Guilt and punishment or love and correction?

Do you believe in guilt? Do you believe that human beings are inherently defective, inadequate, and prone to sin for which they should be punished to teach the offender a lesson as well as all others who would be deterred from similar sins and crimes by seeing a brother or sister punished?

The law here is simple: if you believe in guilt and punishment you, yourself, will be found guilty and punished. Most of us deal with this fear of being found guilty and punished by telling ourselves that we are not like the offender. Somehow we are different. Some of us more humble will say to ourselves as we find guilt assigned and punishment perpetrated, "There but for the grace of god go I."

It is said that we reap what we sow. The law of karma, simply stated, is, what goes around comes around. When we believe in guilt and punishment we are making our bed and we will have to lie in it.

Is this the world we want to believe in? Do we want to continue to believe in the original sin which makes all human beings innately damaged goods from their births? This belief has consequences, consequences which we have not seen and deep down do not want and if we can get past our fears, we come to know are not true.

The Children of God cannot sin. Make mistakes, yes, but sin? No. God, our creator, does not condemn us and certainly does not punish us. We do that to ourselves. So, the question becomes, do we want to follow the path of the ego and  condemn and punish, or the path of the spirit and correct and teach? Is there a better way? Yes, of course. Is punishment the path to peace and healing or is it love and deep understanding? Compassion and forgiveness?