------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE CLAUSES OF THE CATECHISM REPEATED ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE CATECHISM _Q. 1.  What are you?_ _A._ I am a being alive and conscious upon this earth, a descendant of ancestors who rose by gradual processes from lower forms of animal life, and with struggle and suffering became man. _Q. 2.  What, then, may be meant by the Fall of man?_ _A._ At a certain stage of development man became conscious of a difference between right and wrong, so that thereafter, when his actions fell below a normal standard of conduct, he felt ashamed and sinful. He thus lost his animal innocency, and entered on a long period of human effort and failure; nevertheless, the consciousness of degradation marked a rise in the scale of existence. _Q. 3.  What is the distinctive character of manhood?_ _A._ The distinctive character of man is that he has a sense of responsibility for his acts, having acquired the power of choosing between good and evil, with freedom to obey one motive rather than another. Creatures far below the human level are irresponsible; they feel no shame and suffer no remorse; they are said to have no conscience. _Q. 4.  What is the duty of man?_ _A._ To assist his fellows, to develop his own higher self, to strive towards good in every way open to his powers, and generally to seek to know the laws of Nature and to obey the will of God; in whose service alone can be found that harmonious exercise of the faculties which is identical with perfect freedom. _Q. 5.  What is meant by good and evil?_ _A._ Good is that which promotes development, and is in harmony with the will of God. It is akin to health and beauty and happiness. Evil is that which retards or frustrates development, and injures some part of the universe. It is akin to disease and ugliness and misery. _Q. 6.  How does man know good from evil?_ _A._ His own nature, when uncorrupted by greed, is sufficiently in harmony with the rest of the universe to enable him to be well aware in general of what is a help or a hindrance to the guiding Spirit, of which he himself is a real and effective portion. _Q. 7.  How comes it that evil exists?_ _A._ Evil is not an absolute thing, but has reference to a standard of attainment. The possibility of evil is the necessary consequence of a rise in the scale of moral existence; just as an organism whose normal temperature is far above “absolute zero” is necessarily liable to damaging and deadly cold. But cold is not in itself a positive or created thing. _Q. 8.  What is sin?_ _A._ Sin is the deliberate and wilful act of a free agent who sees the better and chooses the worse, and thereby acts injuriously to himself and others. The root sin is selfishness, whereby needless trouble and pain are inflicted on others; when fully developed it involves moral suicide.