Conscience

The dictionary meaning of conscience is “the ability to see the difference between good and evil.” Someone who has been educated by what we call the Holy Scriptures, the words of God, also begins to see the difference between good and evil, and if he wishes, he can develop this ability. Through these books, in line with the culture he has acquired, he learns that many things he thought were good are actually absurd, even harmful; while he also comes to understand that some things he thought were evil are in fact far more beneficial and humane. I will give the simplest example. For instance, smoking is not forbidden anywhere in our world. I don’t mean special places where one shouldn’t smoke. Everyone can carry a pack of cigarettes and can buy them. In short, this is not wrong before the law. But a Jehovah’s Witness will not buy cigarettes, no matter where in the world he is. In his eyes this is evil. Well, don’t the others also know how bad cigarettes are? Especially now, when the packs have “smoking kills” written on them in giant letters. Yes, but who actually acts on this? If his doctor, his physician, his professor, his minister, his prime minister, his teacher, his judge, his soldier, his policeman smokes, then no matter what you write, that person will not be affected by it. He’ll buy them and smoke again. He’ll even laugh at the meaning of that warning and mock it. But a Witness learns, from childhood, or from the time he entered that religion, that this is not at all pleasing to God. And at the very least, they all act on it in front of one another. That is, it is not a teaching that remains merely in words. The person who sees this is affected too, and says “if they can do it, then so can I,” and quits smoking. That is, a person’s conscience and the education given to that conscience make him quit smoking. With this example I have compared ordinary people with Witnesses who pass for religious. True, the ordinary person isn’t given any education that “cigarettes are beneficial,” but his environment ruins the situation. The very teacher who gives long, long sermons about how harmful cigarettes are smokes himself. No matter how effectively and grandly he speaks, if that person himself doesn’t act on it, all those beneficial speeches are empty; they have no effect on anyone, and they cannot.

Let’s give another example, so that perhaps I can better explain how differently the conscience can work in line with the education received. For instance, when a child is in danger of dying from blood loss due to a traffic accident, the conscience of every person in the world—regardless of class, culture, or whatever faith he holds—compels that child to be given blood, and indeed demands that it be given. But a Jehovah’s Witness will neither give that child blood, nor—even if it is his own child—will he allow blood to be given to that child. The child dies before his eyes. And he does this with such an easy conscience. He even thinks that by doing so he has made a great sacrifice before God. As I said, while the conscience of all other people automatically resorts to every possible means to keep that person alive, the Jehovah’s Witness stands like a stone, and thanks to the education he received his conscience does not disturb him at all in this matter. On the contrary, if he accepts blood, he becomes very disturbed. These were examples showing how, within the conscience-education given by a religion, its members behave regarding cigarettes and blood. One is correct and beneficial, while the other, because of the education given, is wrong and leads to death.

Just as I was writing on this very subject, we read a piece of news on the Internet. In America, a patient sued the doctor who had brought him back from death, asking why he had given him blood! I suppose you have already guessed who that patient was. Yes, a Jehovah’s Witness. Even though he lost the case, he objected and went to a higher court. We don’t know what happened afterward. These are the kinds of events heard among Witnesses every day. This person does all this because of the education he received. His conscience tells him: “In this matter you are right.” I too held the belief and practice I am writing about here. And for years. Without ever really investigating, I too accepted this belief of the Witnesses like a mindless donkey. So one of the donkeys I speak of in this book of mine is me! There were so many subjects on which I was not in harmony with these people—which one should I object to. Since I wasn’t afraid of death or anything, I had accepted this matter as it was, without caring much.

