'Everything with substance casts a shadow. The ego stands to the shadow as light to shade. This is the quality that makes us human. Much as we would like to deny it, we are imperfect'.
MEETING THE SHADOW, The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature; edited by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams
Wendyness
"I do not argue that perhaps most people believe in the dark side of humanity. I suspect this is a result of the prevailing Pauline concept of universal sinfulness. When you are taught from a young age that you are a miserable sinner and require salvation it is easy to internalize the concept of sin or a dark side. The trick it to understand Paul's theology, reject it rationally, and look around at the people you know. How many of them could you even identify what their dark side consisted of?"
For me this is the most devastating legacy of Paul's sales pitch. And why I find Romans 1 to be the most crippling book in the whole bible. It is a litany of all the human impulses that must be controlled to be sure, but are not inherent in all or even most. And yet one has this peroration that tries to rope everybody into the sinner category so Paul can later sell his savior. And guess what? If you give the church the child till he is 10 you will have a child with an internalized sinful nature with a dark side that he must find salvation for. He can reject the church, and even God. But the dark side remains. If only people could internalize "I am a good kid. God doesn't make junk." If only Paul had.
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