The Advantages of Being Sincere

In today’s world, there are many people from different backgrounds that mold their lives around the two human modes of interpersonal interactions, rituals and sincerity. The human characteristic, sincerity, if attained, is the antidote to empowering people to achieve personal refinement, whereas participating in rituals offers guidance towards the framing of people’s actions. Although people may perceive one mode has a higher superiority over the other comprised in their philosophical framework, both can be interchanged depending on the situation. Therefore, superiority between the two does not exist. Possessing a sincere structure influences people’s lives that suits the performance of rituals that were traditionally established for several reasons.

Situational advantages can originate through people who are sincere. Sincerity is perceived as a pure thought in which requires people to have their own personal freedom. It is considered to be a rare quality for a person to have that enables the participant to be vulnerable to intersubjective openness. Also, sincerity implies authenticity that creates clarity, honesty, and simplicity, without any hidden complications or rules and regulations to follow. It is purely from the heart. In this case, the religious tradition of choice is Christianity. The Christian faith utilizes several prescribed rituals or in Christian terms, “sacraments, ” that convey God’s power. These sacraments include, Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Confession, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage, and Holy Orders in entirety, sculpts the theology of Christianity altogether. Of the seven sacraments, only Marriage requires true sincerity. An example of this is a wedding in part of marriage of the Catholic faith.

Marriage unites a couple in faithful and mutual love that is a way to respond to God’s call to holiness. That means that each person has developed sincerity between one another. A situation in which proves true sincerity amongst one another is if the two were in disparity of worship. Corinthians 7:14 states, “For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” The examination of this passage develops a conclusion for the answer of true sincerity. If the non-believing Catholic participant does not want to accept the grace of conversion, that member does not possess true sincerity. However, if the non-believing Catholic participant does accept the grace of conversion, the creation of sincere married love is initiated through the free conversion of the non-believer. Once invested in the newly acquired religion, the importance of sincerity in the Catholic marriage is fundamental for following God. Participants cannot receive God’s blessing if they disregard sincerity amongst God, ourselves, and other participants. Having a modest marriage is directly correlated to sincerity and for that reason, only the most modest participants receive God’s blessing.

Turning over to a different situation can give ritual the advantage. Reasoning to support this is the recognition of ritual in ritual framework versus the sincere framework. Participants who pursue a ritual framework create their own fictitious universe where common rituals insinuate a sense of equality. It is described to be an “as if” universe in which participants are framed to live in a universe that is whole, certain, and coherent. This is also known as the act of ritual framing for participants that unite themselves around the cultural construct of the movement without directly addressing their targets. The participants’ altered but lived reality experience is perceived as fractioned, uncertain, and ambiguous. Thus, skepticism ensues because of the participant’s rituals expressing vagueness lacking in the exposition of internal feelings. Ritual framework involves participants to follow the script where being sincere is purely from the heart that everyone can see and understand. This ritual framework utilizes various rituals as recognition for unavoidable ambiguities and ambivalences, constructing a routed lifestyle. It allows differentiation from sincerity in which prevents participants to live in the “as is” universe.

The “as is” universe is classified as the sincere framework of participants’ unambiguous perspective of a genuine reality. Sincerity requires a deep process of self-discovery that does not have a chartered routine to assist the participant. The consideration of sincere framework must consist of actions valid only when accompanied by 'a genuine and thoughtful state of internal conviction. ' A disadvantage of having An example of the limitation the sincere framework has can ensue. As the famous saying goes, “Nobody is perfect. ” To be truly sincere is to be perfect at all times in all given situations. This may create hardships without having a script to follow or an established set of rules and regulations. Having a routine ritual teaches the knowledge of adaptation to unavoidable ambiguities and ambivalences.

A real life example of this is when a husband offers his apologies to his wife for his actions of committing adultery. These actions provide proof that the husband is not perfect. In this “as is” universe, if once again he ultimately achieves full sincerity, it is still difficult for his wife to determine whether or not if he is being sincerely apologetic and truly won’t cheat again due to his diminished perfection. A fictitious prayer states, “You have reconciled me to Yourself through Your Son’s precious blood and so I am begging You to help me be reconciled to my beloved spouse. Only You can change the human heart (Prov 21:1) so I ask You to change my heart to be one that seeks to humble myself and seek reconciliation in my relationship with my mate. Too often I speak without thinking and I know my words hurt my spouse but this is no excuse for the things that I speak to them. I ask for Your Spirit to be sent to help us be reconciled with one another as Your Son’s precious blood was shed for our being reconciled to You (2 Cor 5:18; Col 1:20). This I pray for Your Son’s most holy name and for His glory, Amen. ” This participants’ prayer of reconciliation has been manipulated by reciting information given in texts from the bible, not purely from heart (2 Cor 5:18; Col 1:20, Prov 21:1).

The ritual above contains multiple layers of meaning that are encoded into its form . The ritual framework in relation to the “as if”, provides a gateway that perfectly structures the husband’s reconciling strategy so he can “get it right” by following the script correctly. Once the acquired gateway is formed and a subjunctive universe is now present for the participant, this furthers progression of the participant away from the genuine universe. The husband can repent all he wants through the utilization of this sacrament but doesn’t have to feel sincere about it. Once accomplishing this ritual, experiences can proceed as they were before by the two working together with shared “as if” ritual experiences. Examples of these rituals experiences include kissing goodbye and hello, saying “I love you” before leaving, and praying before eating together before dinner. This concludes that Christian rituals can just be actions performed without the characteristic of sincerity needing involvement.

After formulating an argument in result to an in depth exploration of the two modalities, it is best to infer that both can be interchanged in accordance to the given situation these two modes are in. Sincerity has an advantage over ritual on account of the development process that participants have to undergo in order to achieve true sincerity.

The characteristic of sincerity has to be cultivated into each participant by that participant. Thus, sincerity is achieved, not ascribed. In the framing of ritual, rituals can be given to the participant and studied, leading to the creation of a common routine for the participant. This enables the participant to “get it right. ” Furthermore, the rituals performed by a participant may tend to be monotonous and repetitive. It can get old after time, in which may direct the participant to move further away from performing the required rituals that maintain a healthy relationship between the religion and them self. However, if the participant were to always be sincere with the performed rituals, the participant wouldn’t care about the negative qualities such as repetitiveness. Sincerity keeps the participant involved by always caring deeply about their Christian faith (ex. Marriage). The changing of context for rituals may keep some participants involved for a brief time, but the participants who are truly sincere in performing their rituals will not care about the rituals being monotonous.

For a participant to be simplistic, honest, and transparent is the harmonious objective of sincerity, where formal and repetition from a participant is the objective of rituals. Participants experience mutual endearment which arises from harmony. By judging the two modalities, this allows the philosophical framework of the participant to gain mutual values of the two. Also, instability can follow if one modality dominates the other. The overall objective of sincerity and ritual is to harmonize the participants’ feelings in which produces a balanced propriety that has the ability to control their outward expressions. For this reason, sincerity internal, whereas rituals are external.