I don't understand anger, as an emotion. I understand being upset; I understand being sad or hurt by someone's actions. But what is anger? Why would something make me angry? Is anger surprise at the depravity of another's action? It is more than disgust; it is personal offense. It is more than, "How could (s)he do this to me?" That is sadness. It seems to me that anger is pride. Anger is "Since when is life not fair? Where is the karma? I'm too good for something like this to happen to me." Anger is "I would never do something like that." (Oh, but you would! Though this is a different topic entirely.) What right do I have to be angry, when I am just as guilty as the next sinner? I am, however, sad.
Anger is so fleeting and it comes so easily, without thought or logic. We flare up immediately following an event that makes us unhappy. We get so much power, fuel from anger. We use it to justify so many things, to get attention, boost reputation, gain power, kill. Anger is rash. Anger is to become something that is not me -- or, at least, something I don't have control over.
Suddenly I understand anger (wrath) as one of the seven deadly sins.
And I think it is a mistake to believe we need anger. (To fuel, provoke, cause, manipulate, motivate action or whatever.) Banishing anger is not the same as banishing passion -- to not get angry over something is not to say I can't feel strongly about it.
Current music:
Daisy, by Switchfoot
The Blues, by Switchfoot
Shadow Proves the Sunshine, by Switchfoot
Who I Am Hates Who I've Been, by Relient K
I So Hate Consequences, by Relient K
Poison Ivy, by Matthew Thiessen and the Earthquakes
Currently reading:
The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
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12 comments:
I came to the realization right after reading this post just how much i find myself "angry". for example: my brother overflowed the blender while making some smoothies. I kept most of it to myself, but i thought "what a clumsy oaf", when i can easily see myself doing the same thing.
perhaps what i experience is annoyance at a large scale, but it'll qualify for anger. *bleh*
I don't think anger is a worthless emotion. Depression by definition doesn't jolt people into action - anger does.
When we think the government lies to us about an unjust and illegal war, we get angry - and we demand change (here I am talking about Vietnam to avoid current issues). A lot of the time when I hear about the kids in Africa being abducted and starved and orphaned, I get depressed and think there's nothing I can do, I don't want to think about it anymore. That doesn't get things done. It's only when I get mad at whoever is doing this to innocent kids, to God's people, that I get up and DO something.
Anger isn't worthless, it's just that too often what we do with that anger is worthless, like make our entire bio class look bad or be mean to our brothers. Anger is the enemy of complacency, and I don't want to be complacent about some of the things going on in this world.
Sometimes there isn't that much constructive to do with anger, when we get angry over the wrong things. But as long as we use our anger wisely, it has a lot of worth.
I remember my yp quoting a verse about how to have righteous anger as opposed to sinful wrath but I can't find it right now.
Anger jolts people into action and on that I agree, but I don't believe that it is in any way necessary as a motivator and is a dangerous one at that. Passion jolts people into action as well, and, in my opinion, isn't nearly as fleeting. The people who do the most good for the children in Africa needing help are probably a lot more passionate about helping than they are angry at the people who do the harm.
I don't think that anger is the enemy of complacency, I think that passion is.
What anger isn't over the wrong things? Isn't anger passing judgement on the people who provoke it? Shouldn't we leave the judgement to God? Because, after all, there's no saying we would have been less likely to do those things if we were in that situation with that experience.
I would have to agree with "companionable ills," though I will not, I am sure express my thoughts nearly as well.
On a fairly superficial level, Jesus' life is our model for existence and He, not including the Father aspect of Hisself (He who is the judge and of whom we speak when referring to the wrath of God), was angry. When His temple was turned into a marketplace, He turned the tables in one gigantic temper tantrum, so to speak. Anger in and of itself is not sinful, just as eating in and of itself is certainly not sinful (whereas gluttony is). Anger is dangerous in that it often releases inhibition, in a sense, as far as what hurtful things we are willing to say, for example, or what behaviors we are willing to take on.
When I was angry that my uncle was murdered, I can't say that was a sin. Had I murdered his murderer, then the anger would have resulted in a sin. Even had my anger resulted in my thinking myself above his killer, then that would have be sinful.
