The Evolution of a Religious Credendum:
I can't remember at what age I seriously began doubting religious belief via inheritance. It was sometime after high school. It certainly was after I began to be exposed to a more diverse human population. Nothing about this process was sudden, no sudden revelation, no moment of being 'saved', no visions from on high. I had been raised to go to church every Sunday, attended Sunday School, even went to a Billy Graham rally, was baptized---the whole deal.
Despite a gradual evolution of my religious beliefs, I never really doubted the existence of God. After all, I am here, everybody else is here, all the animals and plants---I mean the whole planet was before my eyes----an amazing and profound gift to varied life on a splendid planet. Wherever there is a gift, there has to be a gift giver. The gift giver, in this case, is my concept of God. Like probably most everyone, I wanted to think God was, or could be, my personal friend---my protector from harm, my strength to better myself, my means to gain advantage for pursuits here on earth, and acceptance into some sort of Heaven after death.
In moments of more honest logic, I wondered exactly why would God be my friend over others less fortunate, and eventually (it took many years), on what earned basis could God have given me so much (like my parents, my place of birth, my neighborhood, my health, my personality, my athletic ability, etc) while allowing so many other children to be given so much less or so much more). I could have been born with less and could have been born with more. For no discernible tight logic I decided, whatever God really was, He/She was fair, brilliant, and compassionate.
Whatever was going on between God and this planet has been going on for millions of years. And life on this planet has clearly been changing a lot over these millions of years---ever so slowly and upwardly in complexity and abilities. I can remember praying to do well on exams, in athletic contests, to be able to get some material thing, to get better when sick, to be forgiven when I did something 'bad'. But I always had the nagging question of just why would I expect God to push me forward ahead of others? Clearly others are praying also for the same things. Interestingly enough, the religious dogmas of others was often different from mine---not by any process of creative mental activity, but by fact of birth---inherited religious dogmas. I realized some people changed their religious dogma, but mostly by reason of marriage. This just seemed an odd way of possessing a religion--inheriting it or gaining it via marriage.
I have seen a lot of awful things in my life, injustices that were beyond the pale, tragedies to the best of people, and unfairnesses---little and small--- that were imposed on all kinds of people. At some point I reasoned God could have created a perfect planet, but He/She didn't. Instead He/She created a process of life on this planet which progressed from less perfect to more perfect over millions of years. Perfect is probably not the right word. Maybe I should say more complex.
I mean, who is to say there is something imperfect about an amoeba?
Some aspects of sectarian religion seemed a bit absurd, albeit one is hesitant to admit such. If evolution is an ongoing process why would it be rationale to believe God created man in His/Her image? Wouldn't that make humans the end point of evolution? That is quite an assumption, and a most self serving one at that. If everything we do in life is geared to achieving a place in Heaven, wouldn't God be sure everyone had the same guidelines to follow? God certainly would if he was fair. There is something so inherently good about fairness that to believe in an unfair God seems just WRONG writ large. The history of religions seems seeped in sacrifice. Always some sort of sacrifice---other humans, animals of various sorts, personal ambitions, living standards, or some being killed to 'save' another or others. Really now, why would God save me only if I were willing to kill some sort of other living being or have his 'Son" be killed to 'save' me. Son? Is God having sex with someone? Does he reproduce like an amoeba? Does he really reproduce at all? Are there many Gods? I can't even visualize God as male or female. Somebody else dying so I can be saved seems a little weird to me.
I view the best parents as those who attempt to treat all their children with fairness. As humans, failure can be understood,, but God I cannot imagine as being unable to be fair. The humorous "Mom likes me better than you" seems not too humorous if some get the short end of the stick with God's treatment of them. At some point I told myself, just stop praying to score high on an exam, to win a race, to make more money, to achieve important titles, etc. The inescapable truth is that there are millions more people in greater need of help in various ways than I. "Help me get better or save me from this or that medical problem and to hell with those orphans in some far away refugee camp." You see pictures of these 'creatures' on TV and I just know God would help them before God would ever help me. As Terrell Owens would say, 'fair is fair". Logic seems to dictate that God is not ever interfering with his own created process, or at least rarely interferes in His/Her created evolutionary process.