A doctor at the hospital came to mind. Before the surgery he was asking me questions. And I had said: “No matter what happens, don’t give me blood.” The man got upset. And on top of that, I explained this business by showing verses from the Holy Scriptures! Actually, the part I am most ashamed of is that I did this in God’s name and with His words. Nothing happened, and no blood was needed in the surgery anyway. But because of my conversation with the doctor, because of the donkeyish knowledge I possessed back then, my conscience is still uneasy. That doctor—and most of these people don’t really believe in God anyway—and on top of that, I, the donkey across from him, was trying to prove it to him from God’s word, saying “if blood is needed, don’t give it, let him die!” If that doctor had even a little sympathy toward God, perhaps that was lost too. True, doctors are also part of an organized association like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In our present century, in principle, there is not much difference between them either. They too trample the truth into the ground, accept anything for the sake of their interests, and leave the Witnesses far behind. The most terrifying of them are the German doctors of Merkel’s time. Their difference from the Hitler era is that they are more professional. But the mindset is the same, and they draw their power from the law. May God not let anyone fall into their hands. Anyway, let’s come back to my belief about blood. Actually, it would be more accurate to say these are beliefs accepted lazily, without investigation. Just because others said so. And this donkeyishness stems from the belief: “They must have investigated a lot and surely know much better than we do.” In this matter we never experienced any bad event in our life. But what if we had? What if I had abandoned my child, my wife, to death because of this? With what I know now, what would I do with this conscience? What these religionists do, what they cause to be done, is terrifying, disgraceful.

We said, “Conscience works according to the education it has received.” Let’s give still other examples so that it may be more easily understood. For instance, a man commits theft, or is a pickpocket, or kills a man, yet when he comes home he sleeps soundly, snoring away; while alongside him another person is continually uneasy all day and all night because he spoke harsh and perhaps heartbreaking words to a total stranger. He tosses and turns from distress. He can’t sleep, he loses his appetite. And yet no one is punishing this man. In fact no one will punish him either. But it is his conscience that gives him this uneasiness. Regarding this, a verse about an experience of the prophet David appears in 1 Samuel 24:5 and 2 Samuel 24:10. There it says:

…And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s skirt.

…And David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. it says (Old Holy Scripture translation). In fact, in some translations—and apparently that meaning actually comes out of the original—the word “smote” is used for his conscience instead of “disturbed.” Conscience cannot beat a person in the literal sense, but it gives great disturbance in the spiritual sense; so saying it “gave disturbance” is not wrong, nor is saying it “beat” him. What I want to express is just how effective our conscience is upon our soul, our inner world, and therefore, through all this, upon our very selves.

Well, does the other man, the one who does evil, have no conscience? Don’t people even call such people “conscienceless”? Conscience actually exists in every person, but the way it operates depends on the education received. If, according to the education we received and believed, we learned what is good and what is bad, our conscience makes that distinction. And before we move on to the examples about this question, let’s deal with one more question. For instance, on the other hand, people who received a very good conscience-education also turn out bad later on. What happens to their conscience that they can commit evil?

The thing called a person’s conscience is not some organ visible to the eye. We said it is our feelings in our inner world, our ability to discern. In the Holy Scriptures this is sometimes called the “heart.” Again, this does not mean that person’s literal heart. It means the feelings, the emotions, that come from within. If we are to make a comparison for our conscience as well, let’s give a few examples by likening it to our nose among our sense organs, so that the subject may be understood more easily.

For instance, a strange smell reaching our nose immediately warns us. We take a breath or two more, wondering. It warns us again. For example, getting up early in the morning to go to work, we give our old sock a sniff. At that moment we catch the smell; we hold it away a bit and look, sniff again—this time the smell seems to have lessened, but it still stinks; after holding it away and looking again, we sniff once more; now the smell has lessened a great deal and it doesn’t smell so terrible to us anymore, and we put on that sock and go to work. The sock is always the same sock, the smell is always the same smell—what is this difference? Just as our nose warns us, it does not go on giving that warning forever. If we accustom our nose to that smell, its warning voice will gradually grow quieter. Our nose, which in the first stage says “it stinks terribly!”, in the second stage says “it stinks,” in the third “well, it stinks a bit,” in the fourth “it’ll do,” in the fifth “it doesn’t really stink that much,” in the sixth “oh come on, I don’t detect anything,” in the seventh “I don’t smell it at all,” and it truly doesn’t. In short, this is called “our nose got used to that smell.” For example, I put a vanilla scent in my car so it smells like chocolate inside. But no matter when I get into the car, this scent doesn’t smell to me. It smells to a stranger, but not to me. Yet I smell that scent in a stranger’s car. Not in my own car. Because my nose and my mind have grown accustomed to that scent in my car. My subconscious has grown used to that scent, and for me it is now natural, so I don’t notice it. But because I don’t expect to smell the same scent in someone else’s car, my nose senses it right away. People who work in such strongly-smelling occupations know this situation well. For example, someone who smells diesel continuously from morning till evening for the first time comes home either feeling nauseous or vomiting his guts out. People who have made such work their profession experienced the same complaints and the same experiences at the beginning. Later, in time, their noses grew accustomed to that smell, and they are no longer bothered. Or for someone working in a restaurant kitchen for the first time, the situation is again the same. Those food smells turn a person’s stomach. Many such examples can be given.

