Reflections

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Freethought and Loyalty to the Union

Posted by Reflections on January 11, 2010

My wife and I celebrated our 34th anniversary in the small town of Comfort, Texas. We spent Friday night in a small cottage and awoke to a Saturday morning temperature of 11 degrees Fahrenheit. So much for Comfort. Actually, it was quite cozy in our little cottage, but we decided it was a bit too brisk for our normal morning walk. We had been to Comfort before (in warmer times), but I wanted to go back because I didn’t know Comfort’s history during our first visit.

Comfort was founded by German Freethinkers (Deutche Freidenker) in the mid-19th century. That entire area of the Texas Hill Country was once over 50% German as the names of the towns attest: Neu Braunfels, Fredricksburg, Boerne, Greune, etc. The Freethinkers had no interest in organized religion. The first church was not built until 1892. Comfort’s inhabitants believed in freedom, and as the Civil War approached, they were abolitionists and were against secession.

Texas joined the Confederacy. Many residents of Comfort sided with the Union, and a group banded together and left for Mexico to avoid being drafted into the Confederate Army. They were ambushed and massacred at Nueces in August, 1862. The wounded were executed, and some drowned in the Rio Grande trying to escape. Their bodies were left to rot. The citizens of Comfort gathered their bones and buried them in a mass grave in Comfort. They erected a monument called Treue der Union (Loyalty to the Union). It is the oldest Civil War monument in Texas and the only monument to Unionists in all the states of the former Conferacy. It is in the national registry of historic places, and it is one of only six sites in the nation that is authorized to fly the flag at half staff every day of the year. The flag flying there has 36 stars, one for every resident killed in the massacre.

Visiting the monument is a profoundly moving experience. Click on the image to enlarge.

Comfort has another memorial to the Deutche Freidenker in the downtown area. It was erected by Central Texas Freethinkers, and it commemorates them and their contributions to freedom and the rich history of the area.

The Founding Freethinkers

I have intentionally made the picture big so that you can read it.

On the lighter side, we visited an antique mall across the street from this monument. It is huge. It must have tens of thousands of items from small to large. While I was browsing an employee came up and asked if he could help me find anything in particular. I asked if there was anything among all these items that might help commemorate the Founding German Freethinkers. His response was, “I wouldn’t know about anything like that around here.” Right.

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Reason and experience

Posted by Reflections on January 3, 2010

Reason and experience are inseparable. Without reason to sort, analyze and classify our experiences, we do not turn this information into intelligence. We use reason to compare our latest experiences to our own earlier experiences and to the experiences others have shared with us. Without reason, experience is just raw data, not useful for much.

But reason does not operate in a vacuum. Reason cannot function without data. Experience is the way we gather data to feed our reasoning minds. Reason needs food for thought.

I was raised like many in America. I went to church. I come from a tiny town of 250 souls in rural Illinois. I lived a block from the church. Of course I went to church. And when we moved to the country, we went to the closest church, which was four miles away. When I got my license I drove all the kids to church. It was a Southern Baptist mission. And we learned about Jesus. I wanted so much to be saved. I went through the motions. I tried to convince myself I was saved. I was baptized, of course.

Then I went away to college. Reason began to matter more than what I had been taught. I began to experience things that a youngster in rural Illinois does not get to experience. I applied reason to those experiences, and reason told me that many of my early experiences did not make sense in the harsh light of mature reason. I began to question why I ever had believed the things I had been taught as a child.

As I grew in experience and honed my reasoning skills I discovered gaps in my experience. Reason directed my search to discover replacement beliefs for the childhood beliefs that had withered and crumbled under the harsh light of reason. Reason had taken away those old, comforting beliefs. It was up to reason to find a replacement. Life has to have meaning, doesn’t it? My search led east to Buddhism, Zen, Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism. The east was not a good fit. I turned west.

