Dr. Forbush Thinks

What is it that motivates us to live our lives?

Obviously not everyone has the same motivation - or do they?

Some people are determined to become wealthy. Others are driven to learn the secrets of the Universe. Still other travel the world looking for whatever thrills that they can find. The majority of humans, however, are merely driven to survive the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

If we take another step back and ask ourselves once again, what motivates these people to continue their unending drive to do what they do every day we may be surprised by the answer.

By the very nature of being human we have urges, emotions and desires that push us and our species to survive. Hunger pushes us to find food and eat it. The memory of hunger reminds us to store food for the future. Desire of the opposite sex urges us to procreate. Desire of friends and companionship makes a society stronger in order to defend itself against outside forces. The desire for comfort and warmth urges us to build shelters and protect ourselves from diseases and the weather. All of these urges come to all of us and we respond to them in different ways.

For the most part we are mainly concerned with survival. Most of the time most of us through out human history have been so concerned with simple survival that we haven’t really taken the time to ask the question - Why do we need to survive?

In some societies through out human history life has become easier for at least one group of people. When life became easier in Greek society the wealthy citizens of Athens used the surplus “free time” to ask this and many other interesting questions. The citizens of Sparta on the other hand used their free time to train soldiers to protect their way of life. These two major cities of ancient times are symbols for the two different ways to look at life. Sparta didn’t question the motivation of human survival; instead survival was assumed to be an imperative and military protection was the best-known way to achieve this imperative.

The philosophers of Athens asked this question over and over again. They asked the question in different ways. Somehow there is a feeling deep inside all of us telling us that we should survive, but we almost never know a true valid reason why that should be. After all, the meaning of life can not be answered unless we know why we were created. We can’t answer the question of why we were created unless there is a creator and the creator is willing to tell us why we were created. The puzzle goes on and on and it is difficult to find an honest indisputable answer that everyone will agree on.

This, of course, is the place where religion and science part ways. Religion asks us to make some assumptions that there is a God and that God created us. Science instead asks us to be skeptical and continue to ask questions that most likely can never be answered. As human beings the majority of us don’t put all of our eggs in one basket. This means that the majority of us don’t believe in religion to the exclusion of science, and we don’t believe in science to the exclusion of religion. So, most of us are comfortable with the idea that science can not answer questions regarding the purpose or meaning of our lives as individuals or as a society. Some people disregard those types of questions all together, others are happy to accept religious explanations. Either way, we all still have a feeling that what we do with our lives should serve some purpose, even if we don’t really know what that purpose really is. This is because there still is some desire within ourselves pushing us to survive and even thrive. We just don’t really know why.

Now, imagine yourself in the ideal situation. You have been born into a wealthy family and you most certainly will have everything provided for you for your entire life. You were “blessed” with parents that don’t ask anything from you and you are free to do whatever you like without limits. You don’t really need to study or work. You don’t need to think or read or question. You have three meals a day, a warm bed and much much more. So, what is the purpose of your life?

It actually turns out that a person does not need to be infinitely wealthy to experience this awesome freedom. In our American society today there are many people living in these exact conditions. These are not necessarily the wealthy, but the children of regular middle class people. Many of these children grow up with everything that they can imagine, food, a warm bed and a place to call their own. They are not asked to do very much and complain if they ever are. They get almost everything that they want and they sit around bored without anything to do. They watch TV and play video games for hours. Do these kids feel, know or understand the purpose of their lives? But, like all of us they still feel that deep down drive that they have some desire to fill. They just don’t know what it is. This desire is sometime described as an emptiness, a hole or a void. And, as humans we all search to fill that void with the things that we desire in the hope of filling that void.

From human instinct alone we know that we desire things that we are missing. We desire food when we are hungry. We desire water when we are thirsty. And, sometimes we desire these same things to fill that void of missing purpose in our lives. But, sometimes we can be fooled into believing that other things can fill that void. For example, drugs and alcohol may help us forget that desire which reappears when the effects of the drugs wear off. Others sometimes seek love to fill that void. And, in loo of love they find sex and lust instead. The problem is not that these things are evil, but rather the problem is that people don’t know what their purpose is and how to fulfill it.

Here is where religion offers a solution. Any religion will tell you that your purpose is to serve God, Whomever they deem to be that God. And, then the religion will prescribe how their particular God is to be served. The problem is so widespread and universal that is part of every religion. And the need to fill this void is so great that people will do almost anything in an attempt to fill this void. Cult religions thrive on this fact. But, other major religions use this human desire to fulfill the agenda of the religion in question. The question of whether God is truly being served is normally assumed by the majority of those who seek to fill this emptiness. “Love of God” or “Fear of God” are the profound forces used to keep those from questioning in many cases. Whether the religious purpose is the true purpose is not the point, because when a person feels that they are fulfilling a purpose the void becomes occupied and the need to fill it becomes less. Some will argue that only fulfilling your true purpose will fill the void completely, but since no one can truly know what that true purpose is this can only be left as conjecture. Some will argue that only a particular religion can fill the void, but the truth is that there are many very religious people still seeking to fill this void. The only way to truly fill this void is to become confident that you are truly fulfilling your purpose in the best way that you can.

You can acquire this confidence with or without the aid of religion. This confidence takes many forms. To some, it is called faith. This is the faith that you are doing what you need to be doing. But, it is also known a drive and desire. Athletes and Entrepreneurs have drive and desire to do what they do best by following their instincts. Scientists can remain skeptical, but they fill this void by continuously pursuing the questions that they ask. And, those that work to feed to poor and hungry know in their hearts irregardless of religion that they are certainly making the world a better place for the few that they can help. And their work truly fills that void.

The void is a search for purpose. And, as long as we live in an imperfect world there will always be a need. Finding and fulfilling these needs is the universal purpose that we all seek in the long run. We need to prepare ourselves so that when we find our purpose we take that opportunity and make the most of it. And, don’t worry, if you miss an opportunity another one will soon be on its way.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

In the end Man vs. Nature is the ultimate conflict that we all end up losing. This is because nature is the environment that we all live in. Nature encompasses everything we know. Other men, society, and ourselves can all be reduced to nature itself because all of these are products of nature. In literature when we explore one of these so-called non-nature conflicts we are only peeling off one subgroup of conflict in order to examine it more closely.

Man is always in a battle against nature. This was obvious in ancient civilizations when every danger lie just outside the campfire circle. But, even today the diseases that we fight - be they bacterial, viral or even cancerous - they come from nature in various ways to damage our bodies and age them little by little. Even oxygen and the sun age our bodies little by little. Nature eats away at us every day and no matter how we fight it - we will ultimately loose that final conflict.

We don’t like to think about this fact of life. But, every once in a while death comes a little closer than we might like. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

Yesterday I took on nature by choice. Like I did last year I chose to swim from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay to San Francisco. The famous island lies about 1.25 miles north of San Francisco in the cold bay waters normally between 55 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit. In these waters hypothermia is a real threat, but swimming hard for less than an hour will generate enough heat for most people to counter this problem. I survived this swim last year with some major chills and shivering, but nothing life threatening. I can normally swim a mile in about 25 minutes - 30 minutes would be a lazy pace. So, I wasn’t very worried about this swim at all.

