PPS: Rule To Live By #26
26. Remember the Good. Respect Diversity. Understand Change. All of these run together. We all may seek consistency and permanence of status, friendships, marriage, values, priorities, goals, accomplishments, etc--------BUT, given the nature of the evolutionary process none of this can always be reality. Today will always be the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Nothing is ever static NOR guaranteed. God IS NOT micromanaging His created evolutionary process. He is not waiting on your prayers for Him to do the right thing or help you or anyone else out. If God ever interferes is an interesting question but beyond the limits of human perception. The best of relationships are never etched in stone. Good relationships that end are not failed relationships. A fawn and it's mother could not present a more perfect relationship, but it will have a perfectly normal and natural ending. Human relationships are far less predictable. Some parent/child relationships hardly change at all---ever. Some marriages really do last---till death do they part. Some friendships really do last---a lifetime. Other parent/child relationships evolve in a much more independent manner. Many marriages are not compatible till any death do they part. Most friendships are fleeting and change over time for many valid reasons. One can react to all this endless change with anger, resentment, disappointment, and spend energy on an endless blame game. OR, one can accept the nature of the evolutionary process and our own role in the process and be thankful for the 'good' times, the many valuable 'lessons' learned from so many, the many kindnesses bestowed on us by so many, and appreciate the role diversity plays in the process of evolution.
With just about everything in a state of constant flux in the evolutionary process, and indeed in our own lives, you simply learn in your formative years, compete and try to be productive in your productive years, and observe in your terminational years. Over time our roles change, our values change, our priorities change, our interests change, and one either rolls with the punches or frets and fusses away at everybody and everything---mumblegrumbling like right wing fanatics of varied patriotic ilk. It is amazing how many people spend so much time in a dither about how others dress, or worship, or sexual lives, or patriotic drivel, accumulation of wealth, egotistical 'family values', perceived manifest destinies, and the list goes on. The nice thing about healthy terminational years is that at last one has the opportunity to relax, care less about winning, or controlling, or out maneuvering, or judging, or teaching others a lesson, or making things go a certain way---and learn to go gently down the steam.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
RULES TO LIVE BY
RULES TO LIVE BY
1. The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the basis of God's evolutionary inclusion of ethics into the evolutionary process. We all do inherit ethics, and like other inherited characteristics it varies. But the capability of being ethical is universal in human nature. There is no logical reason to believe that ethics, like all other evolutionary characteristics of life, is not an evolving characteristic.
2. Live and let live. The basis of God's created evolutionary process is diversity, chance, and competition. All of it is necessary for the process to work and none of us are exempt. Appreciation of diversity is to understand the meaning of the process of life which began billions of years ago. Progress thrives on diversity. To live life with a chip on your shoulder because others are different is a useless and unrewarding approach to life.
3. Let your politics and ethics be focused on the less fortunate. Circling the wagons only around the best interests of yourself, your family, your own inherited religious cult, your own country are all unethical and incompatible with a contented life. A mentality of 'us vs them' is not a path to peace of mind. Others need count as much as yourself. In practice that means whatever amount of money you spend on yourself past basic needs should be matched by the amount of money you spend to help the less fortunate. The money can be spent immediately or put aside for distribution on death. Those who do this will sleep well nights. Fair is always fair.
4. Honor the right to dislike. Everybody can't like everybody or even somebody necessarily forever. People change, people have different personalities, circumstances change, current relevancy to someone can change---change is inherent in the process of life. The blame game in spent personal friendships/marriage is a waste of time. If you reserve the right to dislike someone they are entitled to the same right. Marriages and friendships often go different directions. Part of life. Deal with it. Never take it personal. Deal with the cards still in your hand, not the ones that got away during the card game of life.
5. Never give others the short end of the stick. I had a relative who told me often that the success to life is to be sure, in every relationship, that the other person always gets the short end of the stick. You do this and you will pay a price in personal contentment, bad attitude, and a high anger level. Those who do the right thing, the most often, reap a higher level of contentment in their life.
6. Empathy with others pays high dividends in terms of personal contentment. The alternative is to be constantly angry at others for reasons real or imagined. Others too are trying hard, in their own way, to understand the meaning of life. We all are overwhelmed by this task. We all are truly in the same evolutionary boat.
7. Avoid interest payments. The only thing I ever bought on credit was my first car. If a person adds up all the interest they paid on credit purchases, their wealth over time could have been doubled. The sooner one learns that enough is as good as a feast, the more personally and financially enriched his/her life will eventually be.
8. Don't try too hard to make sense out of love or sex. Love is powerful but stressful; human sex is beyond logic, reason, or intelligent design. Perhaps it proves God has a sense of humor. Sexual drive and the practice of specific sexual acts are hopelessly variable and sometimes get out of control. Whatever fits so well at a given time with love or sex may change with time. Give it your best shot, and let it go at that. Drop being judgmental about the sex lives of other adults. It has no real relevance to anyone but them. It certainly doesn't affect your own sex life or marriage.
9. Accept your life is controlled by God's created laws of evolution, not inherited human religious dogmas, not God wanting you to pray for Him to do the right thing for you or for others, or for forgiveness, or for help, or any other favors. Diversity, chance, and competition rule. Accept that and play fair. Relax. We're all dead in the long run. For some of us who are older it will be the short run.
10. Friendships are mostly contemporary, not forever, and depend on mutual current interactions. Reunions are proof that you can never really go home again. If you want to bore yourself to death pretend otherwise and spend a lot of time with meaningless banter with those from a past which no longer exists.
11. Never argue over personal tastes in music, food, religion, sex, hobbies, or lifestyles. In other words don't try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it irritates the pig.
12. Learn to appreciate nature. You are part of it whether you choose to be or not. To be alone in nature settings and let your thoughts wander is to best understand the meaning of life and your place in the evolutionary process.
13. Do not depend on others for personal contentment. To feel least alone when alone is the best assurance you can weather conflict, change, and health set backs. Let others be your support only to the degree they do so on their own. You can't force people to like you and you need to have a life independent of support from others. We all know the 'others' in life can die, move away, be busy, change their interests and disengage from you for any number of reasons. If your ethics are in order you will always have sufficient support from others. The others will just change as your life changes. Especially in your terminational years you better be able to be content without depending on others to make you content.
14. Develop the wisdom to know what should be changed, what can be changed, hope for the strength to bring about any needed change, and have the understanding as to what cannot be changed.
15. Learn in your formative years, produce in your productive years, and observe in your terminational years. Keep life simple.
16. Be intrigued and see humor in almost all human diversity, appreciate diversity or risk being angry most of the time at most people.
17. Never miss the opportunity to make a minority of any kind (except criminals) feel comfortable in a majority setting. What goes around comes around and we all will be a minority often enough. Don't fall into the silly trap of blaming minorities for all your problems in society.