Our conscience is like this too. No matter how good an education we have received, in the face of an act that should or should not be done, that conscience, like our nose, first warns us intensely, then that intensity decreases, then it warns us calmly, and after that—especially if we are stubborn—we wait until that voice disappears, and we do the thing we shouldn’t do. Or we pass by without doing the thing we should do. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that our wishes and desires stifle that voice of our conscience. And if we even make these things we shouldn’t do into a profession, then that conscience, on the contrary, reaches a day when it reproaches us for not doing that thing. It says, “Lazybones! Look, you didn’t do it, today you didn’t rob anyone, didn’t swindle anyone, didn’t stab anyone.” Regarding this, Solomon, with the spirit he received from God, writes as follows:

For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall (unless they lay a stumbling block). The Proverbs of Solomon 4:16

While some feel a terrible disturbance of conscience when they make a small mistake, the people in this verse can’t sleep when they don’t do evil! Do these men have no conscience? Of course they do, but that conscience works according both to the education he received and to how insistently he has by now suppressed and stifled that conscience. Let me give yet another very simple example. In Arabia, while the conscience of a man who does not go to the mosque on Friday is disturbed, in the same place a Christian’s going to the mosque disturbs his conscience. Or, while a devout Catholic feels uneasy when he does not go to church on Sunday, if in that same place you force a devout Muslim into that church, this time his conscience disturbs him. As to why he entered that church. Because for both of these religious groups those places are forbidden. Whereas those who go there go saying “I am worshipping God,” while for a person educated in a different faith that same place gives great disturbance to his conscience.

Because it is a sensitive subject, the apostle Paul stresses that care must be taken in this matter. Let us also never forget that a good conscience does not come about on its own. Everyone must personally make great efforts in this. The education each person received at home as a child—whether little or much—is different. Our mothers and fathers raise us in a way they see as right in their own eyes. It cannot be said that they, either, know what is right and what is wrong in every matter. Moreover, many crooked, distorted emotions also enter into this business. But having a right conscience and listening to its voice is very important, especially in matters of faith. That is why Paul again says:

“Holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.” 1 Timothy 1:19

The essence of the point I want to make in this whole book is exactly this. In my view, the greatest task of those religions that we think will bring us closer to God is to gain mastery over people’s consciences and, in matters of faith, to make them shipwreck before God. Religions and states are the most skilled at frightening people by pressuring this conscience in order to master it. In fact, a dictator named Hitler who lived in history seared his people’s conscience with such indoctrination, saying “there is no such thing as conscience, that it is a fabrication of the Jews.” As for us humans, if we carry out things we don’t believe in out of fear, out of self-interest, or for other reasons, it means we are already beginning to sear our conscience. And a person who puts away a good conscience is, exactly as Paul said, beginning to make shipwreck in matters of faith too. Whereas without faith it is impossible to draw near to God. (Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 11:6) If a person does not heed the voice of his conscience and continually stifles it, a day will come when even the conscience of that person we call the best and most rightly educated in God’s sight will work very differently. It will grow numb to distinguishing good from evil. Having a seared conscience must be understood in this sense.

To mark on animals whom and where they belong to, certain signs, or letters, are made by pressing onto its body a hot iron bearing that shape. After a while the burned skin of the animal, which suffered great pain, feels nothing at all. Because the nerves there have died. Now even if you jab a needle there, it feels nothing. Because it has been seared. A person’s conscience too can be seared like this. Generally the person himself, the environment he is in, the education he received, his needs, his ego, and a host of other influences give shape to a person’s conscience. That is exactly why someone who has committed every kind of evil can come home and sleep soundly, snoring away, as if nothing had happened. It is not that that person has no conscience; the conscience he has has simply taken, or been given, another shape. Things that seem bad to some people do not seem bad to others. His conscience on this matter is unfeeling, numb. And it need not necessarily be numb or unfeeling either. As in the mosque-and-church example, those people’s consciences are working, but with faith-feelings based on different information. That is why we must pay great attention to how we are educated.