But, nature doesn’t always cooperate.

About 650 people joined me on a one-way cruise out to Alcatraz. I had no fear, because I had done this before. But, looking back on this short trip out to the island there was some foreshadowing. I began to talk to some of the experienced swimmers. Last year I worried about everything, where to site, how to pace myself. This year I made the sophomore mistake of throwing worry to the wind. Of course most of the swimmers wore wetsuits. I didn’t wear one last year, why would I need one this year?

I met a few guys who also chose to swim “naked” as they call it. Two of them worked out every day swimming in the Aquatic Park. Another guy told me that this was his twentieth crossing. I asked him if there was anything that he had learned from all of his experience. He told me, that the most important thing was that every crossing was different. And that sentiment is still bouncing around in my head today.

As we traveled across the bay, the boat was being tossed around. Someone noted that there were whitecaps on the waves. And, another guy said, “This is going to be challenging.” I began to wonder what he meant by challenging.

Last year it took me 40 minutes to swim this short distance, mainly because I needed to occasionally stop and look around. I was also slow off the boat, which I believe added to my official swim time. This year I was quick to get toward the front of the line. I wanted to get started. Why wait? I jumped into the water, pushing the button on my watch in order to get the perfect boat to beach time.

I swam ahead away from the boat, following the crowd of swimmers that had jumped before me. Like most swimmers, freestyle means front crawl, the easiest and most efficient swimming stroke. I saw the swimmers in front of me and I kept up with them as we began to swim for the shore. Then a large wave hit me. I got my breath, but the wave slammed me into the water hard. I stopped for a second, picked my head up, and swam a few strokes of breaststroke. With my head above the water I could see the waves coming, but of course my progress was much slower. I put my head back in the water and continued on with my front crawl. I was hit by waves again and again. I was slammed into the water again and again. This was different from anything I had experienced before. Then a wave hit me in the face and I sucked in water. I coughed and gagged. I picked my head up and once again began breast stroking toward the shore.
Well, I tried to swim front crawl a few more times, but the waves were killing me. One well-placed wave just might drown me. The safest thing to do had to be breaststroke, but I didn’t do just regular breaststroke, I swam breaststroke with my head up. This was slow and steady, but at least I wouldn’t be drowned by those stupid waves. This was obviously “real” open water swimming. I saw other swimmers around me. One person had their hand up signaling a boat. The boat was a few feet away. They had told us if we needed any help that we should signal the boats that would be along the course.

The waves must have been about three feet high. This might not seem like much, but it was just enough to get you high enough that I could survey the swimmers around me. I felt better knowing that there were other swimmers around me. Last year I felt like I was alone in the sea. I couldn’t see anyone around me until I got pretty close to the finish line. This year I could see heads bobbing all around me. I felt pretty good that I wasn’t alone. But, people were passing me as I did breaststroke, and somehow these people were able to swim front crawl in all of these waves. I imagined that I must be like a runner that grew up in Kansas running quite well on all the flat roads that run around the cornfields. Suddenly I was placed in the Rocky Mountains and told to run a 10K. I’d be dying on every up hill, and trying to slow myself down on every downhill. Obviously I wasn’t prepared for this swim.

I stubbornly pushed myself forward. Breaststroke wasn’t fast, but the swim wasn’t only about winning a race. There wasn’t much chance that I was actually going to win the race. This was Man against Nature now, and I was going to win this battle. This swim started out an idea that I would beat my time from last year. And, this time I was going to run after the swim was over. The race was actually to swim from Alcatraz, then run seven miles over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. It certainly didn’t sound impossible when I started, but it sure was taking me a long time to get to the beach.

Nature, being what it is, isn’t about just one thing. Nature in the traditional sense is about aggressive wild animals, storms, lightening, volcanoes, mountains and more. And, nature in my case wasn’t just about nauseating waves. It was also about the cold water. Putting two things together, the lack of a wetsuit and the much slower pace that I was making due to the waves I was beginning to take quite some time to make this crossing. Occasionally I would panic a bit and begin to push myself a little harder. This was not necessarily the best strategy. I was already doing my best to fight the waves, did I really need to fight the exhaustion. Wait a minute, swimming at the pace I was with my head up avoiding the waves was already exhausting me. The extra time that this swim was taking was already exhausting me. And, the cold water was exhausting me.

I was thinking to myself that I was certainly in better shape this year than I was last year. What would have happened if I had to battle these same waves last year? This could have been worse. Maybe I should have worn a wetsuit? It would have been my insurance policy, giving me the margin that would have made the difference. I was certainly getting colder and my hands and feet were beginning to tingle. I could see the shore that I was aiming for, but it sure seemed to be a long way off. I struggled and pushed myself but it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress. I even tried to swim front crawl again. But, in my tired condition, even the smaller waves near the shore took their toll on me. With about 300 yards to go I finally realized that I should have been swimming sidestroke instead of breaststroke. I got a nice strong scissors kick going, and I started to pass the person swimming next to me. I felt like I was making some progress again. But I was already in a state of hypothermia.

I got out of the water and I ran to the place that I was supposed to change into my running gear. My wife met me there, and she was crying. I had taken an hour and twenty minutes to make this crossing. It took me 40 minutes last year. The difference was the waves, but my wife had seen an ambulance drive up, and she thought the worst. Even after seeing that I was OK, she was still upset, because someone wasn’t. In fact, a 51 year old woman who was swimming this same race had died. They found her floating in the bay and they didn’t know what had happened to her.

I don’t know any other way to explain how I felt after that swim, except that I had “fog brain.” I couldn’t think clearly. I knew that I was supposed to run seven miles, but didn’t know if I could. I probably needed some fluids, but I didn’t feel thirsty. My wife was trying to help me, but nothing seemed to make any sense. I had hoped that by running I would generate some heat and all of this would correct itself. At least that was the plan. I put my shoes and socks on and my wife and I started running. We ran slowly, but I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. My fog brain wasn’t going away and I was going into shock. I knew that this was bad, and my wife knew that it was bad. We turned around as we realized that this was just not worth the risk. The race was for fun. I could have run back and drink something and tried again. But, I knew that that would just be stupid. I was sad and dejected. Nature had won this one, but I had lived to fight another day. The fight goes on, even though we all really know that nature will win in the end. We just don’t know when.

I have been extremely busy the last few days. And, last week I was on vacation, which meant that I dropped everything in order to do twice as much this week. At least, that’s how it feels as this week is beginning to come to an end. Busy in the current American culture means that we have our time completely occupied from waking in the morning until sleeping in the evening. However, all of those activities are still subject to a “priority check.” I mean, I am actually busy all the time without regard for what else is demanding of my time and attention. Even while I was on vacation I was busy. It was just that I found the time to place self interest above my employer’s interest in my time. While I was on vacation I was able to occupy my time from the time I woke up until the time I went to sleep. The only difference was the priority of the things I found to occupy my time and attention.

So, what I was trying to say was that I was busy with priorities other than writing for the last few weeks. While I was on vacation I left my laptop at home, in order to insure that I focused on life experience. One important thing to remember as a writer is to have some life experience in order to write about life experience. It could become too easy to create situations artificially in order to live a scripted experience in order to write about it. Of course I know that the bloggers that I know would never do that. However, I have heard stories that these people do exist.

