When people become so neurotic as to be unable to feel, as if they had no heart or soul, they have to be given commandments, rules of conduct, because they have no natural compassion or empathy.
They, for example, do not feel that theft is wrong unless their religion or the state specifically tells them, and in what context. Further, neurotics have to be threatened with the prospects of jail or hell to comply, which is probably why there are so many lawyers and churches.
When theft was called conquest in the 19th century, for example, it was thought to be morally right by most, and few felt that killing Native people, destroying their cultures and taking their lands went against the Creator”s laws, because the voice of the Church was said to be the voice of God, and the Church read its Bible in any way it wanted to justify these crimes for government, businesses and investors, and the hordes who were hungry for land.
Native people were called pagans and red devils so that killing them could appear to be “God”s work,” and nowhere did Christians take a stand against these crimes, apart for some women groups. When Pomo people first encountered Euro-Americans here in California, theycalled them “ma-sa-on,” people without hearts. It was true at the time, but it is not a natural human condition. While Native people were natural people, neurotics, on the other hand, are unable to feel the pain they inflict on others. The more unable they are to feel, the more fundamental their dogma and rigid their laws, and the more likely they are to break them.
Raphael Montoliu
Lakeport