18. Have pets. Pets bring a special kind of loyalty, acceptance, and bonding unmatchable from any other source.
19. Be independent but always friendly. To be otherwise, or depend too much on others for contentment, is to increase the likelihood of endless frustration, disappointment, resentment, irritation, and contentious conflicts.
20. Protect your health. Practice preventive medicine. Exercise, weight control, nutrition, rest, and moderation in most things ensure a better health down the road.
21. Find time to develop your own thoughts about life. Don't spend too much of the day in useless social banter at the expense of giving your own thoughts to the more weighty issues of life. Avoid too many social gatherings where you spend hours engaging in inane banter about silly ass things with people you will seldom or never see again. There is no meaningful understanding of life or contentment of achievement from such gatherings. Some need this more than others but everyone needs to curtail overdoing this waste of time.
22. Don't get suckered into, or take too serious, a lot of anecdotal science or inherited faith based religious dogma. The damage from this kind of 'braces on your brain' existence is self inflicted and turns one into some kind of Don Quixote chasing windmills. A life lived via illusions is a life hollow and unfulfilled. No one ends up contented with a life driven by illusions. When the illusions collapse, it is like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall. Who will put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
23. Be realistic about your own strengths and weaknesses. Seek situations which play to your strengths. Those who admit when they don't know something or have inadequate talent to achieve something will more likely get help than those who pose as something they are not in a given situation.
24. When all else fails, to Hell with it.
25. In social situations it is ok to humorously pick on your friends strengths, but dangerous to pick on their obvious weaknesses. Name calling of the indefensible type is guaranteed to create permanent destruction of a friendship. In an argument to call someone an idiot, a liar, some sort of sexual deviate, untrustworthy, etc. will invariably terminate any friendship, and this really reflects your own inability to win any argument via reason and logic. No one with reason and logic at their disposal is going to resort to such desperate verbal assaults. It is really low class: "You are an idiot". "I am not an idiot". What an enlightening exchange, as in the case of all such variants. Never waste time discussing any matter with anyone whose response is along these lines.
25 sounds like a good number to stop at. Obviously the above represents only the rules to live by I can think of at this moment in time.
1. The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the basis of God's evolutionary inclusion of ethics into the evolutionary process. We all do inherit ethics, and like other inherited characteristics it varies. But the capability of being ethical is universal in human nature. There is no logical reason to believe that ethics, like all other evolutionary characteristics of life, is not an evolving characteristic.
2. Live and let live. The basis of God's created evolutionary process is diversity, chance, and competition. All of it is necessary for the process to work and none of us are exempt. Appreciation of diversity is to understand the meaning of the process of life which began billions of years ago. Progress thrives on diversity. To live life with a chip on your shoulder because others are different is a useless and unrewarding approach to life.
3. Let your politics and ethics be focused on the less fortunate. Circling the wagons only around the best interests of yourself, your family, your own inherited religious cult, your own country are all unethical and incompatible with a contented life. A mentality of 'us vs them' is not a path to peace of mind. Others need count as much as yourself. In practice that means whatever amount of money you spend on yourself past basic needs should be matched by the amount of money you spend to help the less fortunate. The money can be spent immediately or put aside for distribution on death. Those who do this will sleep well nights. Fair is always fair.
4. Honor the right to dislike. Everybody can't like everybody or even somebody necessarily forever. People change, people have different personalities, circumstances change, current relevancy to someone can change---change is inherent in the process of life. The blame game in spent personal friendships/marriage is a waste of time. If you reserve the right to dislike someone they are entitled to the same right. Marriages and friendships often go different directions. Part of life. Deal with it. Never take it personal. Deal with the cards still in your hand, not the ones that got away during the card game of life.
5. Never give others the short end of the stick. I had a relative who told me often that the success to life is to be sure, in every relationship, that the other person always gets the short end of the stick. You do this and you will pay a price in personal contentment, bad attitude, and a high anger level. Those who do the right thing, the most often, reap a higher level of contentment in their life.
6. Empathy with others pays high dividends in terms of personal contentment. The alternative is to be constantly angry at others for reasons real or imagined. Others too are trying hard, in their own way, to understand the meaning of life. We all are overwhelmed by this task. We all are truly in the same evolutionary boat.
7. Avoid interest payments. The only thing I ever bought on credit was my first car. If a person adds up all the interest they paid on credit purchases, their wealth over time could have been doubled. The sooner one learns that enough is as good as a feast, the more personally and financially enriched his/her life will eventually be.
8. Don't try too hard to make sense out of love or sex. Love is powerful but stressful; human sex is beyond logic, reason, or intelligent design. Perhaps it proves God has a sense of humor. Sexual drive and the practice of specific sexual acts are hopelessly variable and sometimes get out of control. Whatever fits so well at a given time with love or sex may change with time. Give it your best shot, and let it go at that. Drop being judgmental about the sex lives of other adults. It has no real relevance to anyone but them. It certainly doesn't affect your own sex life or marriage.
9. Accept your life is controlled by God's created laws of evolution, not inherited human religious dogmas, not God wanting you to pray for Him to do the right thing for you or for others, or for forgiveness, or for help, or any other favors. Diversity, chance, and competition rule. Accept that and play fair. Relax. We're all dead in the long run. For some of us who are older it will be the short run.
10. Friendships are mostly contemporary, not forever, and depend on mutual current interactions. Reunions are proof that you can never really go home again. If you want to bore yourself to death pretend otherwise and spend a lot of time with meaningless banter with those from a past which no longer exists.
11. Never argue over personal tastes in music, food, religion, sex, hobbies, or lifestyles. In other words don't try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it irritates the pig.
12. Learn to appreciate nature. You are part of it whether you choose to be or not. To be alone in nature settings and let your thoughts wander is to best understand the meaning of life and your place in the evolutionary process.
13. Do not depend on others for personal contentment. To feel least alone when alone is the best assurance you can weather conflict, change, and health set backs. Let others be your support only to the degree they do so on their own. You can't force people to like you and you need to have a life independent of support from others. We all know the 'others' in life can die, move away, be busy, change their interests and disengage from you for any number of reasons. If your ethics are in order you will always have sufficient support from others. The others will just change as your life changes. Especially in your terminational years you better be able to be content without depending on others to make you content.
14. Develop the wisdom to know what should be changed, what can be changed, hope for the strength to bring about any needed change, and have the understanding as to what cannot be changed.
15. Learn in your formative years, produce in your productive years, and observe in your terminational years. Keep life simple.
16. Be intrigued and see humor in almost all human diversity, appreciate diversity or risk being angry most of the time at most people.
17. Never miss the opportunity to make a minority of any kind (except criminals) feel comfortable in a majority setting. What goes around comes around and we all will be a minority often enough. Don't fall into the silly trap of blaming minorities for all your problems in society.
18. Have pets. Pets bring a special kind of loyalty, acceptance, and bonding unmatchable from any other source.
19. Be independent but always friendly. To be otherwise, or depend too much on others for contentment, is to increase the likelihood of endless frustration, disappointment, resentment, irritation, and contentious conflicts.