While I drive my number one priority is to pay attention to the road and traffic around me. But, my next priority is to listen to the radio and learn what the community is saying. While I was listening to the radio I heard a couple of interesting stories about food and religion that oddly enough seem to intersect in a strange way.

The food stories tended to be about how American’s have so much food that the food producers have invented ways to make people buy their cheap food. They make sugar and sweeteners out of corn (high fructose corn syrup) at one forth the cost of other sweeteners. America produces more than 4000 calories of food per person per day, and we only need 2000 or less for a healthy diet. The producers however would like us to buy that extra 2000 calories as well.

Well, the food industry has no self interest in limiting America’s consumption of food. The free market demands reward for consumption. But, massive consumption of food is not in the best interest of society, mainly because of health issues. Market forces may create efficient economics, but unfortunately the assumption is that society wins if every person has more. Market forces have no limits, and if everyone has more than they need, then there is no way to protect society from over-consumption.

If we look at the health side of the equation, maybe there is a way that market forces could regulate the ills of society. Over-consumption of food results in obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes to name a few issues. Over-consumption of food results in more business for the health industry. The health industry sells more drugs and procedures to aid in lowering cholesterol, controlling blood sugar, and reducing weight. The bigger the over-consumption problem, the more money the health industry pulls down. And, in addition to the official health industry there are many people who profit from this issue by selling diet books, and alternative medicines. And, the information in these diet books is recycled back into the food market in order to sell more food.

The conclusion is that everyone knows that they should eat less and healthier food, and exercise more. But, from all of the marketing in our society all we see is buy more unhealthy food because it will make us happy. The health industry tells us that we can’t possible succeed in this futile effort, so we need to buy drugs and diet aids to help us overcome our shortcomings as humans.

Well, oddly enough, some religions offer similar messages. Religions seem to be divided into two broad groups. All religions tend to claim to have some insight into the big picture and offer us understanding of our purpose here on Earth. One group claims to have exclusive authority and demand that everyone needs to adhere to those beliefs in order to find the answers. The other group believes that there are universal values such as love and compassion that are needed to obtain these answers and are willing to accept a wide variety of religions that share these common values.

These two groups tend to have different approaches in the religious market place. The first group believes that the same marketing strategy offered by the food producers is the key. More of my religion is good less of other religions is good. Glitzy marketing campaigns and propaganda are the key to building the world in this vision. Telling people to buy religious books, icons, and philosophies are the key to making one religion dominant and therefore the winning religion.

The second group is different than the first group in that the final outcome is a world where certain religious values are the goals. If religions preach about love and compassion then a world with more love and compassion will result. It doesn’t matter if Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha tell us the importance of this love and compassion. The benefit of more love and compassion benefits society, even if it doesn’t benefit one particular religion. And, that is how these two things, food and religion, are so similar.

If we leave religion to market forces, then the religion that advertises the most becomes the more dominate religion. It doesn’t matter much about how much love and compassion they intend to inject into our society. So, this massive marketing of religion hurts the quality of the religion that we are offered. Similarly, if we leave food to the market forces, then the more food we consume the better the food producers make out. It doesn’t matter whether maximum food consumption is good for our society. Maximum food consumption hurts our society through it cost in our health care system. And, it even hurts our society in the quality of the food we get.

Quality was once believed to be driven by market forces. But, as Bill Gates showed us, marketing can overcome defects in quality. And, the food industry is no exception. Cherries, apples, tomatoes, and strawberries have all been bread to be massively produced without regard for flavor. The consumer had little choice in this evolution, because of the cost differences of massively produced varieties as compared to the flavorful but delicate varieties. So, what is the real quality we look for in food? Is it the flavor, or the convenience? What do we lose in this market driven model?

Similarly, the quality in religion has been replaced with the ability to have quick answers without contemplation. There are Bibles with answers to commonly asked questions written in alternate colored text. Does this enhance the religious experience, or does it take the work of contemplation out of the equation? Do these religions give us the values in the end, or do they give us a list of rules that are derived from someone’s values that were created long ago in the context of a different world? What do we lose in this conversion?

So, in the end the way our food has evolved and the way our religions have evolved we are losing the essence, purpose, flavor, meaning and details that make our experiences special.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I have been thinking about the general concept of “values” since the moral majority and the religious right brought the issue of values from religion into politics. The word “values” is a catch all word that describes something that the can be nebulously described as “a good thing we can all agree on.” But, what a society or culture finds value in is not a clear and uniform idea that should be allowed to be thrown around unquestioned.

In fact, even the ideas that we might be able to produce off the top of our heads which embody the grand examples of “values” turn out not to be so cut and dry when we think of them in detail. We all value quite a number of things, but the priority in which we value them turns out to be even more important than the fact that we value them. We value our lives and we value our children’s lives. But, what priority do we put on those two values when we are asked to choose between the two?

If we examine the current political bifurcation the religious right will tell us that the issue is in the culture wars. The culture wars are about “values.” And, the religious right will tell us that one important value is life. The religious right proceeds to focus on the issue of abortion, as the center of the war on life as a value.

But, the truth of the matter is life is not the issue. The argument is not about whether one side of the argument values life, and the other side of the argument does not value life. No, everyone and their dog values life. In fact, many people on the left may be found who value life above and beyond many of those on the right. There are vegetarians on the left who value all animal life. There are anti-war protestors that value the lives of our military and the lives of the enemy that they are shooting at. The real truth is that life is not a debatable issue, we all value life in general. The real question turns out to be - who’s life do we value more than whom else’s life?

Similarly, on the left there are people who worry about our environment. The environment is valued by these people. But, if one was to ask the question - Do you think that we should preserve our environment? - we wouldn’t find many people who would answer no to that question. The environment provides us with the resources that we need to live at all. But, many people find it easy to put a price on the environment. Cheap energy and cheap labor saving devices and cheap entertainment are the price we pay, and many people believe that the price is worth the cost.

The issue of “values” is not really about what we value, but it is about the priority of our values. And, we will never change each other’s minds if we continue to argue about who’s values are important and who’s values are unimportant. Instead we need to discuss and order our priorities.

In a way, this is what we do when we make the laws. We make exceptions for some, which in effect gives these people higher priority. We rule in the case of people’s right effecting other people’s rights and the ruling gives us the priority of the law, and the priority of those values.

For example, when the law determines that the right to walk around naked outside is overruled by the right of someone not to inadvertently see someone walk around naked outside we value lack of nudity over free expression. Our societal values are reflected in our laws.

The reality of the situation is that many of the priorities that the previous generations have written into our laws no longer reflect our current priorities. We no longer have a higher priority on virginity than the well being of our sisters and nieces. We still value waiting until the time is right. But, we no longer think that a woman should be stoned to death for being raped. We now value the woman’s life above her virginity.