Because religionists know this situation, they absolutely love giving shape to people’s consciences. Once they’ve given it a shape, that’s it. The person becomes a wound-up robot. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, you can’t easily turn him from that path.

Since we humans have been created this way, above all else we must, absolutely, definitely accept that we can be mistaken. We must apply this not merely in words—like the Witnesses, like the Christian churches, like the Muslims and the Jews—but with our whole heart, with our deeds, and with sincerity. That is why we are obliged to accept that there can be mistakes in the education we received or in our own understanding. If we see that we have received a completely error-free education and view ourselves as flawless, and moreover believe this from the heart, then it means we have become fanatics. These can also be called “the absolutely convinced.” The greatest mistakes, atrocities, and injustices have stemmed from people being unable to sincerely believe and accept that they can be mistaken.

Does this mean that we will doubt and forever hesitate even about the things in which we are right and justified? In fact, on this matter the apostle James says:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to everyone, without reproaching; and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

Let not that man, so wavering and unstable in all his ways, suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.” he says. (Gospel—James 1:5-8)

What is meant here is emphasizing that the resolve and the faith to be shown without doubting must belong to God. It is not that we should, without any doubt about the knowledge we have received and our own rightness, say “I am the most right”; rather, with a mindset that says: “We are sinful people, the truest knowledge is with God, and He gives it to whom He wills,” we must always leave room for the possibility that we ourselves may be mistaken. I write this word again, as I have repeated it many times in my book: “Until we are perfect before God—that is, flawless in paradise—no matter what we do in knowledge and in our deeds, in His sight we will always remain a sinner, an idolater.” (Romans 7:18 and 7:23-25) With this awareness the prophet David says:

If thou, Jehovah, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities (evils), who shall stand? (Psalms 130:3)

Otherwise there would be no meaning to our being imperfect—that is, flawed, sinful. In this world, who can claim to be the most correct in knowledge and in practice? That is why it is very important for us to have a right conscience in our relationship with God. I am not saying with someone else’s right conscience; just as everyone is responsible for his own conscience, so everyone will give an account for his own conscience. Accordingly we will be reckoned guilty or not guilty. And that is why we have no right to pressure anyone’s conscience. If we do so, this brings that person not salvation but, on the contrary—as Paul said—it may make him shipwreck in his faith in God.

“…In summary, whatever you eat and drink, whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God…” 1 Corinthians 10:23-33

This is what matters; God looks at this. When I first read the Gospel, these words greatly surprised me too. What does it mean, then—if no one does the exactly right thing, if we still don’t know and can’t know entirely, one hundred percent, what is right, then nothing has any meaning anymore, I had said. Were our researches, our inquiries, our worship of God, and so on, all in vain? Because this explanation seems to yield that meaning. If no one knows exactly whether what is done is right or wrong, on what basis will we be judged? Indeed, this is exactly the subject I want to explain with this writing.

First of all, we must absolutely educate ourselves before God as much as we can. Only through this education can we have a conscience that works well and rightly. And this too will not be one hundred percent. Our being flawed will, from time to time, hinder this. But our being flawed and sinful is not an obstacle to acquiring knowledge, investigating, and being diligent in doing the most right thing. That is, we may not have a right conscience that works one hundred percent, but by always acquiring knowledge, investigating, and educating ourselves, our rate of making mistakes will decrease. Our being sinful should lead us not to despondency but, on the contrary, with this awareness, to being even more diligent. Yet we will also be held responsible for how we apply the knowledge we receive. Well, if knowledge places responsibility on us, then should we not acquire any knowledge at all? Look, the apostle Paul, through the spirit he received from God, says the following:

On the day when God will judge the secret things of men through Christ Jesus, according to my gospel, those who have sinned without law will also perish without law; and those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law; for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous (correct) before God, but the doers of the law shall be counted righteous; for when the nations that have no law do by nature the works of the law, they, not having the law, are a law unto themselves; their conscience also bearing witness together, and their thoughts among themselves accusing (charging) or else defending them, they show that the work of the law is written in their hearts. Romans 2:12-16