The only way tragedy could exist in this world, to my way of thinking, is if God was not involved in individual protections or help, but has created a process---a good, fair, brilliant process---which enables forms of life to evolve over time and increase the diversity of life on this planet. We know about this process, we understand quite a bit about it, and this process is evolution. Progress is the goal, and whether we like it or not, this progress is driven by genetics, diversity, environment, chance, and luck. It just seems absurd to believe God directed a particular sperm to a particular egg in order for a particular person to be born. Look, if God could, or was doing that, there wouldn't be serial killers, an Adolf Hitler, etc. Come on, why would I believe that God at some point said "It is time for me to create an Adolf Hitler". Beliefs are beliefs, but there is no need to be silly about them or have them be clearly self serving. I love nature precisely because it is out in nature that I can come closest to grasping a little bit of connection to this God created process of evolution. I do not have to be the focal point, or major player, of this process to appreciate it.
The origin of major religions in this world is interesting. All the 'major' prophets occurred in the same region of the earth all at about the same time in human history. That seems odd in itself. All of these prophets, with the possible exception of Mohammed, seem exceptionally wise and truly ethical persons. Underlying all their preaching is some form of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". There is no basis, as far as I can detect, to have anything but respect for Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Moses, and perhaps Mohammed (I know least about him). If people on this planet lived according to the precepts any of them taught, it would be a truly ethical human existence. We don't, and that is the problem. Why don't we? It seems Things, Titles, Money, Power, and Greed intervene and win out too often. I'll overlook our gullibility. No one claims the Golden Rule is unethical, we just honor it when convenient.
The wonderful teachings of the original prophets got PERVERTED by 'important' human figures in history as a means to control large populations of people. Christianity was 'pure' until the Emperor Constantine II decided to make Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. Gone was the Golden Rule and replaced by the Crusades, massive slaughters of people, and demolishment of entire communities. Bad behaviors could be excused and salvation connected to building ornate cathedrals, rituals, choirs, and designating human representatives of God. Faith replaced reason as the basis for religious beliefs. Blind faith is almost always a bad thing when it comes to human behavior. No matter what the specific religion, enough of these so called representatives of God, called by various names---Popes, priests, rabbis, Ayatollahs, and other endless titles---have committed every crime known to mankind---and this itself debunks any notion that these people are really God's representatives here on earth. To the extent I understood this, I stopped going to any church. I felt uncomfortable, like I was trying to get to heaven on the cheap or something. Church events seemed seeped in shallow sincerity. Of course there are exceptions and some of the most ethical people are strong participants in major religions. Some priests, ministers and rabbis seem to remain ethical despite their participation in a corrupted religion.
I finally decided that to be ethical, as a human in this God created evolutionary process, others must count as much as myself. There is no such thing as irrelevant gene pools on the planet. Diversity of gene pools getting all intermixed in this process of evolution generates new combinations, and albeit most combinations lead nowhere----some do, and progress follows. In terms of making the evolutionary process work, all the gene pools are essential. The fewer the gene pools, the less likely any progress. If a gene pool gets too small, extinction occurs.
Ethics, like any other human attribute---like height, athletic ability, musical talent, etc. is a potential. We are born with a certain level of ethical potential. Whether we reach our potential is based on our environment and genes. Our genes are set (at least for now) and thus we depend on our environment for the development of our ethical potential. People really do build people, especially in matters of ethics. My dad led by example and a person I was very close to in my earlier years led by persuasion. I can still hear the latter say, "Reid, don't be that way", or "you need to be his/her friend, help them grow, not be so judgmental, intolerant, and stop viewing them as in need of punishment." He was full of 'live and let live', a friend of all sorts, all kinds----to me a real social wonder. Never had a penny to his name, to speak of, but had friends coming out of the woodwork. Interesting.