20. Protect your health. Practice preventive medicine. Exercise, weight control, nutrition, rest, and moderation in most things ensure a better health down the road.
21. Find time to develop your own thoughts about life. Don't spend too much of the day in useless social banter at the expense of giving your own thoughts to the more weighty issues of life. Avoid too many social gatherings where you spend hours engaging in inane banter about silly ass things with people you will seldom or never see again. There is no meaningful understanding of life or contentment of achievement from such gatherings. Some need this more than others but everyone needs to curtail overdoing this waste of time.
22. Don't get suckered into, or take too serious, a lot of anecdotal science or inherited faith based religious dogma. The damage from this kind of 'braces on your brain' existence is self inflicted and turns one into some kind of Don Quixote chasing windmills. A life lived via illusions is a life hollow and unfulfilled. No one ends up contented with a life driven by illusions. When the illusions collapse, it is like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall. Who will put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
23. Be realistic about your own strengths and weaknesses. Seek situations which play to your strengths. Those who admit when they don't know something or have inadequate talent to achieve something will more likely get help than those who pose as something they are not in a given situation.
24. When all else fails, to Hell with it.
25. In social situations it is ok to humorously pick on your friends strengths, but dangerous to pick on their obvious weaknesses. Name calling of the indefensible type is guaranteed to create permanent destruction of a friendship. In an argument to call someone an idiot, a liar, some sort of sexual deviate, untrustworthy, etc. will invariably terminate any friendship, and this really reflects your own inability to win any argument via reason and logic. No one with reason and logic at their disposal is going to resort to such desperate verbal assaults. It is really low class: "You are an idiot". "I am not an idiot". What an enlightening exchange, as in the case of all such variants. Never waste time discussing any matter with anyone whose response is along these lines.
25 sounds like a good number to stop at. Obviously the above represents only the rules to live by I can think of at this moment in time.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Free Will
FREE WILL
The burning question about life on this planet is the question of free will. Clearly an ameoba doesn't survive because of any free will or conscious decisions. But at the other extreme what about humans? If God controls everything then there really is no ethics, for after all, whatever happens is God's will. "May God's will be done" is really an oxymoronic statement. Like God needs any acquiescence for His will to be done. I don't think so. Certainly God's will trumps any human will. Perhaps free will is a matter of degrees. My cats, I assume, have a free will to behave, or suffer the understood consequences. I doubt God calls the shot there. Prayer presupposes that God is willing to impose His will if He so chooses. What forces exist in the absence of God's will in a particular incidence? To me, the evolutionary process is God's will, or creation might be the better word.
The issue is quite complex, certainly above my pay grade. If Honschnivel dies of kidney disease in 1990 and a doctor states in 1960 that Honschinvel will die of kidney disease in 1990 then the doctor told the truth. The truth then, must have been predetermined in 1960. Honschnivel is then not capable of any free will to alter the outcome. Of course all this is a play on words. We know, we really do know, that many people make adjustments in their lives precisely so that they can increase the likelihood of living longer. We know if we study harder we are more likely to score higher on a test. We don't ever really say it is up to God how hard we study. Thus, we are at least free to make many decisions which affect the quality or length of our lives. To some extent we have free will.
On the other hand all that we do are essentially some sort of chemical interactions via our internal environment. Every single thing we do has a biochemical basis. This doesn't sound like free will. We can't predict the future because the laws of evolution are based on diversity, chance, and environmental factors. These are after all, God's laws for our planet. Can God predict the future? If so, how can free will then exist at all? I suspect it totally unnerves us to think our lives are controlled by chance, diversity and environmental factors----even if the evolutionary process, the creation of God, operates in exactly such a way. When uncertainty about life exists in our minds we try hard to create a certainty, mostly via religious beliefs.
The choices seem to be: that there is no free will, that everything evolves and happens according to God's grand plan. If so there is no ethics, no free will, no judgement, no responsibility, no competition, etc. In other words much of what we spend energy and time on in life is purposeless; OR, their is limited but essentially meaningless free will that simply is allowed to alter our emotional state but has no real meaning outside of personally altered emotional states, OR there is free will which matters, that changes the evolutionary process in ways which are not controlled by God. The religious right in any religion can justify any dogma, injustices, or actions of any kind by simply insisting that is they way God wishes things to be or they wouldn't be that way. This was used to justify slavery, limited rights for women, parental or employer child abuse, genocide, war, limited rights for gays, 'manifest destiny', American Indian exploitation, etc. In other words, if anyone or any group doesn't like the way God rules the planet, tough. But this mentality seems lacking in rational thought. If some individual goes around telling others God is telling him he must kill a particular person we claim he is insane. But if a religious leader or group of religious leaders say God wants certain people enslaved or limited in their rights, etc. this is not insanity but often accepted as a special order directly from God.
It is of course true that every action by anyone is really a biochemical process. HOWEVER, original thoughts do happen. No current understanding of physiology can explain an original thought. We can explain, to some degree, why anyone is angry, hungry, sexually aroused, jealous, etc. but an original thought is totally another matter. And yet original thoughts happen and change history. What do we mean by original? Is this truly the product of the person with the original thought or did God simply use that person's mind to generate such a thought? It just seems logical that if free will exists then God's evolutionary process is not predetermined. Humans may create the rules for football, but after having created the rules for the game, we don't know who will win any particular game. Perhaps God created the Universe and the laws which govern evolution, but watches the the process work with the same uncertainty we watch a football game. Does God interfere when he doesn't like how the evolutionary process is going? Does God really bless America or any person's behavior on the planet? If so, He is not consistent. The worst can happen to the best and good things happen to the bad, whether we are referring to individuals or nations. The evidence seems to be that God is not micromanaging the evolutionary process. I always feel football players are wasting their time gathering in prayer circles before a game. I have come to feel it would be absurd for me to pray for God to help me for problems in my life when the lives of most others are so much more in need of help. For me to feel in any way that God likes me better than others is patently self serving. Patriotism, family values, religious sects, manifest destiny, ethnic biases----all this sort of stuff is of the same nature---God favors some over others. Any examination of history makes clear this is not so. Some may say the Pope, for example, is special, but that is a strange statement in that Popes have been clearly wrong on many matters in history and Popes themselves have committed every crime imaginable over history. All the evidence points to the Popes being every bit as human as anyone else. The only real distinguishing feature of any Pope is the garb they dress in. And the same goes for every individual or group who has ever claimed some sort of divine blessing or protection.