So then, whether you know or don’t know, there is no such thing as escaping judgment. On what basis? On the basis of our conscience. Well, how will that conscience know what is right and what is wrong? If we explain it briefly and very simply: “Just as you do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself; if you also do to others the things you would want done to yourself, no problem will remain.” This is a principle, and for thousands of years people’s consciences worked according to this simple principle. Would a person who does these things feel any disturbance of conscience? Whether you are Satan or an angel, when you apply this rule evil is removed, it disappears. (Luke 6:31; Matthew 22:36-40) Is it so hard to understand this? If we want and seek this very simple principle, it will not be hard for us to feel it in our conscience either. No matter how uneducated we are, our conscience will by now guide us in many things. By reading and learning, we only raise the quality of this business and do good not by chance but with conscious knowledge, professionally. However knowledgeably and professionally evil is done, we too must be experts at being good and doing good against it. Otherwise it is possible for us to be like mad bullocks, wandering here and there out of ignorance, not knowing what we are doing, merely being well-intentioned. But we are not bullocks or donkeys; as I said, we are human.

Even though our conscience by nature makes a simple distinction between good and evil, God does not merely recommend that we acquire knowledge—He commands it. (Proverbs of Solomon 1:29) A merely good intention and a partly-rightly-working conscience come to nothing because of ignorance. Because Satan, with his dominion over the earth, is showing great mastery in these last days in which we live, presenting evil things to us as if they were good and corrupting us by manipulating our conscience. It is certain that we need knowledge far more than in ancient times. Not only because we live in the last days, but also because the evil on our earth is so masterfully and worldwide-widespread in a way never before seen. That is exactly why in our time we are perhaps in greater need of Godly knowledge than ever before. Let us, as much as we can, not be lazy against this. When faced with an event, it may not be possible for us to research from the books we hold sacred and immediately find the answer for what to do at that moment. That is why let us so educate our conscience that even when those books are not with us, the experiences recorded in them and the words of God, held in our mind and heart, can guide us everywhere, in every matter.

After this, do we still doubt, do we not know, can we not distinguish what is right and what is wrong; let us ask God for all of these and for our troubles, without any hesitation, with complete uprightness of heart and with sincerity, and He will give. Jesus said as follows:

“And I say unto you: ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks receives, and he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks the door shall be opened.

Which father among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more certain is it that the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Luke 11:9-13

Let us too be sure that whatever we lack in right things—whether it be knowledge, or the ability to discern, or the seeking of truth—if we ask God, He will give it. But without expecting it to be according to our own head, like Naaman the Syrian commander. People beg God for many things, but they wait for those things to come to pass in line not with God’s will but always with their own will, their own desires. When mankind sees that things did not go according to his own head, he has generally turned his back on God. Just as he cannot bring himself to accept his own headlessness, whatever it may be, he has also blamed God in this matter, saying “why did you let me get into this situation”! Whereas, just as it is said that cutting one’s losses wherever one can is a gain, becoming aware on that road and turning back—whatever a person may have done in the past—will bring him salvation.

For instance, some people, becoming aware of this while being executed and showing genuine repentance, were accepted by God because of it. Others, on the contrary, feel no remorse at all. When Jesus was being killed, two bandits were also condemned along with him, on his right and on his left. While one repents and humbly acknowledges his guilt, the other still, in an ill-mannered way, curses Jesus even though he had nothing to do with it. (Luke 23:39-43) This example does not show us that everyone sentenced to death will necessarily repent. To the one who repented, Jesus says: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus proclaims to that condemned bandit the good news that a magnificent salvation has been granted. And by this, the idea believed in the Muslim world—“no matter what I do, in the end I recite the shahada, that is, I repent and am saved”—is not being defended. Come, let’s say that you did whatever you did, and, like the bandit hanged beside Jesus, because in the end you repented from the heart, God forgave you too. But don’t forget this either: just as that forgiven condemned man paid the price for his foolish acts with nails in his body on the torture cross until he died, you too will pay. God’s purpose in all His holy scriptures, and the knowledge He gives us, is to try to live in this world with as little suffering as possible. We can also see these words of His as a user’s manual. Just as a television, a musical instrument, an electronic device has a user’s manual, we must accept God’s words as a manual for living, one belonging to this world.