The priority of our values is an old question that was being asked by the holy man of ancient history. Perhaps this is why Jesus was sure to proclaim the love of God above all other laws. Jesus was already sorting the values by priority. He said love of God was number 1, and love of your neighbor was number two. Of course we aren’t all Christian nor do we all believe in any particular God at all. So, it is quite obvious that our culture can not have the same priority of values as Jesus told us too.
Thing about values is that we can have values that we all agree upon and we can also have individual values that we can place in our personal order. And, as long as our personal values don’t conflict with the values of society, then we will get along just fine. But, when we change our personal priorities with the societal priorities, then we are in trouble. We can change the value of the priorities that are not written in law, but we can not change the laws unless we go through the law making process.

An easy example of this is the priority we place on work. In some societies it is believed that work is something that needs to be done for society to function properly. In some societies, if you make it to work and put in some time, then you will be paid for what you do, but life is more important than work in general. If a worker were to wake up at noon eat lunch and make it to work by 2:00 PM they would be treated differently in the two societies. That worker might likely find himself fired if he lived in society one, while it could be just a regular work day in society two. When a worker from society two moves to society one, he is bound to take his personal priority system and discover the harsh reality of the new society.

The point that I am trying to make with this post is that the priority of our values is the key to making our society function. But, most of us never discuss this important aspect of our culture. Perhaps this lack of discussion is due to our assumption that we all share similar orders of priority in our values. Perhaps the lack of discussion is due to the complex nature of this task. Perhaps we never really think about the order of our own priorities in enough detail. Or, perhaps we just hijack someone else’s priority list and we don’t bother to consider any other priority, because our personal feelings, wants and desires are filled into the blank slate when we feel the urge. The priority of our values have been given to us through many different and most likely random channels. We understand the priority of our values from our parents, our teachers, our leaders and our preachers. But we also set the priorities of our values from our experience, our friends and our desires. Very few of us ever take the time and effort to compare different values and debate their priorities.

Maybe if we as a community began to discuss our priorities of our values and justify our ordering we could come to a consensus on were these priorities lie within our society. Maybe if we justify our positions we could learn where stumbling blocks and problems block the way. Maybe if we could get the major values defined and ordered we could understand where other priorities should be placed and our perspective would be increased.

Just to get the ball rolling I’ll offer my first stab at this:

1) The survival of our planet.

We all live on this planet, and if it were gone, or destroyed we would not have any place else to live.

2) The survival of life.

Life needs the planet, the planet can evolve life again.

3) The survival of our society.

I would like to use society in a global term, which would include all of the nations of the world. I would sacrifice the survival of our society to allow the planet to survive, because maybe society could once again evolve, but only if the planet still existed.

4) The security of our local region.

The priority of our local region of the planet is more important than the survival of a region that my friends, relatives, family and neighbors don’t occupy. I would sacrifice someone else’s region to save the entire society or planet if I needed to make a choice. The security of other regions often results in security of our own region.

5) The survival of our regional local life - People, plants and animals.

We need life to grow the food we eat, to form the society.

6) The survival of agriculture.

How else could we sustain our society?

7) The survival of my personal culture
8) The survival of other cultures

Go ahead, fill in the blanks, there are lots of them….





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Socrates made this famous statement at his trial 2400 years ago. And, for some, what he said then is relevant to us today. Some people write in their diaries every day in an effort to see what they can about the life that they are living, and explore ways in which they can make it better. But, I also know that there are people who do exist in this world that continue to be confused when they make the same mistakes time and time again.

Like living in an abusive relationship for ten years and finally being able to muster enough courage to break away and start a new life. But, only a few months down the road this very same person finds another abusive relationship with another abusive person hoping that this time the plot will work its way out differently.

But, it is hard to examine our lives honestly. Actually it is hard to examine our lives at all, let alone honestly.

For example, I asked a group of students yesterday to take ten minutes and reflect upon their lives. “Just think about where you are now and where you are planning to go. Think about the whatever pops into your head and spend ten minutes examining it.” It wasn’t very complicated. Everyone should do this everyday. There isn’t much more to it than that. It could be more complex. One could systematically go over a list of what you are doing and how did you get where you are. One could ask all the question words about their situation and where they are planning to take this large endeavor called life. Socrates actually had method of reasoning and detailed this in the quest of examining his life. Of course he didn’t write any of it down and we only have his students records of it, which may not be an honest examination since any account is often distorted through the eyes of a third party.

I found the students to be unusually distracted. The brightest student in the class was clearly the least eager to take on the challenge of examining his life. Often the person who knows the most is the fearful of what he might discover. I wasn’t really surprised and I thought that with only a ten minutes to reflect on their lives it wouldn’t really make a difference anyway so I let the class devolve as the students quickly opted for anything else to do except think about their lives.

The brightest students seemed to be distracted by each other while the less bright students were confused by the idea of reflecting on their lives. They asked me to explain what I wanted them to do again and again. They looked at me with a puzzled look on their faces. The net outcome was that no one really accomplished the assignment. I was a bit disappointed, but I also realized that reflection among American youth today is a completely foreign concept, that seems to be avoided at all cost. Why does one need to think about ones actions when they are told what to do almost every moment of every day? They have adults telling them how to behave either in person or on TV in songs or on the Internet almost continuously from the time that they awake until the time they go to bed. When exactly do they sit and stare into space and just think about nothing? When do they take the time to organize their thoughts? But, the main question is, when do they sit and do nothing without suddenly spouting the phrase, “I’m bored!?”

So, are all the unexamined lives of our young teens worth living? They all seem to be so determined not to examine their lives even when they are encouraged to take a mere ten minutes to do so. It isn’t like they are an unruly class. In general these students take assignments seriously. The problem was that this assignment asked them to do something that they either didn’t want to do or they already knew what they were going to find and they were afraid of that rediscovery. They didn’t like the lives they were leading, but they had already come to an easy justification for their lives and they didn’t want to disturb it.

It is well understood among those who recruit teens that the young mind is uncomfortable with their lives. They want to be happy and they fear discomfort. They fear finding something that they don’t want and they are susceptible to suggestions of easy solutions to this problem. Some religions offer an “easy” list of rules to follow. These rules offer the hope of enlightenment that these students seek without the pain of exploring the truth in the context of their own lives. Sometimes a religious group will explore a tiny emotional exposure that brings a flood of tears to the unwary teens. The emotions actually frighten the teens into following the teachings in the hopes of staving off the possibility of that ever happening again.
Some groups offer projects that help the community as a substitute for thinking about the big picture. Members tell each other that they are doing their parts and there is no need to consider doing more. A continuous examination of ones life is nearly impossible, and the consequences could result in unintended consequences of society in general and each person in particular.

What kinds of disturbing things could discovered in an honest examination of ones life?

Well, if you honestly answer some of these questions you could begin to find out.

Are you doing everything in your power to take advantage of everything you have been given?

Are you doing everything in your power to reduce the suffering of everyone around you?

Do you have a plan to change your life and make things better for you, your family, your town, your country and your world? What is that plan? What are you doing right now to make that difference?

Do you even have a plan for how to make things different in the next few minutes? How?

How often do you re-examine your plan?

Do you have a safety plan for when things could go wrong? Do your safety plans include those around you including your family, friends, co-workers and neighbors?

Do you have justifications that keep you from doing any of these things? Are they really justified?