There is right and there is wrong---the Golden Rule condenses that neatly enough, but judgment of others on ethical matters is beyond any human pay grade. You can determine who is doing right just as you can determine who won a race. But we cannot know, with any degree of certainty who tried harder to win, who trained the hardest, who came closest to their potential. And, of course, there are those who never had the opportunity to be trained and be in any race. There is no use wasting time declaring a psychopath is an evil person---they are mentally incapable of understanding right and wrong. They have a brain malfunction much like someone else has a kidney malfunction.Ethics, as a product of the evolutionary process, is relatively new. The problem is, we treat it as a finished product---like we are good or we are bad, we are saved or we are not saved, we will be rewarded or sent to hell. More likely, based on how the evolutionary process works, ethics is not an all or none quality at all. Rather, it is an ongoing evolutionary development, subject to ongoing development. Whatever level of ethics attained has consequences. There is diversity here just like in other human attributes and I assume evolutionary progress in ethics will be sorted out via genetics, chance, luck, and environment. We need to do the right thing, not because we know it is a ticket to heaven, because we don't know that. But lack of knowing this is irrelevant. We need to do the right thing out of duty and the reward for exercising this duty is personal contentment.
If others count as much as myself, then every dollar I spend on my own life beyond the basics I must spend another dollar on others in greater need. Ethics is really about duty, and duty done is contentment attained. The amassment of anything else other than ethical duty done is but fleeting, effervescent happiness. One should never confuse happiness of the moment with contentment. What is any kind of addiction other than the endless attempt to attain fleeting, effervescent moments of happiness, which in order to be effective need be happier than before. Happiness might start out with a kiss to generate an orgasm and end up requiring far out sexual acts hanging from a chandelier to get a comparable orgasm. One who learns when enough is good as a feast, when enough is enough, and learns to appreciate enough is enough, is happier than those for whom enough is never enough. Life is not about piling up things, titles, power, etc. higher and higher---life is about achieving reasonable goals, never forgetting the ethical duty to others. Everyone counts. Because the playing field is never equal in the evolutionary process, the fortunate need aid the less fortunate. Humans have the strongest sense of ethics and so ethical 'duty' here is also the most imperative for human contentment.
I can spend $8000 on a trip to some exotic or far away place or I can spend $8000 dollars to save or improve the life of many unfortunate people. Of course in reality it is not either, or. If I take half as many trips I can do both. I can live in an expensive neighborhood and demand that all of my taxes go the schools where my kids attend, OR I can do my ethical duty and support those political efforts which will result in the same amount of money to educate all kids everywhere. If all the prophets don't think God values your kids more than other kids, why the hell should you?. This in no way detracts from the obligation parents have to their own kids. A parent would not think of going to a teacher and saying, "I want to be sure you understand that my kid comes first in your class." Then by what logic can a parent view the education of all children and claim "My kid comes first". Your kid does not come first, you don't come first, I don't come first, NO ONE comes first. Ethical duty mandates no one comes first. In fact, all are first. The system in this paragraph is self evident fairness. If one has nothing left over after the basics, there is no obligation to spend on others less fortunate. I suppose one can argue over what constitutes the basics, but most of the time it is quite evident what is basic and what is extra. Taken as a whole, the gray area is relatively small.
Same with beliefs. Beliefs, by definition, are not facts. Therefore YOUR beliefs do not take precedence over the beliefs of others. PERIOD. Your beliefs SHOULD NOT be made the law of the land. NEITHER SHOULD anyone else's beliefs take precedence over yours or be made the law of the land. Blind patriotism, blind allegiance to inherited religious dogmas, blind allegiance to most anything is nothing more than failure to ethical duty. It is precisely because you want the world, yours and everybody else's, to improve, that the search for truth and fairness proceeds in a democratic way. In the evolutionary process of human behavior and understanding, truth eventually prevails----and almost invariably IN SPITE OF close minded beliefs of this or that sort. 35,000 Americans died and 2 million Vietnamese died because of blind national patriotism on the part of most Americans, myself included. Whenever people believe they are God's chosen people, whether it be Jews, Americans, Muslims, Christians, whites, blacks, hispanics, Republicans, Democrats, gays, straights, Irish Catholics, Irish Protestants, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, etc. ----whenever this kind of blind patriotism occurs, bad things happen. People get discriminated against, people die, people have gotten enslaved, nations have been bombed into rubble, etc.