I said that someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with religion bears better fruit than very religious people. People who know very well turn out even worse than those who don’t know. That is also why the Jews have earned the hatred of many nations in the world. An ordinary person cannot understand the reason for this. He merely judges by looking at their bad deeds. But if a nation, a religious organization, has become terrible, this also stems from the knowledge they received of distinguishing good from evil. Unfortunately, many people who possess this knowledge want to obtain not what is good for everyone but only what is good for themselves. In this direction, they will, if necessary, trample over everyone and pass on. By now they are doing the things they do not amateurishly but in a professional way. Just what is the difference between amateur and professional, anyway?

They said this simply in a film, and I never forgot it. For example, an amateur photographer takes 100 pictures and captures the desired one in a single picture. A professional photographer takes one picture and has already captured the desired picture. What is meant to be conveyed here is the difference between one who knows what he is doing and one who doesn’t. The one who has knowledge and experience is called professional, and the one without knowledge and experience is called amateur. In the matter of good and evil, the situation is exactly like this. Does evil done knowingly and professionally reach its aim, or evil done amateurishly? While only ten to twenty percent of what is done amateurishly reaches its target, the other goes straight to the target. And usually without ever missing.

Let me give another very simple example. In Germany a Turk opens a döner shop. Not much time passes before another Turk—who knows nothing about that business and never even had it in mind to do such work—sees this and immediately, right next to it or on the back street, opens another döner shop, exactly the same. A rivalry begins between them. They devour one another. They keep slashing their prices. They even work at a loss just to ruin each other. And the German customers snicker at this situation under their moustaches. As I said, even though our Turks have made themselves a most unloved nation, no state has ever seen them as dangerous, because their greatest enemy is themselves anyway. And besides, what would there be to be an enemy of. No enemy could even know or do the harm they do to one another. Nor would he need to, because they are already devouring one another at every moment.

Now let’s give an example from a nation that is Jewish. Let’s say that he too goes and opens some döner shop somewhere. Another Jew who sees this thinks, and says “what does this döner shop need,” and he too goes and, either right next to it or on its back street, opens a bakery and makes flatbreads. As he sells these flatbreads to that döner shop, forget rivalry—they make all the people of that area dependent on them. This dependence does not come about by force, of course. It comes about through their quality, discipline, and order. Because they work with one another, they also help one another. Because the one lives thanks to the other, and the other thanks to him. One helping the other actually means helping himself. While one of these two nations’ people struggles at a loss over how to ruin the other, the Jew in the second example struggles over how to prosper. Which is more profitable? And without needing to compete with or do harm to anyone. And by this I am defending neither the chosenness of the Jews nor the racism of the Germans. Whatever nation and race the one who opened that second döner shop is from is unimportant anyway; here I am emphasizing how people can be different according to the educations they receive. We said conscience is the ability to distinguish good from evil. But again I repeat, whatever we teach as good, the conscience calls it good, and the things we learned as bad are bad for our conscience too. In the above examples, everyone set out thinking he was doing or would do good for himself, not for others. And if these things are also in harmony with the laws of the states, then there is no problem for them anyway.

The biggest reason the Jews were hated in Hitler’s Germany was also the Jews’ solidarity with one another and, consequently, their success. It was the Torah the Jews possessed, and therefore the knowledge of God, their attachment to one another, their seeing themselves as superior to all other societies and believing themselves to be a nation chosen by God. That the knowledge of God they used was not of a kind pleasing to God was, in most cases, plain to see. Just as they so loved the intoxication of being a chosen nation, the Germans too greatly enjoyed such intoxication. Nations love to drink such liquors and to get drunk on them. And on top of that, using this knowledge not to consider how it can be useful to everyone but only how it will be of use to themselves. These things too develop hatred in people. However much the Germans hated the Jews, being influenced by the Jews’ successes, they did the very same things the Jews had done in order to be successful themselves, and they still do so with great pleasure. The idea of the superior German race developed by taking as an example the Jews they hated. Just like some Turks who stayed for long years in Germany becoming nationalists. Whereas nationalism didn’t interest them in the least, being influenced by the Germans they too clung to nationalism. In religion the situation is the same. That is why someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with religion or the state, being influenced by another’s zeal, by his hatred, and getting angry at the other, goes and clings to his own religion. Here again I have described to you the kind of events they call “take from one and hit the other with it.” Why do people themselves, with pleasure, do the very same things they see in others and hate? In the same way, so that others will hate them too?