If God created the evolutionary process and is a hands off creator of that process then free will exists. Diversity, chance, and the environment really do then drive the process. People are free to believe anything. One could, for example, believe that God controls which sperm combines with which egg whenever fertilization occurs. If this is true then God really does favor some over others. But it CERTAINLY cannot be any earned favor. To believe this kind of Divine control seems a huge stretch of sense and logic. Perhaps the truth is we all want to be more important than we really are. No one can logically describe the process of evolution, which has been around for billions of years, as anything less than amazing and progressive. That we as individuals, as part of that process, are governed by chance and our environment is emotionally deflating. Our very existence is governed by chance, we are dealt certain cards to play in a certain kind of environment and we have nothing more than an opportunity to better ourselves and others for our brief existence. The real difference with humans, compared to other species, is that we can, through our innate sense of ethics, make it possible for the less fortunate to live better lives. Ethics, like all other aspects of the evolutionary process, is evolving with time. We are better at ethics today than thousands of years ago. BUT, our glaring failure has been to yet master responsible human reproduction. The consequences of this, on so many fronts, is now closing in on us. It is depressing that there is no evidence we are getting any handle on this problem. We have overpopulated the planet and put many species and natural resources at peril. 'Holy mackeral Andy, we's done got ourselves in a terrible fix'. We's certainly has. The only thing for certain is that "Time stays, we Go" We have met the enemy and it is us. We pray to God to help us individually and collectively. God's created evolutionary process is His gift to us, individually and collectively. This process has given the human species ethics and reason. Reason dictates no species can overpopulate the planet without dire consequences to that species and other species. Ethics is the avenue whereby the less fortunate can be given a more level playing field and help to live a better life. It is not democracy vs socialism or any other kind of ism. It is reason and ethics. Our prayers have already been answered and humans have the tools to improve life for all. Right now selfish tunnel visioned greed prevails over reason and ethics. The cliff is ever closer now and it may well be too late to put on the brakes. No matter, Mother Nature bats last and corrections, no matter how severe, will take place. Evolution is full of catastrophic periods.
I don't feel God likes me any better than anyone else. I also understand most of my blessing have been unearned and required some luck. I think I understand ethics and the purpose of ethics. What I feel most, however, is very lucky to have been born in a place and time in history which seems fortuitous. Perhaps the good life so many of us have experienced in our lifetime is about to collapse. I mean, if so, did many of us hit the jackpot or what? Much better than the lottery.
The burning question about life on this planet is the question of free will. Clearly an ameoba doesn't survive because of any free will or conscious decisions. But at the other extreme what about humans? If God controls everything then there really is no ethics, for after all, whatever happens is God's will. "May God's will be done" is really an oxymoronic statement. Like God needs any acquiescence for His will to be done. I don't think so. Certainly God's will trumps any human will. Perhaps free will is a matter of degrees. My cats, I assume, have a free will to behave, or suffer the understood consequences. I doubt God calls the shot there. Prayer presupposes that God is willing to impose His will if He so chooses. What forces exist in the absence of God's will in a particular incidence? To me, the evolutionary process is God's will, or creation might be the better word.
The issue is quite complex, certainly above my pay grade. If Honschnivel dies of kidney disease in 1990 and a doctor states in 1960 that Honschinvel will die of kidney disease in 1990 then the doctor told the truth. The truth then, must have been predetermined in 1960. Honschnivel is then not capable of any free will to alter the outcome. Of course all this is a play on words. We know, we really do know, that many people make adjustments in their lives precisely so that they can increase the likelihood of living longer. We know if we study harder we are more likely to score higher on a test. We don't ever really say it is up to God how hard we study. Thus, we are at least free to make many decisions which affect the quality or length of our lives. To some extent we have free will.
On the other hand all that we do are essentially some sort of chemical interactions via our internal environment. Every single thing we do has a biochemical basis. This doesn't sound like free will. We can't predict the future because the laws of evolution are based on diversity, chance, and environmental factors. These are after all, God's laws for our planet. Can God predict the future? If so, how can free will then exist at all? I suspect it totally unnerves us to think our lives are controlled by chance, diversity and environmental factors----even if the evolutionary process, the creation of God, operates in exactly such a way. When uncertainty about life exists in our minds we try hard to create a certainty, mostly via religious beliefs.
The choices seem to be: that there is no free will, that everything evolves and happens according to God's grand plan. If so there is no ethics, no free will, no judgement, no responsibility, no competition, etc. In other words much of what we spend energy and time on in life is purposeless; OR, their is limited but essentially meaningless free will that simply is allowed to alter our emotional state but has no real meaning outside of personally altered emotional states, OR there is free will which matters, that changes the evolutionary process in ways which are not controlled by God. The religious right in any religion can justify any dogma, injustices, or actions of any kind by simply insisting that is they way God wishes things to be or they wouldn't be that way. This was used to justify slavery, limited rights for women, parental or employer child abuse, genocide, war, limited rights for gays, 'manifest destiny', American Indian exploitation, etc. In other words, if anyone or any group doesn't like the way God rules the planet, tough. But this mentality seems lacking in rational thought. If some individual goes around telling others God is telling him he must kill a particular person we claim he is insane. But if a religious leader or group of religious leaders say God wants certain people enslaved or limited in their rights, etc. this is not insanity but often accepted as a special order directly from God.
It is of course true that every action by anyone is really a biochemical process. HOWEVER, original thoughts do happen. No current understanding of physiology can explain an original thought. We can explain, to some degree, why anyone is angry, hungry, sexually aroused, jealous, etc. but an original thought is totally another matter. And yet original thoughts happen and change history. What do we mean by original? Is this truly the product of the person with the original thought or did God simply use that person's mind to generate such a thought? It just seems logical that if free will exists then God's evolutionary process is not predetermined. Humans may create the rules for football, but after having created the rules for the game, we don't know who will win any particular game. Perhaps God created the Universe and the laws which govern evolution, but watches the the process work with the same uncertainty we watch a football game. Does God interfere when he doesn't like how the evolutionary process is going? Does God really bless America or any person's behavior on the planet? If so, He is not consistent. The worst can happen to the best and good things happen to the bad, whether we are referring to individuals or nations. The evidence seems to be that God is not micromanaging the evolutionary process. I always feel football players are wasting their time gathering in prayer circles before a game. I have come to feel it would be absurd for me to pray for God to help me for problems in my life when the lives of most others are so much more in need of help. For me to feel in any way that God likes me better than others is patently self serving. Patriotism, family values, religious sects, manifest destiny, ethnic biases----all this sort of stuff is of the same nature---God favors some over others. Any examination of history makes clear this is not so. Some may say the Pope, for example, is special, but that is a strange statement in that Popes have been clearly wrong on many matters in history and Popes themselves have committed every crime imaginable over history. All the evidence points to the Popes being every bit as human as anyone else. The only real distinguishing feature of any Pope is the garb they dress in. And the same goes for every individual or group who has ever claimed some sort of divine blessing or protection.