It is hard to honestly examine your life and feel good about the selfish choices that we all make. We all make selfish choices, myself included. The question is not really if we make these selfish choices but where we draw the line between selfishness and selflessness. The fear of losing everything and finding ourselves living on the street keeps most of us from doing everything that we can do. But, fear of being called selfish keeps us from keeping everything for ourselves. And, sometimes a bit of empathy helps us in our reaching out to others. This being said, how can any of us criticize anyone else when we realize that each one of us has his or her personal struggle with this challenge.

It is truly hard to examine your life. Is might be easier to make some choices and continue to live our lives without rethinking these choices. But, is an unexamined life really worth living? Then again, maybe you don’t need to examine your life if you love Jesus.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

On March 31, 2004 the world was shocked as they witnessed images of four burned bodies hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq. We were told that these men were American contractors hired to secure food deliveries. The interesting thing was that the families of these men were actually told a different story. They were told that they were hired as a special military detailed to protect Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Somebody wasn’t getting the story straight.

These four bodies were being used to rally support for the American effort in Iraq. The supporters of the war used the images to vilify the enemy and to call anyone who questioned the war as unpatriotic. The truth is that these men wouldn’t have even been in harms way if the administration had relied on American soldiers rather than military mercenaries to carry out their missions.

It turns out that the United States has about 150,000 American military in Iraq. But, we also have almost 100,000 American “contractors” in Iraq as well. And, the most aggressive of these contractors are from a company called Blackwater. The men that were hanging on that bridge back in 2004 were contractors from this company.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill has a new book out called “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” In this book he illuminates some of the mysteries surrounding this company. He tells us how Erik Prince, a radical right-wing Christian multimillionaire controls 20,000 troops, a military base and a fleet of 20 aircraft, but most people have never heard of his organization. Even after the macabre hanging on the bridge in 2004, people still don’t know that those men worked for Blackwater. Or, if they did, they didn’t know that those men were actually highly trained military men. Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Michael Teague and Stephen "Scott" Helvenston were in Iraq and they were soldiers, not contractors.

Stephen "Scott" Helvenston was not only a Navy Seal, he was a Navy Seal trainer. Michael Teague was a decorated 12-year Army veteran who had served in Afghanistan, Panama and Grenada and with a Special Operations helicopter unit nicknamed "Night Stalkers.” Jerry Zovko spoke Arabic and several other languages well enough to chat with the staff in the small hotel where he lived. Wesley Batalona was also an ex-military man an Army Ranger with experience in Panama and the first Gulf War. The point is that these four men had more military experience than many of the soldiers occupying the country at the time. So, to call them contractors actually made them sound more like innocent civilians caught in the crosshairs of the terrorists who hate everything American including these poor guys who could never have provoked anyone by merely guarding the food supply to the Iraqis. At least that is what the press reports tended to imply.

But, in Jeremy Scahill’s book we see another side of this company: Blackwater. It turns out that Blackwater isn’t under the military code of conduct. The company argues that private contractors shouldn’t be subject to military laws, because they are a private contracting firm. They are actually paid through the state department, and other government departments instead of the Pentagon which stands to bolster their argument. But, they act like a roving band of mercenaries with only Erik Prince to answer to.

It turns out that the four men on the bridge had signed quite extensive contracts relieving Blackwater of almost any responsibility in the case of their deaths. But, the four families have gathered their forces anyway in order to sue Blackwater in Civil Court. It turns out that the detailed contract these men signed with Blackwater detailed how the men should be protected on their mission as well. At first Blackwater didn’t worry much about that detail, because Blackwater claimed that the details of the incident would be a military secret that could put the American forces in harms way. So, the fact that the Blackwater employees were traveling in two jeeps without the aid of a rear gunner was kept from the families for nearly two years. This action actually should void the contract and the families of these men are taking the case to court.

But the case may not be a slam-dunk just yet. Did you ever wonder what Kenneth Star is doing these days? You know, the prosecutor who spent nearly five years investigating the Clinton’s real estate dealings and only was able to catch Bill Clinton lying about an affair with an intern at the White House. Well, he is working as a lawyer defending Blackwater from these poor families who have lost the ones they love through the negligence of Blackwater. (It is interesting how he always find himself on the side of evil in these matters.)

It turns out that Blackwater is sparing no expense to defend its right to be above the law. They claim that they don’t need to obey the military code of conduct because they are a private firm. They also claim that they shouldn’t be prosecuted in a criminal court, because they deal with military secrets that could put our troops in jeopardy. They also claim that they can not be prosecuted for any of the actions that they have taken in Iraq under the Iraqi courts, because they are Americans. In fact they seem to have an excuse for almost every possible way they that they could be held accountable for their crimes.

Crimes!? Yes, Crimes. There are many reports in Iraq detailing the antics of the “Blackwater Guys.” They see themselves as above the law. They have reportedly shot at people first, then ask the questions later. Is this the way that America should be building relations with the Iraqis, or others in the Middle East.

Yes, Blackwater isn’t just in Iraq. In fact, they go to the places where the US hasn’t athorized troop deployment yet. Blackwater can go to these places because they are a private company. And, a private company can go wherever they please. Talk about loopholes. Blackwater has found the right combination of circumstances that they have made war a profitable enterprise once again. And the soldiers aren’t the ones getting all that cash. Blackwater charges $950 per day per soldier to the US government, and they pay the majority of their mercenaries $350 per day. The rest of that money seems to go into overhead or Erik Prince’s pocket. We don’t know for sure because that detail is a secret that might jeopardize the safety of the troops in the field, or maybe Erik Prince from his mercenary soldiers.

If you want to know more about Blackwater, then maybe you should read the book. Or, you could listen to Jeremy Scahill interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. The podcast and audio are in the archives at npr.org.














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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

When we think about the though police, we think of some future society in George Orwell’s 1984 where Winston Smith is actually arrested by the thought police that can actually read the minds of public and search for illegal thoughts. The government determines which thoughts are allowed and which thoughts are not allowed.

Currently our world is not so clever as to invent a thought reading device. Some people however are able to identify what others may be thinking. They are able to infer their likely thoughts based on their demographics. This is how elections are so very predictable that candidates need to change their public opinions in order to win over a fraction of those who are unaware of a candidate’s past thoughts.

If we look at a large group of people with a similar background and we offer them a selection of two candidates with extremely different opinions we can certainly predict the outcome of the election in advance. If we offer the same two candidates to a completely different group of people the opposite outcome could be very likely. In a democracy we certainly hope that this is the case, because that is how we believe the system should behave.

Now, if we turn the tables and carefully craft a candidates that says what we know that the electorate wants to hear then we stand a high chance of electing any candidate that is willing to read the speech. It doesn’t really matter what the candidate believes. It is what he is willing to say that can get him elected. And, that is the state of politics today.

Many people have much time and energy invested in this strategy of containment of political power. Many regions of our country have been determined to lean one way or the other, and there is fear that some number of people might change their thinking and be swayed to vote differently. Those who fear a change in thinking would like to control the thoughts of those that live around them. Politicians who have invested their careers into thinking in one particular way would like to maintain a base of supporters who continue to think the same way. Supporters of a candidate that is making laws in favor of them would also like to maintain a solid base of people that continue to think the same way. So, the question becomes - How can we get people to continue to think the same way?

