I-ight...Y'all definitely came with some good insight. For a little more clarification from me:

This post was really born when I started thinking about the idea of the wicked having the appearance of the most righteous to pursue personal gain.

Kinda like you have to know your enemy better than you know yourself. So if the devil has any chance of defeating God, then the devil is superficially righteous so that he can wage a war on his own terms and beat Good at Good's own game

I worked towards the idea that if a person was a believer and acted righteous because of duty, then how far removed would that person be from the devil? Not saying that a given person is inclined to fight this battle from within, but if you have faith because you are supposed to have faith, then do you really have faith at all?

If your motivation is a sense of obligation, then are you really a believer?

I think the solution came in my second post by saying that faith requires trust that you have noble intentions.

There's probably no clear cut answer to all of this and I might be throwing some bullish from my brain at your computer screen, but in any case, I appreciate the responses.


---I'm here---

"Ten out of ten heroin addicts started out on milk."---from Arliss

"So I dropped Sense like Common..."---Mocha Lab

---i'm here---

"...do what scares you..." -- l. varela