If God created the evolutionary process and is a hands off creator of that process then free will exists. Diversity, chance, and the environment really do then drive the process. People are free to believe anything. One could, for example, believe that God controls which sperm combines with which egg whenever fertilization occurs. If this is true then God really does favor some over others. But it CERTAINLY cannot be any earned favor. To believe this kind of Divine control seems a huge stretch of sense and logic. Perhaps the truth is we all want to be more important than we really are. No one can logically describe the process of evolution, which has been around for billions of years, as anything less than amazing and progressive. That we as individuals, as part of that process, are governed by chance and our environment is emotionally deflating. Our very existence is governed by chance, we are dealt certain cards to play in a certain kind of environment and we have nothing more than an opportunity to better ourselves and others for our brief existence. The real difference with humans, compared to other species, is that we can, through our innate sense of ethics, make it possible for the less fortunate to live better lives. Ethics, like all other aspects of the evolutionary process, is evolving with time. We are better at ethics today than thousands of years ago. BUT, our glaring failure has been to yet master responsible human reproduction. The consequences of this, on so many fronts, is now closing in on us. It is depressing that there is no evidence we are getting any handle on this problem. We have overpopulated the planet and put many species and natural resources at peril. 'Holy mackeral Andy, we's done got ourselves in a terrible fix'. We's certainly has. The only thing for certain is that "Time stays, we Go" We have met the enemy and it is us. We pray to God to help us individually and collectively. God's created evolutionary process is His gift to us, individually and collectively. This process has given the human species ethics and reason. Reason dictates no species can overpopulate the planet without dire consequences to that species and other species. Ethics is the avenue whereby the less fortunate can be given a more level playing field and help to live a better life. It is not democracy vs socialism or any other kind of ism. It is reason and ethics. Our prayers have already been answered and humans have the tools to improve life for all. Right now selfish tunnel visioned greed prevails over reason and ethics. The cliff is ever closer now and it may well be too late to put on the brakes. No matter, Mother Nature bats last and corrections, no matter how severe, will take place. Evolution is full of catastrophic periods.
I don't feel God likes me any better than anyone else. I also understand most of my blessing have been unearned and required some luck. I think I understand ethics and the purpose of ethics. What I feel most, however, is very lucky to have been born in a place and time in history which seems fortuitous. Perhaps the good life so many of us have experienced in our lifetime is about to collapse. I mean, if so, did many of us hit the jackpot or what? Much better than the lottery.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT THIS?
What Do I Feel About This?
I recently read an analysis of the 2000-2008 census data. The data was interesting but I don't know for sure how I feel about this. In 2008 Barack Obama carried a substantial portion of the suburban population in large metropolitan areas. I kind of saw this as evidence of his white support. No doubt he did, BUT there are other factors at work here too.
Ten states, led by Arizona, surpass the nation in a 'cultural generation gap' in which the senior populations are disproportionately white and children mostly minority. This gap is especially pronounced in Florida, California, Nevada, and Texas.
Yes, the suburbs are still white. BUT, for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups live outside the city. Wow. I always wondered why white flight from cities was not accompanied by minority flight. I guess whites led the way and the minorities followed. "Holy mackeral Andy, whees better run too". And I guess they did. Next surprise. The whites stopped running and began to flow back in. It is now the suburbs which have the largest poor population in the country. "Holy mackeral Andy, whees gotta make another run." But not everywhere so far. Washington, D.c., and Atlanta posted the largest increase in white share since 2000, each up 5 percentage points. Other white gains were seen in New York, San Francisco, and Boston along with 7 other cities. "White flight to the suburbs" has now, in some places, reverted to "bright flight to the cities" for knowledge based jobs, public transportation, and a new city ambiance.
Now comes the kicker. About 83 percent of the U.S. population growth since 2000 was minority and the minorities become the majority by mid century. Across all large metro areas, the majority of the child population is now nonwhite. The suburban poor grew by 25% between 1999 and 2008. This is 5 times the growth rate of the poor in cities. Uh Oh!!!!!!
Those are the facts. Just the facts Ma'am. BUT, how do I feel about these facts? How should I feel about them? I suppose by mid century my ass will be gone from the scene. Besides, few of us admit to racism so who cares? We are all God's children. Of course. BUT, the truth is I wouldn't want to be part of a minority population, all the laws and Constitution not withstanding. I am glad to hear the American Indians aren't projected to be the majority. I don't think I would like life somewhere on a reservation, maybe on a Newark, New Jersey giant landfill. Hey, hey----no tit for tat. I wonder, are the minorities already talking about some manifest destiny? Who are the bright dumbbells who managed to make it so difficult for poor people to get abortions? It is hard to keep it all straight. The whites fled to the suburbs, the Mexicans fled to American cities, the blks then fled to the suburbs, then the hispanics fled to the suburbs, then the whites flee back to the cities. I try to visualize the projection for the future. Are whites going to flee to Mexico? All this makes me dizzy.
In theory I guess I don't care what ethnic group is in the majority. A lot of people think I am from another planet anyway. A one man minority. But, no matter what we say, we all know minorities get the short end of the stick, and certainly the short end of any pot of gold, kind of the majority gets the gold and the minorities get the shaft. I am glad I will not live long enough to hear: "Please press 4 to speak English". And of course the NBA will revert back to now forbidden dress as mandatory dress because the new minority majority will be offended by 'white' dress signals. I think I would be smart enough to keep quiet less the majority tell me "if you don't like it here you can leave". All of this is scary, and kind of funny if you are my age and time is running out. Will affirmative action still be around? Maybe I hope so when the tide shifts. Will "Step and Fetch It" have a new face color? It certainly sounds like there will be a period of time in which there is a three way population numbers balance---niggers, spics, and honkies.
Frankly, there is no reason to lose any sleep over these 'small' things. By mid-century human overpopulation will be so great that who you trample en route to food, shelter and land, will seem of no importance. The burning issue will not be who is blk, hispanic, white, Christian, Muslim, etc.----no, the burning issue will be solely "Who is the motherfucker who has that piece of meat? Get him!!" Maybe the kind of troubles the Donner Party faced on their trip across the Rockies will become worldwide realities and people will need to eat each other in order to survive. Of course this is silly. It was silly back then and it is still silly today. We're not cannibals.
I recently read an analysis of the 2000-2008 census data. The data was interesting but I don't know for sure how I feel about this. In 2008 Barack Obama carried a substantial portion of the suburban population in large metropolitan areas. I kind of saw this as evidence of his white support. No doubt he did, BUT there are other factors at work here too.
Ten states, led by Arizona, surpass the nation in a 'cultural generation gap' in which the senior populations are disproportionately white and children mostly minority. This gap is especially pronounced in Florida, California, Nevada, and Texas.
Yes, the suburbs are still white. BUT, for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups live outside the city. Wow. I always wondered why white flight from cities was not accompanied by minority flight. I guess whites led the way and the minorities followed. "Holy mackeral Andy, whees better run too". And I guess they did. Next surprise. The whites stopped running and began to flow back in. It is now the suburbs which have the largest poor population in the country. "Holy mackeral Andy, whees gotta make another run." But not everywhere so far. Washington, D.c., and Atlanta posted the largest increase in white share since 2000, each up 5 percentage points. Other white gains were seen in New York, San Francisco, and Boston along with 7 other cities. "White flight to the suburbs" has now, in some places, reverted to "bright flight to the cities" for knowledge based jobs, public transportation, and a new city ambiance.