More experience. More reason. I became a voracious reader and consumed massive amounts of information. Experience and reason. The search continued. I married, started a family, settled on a career, rose through the ranks. I lost a brother, a sister, my father, my mother and countless older relatives. Life was moving on, whether I was ready or not.

When did I come to Deism? I cannot rightly say. It was many years ago after much reasoning and experience. When did I realize I was a Deist? That is a relatively recent experience.

Here we are again, back at experience and reason. There was a time when I would have said, “Too bad I did not come to this conclusion earlier.” But that was when I believed in regrets. Regret is like worry, a complete waste of time and energy. Regret does not fix anything. Regret does not solve anything. We either learn from our experiences, or we do not. If we reason, we learn. If we fail to apply reason to our experiences, we learn nothing. Regret is unreasonable.

Because of reason and a mature perspective, I now get a lot more out of my experiences. I also get more out of other people’s experiences. I better understand the relationship between reason and experience, and life makes more sense. I have no regrets that I arrived at this understanding relatively late in life. Many people never reach this stage in their spiritual development at all!

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The journey

Posted by Reflections on December 3, 2009

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That is also the way the journey ends. Nearly a year ago a number of us embarked upon an adventure. A dozen fellow Deists and I decided to share our feelings, beliefs and experiences in a book. Thus, the Contemporary Deism Project was formed. Now, the book is complete, and so is the journey. The book has entered the editing and publishing process. In a few short weeks it will take that final step from potential to actual, and the world will get to see it, warts and all.

To say that it has been challenging collecting the thoughts of over a dozen Deists and transforming them into a meaningful whole  is the biggest understatement I’ve made all year. Deist: So that’s what I am! is far from perfect. It is ambitious, diverse and inclusive. Even the most extreme Deist theories and sub-categories get a hearing. There is something for everyone: something to cheer and something that probably will make you go, “huh.”

For everything that you cheer, I want to give credit to the wonderful contributors who worked so hard to explain what it is to be a Deist, and for everything that makes you scratch your head, I want it to be clear that it’s the editor’s fault.

Now a new journey begins. We enter a strange new land where we spend our energies letting people know that we have produced something of value, and we would like for them to benefit. Deists value reason, nature and experience. We hope you will experience this new book so that you can decide whether or not you can say, “so that’s what I am !”

(this post is also available on our new book blog at http://sothatswhatiam.com/blog/)

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Freethought and deep thought

Posted by Reflections on November 16, 2009

I attended the Texas Freethought Convention in San Antonio this weekend. It was a really good time, like last year. Next year’s convention will be in Dallas, and the year after will be in Houston. If you are anywhere near, you really should check it out. There were a couple of hundred Freethinkers there: Atheists, Humanists, Brights and one token Deist. ;-)

On the way back I drove past Brooke Army Medical Center. As I looked at the building I could not help but think about who was lying there in a hospital bed in a heavily-guarded room. I thought about the news reports about the funerals that day for three victims of the Fort Hood slayings. I thought about the words of Kathleen Johnson the previous evening. She told us what she could of the events of the previous week. She works in law enforcement at Fort Hood and knows more than she can tell at this stage of the investigation.

In a couple of years we will give Major Hasan a fair trial. We will convict him and then kill him or lock him up until he dies. We will say that justice has been served, but we know that, whatever the outcome, it will be short of justice. No one will come back to life. Those damaged will not be made whole. Hearts will not be unbroken. Human justice is inadequate, but we do what we can.

And as BAMC faded in my rear view mirror I pondered. What could have been going through the mind of the shooter in the days, weeks and months leading up to this horrific act? Is he insane? By any standard of modern, civilized behavior, he is insane. And what brought on this insanity? We know the answer. There’s no fanatic like a religious fanatic.

The Texas Freethought Convention is represented primarily by Atheists. These are people who have arrived at the logical and reasonable conclusion that there is no God. I have arrived at a different conclusion, but my position is much, much closer to their stance than it is to that of anyone who worships a God who commands His followers to go out and kill in His name. I cannot believe in, let alone worship, a God like that. No religion is far, far better than a religion like that.

