]

Is eating too many cookies being corrupt?

Key terms in the OP are temptation, decency, self-respect. Sooo, maybe?

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

Well no matter how much any christian claims they aren't corruptible, I tell them that right there shows they are corrupted because in the bible even Jesus was tempted to do bad things. But He never did of course. So if Jesus... our Savior was tempted, then no christian is uncorruptible. I rebelled for YEARS against God. I was was a disgusting person that honestly was lucky not to be in jail. Thankfully He kept sending messengers on here to make me see the error in my ways.

 

[Aldebaran]

Well no matter how much any christian claims they aren't corruptible, I tell them that right there shows they are corrupted because in the bible even Jesus was tempted to do bad things. But He never did of course. So if Jesus... our Savior was tempted, then no christian is uncorruptible. I rebelled for YEARS against God. I was was a disgusting person that honestly was lucky not to be in jail. Thankfully He kept sending messengers on here to make me see the error in my ways.

I don't think being tempted corrupts someone. It's when they give in to that temptation that they become corrupted.

 

[IAMABELIEVER1979]

Agreed

 

[Unix]

At some points in life I've just given up the hope of getting anything but both bad and unfortunate experiences. I wouldn't call it actual corruption - after all I never intended things to be bad, I was just lacking most things in life and I've since discovered a while after that that I'm (again perhaps unfortunately) a person who only pulls himself up if he has many good things. The unfortunate nature of things is that no matter how much I try to keep things as my own griefs, I just can't go on lacking things I know are good for me, that are proven to actually be good for me. So my past didn't consist of having and experiencing, but of lacking and growing experienced - experience I'm sad to say has little value at my age but is more like seen as a detriment by some people (girls) I'm interested in unless I can compensate for my a bit overly mature age. And I can since a while just treat well, that has been a start.
I don't have a sense of entitlement, I only have a sense of that I'm a bigger burden if I'm lacking things, so unfortunately my life does cost some even though I cut down on some things (such as cellular phone - my cost for that including hardware is less than $8 a Month and I do use it, my cellphones are not smartphones and I will never want a smarthone) and that I don't try to create big new ideas all by myself that I have to engage in as I have big enough projects going on already and goals to achieve such as marrying some day to someone I feel certain I kind find as I have self-confidence.
I won't ever become a crybaby, instead I have for example things like insurances, an excellent queue position for an apartment a bit further away, things to do on my spare time that I enjoy, beautiful dreams what I'll use knowledge to, some time freed up. At this point in life when I've previously just saved up with no purpose in mind, it would exhaust me unnecessarily to rely in more things on other people's pity when something happens. During the short period of 1¾ Years I've had private insurances (no I don't have an all-around health-insurance) I've used them 2½ times, the insurances have helped me - I would have felt pretty bothered without. My car is expensive to keep insured but I don't seem to have a choice for the time being, eventually it will go down if I really badly want to use it which wouldn't necessarily mean a lot of extra miles, I'm not that excited about it.

Corruption is when You destroy things by Yourself that are actually really worth something both in $ and otherwise.

 

[Moral Orel]

Would you kill someone for $10,000?
I wouldn't dream of it!
Would you kill someone for $1,000,000?
Never!
Would you kill a man for $1,000,000,000?
Who are we talking about? Is he a bad guy?
Would you kill a man for $10,000,000,000?
BANG! That guy?

 

[CrystalDragon]

I don't think being tempted corrupts someone. It's when they give in to that temptation that they become corrupted.

I agree—after all, even Jesus was tempted in the garden, and he wasn't corrupt.

 

[dclements]

Some of us will never know because we will never be tempted.
Times in your life when you were tempted to cross the line of decency? When you were tempted to compromise your self-respect? Was it power? Lust? Drugs? Desperation due to lean times?
Without going into detail, I did cross that line a few times in my life. It proved to me that I am indeed corruptible. That my actual "ethics" were based on "out of sight, out of mind".
Maybe I am paying for those sins of the past now. I don't know. All I know is, you think you are incorruptible, until the temptation actually catches you at a weak point. I'm not as saintly as I thought I was. I don't think I am essentially evil either but every time I say the prayer containing "deliver us from evil", I mean it. because I know how weak I am.