Now comes the kicker. About 83 percent of the U.S. population growth since 2000 was minority and the minorities become the majority by mid century. Across all large metro areas, the majority of the child population is now nonwhite. The suburban poor grew by 25% between 1999 and 2008. This is 5 times the growth rate of the poor in cities. Uh Oh!!!!!!
Those are the facts. Just the facts Ma'am. BUT, how do I feel about these facts? How should I feel about them? I suppose by mid century my ass will be gone from the scene. Besides, few of us admit to racism so who cares? We are all God's children. Of course. BUT, the truth is I wouldn't want to be part of a minority population, all the laws and Constitution not withstanding. I am glad to hear the American Indians aren't projected to be the majority. I don't think I would like life somewhere on a reservation, maybe on a Newark, New Jersey giant landfill. Hey, hey----no tit for tat. I wonder, are the minorities already talking about some manifest destiny? Who are the bright dumbbells who managed to make it so difficult for poor people to get abortions? It is hard to keep it all straight. The whites fled to the suburbs, the Mexicans fled to American cities, the blks then fled to the suburbs, then the hispanics fled to the suburbs, then the whites flee back to the cities. I try to visualize the projection for the future. Are whites going to flee to Mexico? All this makes me dizzy.
In theory I guess I don't care what ethnic group is in the majority. A lot of people think I am from another planet anyway. A one man minority. But, no matter what we say, we all know minorities get the short end of the stick, and certainly the short end of any pot of gold, kind of the majority gets the gold and the minorities get the shaft. I am glad I will not live long enough to hear: "Please press 4 to speak English". And of course the NBA will revert back to now forbidden dress as mandatory dress because the new minority majority will be offended by 'white' dress signals. I think I would be smart enough to keep quiet less the majority tell me "if you don't like it here you can leave". All of this is scary, and kind of funny if you are my age and time is running out. Will affirmative action still be around? Maybe I hope so when the tide shifts. Will "Step and Fetch It" have a new face color? It certainly sounds like there will be a period of time in which there is a three way population numbers balance---niggers, spics, and honkies.
Frankly, there is no reason to lose any sleep over these 'small' things. By mid-century human overpopulation will be so great that who you trample en route to food, shelter and land, will seem of no importance. The burning issue will not be who is blk, hispanic, white, Christian, Muslim, etc.----no, the burning issue will be solely "Who is the motherfucker who has that piece of meat? Get him!!" Maybe the kind of troubles the Donner Party faced on their trip across the Rockies will become worldwide realities and people will need to eat each other in order to survive. Of course this is silly. It was silly back then and it is still silly today. We're not cannibals.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
God Responsible?
God Responsible?
When personal tragedies befall the best or worst of us in apparently a random manner, the question asked when the best of us are afflicted is "why would God allow this?" My assumption is that this bothers everyone, and is a very unsettling question. One answer, quite obvious, is that there may be no God. I dismiss this simply because where there is a gift, there must be a gift giver. Our universe is certainly some kind of gift. The next question is just beyond human pay grade. Where then did God come from? I mean wow, something at some point had to have come from nothing. Of course how can something come from nothing. Beats me.
I think most people believe God answers prayer. I don't unless it is a rare exception. If God could really stop some of the worst tragedies to some of the best among us and doesn't, then God is not compassionate or fair. If that is true it sure puts a huge dent in the concept of ethics. I mean the rest of us would, if we could, stop a little girl from being brutally raped and God won't? That is really a stretch. Would God really use inherited religion as the vehicle to guide us on a path to moral behavior and heaven? That also seems unfair and not compassionate since no one chooses their parents or place of birth.
Well, some might say, bad things happen because they then lead to a greater good down the road. But it is hard to see why letting a little girl get brutally raped can ever be explained as necessary for a greater good down the road. Try that argument in court! No, some things are just morally repulsive, cruel, and stand alone as totally unethical by any standard of ethics.
Logic then dictates God is unable to stop some of these tragedies. Therefore God is not ominipotent? I reckon humans are not really in any position to measure the omnipotence of God. Ethics may itself be a product of evolution and God's evolutionary laws. We humans create things which once created we lose control over---the device operates via the principles we used to create the device. You may control the whole process which created the gun, but once the bullet is fired it goes it own way, and if your aim was poor you may hit little Red Riding Hood instead of the bad guy. If the brakes on your car fail, then you can't stop. Things happen.
To me, then, I choose to perceive God as the creator of the evolutionary process and all the laws upon which the process operates. Evolution requires diversity, change and survival of the fittest. From the big picture evolution has been an amazing success. But the individual costs can be rough, unfair, and even cruel. A lot of the evolutionary process, from the individual standpoint of most species, is mindless. Ethics has been a late arrival on the evolutionary scene. Ethics did not arrive via inherited dogma, but through the laws of evolution. Human ethics is an inherent characteristic, inherited via genes, not via sectarian religious birth. The only inherent principle identifiable seems to be the Golden Rule. Everyone, everywhere understands that principle.
A car manufacturer would point out they just made the car, they are not responsible for how people drive. Of course everyone thinks cars are a good thing. No one says lets get rid of cars because some very unjust, cruel things happen to even the best of us because of cars. I doubt anyone would seriously suggest we get rid of the evolutionary process because some very unjust, cruel things happen to even the best of us.
The truth is that we don't really like our own lives being left up to chance. It is too unsettling. So we invent religious dogmas and pass them on from generation to generation, all of which reward us for good behavior---and that good behavior is defined as some sort of loyalty to our inherited religious dogma. Accept what you inherited or you are going to hell. Of course if often works in absurd ways----the mobster who never misses a mass, whole countries who can endorse mass murders of strangers in foreign lands, and for most it works by selective adherence to their inherited religious dogma. There is always some escape clause for unethical behavior---in all religions a person can always be forgiven by God and get to Heaven via repentance, if necessary by death bed recants or last rites or whatever. Most prefer their ethics cocooned in rituals, hymns, prayers, elaborate cathedrals, and heathens to target, chase down and kill or forcibly suppress. It is hard to relate ethics to some of religious activity. For too many people with inherited faith based beliefs, it is not enough they feel they are en route to Heaven, others---the targeted heathens-----must suffer.
Many people are less intent on making others suffer as they are ignoring the suffering of others. The Golden Rule is a momentous task for anyone. Sacrifices, difficult choices, learning to accept when enough is as good as a feast, and helping others in need outside your own family, neighborhood, religious, or national clan, these are tough standards to adhere to. What is modern day 'family values' but an assertion that you and your family count more than others. The Golden Rule doesn't really say "Do unto to, at least your own family, that which you would have others do unto you." That is more a definition of intolerance and selfishness.