I respect people who hold different religious beliefs. I do not respect all that they believe, but if they do not impose their beliefs on others, I think they can believe anything they choose. My own ethical code is simple: be considerate. I take into consideration that other people are usually raised in the religion of their parents. Religion is a social phenomenon, and people derive much spiritual satisfaction from their faith. But organized religion also has a poisonous side. Sacred texts and clergy have urged followers to commit extreme acts against unbelievers and sinners, and followers have followed their leaders’ urgings, no matter how depraved or atrocious. When the promised afterlife is more highly valued than their current life, people can do extraordinary things. Unfortunately, these things are often extraordinarily bad.

Freethinkers use reason and logic to reach their conclusions about life, God and the afterlife. We do not rely on second-hand claims or Bronze Age texts. We can make a leap of faith, but some chasms are too wide and deep, and what is on the other side is not attractive enough. In fact, we just don’t see the allure of what is on the other side. And the more closely we examine it, the more we become convinced that it is an illusion. So as I passed the hospital along I-35 in San Antonio, I tried to imagine what illusion could turn a person into a mass murderer, and my imagination fell short. And I think the shooter also fell short as he leaped the chasm towards his vision of paradise. I believe he plummeted into the depths of that abyss. It’s just too bad that he dragged so many people down with him.

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Surprise, sadness and resolve

Posted by Reflections on November 14, 2009

Ever since 9-11 we have known that the day would come when we would get hit again. We did not know when or where or how many would be lost, but we knew the day was coming. And now that the day has arrived, many are in denial. For some reason many of our national leaders cannot accept the fact that a home-grown extremist has committed an act of terror against his fellow soldiers on our own soil. I do not understand why they are in denial. We cannot fix a problem if we refuse to recognize that we have a problem. Once again, some impressionable person has arrived at the conclusion that killing is the proper way to serve God. The political goals of some spiritual leader became more important than even his own life.

Yes, I know we are supposed to be politically correct, and we should wait until all the facts are in, and if things turn out differently than I think they will, I will apologize and retract my statements in this post, but it is already quite clear that the reason this Army major went berserk and killed 13 people is because he was deluded by a religious call to do harm to others based on religious and political grounds: our country does not agree with the extremists’ point of view.

I watched the Fort Hood memorial service, and I saw and heard our president call these acts incomprehensible. That is an absurd statement. These acts are not at all difficult to comprehend. The sacred text that the major looks to for guidance calls for what we consider in modern times to be barbaric behavior toward unbelievers. To be fair, the Christian sacred texts also call for similar barbaric behavior towards unbelievers, and Christians have happily slaughtered hundreds of thousands. But Christians mostly ignore their sacred text’s requirements to commit murder in the modern era. And they have been ignoring these requirements to slaughter unbelievers for several hundred years, so Christians tend to not be as forgiving of such ritual murder in modern times as their Islamic counterparts.

Most modern-day Muslims have abandoned the barbaric requirements of the Koran as modern Christians have ignored the barbaric requirements of the Bible. Unfortunately, we all know that some clerics urge their followers to commit jihad and kill infidels. And many of their followers follow their leaders’ urgings and reach martyrdom, leaving behind them a trail of death, destruction and heartbreak. Normal people cannot understand the special breed of murderous insanity necessary to produce a suicide bomber or any jihadist, for that matter. Most of us cannot fathom how someone can hate that much, how they can throw their life away in order to kill and maim their perceived enemies. What kind of God would reward such barbaric behavior with eternity in paradise?