I have probably crossed the line of what others consider 'decent' more times in my life than some others (ie. shop lifted at least a dozen times when I was in my teens and steal things many other times, used to go out with someone that I know who was married to a cop, hung out at bars and go-go clubs, used to drink to the point I would black out, lied many times when I felt it was the best thing to do. and even dabbled in the occult in my late teens early twenties until I got bored with it) but to me the line between doing what needs to be done (or at least what at the time what that seems to be) and 'corruption' is kind of fuzzy.

I guess my main rule of keeping my word and not hurting others (at least when I don't have to) is the the only rule I follow and I have kind of been good at that as long it was a viable option. For me not hurting others (as well as not hurting animals unnecessarily) and trying to be true to yourself and others is all one can hope for and other than that all one can do is whatever needs to be done when it presents itself. Of course one has to factor in "the human condition" which can make one either too weak to do the right things and/or not know what is the right thing to do, which is probably the main cause for most of what people do what many of us consider to be corrupt.

I may be wrong but I consider 'corruption' as just another kind of natural evil. If you start factoring in human incompetence, human weakness, and any other problem that may cause a human being to commit an 'evil' act then you will being to realize we are not as much of the agents of free will that some of us think we are. I'm not saying we shouldn't punish are do something about people who do bad things (in fact I believe we shouldn't be as nice to many criminals as we sometimes are, especially white collar ones), I'm just saying that people that are 'corrupt' are not that different from any other type of 'natural evil' we deal with every day.

If one is still having trouble understanding this think of this, the cells in your body are just very very small independent that work almost endlessly to keep you alive. However from time to time one goes 'rogue'/(ie. becomes corrupt) and becomes cancerous or attacks the body in some other way. Why does it do this? The answer is that either it's DNA or some other part of it mechanisms have been damaged and when this happens it thinks that behaving in this new way is what it is supposed to do when it isn't. If this can happen to human cells why is it possible that human beings themselves can't just go 'rogue' too? Another thing is that most human beings eat meat and other something else to survive and in doing so often cause untold horror to the animals that are raised and slaughtered in order so that we can sustain our own lives. I'm not using this as an argument for people to become vegan (since I'm not vegan myself and I'm addicted to eating meat) but I'm just saying that there are many things human beings do that either cause harm directly or some way indirectly (or at least in ways we are not aware of) that could be considered a form of corruption if our culture and society didn't tell us it was 'ok' to do even if it really isn't.

 

[dclements]

One more thing I forgot to mention..

For what little I know about how the universe works I have read several articles about super black holes and how they gobble up many of the galaxies around them. It is kind of hard to imagine exactly what these look like (because you really can see them since they absorb all light that might of reflected off of them and crush all matter in it's field, but it is safe to say any world that has (or perhaps I should say 'had') any solar system in a galaxy that happen to be too near one of these wouldn't last for long.

While we don't even know if there is life out there, the fact that there are these super powerful gravity wells destroying countless galaxies and solar systems (many of them potentially containing life and perhaps even intelligent beings) puts into perspective how trivial we in comparison to the universe around us and how little human corruption has an effect on everything outside of our own little world; and how small human 'evil' is compared to the 'natural evil' that surrounds us.

 

[Unix]

I got injured late yesterday evening, I will perhaps have to use an insurance soon if my ailment doesn't start to over by itself tomorrow morning. I will probably have to see a doctor. Seeing a doctor is cheap and sometimes free, but if You get permanent damage to Your body You want compensation as this particular insurance is cheap, I should perhaps even chose a more expensive plan:

During the short period of 1¾ Years I've had private insurances (no I don't have an all-around health-insurance) I've used them 2½ times, the insurances have helped me - I would have felt pretty bothered without.