Well, a real life thought police isn’t going to happen very soon, because our ability to read thoughts is only at a very infant stage. So, we resort to other forms of thought control. Peer pressure is probably the first form of control that comes to mind. We all want our friends to agree with us. Because, if our friends didn’t agree with us we would feel obligated to argue with them, and arguments might lead to conflict that might damage our friendship. So, we feel obligated to agree with our friends when we can and save the fights for the really important issues. If a friend likes a political candidate and we don’t have an opinion we might find ourselves supporting the candidate in an effort to prevent an argument.

This type of peer pressure may be extended to acquaintances and neighbors as well. A neighbor who knocks on the door and offers information on a candidate that they support might influence a person who does not have an opinion on a certain candidate.

Peer networks may also use single “frightening” issues to influence how people think that they should think. A “frightening” issue may become a handle for an entire political agenda. The Religious Right may want to change civil laws into religious laws, but the general public wouldn’t allow that to happen outright. But, if the majority of the public dislikes homosexuals, then gay marriage could be the issue that allows the religious right to grab onto a larger segment of society. A candidate running on gay marriage as political issue might be elected with a cohort of similar religious animals and pass a religious law banning divorce for anyone because Jesus told us how bad it is. Or, perhaps they could ban sex outside of marriage, or wearing bikinis in public. Or, perhaps they could even pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of alcohol. Who knows where it would end?

People who have an ideology support their opinions on a set of supporting evidence. Sometimes the evidence that they use comes under fire. Sometimes the evidence itself is merely an opinion supported by only faith that the opinion is correct. Sometimes the arguments can not be supported by any logic at all. How do ideologies like this maintain support?

The older people who support a particular idea will eventually die. Younger people are always being born into the group, and the ideology of the group depends on converting the children to the ideology. This happens in religions all the time. Parents take their children to church, temple or meeting week after week and they hear the same stories year after year. Before they know it the children believe the stories before they can support the stories with reality based logic. If the story tells us that Hercules held the world on his shoulders while Atlas took a break, then the children will know and believe the story until reality bring it into question. When space science shows us that the world is a sphere floating in space the children ask the question: Where does Atlas stand? They won’t ask if Atlas is a real being, they already know that he is. They just want to know where he could stand.

Obviously the ideology that requires the largest “contortions of reason” in order to “believe” in the ideology requires the most defense. And, with that being said it is obvious that children need to learn the “facts” early, and avoid anything contrary to the “facts” until the ideology is hardened like cement. This is where the parents must become the thought police of their children. Parents actually have the power to create the thoughts in their children’s heads. At this point parents can either create thinking questioning children, or accepting faithful unquestioning children. Or, at least many parents believe that they can.

To be fair, this type of indoctrination is by no means restricted to religions. If we think about family history, we all know that there are stories that tell us the injustices suffered in our families. Sometimes these injustices lead to family feuds in which hatred in passed to future generations. Family feuds are extended into national or cultural feuds in some cultures. “Remember the Alamo,” has been passed future generations and remembered to provoke hatred at the future generations of Mexicans. When children are told about this defeat they are instilled with hatred and some are even provoked to feelings seeking revenge. Of course children don’t only react to the story, but they also react to the feelings that their storytellers evoke when telling the story. Stories of the burning of Atlanta evoke emotions of hatred toward the soldiers that burned that large swath of land. But those who burned that land are no longer alive to pay for that deed. Do Atlantans praise this action as an action that shortened that war, or do they hate the Northerners who inherited the responsibility of that action? The answer lies in who tells the story, and how it is told. Children are taught how they should feel from the stories they are told, long before the time when they can weigh all the evidence.

This may explain the seemingly crazy reactions of parents to the history lessons taught in school. History can never take into account of every person’s perspective. It is almost impossible to imagine every injustice that has been perpetuated throughout history. Young men have often been forced into battle to fight for ideas that they didn’t believe in. People have been forced into slavery and conditions that border on slavery. People throughout history have been cheated out of property and forced into tragic conditions. If you personally suffered these tragedies, then it is easy to understand the pain and suffering. If you are a family member from a family with a member who has personally suffered, then it is easy to feel empathy for that person. And, if a member of you local regional culture, ethic culture or national heritage, then you have heard the stories and you are sympathetic for your extended family. And, similarly people outside of this circle get much less sympathy. People with the agenda of passing down the hatred from generation to generation want each generation to feel extreme empathy for their own people and less or no empathy for those outside the circle. Regardless of the truth, the emotional feelings of empathy for one culture over the other is an agenda of some people. The cultural thought police form the young minds of children to pass these feelings to future generations.

And the thought police don’t want you to know this.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I am of Scots decent. My family has been in this country since 1654; maybe longer because I don’t every ancestor 12 generations or more back 350 years. Over these past 350 years my family has lost the taste for haggis and the urge to toss the caber. In a strange twist of history my ancient ancestor was born after the time when the old style philabeg (predecessor of the kilt) had been banned by the government and before the new style kilt was invented in 1725. My ancestor from Scotland who was captured and brought to the “New World” against his will and sold as an indentured servant had only ever worn pants. It is quite strange to think of the idea of a Scottish Highland games that glorifies the kilt, but had never been part of my Scottish family’s heritage.

Actually there are quite a few ironies and distortions in our relationship between our ethnic heritage and our ethnic culture.

Did that last sentence sound strange to anyone? I am saying that ethnic heritage and ethnic culture are two different things. This is because people no longer live in the same small village for their entire life. More people travel than they used to. And, more people especially in America move around and live in different places. This mobile culture “overwrites” our “hometown” culture. And, when we leave a particular place our memory of that place becomes frozen in our minds as the way that place “IS.” But, the reality is that the place continues to evolve after we leave that place. And, the new place that we find ourselves a part of begins to change because of the ideas that we bring to it.

When we go to another country we take our “American” ideas with us. But those “American” ideas might be a mixture of 1970s Chicago, 1980s rural Texas and 1990s rural California experience plus everything we “know” from TV about America. And when the German who meets you learns about “America” he will form an idea about America that isn’t the same as if she had met a person who has a 1970s New York, 1980s LA and 1990s Seattle experience of America. In fact, it might make sense to talk about a “personal” culture at some point.

But, underlying these experiences of American life that give us an American culture we also have an ethnic culture that is passed down through our family by means of ethnic tradition. But when you live close to people from many different backgrounds it is likely that you will pick up bits and pieces of the cultures that surround you. We see this all the time in regard to food and drink. We eat Mexican, Chinese and Japanese food all the time. We serve bagels, falafel, pita pockets, hummus, coffee and tea that all came from other places and other cultures. We absorb new words and descriptions when we hear our neighbors use them. We wear clothes and shoes that we see our neighbors wear. Culture flows, it isn’t stagnant. But our mind freezes what we see today and we call that American culture. Maybe that is why many of us don’t like change. We have learned to like the culture that we have, because it gives us comfort, but as the culture changes as it always will we find ourselves looking for that old culture that we once knew so well.