Is Islam to blame? Islam is certainly partly to blame. There can be no doubt. If a member of the Westboro Baptist Church was to start shooting up a funeral, Christians from coast to coast and around the world would condemn the act, and there would be no politically correct group protesting that their religion was not to blame. Certainly, their religion would be to blame. This sect’s members believe that “God hates fags”. People do not confuse members of the Westboro Baptist Church with other Baptists. I don’t believe that most people confuse mainstream Islam with radical Islam, but mainstream Islam does not do nearly enough to distance itself from radical Islam. Islam must defeat radical Islam with religious arguments that the deluded will accept. We cannot convince these extremists with any arguments. We have to kill them or capture them to stop them.

Moderate and mainstream Muslims have condemned the terrorist act at Fort Hood, and that is proper, but they have gone on the defensive, because they fear a backlash. I think they have a valid fear. They should continue to vigorously distance themselves from all radical Islam and spend some time actively campaigning and educating their own. They have an enormous problem on their hands. Muslims, more than anyone, need to figure out how to deal with radical Islam. No one else can do that for them.

And we need to be honest with ourselves. Political correctness is at least partly to blame for the slaughter in Texas. We need to identify and fix this problem. Otherwise, even more will die.

Let us not blind ourselves to what is going on here. If racists lynch someone because of his race, we recognize the bigotry and condemn racism. If an ideologue blows up a building or assassinates an opponent, we condemn him and his ideology. If people murder others because of their ethnicity or nationality, we condemn extreme nationalism and ethnic cleansing. The same is true for other violent extremist activity. We recognize that the perpetrator is insane by the definitions of civilized behavior, and we recognize that extreme  anti-social behavior based on ethnicity, nationality, religion, race or other such group identities, is uncivilized. As a species we are growing out of such barbaric behavior, but sadly, our evolution is still incomplete.

For the government to say that we must not blame Islam is absurd. This attitude is insulting, arrogant and condescending. Federal authorities are telling us we are not capable of figuring out on our own what is mainstream Islam and what is radical Islam. All we need do is follow the trail of bodies. Yes, there are bigoted and close-minded Americans who will blame all Muslims. We can deal with them. Dealing with blind, politically correct government bureaucrats is a much larger problem.

Freethought is a step in the right direction. Freethought celebrates individuality, which is the opposite of groupthink. We need free and critical reasoning to prevail to defeat groupthink.

I am not surprised that a terrorist killed Americans, but I am surprised that it was a soldier killing soldiers. I am saddened by the loss and the weak leadership that we are exhibiting in response. I do sense a resolve, however, that people are not going to accept this weak response. Perhaps that will clear the minds of our leaders. If it does not, we need new leaders.

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Nature is a wonderful teacher

Posted by Reflections on November 4, 2009

Unfortunately, she kills all of her students*. We need to be mindful of this when we recommend that people live according to nature. When we say that it is best for us to live according to nature we imply that people should follow naturally good paths. There are many natural paths that will lead to our more rapid demise. Obviously, we want to avoid the bad paths.

How to tell the good from the bad? We start by listening to our parents and teachers. We trust that they will nurture us and guide us in ways that will lead to good outcomes. As we grow older, we try things out for ourselves. We build experience, and if we learn how to choose more good than bad, we can say we have gained in wisdom. If we look at the long-term outcome of our choices, take others into consideration, and choose what will produce the best for ourselves and those around us, we can say we have chosen wisely. If we fail to consider the future, do not evaluate the impact of our actions on others and generally act selfishly, we can expect less than a good outcome, at least over the long run.

After we reach adulthood we no longer have the excuse of youth to blame for our mistakes. We can blame others for our bad choices, or we can rage against the fates. But if we are choosing unwisely, we should blame only ourselves. Failing to examine the facts, failing to consider the long-term effects of our actions on others and ourselves and failing to use our God-given reason are all human failings that we can avoid if we will only look at nature and our own nature and make the right choice over the easy choice.