Why do humans invariably invent a God who can, if their behavior and inherited dogma is straight, be directly involved in their daily life? Perhaps religious dogma is some kind of human viagra and a needed guard against feeling alone in this world, a world in which no one seems to much care about us. If we don't have God on our side how can we possibly meet the hurdles in life? In this sense, believing in God and dogmas of inherited religions certainly cannot be bad. We can all use the comfort of feeling God is on our side. There are two problems here. First, some people take their religious dogma so serious that they do terrible things to non believers. History is full of just terrible, terrible atrocities committed in the name of religion. Second, believing something that is beyond reason and based on faith alone, cannot lead to contentment. There was a time in history when Islam was more tolerant than Christianity. We may today be seeing the reversal. When one observes any of the most rabid devotees of any religion outside Buddhism and Hinduism, one is struck with how discontented they are, as if they ever smiled they would fracture their face. They are always waving some religious tractate in one hand and spewing forth condemnation of others. All that really comes through is their anger and determination to rid the world of heathens. Is it reasonable to believe God would use these kind of people to bring peace and justice to the world? I don't think so.
The path, for me, has reached the summit---perhaps just a mole hill or the wrong summit---but nevertheless it brings satisfaction to have sorted all the pieces in my life in such a way to have formed a completed puzzle. I don't feel any need to reject Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Moses, or any other moral leadership which reflects the Golden Rule. This, I guess makes me a humanist and affirms my support for the following humanist principles, none of which were created by me:
*I am committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
*I deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
*I believe scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.
*I believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
*I am committed to the principle of the separation of church and state
*I prefer the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
*I am concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerances. Diversity is God's path to evolutionary progress.
*I believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to have themselves a more level playing field. To those who struggle, the stronger need assist.
*I attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity writ large---"so that we can all have freedom, we can all have happiness, we can all smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation" (Davis).
*I want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species. Humans are not here for dominion over anything, we are instead as much a part of the evolutionary process as any other species, no more---no less.
*I believe in enjoying life here and now, and in all people developing their creative talents to their fullest.
*I believe in the cultivation of moral excellence based on the universal ethical principle of the Golden Rule.
*I respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences in ways which support responsible reproduction, to have access to comprehensive and adequate health care, and to control their own dying process with a level of dignity of their own choosing.
*I believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanistic ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
* I am deeply concerned with the moral education of children---which translates to the right of every child to have the same amount of money spent for his/her education as any other child and every child have access in their formative years to responsible adult tutelage.
*I am skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and I am open to novel ideas and seek new ways of thinking about all matters in changing times.
*I reject theologies of despair and/or violence and seek contentment to moral duty in the service to others, especially the less fortunate.
*I believe in optimism rather than pessimism (not foolish mindless optimism), hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion for the less fortunate over selfishness, the beauty of diversity instead of the ugliness of self limited sameness, and reason rather than blind faith.
* I believe the fullest realization of the best and noblest I, or anyone else, are capable of, as human beings, best contributes to God's created evolutionary process.
Evolutionary progress goes on---but the cost and tragedies involved are massive. It does not make the evolutionary process a failure, but it does impose, especially for the human species, a tremendous pressure on ethical duty----FOR LET THERE BE NO DOUBT----we can ignore human overpopulation, we can ignore the plight of the less fortunate, we can detest diversity, we can blindly believe we and our ilk are God's chosen people, and in doing so we are setting the stage for massive human genocide of mammoth proportions. No species yet has been allowed to destroy the planet. In the end, FOR SURE, it is WE who GO, TIME STAYS.
