Knowledge, Part 2:
So far this discourse, which might occupy my mindset for some time, has proceeded from the postulation that religious beliefs ought to be formulated by reason, not inheritance or blind adherence to human dictates formulated centuries ago. Any direct Word from God would be just that---direct---and universally available to everyone. To postulate God would issue ethical guidelines to us via human writings about another human years after this other human had died---which strangely enough is almost always the case in all major religions----is just unreasonable. Whatever God is, He certainly cannot be that inefficient, sloppy, inconsistent, and time dated ignorant. Having said that, it does not follow that the writings of prophets of the past contain no important insights on ethical matters----just that in the end reason need be the instrument of analysis for the formation and adoption of religious beliefs. These prophets help us with reason. With the accumulation of knowledge over time, religious beliefs become more fine tuned with reality. Like anything else not regulated by unchanging mathematical laws, religion is not a static entity. Those who claim otherwise hang onto outdated (by an increased knowledge base for reasoning) religious dictates whose foundation is purely a matter of faith. I suppose one, could, as a pure act of faith, continue to insist the world is flat, slavery is moral, or women deserve to be deprived of certain rights and privileges etc.
So far this discourse has used reason to generate a belief in the Creator and accept evolution as the created evolutionary process. My own deliberations on religious matters have been influenced the most by Abraham Lincoln. Using disinterested reason, Lincoln used logic to reach conclusions about all sorts of things. Lincoln starts with the universality of human nature. He never allowed himself to engage in any discussions on the superiorities or deficiencies of any group of humanity---including ethnic groups, religious groups, or cultural groups. None of this sort of stuff, according to Lincoln is important and are irrelevant to the formation of ethical principles. There are strong and weak, smart and dumb, good and bad people in all such groups. I am going to use murder as an example here. No matter what a person's religion, as far as I know, murder is considered wrong according to the dictates of their scripture. If one looks at murder rates per 100,000 people across the globe there are 6 countries with high murder rates and all the rest have murder rates at least half of the 6th place country. The U.S. is in sixth place. The highest is South Africa, then Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, Lativia, and then the U.S. The murder rate in the U.S. was 5.1/100,000 in 1960 and 5.6 in 2005. It was 9.8 in 1974, 1979, 1981, and 1991.
What the ups and downs signify I am not sure, but it is noteworthy (not relevant though to this discussion) that the murder rate in the U.S. is at least twice as high as all the countries in the world except the six mentioned above. Violence as a solution to conflict seems to be ingrained in our culture. There are 90 guns in the U.S. for every 100 citizens which makes us the most heavily armed country in the world. India is next with 4 guns per 100 people. Of course guns don't kill people, people kill people---but Americans need determine just what it is about our society which causes so many people to kill others.
Applying all of the above to Lincoln's disinterest in any such kind of analysis for blaming this on particular groups would result in the following. Let's postulate that the murder rate in this country for whites is 2.5 and for Hispanics is 7.5. That means, as a practical matter that for every 100,000 people 4 more people are killed by hispanics than by whites. That still leaves 99,995 people not involved in murdering anyone out of every 100,000 people. Even if there were a way to somehow prove that the reason for the difference was genetic, there is no reasonable system of justice which would punish all hispanics, or even be a reason to dislike the vast majority of hispanics. What matters, according to Lincoln, is a system of liberty and justice for all. This is not an arbitrary ethical principle but is based on reasoning that when the rights of all are respected and protected, the welfare of all is advanced. When Lincoln's universality of human nature is discarded in favor of prejudice toward this or that group for this or that reason---resulting in less than freedom and justice for all---conflict arises leading to violence amongst groups, and all civilizations have collapsed when justice and freedom for all passed a certain point of repression.
Thus, it seems to me, freedom and justice for all is a reasoned ethical principle which one could legitimately place in in one's religious portfolio. Of course Lincoln didn't invent this universality of human nature. I am not aware that Jesus or Buddha or any other major prophet in any religion incorporated ethnic slurs or depreciations in their teachings. Lincoln's unique strength is his use of language and ironclad logic to arrive at moral precepts. There is not a lot of dogmatic 'thou shalt not' in Lincoln's statement's or writings. Part of Lincoln's greatness was his independence from any kind of personal 'group' identification. Perhaps his being raised isolated from any group mentality enabled him to be free from any such shackles. Lincoln seemed to be very perceptive of the injustices heaped upon so many people for so many different reasons, most often prejudicial in nature, and he saw as the solution JUSTICE AND FREEDOM FOR ALL.
Part 3 to follow.