The real kicker with ethical behavior, to me, is this. Is it ethical behavior if you only do the right thing if you will be rewarded? If you don't hit your brother I will give you $5 a week. I guess if I get run over and killed by a car then the poor brother is allowed to be hit. "Ok, ok, I'll give 10% to the church but I sure as hell better get to heaven." Ethics to a lot of people is some sort of bribery process, sort of like paying the mob for protection. Can ethics exist without a reward? How would humans react if God were to suddenly appear in the sky over the whole planet and announce that no one, in any religious sect, was going to go to any heaven because of ethical behavior? I don't know what the result would be.
In my own mind I envision God as the Creator of the Evolutionary Process. This process is not based on reward, but on advantage. Now the question becomes one of whether there is any advantage for someone to be ethical. Heaven may or may not exist. It is beyond human comprehension let alone prove it. So I leave that be as whatever is, is. But there may be an advantage to those who are ethical in their behavior to others. Limiting your Golden Rule to your own family or community or friends or country etc. is not ethics. It is selfishness---a sort of "I care about those who can be of use or value to me, period." So what advantage do those have who practice the Golden Rule toward all of human diversity? I think it is contentment. When I am around those who genuinely care about everyone and use their money, time, and political support for those less fortunate everywhere, I sense they have a contentment within themselves not found in those with more restrictive ethics. To favor your 'own kind' used in differing senses of 'kind' here, is to develop a disrespect or at best indifference to all the 'others'. It becomes necessary to justify why all these others are not within the realm of your concern. The manufactured justifications leave one with an attitude toward others which is in varying degrees critical, demeaning, antagonistic, etc. Whatever their unfortunate circumstances, IF THEY would only this or that, their lives would be better. These 'other' people then become an irritant. If they didn't exist it would be a better world. Keeping them in their 'deserved place' becomes the objective, not really helping them. History is full of attempting to keep certain people in their place.
When I listen to people attack those less fortunate in life as people living in their own deserved failures, I always kind of wish they had been born in the same circumstances with the same cards in their genetic hand----just to see how far in life they would go under the same circumstances. The evolutionary process never had a species with a developed sense of ethics prior to humans. For the first time in evolutionary history a species has considerable ability to lessen the unfairness on the less fortunate, to level the playing field a bit for them, to maximize justice and well being for all members of a species. Contentment is keeping to a minimum the necessity to say you are sorry for not helping others when you could.
For me, being around right wing religious nuts of any ilk is a depressing experience. These are angry, self centered, contentious people whose discontent with others can ruin anyone's peace of mind. They are always after this or that group of people. You can tell the others by that hunted look on their face. Persecution of these others, called 'heathens' is the stuff of which gives their lives meaning-----meaning, but not contentment. With these people all their problems are the fault of others, almost invariably minorities of some sort. The least powerful groups amongst us become the reason for all problems and if we can't get rid of them we can at least suppress, jail, or wall ourselves off from them. Punishment, coupled with out of sight, out of mind are the political solutions. Gays ruin the sanctity of marriage, hispanics are ruining the economy, blks are shiftless ignorant dregs on society etc. I wonder why the 'gay' impact is not used more in divorce proceedings? No matter, the proof is evident----the rise in gay rights has paralleled the rise in divorce rates. Take the current anger over immigration. What are the facts behind all this? First every nation has a right to protect their borders and expel illegal immigrants. But we have not exercised this right. There are no citizenship cards (if there were counterfit cards would be mass produced), employers have never been required to have workers prove citizenship, and borders have never been made secure. Now that we have a real problem, our tune changes. We have let all these people come in in droves, are happy to have them take minimum or less than minimum wage jobs. Now we realize, hey, these people are all over the place. I have made phone calls where I am told to speak English press 2. I mean, wow. At any rate there needs to be a crackdown. But justice demands all guilty parties pay a price. We encouraged these people to seek a better life for themselves and left them alone. Justice would dictate that those who have been here x number of years be provided a path to citizenship. That is our own penalty for allowing this situation to develop. Our borders should be made secure, employers should be required to have workers prove citizenship, and all new illegals deported. We have not exactly been innocent in the problem. We chose to let it slide. We looked the other way. We are co-conspirators.
On the bright side, ethics---like other aspects of evolution---seems to be improving. The abolishment of slavery, women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, animal rights, etc have improved with each century. The ticking time bomb is the inability of humans to enforce any kind of responsible reproduction. And for this the consequences are going to be brutal and already have become so in many parts of the planet. Under such circumstances The Golden Rule becomes inoperative. The evolutionary process will correct this problem for us, if necessary, but it will not be a pretty picture.
Thus to me, ethics does give one an advantage, an immediate advantage, and this is called contentment. We are going to die, that's the biggest downside of being born, and to the extent one can reach contentment with their life, the better their lives will have been. I don't think contentment, in the absence of an ethical attitude towards all other humans, species, and our natural resources, can be achieved to the fullest extent.
When personal tragedies befall the best or worst of us in apparently a random manner, the question asked when the best of us are afflicted is "why would God allow this?" My assumption is that this bothers everyone, and is a very unsettling question. One answer, quite obvious, is that there may be no God. I dismiss this simply because where there is a gift, there must be a gift giver. Our universe is certainly some kind of gift. The next question is just beyond human pay grade. Where then did God come from? I mean wow, something at some point had to have come from nothing. Of course how can something come from nothing. Beats me.
I think most people believe God answers prayer. I don't unless it is a rare exception. If God could really stop some of the worst tragedies to some of the best among us and doesn't, then God is not compassionate or fair. If that is true it sure puts a huge dent in the concept of ethics. I mean the rest of us would, if we could, stop a little girl from being brutally raped and God won't? That is really a stretch. Would God really use inherited religion as the vehicle to guide us on a path to moral behavior and heaven? That also seems unfair and not compassionate since no one chooses their parents or place of birth.
Well, some might say, bad things happen because they then lead to a greater good down the road. But it is hard to see why letting a little girl get brutally raped can ever be explained as necessary for a greater good down the road. Try that argument in court! No, some things are just morally repulsive, cruel, and stand alone as totally unethical by any standard of ethics.
Logic then dictates God is unable to stop some of these tragedies. Therefore God is not ominipotent? I reckon humans are not really in any position to measure the omnipotence of God. Ethics may itself be a product of evolution and God's evolutionary laws. We humans create things which once created we lose control over---the device operates via the principles we used to create the device. You may control the whole process which created the gun, but once the bullet is fired it goes it own way, and if your aim was poor you may hit little Red Riding Hood instead of the bad guy. If the brakes on your car fail, then you can't stop. Things happen.
To me, then, I choose to perceive God as the creator of the evolutionary process and all the laws upon which the process operates. Evolution requires diversity, change and survival of the fittest. From the big picture evolution has been an amazing success. But the individual costs can be rough, unfair, and even cruel. A lot of the evolutionary process, from the individual standpoint of most species, is mindless. Ethics has been a late arrival on the evolutionary scene. Ethics did not arrive via inherited dogma, but through the laws of evolution. Human ethics is an inherent characteristic, inherited via genes, not via sectarian religious birth. The only inherent principle identifiable seems to be the Golden Rule. Everyone, everywhere understands that principle.