These people learn words such as “Love one another; bless those who do you evil; you must love your neighbor as yourself,” and by now they watch those around them carefully for “who isn’t doing exactly these things to me.” But at himself he never looks. Not even a dot or a comma of a thought like “I wonder to whom am I not doing these things, so that I may do them” crosses his mind. This is how we humans learned, and how we apply, the knowledge God gave us of the difference between good and evil. (Matthew chapters 5 through 7)

That old man who asked “Do you know that I love you?”—from that day on, he wouldn’t even let me answer at the meetings. And yet for years I wasn’t answering anyway, and I wasn’t obsessed with doing so. They were always blaming me for this too, with words like “why doesn’t he answer, see, he isn’t sincere.” And so, to make them content, I had begun to give answers on subjects that I myself also believed in and agreed with, but this time it didn’t take long at all for them to impose a ban! True, for the time being only that old man himself was applying this, not the others. Later, though, they all began to apply it—that’s another matter. And yet generally these people are always in unity. Even though whatever they do they decide together, against me this old man had made a decision according to his own head. Actually he wasn’t a bad person, nor was he good either. He was like everyone else. That day, the love he insistently asked about, he began to show me like this! If he truly loved, he wouldn’t have been affected by my words. And I, in response to his foolishness that day, had only said: “I am afraid of a person who knows the Holy Scriptures”—was I unjust?

If I sum it up briefly without lengthening the subject further, we said that God’s word teaches man good and evil. Regarding true goodness and righteousness, God is the highest authority in all the universe. No one can know better than He in this matter. As for us, what we will do with the things we have learned in Satan’s world—things contrary to God’s laws and principles—is something in our own hands. If we decide to do what is evil according to God, then, because we know very well what we are doing, we now carry out that work in a more professional way. If we decide to do good, the situation is again the same. This time too, because we know what goodness is, we do the good we want to do wisely, without botching it. The one across from us benefits from this. Never regard doing good as an easy thing. In this matter we are obliged to develop ourselves. Look at what God says about this:

“For my people is foolish, they know Me not. They are silly children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.” Jeremiah 4:22

Yes, just as we need to be knowledgeable in doing good, we must also be diligent in educating our conscience, which is bound to this. I had said, “Conscience is not educated on its own.” Receiving a right conscience-education may seem almost impossible in this world we live in. From televisions, radios, news, films, and newspapers—our world truly educates us with whatever is evil and empty. All these, and our surroundings, advance with sure steps in a way that strives to sear or corrupt the conscience God gave us at birth, by nature, equipped with many good things. Is there no good, right education either? Of course there is, if we want it. And in abundance. It is again we ourselves—that is, our very selves—who make this education, which seems impossible, into something that appears impossible. What is easy, unfortunately, is choosing to do evil. But its beginning and its end are always painful, unhappy, and its end means annihilation in God’s sight. If we make the effort for a conscience that works well and rightly, we will save life. Let us not forget—by this I mean both our own life and the lives of others. That is why, in the conscience-education we will receive, let us always, without hesitation, ask ourselves this question: According to whom are the things I learned as good good, and according to whom are the things I learned as bad actually bad? If the answer to both questions is not “God,” then it means we are receiving a wrong conscience-education.

On this subject I tried to write very little. On every subject I try to write very little. Still, those who criticize me say “You’ve talked a cartload.” I hope I am writing things that will serve to awaken you in your minds and hearts. In the matter of conscience—in shaping it, or in letting others master our conscience, in authorizing them over us—please let us not be donkeys. Do not take these things lightly just because they cannot be touched by hand or seen by eye, because they concern spiritual values. In making our living, our life, and most of all our future either bitter or sweet, these have very great effects. Most of all, they have great functions in our relationship, present or future, with our Creator. I hope you will investigate this subject in a more detailed way. As for me, only because it is relevant to my book, I definitely wanted you to know, even if only a little.