My grandmother came to the United States in the early 1900s. She was following her father who was looking for a better life. He first travel to Leadville, Colorado where he went to work in the lead mines. After a short while he learned that the lead mines in Colorado were dangerous. They were dangerous because the owners of the mines owned the town and they knew that the workers didn’t have enough money to just pick up everyone in the family and move to a better place very easily. But my great grandfather was all alone and he didn’t have to pick up the family and move. He just needed to move himself, and so he did. He went to the coalmines in Pennsylvania and worked there, where he found that competition had forced the mines to be safer, although not completely safe.

When my grandmother and her family finally reached Pennsylvania they brought the culture of the “old” country with them. They made friends with others from their country and they attempted to save the traditions that they could. Some of their holidays fell on workdays in Pennsylvania, so they found that they couldn’t celebrate them in the same way. They found that those who wore the latest fashion quickly ridiculed them for wearing their native dress.

With all of this talk about culture, maybe we should define it to make sure that we understand what we mean by culture. And, what it comes down to is that culture is the same as values. What we value is a function of our experience and tradition. When the religious right talks about values they are talking about culture. And, the issue is that some people desire a common culture where everyone understands the standard values of the whole. The problem is that there is no such thing as a common uniform culture in a world where everyone is mobile. People bring their values with them as they move around the world and they leave their values with the people that they have contact with.

There are three broad categories of values: utilitarian, moral and existential. Utilitarian values are the foods and material things that we value. We might say that Americans value hamburgers as utilitarian value. We rank our favorite foods as a country and we determine what we value as the best foods as a culture. If we had a more uniform culture we might be able to have an “American” Restaurant where everyone would agree that “American” food was served there. Maybe it would be called Applebee’s or Marie Calendar’s. It is quite obvious that American food really isn’t a very strong utilitarian value. With so many different ethnic foods brought to the American dinner table our culture is extremely diverse.

Moral values are what we view as a culture to be right and wrong. The Christian right is correct when they say that our moral values are largely based on a Judeo-Christian ethic. This is because people with a Judeo-Christian heritage founded the Untied States and they brought those values with them. But, just because they passed those values down to us does not mean that those are the best moral values that exist. Many cultures have explored moral questions and those cultures have discovered different answers to those questions. Philosophers and theologians have explored the questions of ethics and morals and public discussion on these issues would be a good way to approach the problems we have with moral values. The main problem with our current understanding of morals is that they are based in many different religions, and many people find it difficult to question their personal religion. Therefore many issues such as gay marriage or abortion have little room for debate. There are too many people out there with an absolute view on the issues. If too many people have an absolute view on a religious issue they will not be persuaded by argument, and they will not accept the decision by the majority. If a minority feels strongly about a moral issue that they regard as an absolute, they may resort to violence and believe that they are justified by a higher power.

Even more important than moral values are existential values. These are the values that we have about our purpose as a species, society, culture, family or person. These questions are so important that we are afraid to think about them. We often teach our children to find their purpose through their religion, prayer, meditation or spiritual ritual. Since most of us have little confidence in what our purpose truly is we often defer the question to someone older and wiser, which also have no idea. And, sometimes we just “know” what we are meant to do. Currently, however our country is not united behind any specific purpose. We have determined earlier that we are “not the world’s policeman.” We have also determined that we should “spread democracy throughout the Middle East, starting in Iraq.” But what should our purpose as a country be? With the country being run by a group that believe that we are in the “End Times” predicted by the Bible purpose is not weighing on their minds. And, if we do not have a purpose articulated to the people, then the next crisis will make us ripe for the extremists to take another shot at grabbing for power, like the Bush administration did after 9/11/2001. Next time it might not turn out as well.

The point that I am trying to make with this post is that America is a land of diversity. The diversity is “good” in that it gives us plenty of choices when it comes to culture. Naturally as we experience different cultures we take what we value from them when we can. We take foods and art and ideas. We also take moral and ethical ideas as well when we see that they make more sense or solve social problems. But, with so much diversity we lose a sense of communal culture where we know what everyone else likes and believes. This makes things more difficult, because we need to communicate more to find out what our neighbor thinks. And, when we don’t have a defined purpose as a country, which is most often communicated through the culture, we could find ourselves vulnerable to extremists who could tell us what we should do in time of the next crisis. People will respond more easily if they do not have a clear picture of our purpose. This is a dangerous place for our country to be.

The solution is to discuss these things before we have our next crisis, so that we will be on the same page as a country and not be vulnerable to some crazy lunatic in the next crisis.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

How do we know anything about God?

For this piece I am going to jump past the question of whether there is a God and assume that He exists. I know that there are many who read my blog that choose to believe that there is no God. Personally my belief that there is a God is tied tenuously to the thread of the mystery of free will and the wonder of the Universe itself. That being said I am a skeptic and I continue to question these mysteries.

Different religions give us many different ways in which we make our connection with God. Some religions place an enormous weight on the Bible or other religious writings. Some religions place more weight on prayer, tradition, or other divine revelation. So, how do we know anything at all about God if we assume that he exists?

As we think about this problem we can go back in history and look at how earlier generations dealt with this problem. We can assume that earlier generations must have had religious rituals like those that were witnessed by early explorers when they discovered the Native Americans, Australian Aborigines and others. All of these people had sought ways to “make contact” with their gods. Why did they do this? What moved them to make the effort? What were the results of these attempts? Were they valid, in that they were trying to connect with the one God that Christians recognize as the God? Or, is there something different happening here?

In ancient times people created tribal gods that were created out of fear for the want of protection from the unknown. One way to look at this is that people just made up stuff to make themselves feel better. Another way to look at it is that these guys didn’t know the One True God, so they ended up praying to and worshiping daemons, which were recognized as their real personal gods. Still another way to look at this is that these people felt the love of God, but they were too immature to know how to respond to that love.

These are not the only interpretations and I’m sure there are others that are not so extreme, but my point is that all humans tend to form similar religious foundations around the world. Basically gods are created to protect. And, as an extension to that, the more powerful the god then the more powerful the protection. Native Americans had personal gods or namesakes. Even modern Catholics have embraced a similar tradition when they name their children after the Holy Saints. Even without the details the human urge to build a relationship with God persists in similar ways.

This is certainly not the only way that humans try to make contact with God, whatever form the true God actually takes. The case is that if we assume that there is a God, we need to wonder if the urge to build a relationship with God is initiated by God, by man, or by both. I don’t believe that anyone will be able to answer that question definitively like many other religious questions. The only way to answer this question would be to raise a person completely out of any religious culture and monitor the person and God until the person has his first religious experience. Of course we can not monitor what is going on in the mind of God and it is extremely difficult to know what the person is thinking continuously either.

But, regardless of who initiates the relationship a relationship between a person and God generally emerge in most people, without the aid of organized religion of any sort. People who never go to church plead with God for mercy, help or protection. Fear often motivates people in this direction, but once that relationship is established, other interactions occur. People thank God for his gifts. And, people become inspired to seek deeper understanding and insight. But how do people get this inspiration? Is it God or something else? Is it Satan or other daemons? For that matter, does Satan even exist as a supernatural being, or is that some hypothetical religious idea created as man sought his relationship with God?