A car manufacturer would point out they just made the car, they are not responsible for how people drive. Of course everyone thinks cars are a good thing. No one says lets get rid of cars because some very unjust, cruel things happen to even the best of us because of cars. I doubt anyone would seriously suggest we get rid of the evolutionary process because some very unjust, cruel things happen to even the best of us.
The truth is that we don't really like our own lives being left up to chance. It is too unsettling. So we invent religious dogmas and pass them on from generation to generation, all of which reward us for good behavior---and that good behavior is defined as some sort of loyalty to our inherited religious dogma. Accept what you inherited or you are going to hell. Of course if often works in absurd ways----the mobster who never misses a mass, whole countries who can endorse mass murders of strangers in foreign lands, and for most it works by selective adherence to their inherited religious dogma. There is always some escape clause for unethical behavior---in all religions a person can always be forgiven by God and get to Heaven via repentance, if necessary by death bed recants or last rites or whatever. Most prefer their ethics cocooned in rituals, hymns, prayers, elaborate cathedrals, and heathens to target, chase down and kill or forcibly suppress. It is hard to relate ethics to some of religious activity. For too many people with inherited faith based beliefs, it is not enough they feel they are en route to Heaven, others---the targeted heathens-----must suffer.
Many people are less intent on making others suffer as they are ignoring the suffering of others. The Golden Rule is a momentous task for anyone. Sacrifices, difficult choices, learning to accept when enough is as good as a feast, and helping others in need outside your own family, neighborhood, religious, or national clan, these are tough standards to adhere to. What is modern day 'family values' but an assertion that you and your family count more than others. The Golden Rule doesn't really say "Do unto to, at least your own family, that which you would have others do unto you." That is more a definition of intolerance and selfishness.
The real kicker with ethical behavior, to me, is this. Is it ethical behavior if you only do the right thing if you will be rewarded? If you don't hit your brother I will give you $5 a week. I guess if I get run over and killed by a car then the poor brother is allowed to be hit. "Ok, ok, I'll give 10% to the church but I sure as hell better get to heaven." Ethics to a lot of people is some sort of bribery process, sort of like paying the mob for protection. Can ethics exist without a reward? How would humans react if God were to suddenly appear in the sky over the whole planet and announce that no one, in any religious sect, was going to go to any heaven because of ethical behavior? I don't know what the result would be.
In my own mind I envision God as the Creator of the Evolutionary Process. This process is not based on reward, but on advantage. Now the question becomes one of whether there is any advantage for someone to be ethical. Heaven may or may not exist. It is beyond human comprehension let alone prove it. So I leave that be as whatever is, is. But there may be an advantage to those who are ethical in their behavior to others. Limiting your Golden Rule to your own family or community or friends or country etc. is not ethics. It is selfishness---a sort of "I care about those who can be of use or value to me, period." So what advantage do those have who practice the Golden Rule toward all of human diversity? I think it is contentment. When I am around those who genuinely care about everyone and use their money, time, and political support for those less fortunate everywhere, I sense they have a contentment within themselves not found in those with more restrictive ethics. To favor your 'own kind' used in differing senses of 'kind' here, is to develop a disrespect or at best indifference to all the 'others'. It becomes necessary to justify why all these others are not within the realm of your concern. The manufactured justifications leave one with an attitude toward others which is in varying degrees critical, demeaning, antagonistic, etc. Whatever their unfortunate circumstances, IF THEY would only this or that, their lives would be better. These 'other' people then become an irritant. If they didn't exist it would be a better world. Keeping them in their 'deserved place' becomes the objective, not really helping them. History is full of attempting to keep certain people in their place.
When I listen to people attack those less fortunate in life as people living in their own deserved failures, I always kind of wish they had been born in the same circumstances with the same cards in their genetic hand----just to see how far in life they would go under the same circumstances. The evolutionary process never had a species with a developed sense of ethics prior to humans. For the first time in evolutionary history a species has considerable ability to lessen the unfairness on the less fortunate, to level the playing field a bit for them, to maximize justice and well being for all members of a species. Contentment is keeping to a minimum the necessity to say you are sorry for not helping others when you could.
For me, being around right wing religious nuts of any ilk is a depressing experience. These are angry, self centered, contentious people whose discontent with others can ruin anyone's peace of mind. They are always after this or that group of people. You can tell the others by that hunted look on their face. Persecution of these others, called 'heathens' is the stuff of which gives their lives meaning-----meaning, but not contentment. With these people all their problems are the fault of others, almost invariably minorities of some sort. The least powerful groups amongst us become the reason for all problems and if we can't get rid of them we can at least suppress, jail, or wall ourselves off from them. Punishment, coupled with out of sight, out of mind are the political solutions. Gays ruin the sanctity of marriage, hispanics are ruining the economy, blks are shiftless ignorant dregs on society etc. I wonder why the 'gay' impact is not used more in divorce proceedings? No matter, the proof is evident----the rise in gay rights has paralleled the rise in divorce rates. Take the current anger over immigration. What are the facts behind all this? First every nation has a right to protect their borders and expel illegal immigrants. But we have not exercised this right. There are no citizenship cards (if there were counterfit cards would be mass produced), employers have never been required to have workers prove citizenship, and borders have never been made secure. Now that we have a real problem, our tune changes. We have let all these people come in in droves, are happy to have them take minimum or less than minimum wage jobs. Now we realize, hey, these people are all over the place. I have made phone calls where I am told to speak English press 2. I mean, wow. At any rate there needs to be a crackdown. But justice demands all guilty parties pay a price. We encouraged these people to seek a better life for themselves and left them alone. Justice would dictate that those who have been here x number of years be provided a path to citizenship. That is our own penalty for allowing this situation to develop. Our borders should be made secure, employers should be required to have workers prove citizenship, and all new illegals deported. We have not exactly been innocent in the problem. We chose to let it slide. We looked the other way. We are co-conspirators.
On the bright side, ethics---like other aspects of evolution---seems to be improving. The abolishment of slavery, women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, animal rights, etc have improved with each century. The ticking time bomb is the inability of humans to enforce any kind of responsible reproduction. And for this the consequences are going to be brutal and already have become so in many parts of the planet. Under such circumstances The Golden Rule becomes inoperative. The evolutionary process will correct this problem for us, if necessary, but it will not be a pretty picture.
Thus to me, ethics does give one an advantage, an immediate advantage, and this is called contentment. We are going to die, that's the biggest downside of being born, and to the extent one can reach contentment with their life, the better their lives will have been. I don't think contentment, in the absence of an ethical attitude towards all other humans, species, and our natural resources, can be achieved to the fullest extent.
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