Welcome to Gaia! ::

Aww, you're makin' me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. =P
It's funny - it's actually something I feel Jesus has been reminding me of quite... blaringly... recently. Just like, this giant sign that yells, "Hey! Yeah, you! Hey look at me! Yeah, I love you this much!" Phwpah! Just like that. 3nodding And it seemed to fit into the discussion quite nicely right there.

I don't mean to argue with you ... actually, yes, I do. Because I tend to think that, on this point, you (and a great many people these days) are ... I won't say "wrong", but overreacting. Certainly, a lot of kids get involved in ... "unpleasant things", to cover all the bases ... as a result of low self-esteem -- but a lot don't. You never hear about the "don't" group, because there's no reason for us to appear on the news.

I'm probably going to make a few enemies here ... so be it. This one's my bete noir, and I can't let it slide.

You want to talk about self-esteem? Fine; let's talk.

I was outcast in junior high and high school ... no, I mean "outcast" as in, not only was I unpopular, I was a frequent target. You've all heard of the Alpha wolf? I was the Omega to the entire school. I still have scars, more than twenty years later ... physical scars. I was literally spit on. One day, I was walking home from school, and a couple of classmates driving home thought it would be great fun to sideswipe me with their pickup.

Oh, guess what? This kind of thing happened in church, too. And for both church and school, the hypocricy was incredible; teachers and ministers would watch everything, actually watch other people attack me ... but if I so much as lifted a finger to defend myself, suddenly I was the villain.

Now, add to this the fact that I was always told I was smart ... but my grades certainly implied that it was a lie. I'd learned by now that being smart was basically useless if I couldn't use it to avoid problems ... and since I was outnumbered anyway, then avoiding trouble was a useless dream. Of course, my parents also told me what a wonderful town this was we'd moved to ... and didn't seem to understand why I considered it a suburb of Hell. It probably didn't help matters that my father was part of the school system ... and if he supported me in any way, then that would be favoritism.

And, of course, my interests were as much like those of my so-called "peers" as Paris Hilton's interests are like the Pope's.

So, now let's talk about self-esteem. Let's also talk about respect for authority figures. For obvious reasons, I had neither.

But you know what I never did? I never considered putting a gun to my head. I never considered putting foreign stuff in my veins. I never considered putting a gun to my classmates' heads. Admittedly, I thought about taking a baseball bat to their kneecaps (I didn't want to kill, I just wanted them to know what suffering was like). But clearly, I never did this. I wasn't very smart, but even watching TV told me that these things were stupid.

You've heard of the rebellious teen years? I didn't rebel against my parents. I rebelled against my peers and the world that created them ... but I also rebelled against the rebellion. And it wasn't some unconscious anything, but a conscious and rational decision; I told my neighbor that if being normal and accepted meant acting like him, I'd gladly die as an freak. I might have been the lowest person in town, but I was going to be a better human being than these around me. I also wasn't going to give them the joy of bending me; I was going to live my choices, follow the God I accepted at sixteen, and not allow these people to twist me any further.

Now, take this from somebody who got their degree in Psychology: self-esteem is overrated. You can live without it. The problem isn't what we think of ourselves, it's what we do with that opinion. My opinion wasn't "anything's better than this; I'd rather be dead or stoned than deal with you", it was "we call roaches scum, but they'd outlast a nuclear holocaust. You call me scum, but I will outlast you the same way."

Don't misunderstand. I'm not downplaying anything that anyone here has been through. I'm not saying that these people have no reason to feel the way they do. And I'm definitely not saying that there's anything special about me.

But I am saying, and I will always say ... that blaming something on self-esteem is useless. Because it's not the self-esteem that makes our decisions for us; it's we who make the decisions. Every bad thing I've done in my life ... and they are many, and they are shameful ... but it's things I've done of my own free will. It wasn't my self-esteem that made me do it, it wasn't my so-called "peers" who forced me ... it was me.

Deidra, you're right; people's insecurities lead them to do unfortunate things. But the keyword there is lead; these people ultimately choose to do the things they do.

Now, as for the good part of self-image ... I think C.S. Lewis said it best in one of the Narnia books. I can't quote it exactly, but something like "You are a child of Adam and Eve. That's shame enough to bow the head of the greatest king, and praise enough to raise the lowest beggar." That one's a fairly decent synopsis of God's opinion, I think; we're sinners, but He loves us anyway. We, as a race, are the worst of the worst ... which just proves how great God is, that He's willing to raise us up the way He does.

You want to raise a person's self-image? Tell 'em God loves 'em ... if you can get them to believe in God, that is, and you can show them His love properly. You want to wreck a person's self-image? For some people, that would actually be an improvement ... but I leave that one to God to judge. You want to bypass their self-image and work on the real problem? Hang on, I'll give you a hand.

I just don't believe everything is either a statement of truth or a lie - some things just are. Like the rain isn't good or bad, it just is. Considering self-esteem and self-image in the same way we consider our actions and words doesn't make a tone of sense to me - they are more indicators of health than morality in my opinion. These things are a result of what is said and done around us, which may be more or less truthful, sure, but that doesn't make an opinion into a lie. I think the discussion should be more about the common lies we believe from our media, culture, schools, etc but that's not exactly what this thread is about from what I understand. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't understand how you came up with self-image as an ethical dilemma.

Forgive me if I am wrong but you seem to be saying that you think that it is not possible to lie to yourself, and that opinions of oneself are nothing more than opinions, being that they are neither right nor wrong? Is that correct?

I thought she was saying that self-image isn't really a moral issue. But maybe I'm mistaken as well.

Well even if that was what she was saying, I still believe that it is a matter worthy of discussion in the Christian ethics category, because our opinion of ourselves can and does influence our behavior and thoughts, especially when it is not in line with what God says about us. And we can lie to ourselves and lie our way right in to hell. For instances when we deceive ourselves into believing we have repented of all our sins.

You said yourself that self-esteem effected you when you were younger. What if you were now stuck in those feelings and had no one to tell you to tell you that they were wrong, or about God?

Self worth is about morality because if we get stuck in those erroneous beliefs they shape our lives, guide us in our choices, rob us of confidence, and put barriers between us and God. (They become our "Moral Code")

Morality is nothing more than a system of accepted beliefs. We believe something is right or if it is wrong, and generally guide our social and personal conduct according to those beliefs. So if our beliefs about ourselves are wrong wouldn't it follow that our "Moral Code" might have some flaws as well?

The point being, if we believe what God says about us and to us in all areas, including our self worth, and act ccordingly our Moral compass is without error. And we are walking in the way God wants us to. If we believe the lies that have been told to us by; parents, teachers, television and the like, we are walking in self-deception and our moral compass is off. We react to people, situations and God, from that erroneous place of self deception.

What we are trying to determine here is if it is possible for us to lie to ourselves at all. (which we have done ) and if that self-deceit has any impact on our lives or Christian walk.

I will argue that self image (if we lie to ourselves consciously or unconsciously) is VERY MUCH a moral issue.