Anger and passion are not mutually exclusive, as I define them (which makes the whole communication effort almost futile, but that is for another time). Just as love is a variety of passion, so is anger. To me, being mad is fleeting and unreasonable, but anger is the enduring passion that is founded on reason. Being mad, for example, is the being upset at the individuals causing the problem, whereas anger is the realization and pressing need for action and that which is unjust.
Anger is also not the same as judgement.
I think that our biggest disagreement is just a semantics problem. (ambgtr) When anger is without pride, I don't consider it anger, I consider it upset. Anger, by my definition, is being mad at something. What is anger without judgement?
Jesus being angry isn't really relevant to me because God, in His perfection, is incapable of the flaw of pride -- not just that He's perfect and so He is not prideful, but that He is perfect and so there's no possible way of Him to think any better of Himself than is realistic, and so He's not prideful.
"not just that He's perfect and so He is not prideful, but that He is perfect and so there's no possible way of Him to think any better of Himself than is realistic, and so He's not prideful."
At the risk of hijacking the anger discussion, I'm going to have to disagree on this. Jesus had a choice; it's not that He was incapable of sin. That's what it meant that He became human - He faced the same temptations we did, yet He did not sin. He chose not to; He overcame the temptation - because He was perfect, yes, but it wasn't that He couldn't - it was that He didn't. That's why His perfection, humanity, and ability to sympathize with the human condition are all plausible and important.
I agree with you completely, and think you're blowing my response out of proportion. What Christian (or thinking Christian, at least) hasn't wondered about God and humility? (Doesn't it come up in Mere Christianity?) "If God is so perfect, why does He ask us to worship Him? That's not very humble, is it?" Though this isn't completely related, I think what I was talking about kind of accounts for that.
God is not prideful, no, but God is also man, and so He understands our temptations, tribulations, pride. I readily admit that this is beyond my comprehension. (That is, God being human but also being God. There are contradictions there that are very murky right now and I haven't yet worked out.) The Devil tempted Jesus with very human desires -- all the riches of the world, power beyond what you can imagine -- but Jesus, being infinitely closer to God than we can imagine (being God), knew the glory of God was greater than any human glory. He denied His human desires, that were as great as ours are, and even greater as He denied temptation so much more often, countless times.
Anyway (I can't remember how I was planning on tying that all into what I'm saying now), I have to believe that God understands pride, as a sin, because I know that God understands us so completely. I know that God was made man and so He understands the human condition. However, it is very hard for me to tie humility-versus-pride to God: He is perfect, so there is nothing to have sinful pride in; saying God is (i.e., could be) prideful is, to me, like telling supply-side economics that yellow isn't really its color. It just doesn't apply. And so I don't understand how Jesus could be tempted by pride. However, I don't want to believe He wasn't. I don't want to sweep pride under the rug like that, because I consider it the most dangerous sin, and I've also thought that all other sins tie into pride (did I get this from Lewis?), so, if Jesus wasn't tempted by pride, then, to me, He wasn't really tempted by anything.
I guess what I'm going for here now (not at all my intention, and I apologize; I also apologize that this ramble is wholly unedited) is a way to reconcile what, to me, is a contradiction. I have this strange sense of deja vu with this, actually, because I think this has been worked out for me before.
"saying God is (i.e., could be) prideful is, to me, like telling supply-side economics that yellow isn't really its color."
bahahaha let's get married.
and once again we're ending up at the point where I go "yeah... you're right." I get what you're saying in that God can't be prideful, since anything He has to be proud of is truly His and truly good. But I do think Jesus was tempted by it in that He appeared to be a man and He was living in our world; and He could have acted prideful. But that it wouldn't have been pride, exactly, in our sense - since He was God.
These are the mysteries of Christianity, not where Heaven is or evolution vs. creation or how Jesus was resurrected. And I have so much more fun arguing these than those.
Amen! it really is about asking the right questions. You've got to read this book I got over the summer.
I'm Amanda! (by the way)
oh! Hi Amanda!
haha all anonymity on CI is going bye-bye thanks to this link. so don't sue me, k?
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