It always struck me as strange how,
within conservative religious thought*, people are told they can be damned by
their own actions but cannot be saved by them. That philosophy grants humans
complete responsibility when it burdens them, while revoking it when it would
afford them credit. It stems from the belief that people are inherently
worthless and deserving of divinely sanctioned harm unless they embrace the
religious structure. That outlook, when applied to oneself, will make someone
incredibly neurotic. When applied to others, it makes them annoying at best and
a moral monster at worst.
*By "conservative religious
thought," I don't mean people who are politically conservative—although there
certainly can be an overlap. I mean people who are religiously conservative.
One can be religiously conservative but politically liberal, or the inverse.
