sentiment

• God is governed by divine s.

4:4.5God’s ab­so­lute­ness per­vades all seven lev­els of uni­verse re­al­ity. And the whole of this ab­so­lute na­ture is sub­ject to the re­la­tion­ship of the Cre­ator to his uni­verse crea­ture fam­ily. Pre­ci­sion may char­ac­ter­ize trini­tar­ian jus­tice in the uni­verse of uni­verses, but in all his vast fam­ily re­la­tion­ship with the crea­tures of time the God of uni­verses is gov­erned by di­vine sen­ti­ment. First and last—eter­nally—the in­fi­nite God is a Fa­ther. Of all the pos­si­ble ti­tles by which he might ap­pro­pri­ately be known, I have been in­structed to por­tray the God of all cre­ation as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• false s. fosters and perpetuates hopelessly defective human strains

52:2.11This prob­lem of race im­prove­ment is not such an ex­ten­sive un­der­tak­ing when it is at­tacked at this early date in hu­man evo­lu­tion. The pre­ced­ing pe­riod of tribal strug­gles and rugged com­pe­ti­tion in race sur­vival has weeded out most of the ab­nor­mal and de­fec­tive strains. An id­iot does not have much chance of sur­vival in a prim­i­tive and war­ring tribal so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion. It is the false sen­ti­ment of your par­tially per­fected civ­i­liza­tions that fos­ters, pro­tects, and per­pet­u­ates the hope­lessly de­fec­tive strains of evo­lu­tion­ary hu­man stocks.

• false s. fosters and perpetuates hopelessly defective human strains

52:2.12It is nei­ther ten­der­ness nor al­tru­ism to be­stow fu­tile sym­pa­thy upon de­gen­er­ated hu­man be­ings, un­salv­able ab­nor­mal and in­fe­rior mor­tals. There ex­ist on even the most nor­mal of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds suf­fi­cient dif­fer­ences be­tween in­di­vid­u­als and be­tween nu­mer­ous so­cial groups to pro­vide for the full ex­er­cise of all those no­ble traits of al­tru­is­tic sen­ti­ment and un­selfish mor­tal min­istry with­out per­pet­u­at­ing the so­cially un­fit and the morally de­gen­er­ate strains of evolv­ing hu­man­ity. There is abun­dant op­por­tu­nity for the ex­er­cise of tol­er­ance and the func­tion of al­tru­ism in be­half of those un­for­tu­nate and needy in­di­vid­u­als who have not ir­re­triev­ably lost their moral her­itage and for­ever de­stroyed their spir­i­tual birthright.

• false s. fosters and perpetuates hopelessly defective human strains

99:3.5The church, be­cause of over­much false sen­ti­ment, has long min­is­tered to the un­der­priv­i­leged and the un­for­tu­nate, and this has all been well, but this same sen­ti­ment has led to the un­wise per­pet­u­a­tion of racially de­gen­er­ate stocks which have tremen­dously re­tarded the prog­ress of civ­i­liza­tion.

• do not appeal to s. in proclaiming gospel

159:3.2Al­ways re­spect the per­son­al­ity of man. Never should a righ­teous cause be pro­moted by force; spir­i­tual vic­to­ries can be won only by spir­i­tual power. This in­junc­tion against the em­ploy­ment of ma­te­rial in­flu­ences refers to psy­chic force as well as to phys­i­cal force. Over­pow­er­ing ar­gu­ments and men­tal su­pe­ri­or­ity are not to be em­ployed to co­erce men and women into the king­dom. Man’s mind is not to be crushed by the mere weight of logic or over­awed by shrewd elo­quence. While emo­tion as a fac­tor in hu­man de­ci­sions can­not be wholly elim­i­nated, it should not be di­rectly ap­pealed to in the teach­ings of those who would ad­vance the cause of the king­dom. Make your ap­peals di­rectly to the di­vine spirit that dwells within the minds of men. Do not ap­peal to fear, pity, or mere sen­ti­ment. In ap­peal­ing to men, be fair; ex­er­cise self-con­trol and ex­hibit due re­straint; show proper re­spect for the per­son­al­i­ties of your pupils. Re­mem­ber that I have said: “Be­hold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in.”