If we continue to think about religion as man’s response to develop a relationship with God, then it becomes clear that the evil in the world is due to man’s failure to respond to this relationship at all. Many Holy men have come from many areas of the world trying to tell us how to improve this relationship with God, but unfortunately they haven’t completely understood the relationship perfectly themselves. Or, maybe they did understand it, but they couldn’t communicate it to the population that they tried to communicate it to. The main problem tends to be a balancing act between what aspect of this relationship that has been discovered and the expectations of those want to know about it. Failure to listen or failure to explain are failures, but it doesn’t mean that nothing happened and nothing was tried.

Ancient Greeks discovered the power of inspiration when you weren’t seeking it. The Rite of Dionysis may have been an attempt to replicate that moment again and again. Drugs have been used to “see” spiritual revelations, and drugs have been used to avoid “seeing” anything. Religions have pushed the mind through meditation and prayer and religions have punished the minds of men because they thought to much. Each of these attempts to do the “right” thing may have been the “right” thing for that person, but it isn’t always the “right” thing for all people. The problem is that we each find a path to God in different ways. Not all paths work for all people. Some paths do not work for many people and other paths work for many. But one thing is certain, when one turns his back on seeking a relationship with God in favor of selfishness there is a problem. Assuming of course for a moment that there is a God.

So, the main point here is that we all seek a relationship with God. Or at least all of us that believe that there is a God are seeking this relationship. Those of us who are trying to find a connection with God do this through organized religion or a personal disorganized religion. This tends to imply evil comes from the lack of an effort to seek a relationship with God.

But, what about the atheists? OK, I can’t leave these guys out, because even if they don’t believe in God they are certainly awed by His creation, even if they deny an attribution to Him. This shouldn’t bother us, because a healthy respect for God’s creation, even if they don’t attribute it to Him is what an atheist does anyway. Atheists still have ethics and they still know in their heart what is right and wrong on a social scale. They want to help society improve, not destroy it. They want to preserve nature not destroy it. These are basic human ideas and feelings that everyone gets from being human and having emotions. Atheists are still disturbed by senseless violence. Atheists are still upset at the destruction of people’s homes. This empathy, regardless of their personal religious beliefs are in line with forming a relationship with God even if they don’t attribute it to Him.

Is it easier to build a relationship with God if you are trying to do it? I would guess that the answer is yes, because it makes logical sense. But, God is not a natural human being, He is supernatural by definition, therefore regardless of your belief in God you can never know Him. And when you don’t know a person the relationship is more difficult. But that goes for us all, not just any one religion.

We all just need to know that the Spirit Moves Us All and that is how we build our relationship with God whether we believe in Him or not. Be Thankful!






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Religion

How can we live in a world of uncertainty?

Yesterday I wrote about measurement, in the sense that some things are difficult to measure. But, it is more than that. Some things we just can’t know for certain.

For example, when we plan for the future we try to measure the risks and the benefits, but we never know how the future will play out until it is too late to plan. We generally can’t read minds, so we can only guess what people are thinking, what they are planning and what they will or will not do. For the most part uncertainty is the only certainty that we know.

However, uncertainty can be frightening. In fact, the better off one is the more frightening uncertainty can be. One can imagine two people. The first person living “the Life of Reilly,” that’s Bill O’Reilly, if there is any doubt as to whom I’m referring to. Everything is going fine, nothing can be too good, every experience can be had, most possessions are within reach and problems can be solved by throwing money at them. The second person, however, is quite the opposite. Things began going bad in school, and things continue to be getting worse. Disease, poverty and broken relationships seem to happen day and night. Both people have to deal with the uncertainty of the future, but that uncertainty looks different for the two. Uncertainty for the first person means that there is a possibility that everything might be taken away. Uncertainty for the second means that something “good” just might happen at any moment. For whom does uncertainty hold the most promise and for whom does it hold the most threat? It is quite obvious that uncertainty has both its risks and promises.

Is there any doubt that the current status of a person’s well being influences ones opinion on the subject of uncertainty? The wealthy will buy insurance to protect their wealth. The poor will buy lottery tickets to change their luck. Both will hope for the best and against the worst. Uncertainty may be a friend or a foe.

But, the future isn’t the only uncertainty in our lives. Like I mentioned above, we can’t know what people are thinking. We can’t know what people are going to do. We are limited to what we know about our world, from our own experience. But we have the ability to learn more about our world, or we can choose to ignore the world around us and live by our own guts and feelings. Of course we ignore the fact that we formed our personal feelings from our past experience. At some point we considered our world and chose how we would respond to our world.

If we think about uncertainty for a moment or two we must come to the conclusion that uncertainty is a fact of life and we can not eliminate it. We can only reduce the amount of uncertainty that we have by studying the world around us. Or, we can assume that the amount of uncertainty that we have is just too overwhelming and so we resolve that we will always be uncertain about the world, therefore we accept uncertainty can not be overcome. So we may come to the conclusion: “Why should we even try?”

When we put this on the table in such stark terms the evidence seems to suggest that reducing uncertainty would tend to reduce risk. Therefore we should put our efforts into learning as much as we can about the things that we can know. But, the human mind is not always rational. Particular people become overwhelmed by things that even other people do understand. The emotion of being overwhelmed by the knowable can be even more dramatic when someone is forced to face the unknowable unknown. And, very early in human history people created stories to calm this emotion by creating simple to understand explanations for the unknown. As people become comfortable, they are less likely to disturb this comfort. Therefore a large number of people tend to stay attached to the stories that give them comfort rather than reducing their personal uncertainty by learning what our brightest have discovered.

What I have just written might be a bit confusing, so let me give an example of this in the real world. In the ancient world most people understood very little about the world. We can imagine creation stories and myths from the different cultures around the world tend to explain beings greater than ourselves fashioning the world in different ways. These stories result in many different worlds described in different ways, and I would venture to guess that very few of these stories describe the final product of the world as a huge sphere where people are stuck to the surface because of the gravitational interaction between objects. We have stories of birds pecking holes in the sky, which resulted in the stars. Or, the earth being a bubble surrounded by a huge bath of water. When someone discovered that the Earth was a round sphere floating in space, a large group of people were not thrilled to leave their stories behind and accept the new revelation. This lack of enthusiasm for embracing new certainty is rooted in the comfort that stories give to people in the attempt to comfort them from uncertainty. In the end some people accept the certainty of myth over the large world of uncertainty of the unknown that overwhelms them.

It is not the case that these stories do not have any use. The stories help people deal with the emotion associated with uncertainty. The emotion can become overwhelming, and stories calm the emotion. This is just like the way that people will make up stories to deal with the behavior of a family member. An abusive husband might be explained away having difficulty controlling his passion, or not being able to deal with a trauma from the past. The story may have some thread of fact with elaborate details that lend comfort to the sufferer.

In summary, there is uncertainty in the world, but happy humans don’t like uncertainty. Happy humans are usually in control, so they like to keep uncertainty under control as well. Since it is impossible to know everything uncertainty can not be eliminated. So, the next best thing is to create stories that explain what is unknown. These stories comfort those who feel uncertain by providing a false certainty. People cling to these false stories even when the truth becomes known through observation and understanding. Some people then end up relying on false stories created in an attempt to comfort themselves from not knowing something that is now known. Now, that is ironic.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Religion, Philosophy