What about choices that require knowledge beyond our experience or education? To decide we must rely on the recommendations of others with more experience and education, just as we did in our childhood, except that, as adults, we get to choose who will guide us. Neither our choices nor those whom we choose will always be correct. Life is not fair, and we are not perfect. Science helps us understand nature better and better every year, so we can make ever better choices. What science said was good for us in 1970 is completely different from what science says today. And except in cases where scientists pre-judge and pre-determine outcomes, I trust today’s science more than yesterday’s. We have much better research tools and methods now than we had decades earlier. Not everything “scientific” can be trusted. Some theories conflict, and we have to be careful sorting out which assertions are backed by the evidence, and which are backed by an agenda. Whom do we trust? Look to the evidence, look to the explanations that make sense in light of the evidence, look to the track record of those making claims, and listen to opposing arguments to see which side’s case is stronger. Go with the evidence, not with your emotions. If one side is making an emotional appeal that tugs at your heart, but the other side is presenting solid and logical arguments, you must choose wisely. You know where wisdom lies.

A really good friend of mind is facing a dilemma right now. His heart pulls him in one direction, while his head pulls him in another. That is a tough situation. How do you make the right choice? I cannot tell you. I can only tell you what I think, and that may not work for you. As we mature we develop internal mechanisms that cause us to respond viscerally to various situations. How do we know which choice is right most of the time? We just know**. Usually this response is the same conclusion we would reach and consider correct if we were to take our time and think about it. But this is not always true. Sometimes these internal responses are based on the decision processes of the person we used to be. Our heart tugs us towards old goals that we have made a conscious decision to no longer pursue. These internal mechanisms are like old habits. They are patterns we tend to follow unless we make a conscious effort to break the pattern. All of us know hard it is to break a habit, even if it is a behavior that is bad for us. We have to weigh the evidence. If we are to stand on our own two feet, we cannot let anyone else make our decisions for us. It is good to ask advice, but treat that advice as just more evidence. Keep in mind that if the people arguing on the side that is tugging at your heart have logical arguments, they will use them. If they do not, they may still tug at your heart, because they know that argument often still works. Just be aware of what is going on when people use emotional arguments.

So we should learn from nature. We should observe natural processes, both within us and around us. We should study human nature, and we should make natural, human choices based on reasonable expectations of favorable outcomes. But we should always keep in mind that there are natural courses of action that are not favorable, either to us or to others. Just because they are natural does not always make them good. And just because our heart tugs us in a given direction, that does not mean that we should always follow.

*“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” –Louis-Hector Berlioz

**I suggest reading the column “The End of Philosophy” by David Brooks (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html). It has excellent information on this subject.

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A glass of white

Posted by Reflections on August 31, 2009

It was a day of rest and relaxation when I began this piece. The evening was pleasant. A glass of white wine sounded good. The sun was down, but its glow still reddened the undersides of the clouds in the purple distance. In some ways life has been a bit more challenging lately. The heat has been oppressive. Work has been demanding of my time and energy. But challenges make us stronger. Surviving them is a measure of our success. Without challenges we grow soft and weak. Competition is natural. But cooperation is also part of human nature. So, when should we compete, and when should we cooperate? This post borders on the political, but the concern is societal. How we solve these problems requires that we end politics as usual. The politicians in this country are mostly not solving anything.

All of life is ultimately competitive. In nature we compete to survive. In the school of hard knocks, we must survive the knocks, and if necessary, we must knock harder than our competition to survive. Life is not fair. Thinking that it is could be fatal. But humans have advanced beyond mere survival. And we have become better survivors because we have learned to cooperate. Two humans can achieve much more than one. There are things that one person can never accomplish alone. Some things take a dozen persons working in concert to be successful.

Cooperation can be voluntary or involuntary. Involuntary cooperation is coercion, cooperation by force. Cooperation advances us and makes us better as a species, but we step backwards if the cooperation is involuntary. As we develop and grow as a species we try to be more cooperative, but if resources become scarce, we have no option except to compete. The key, it would seem, is to keep ensuring that there are abundant food, water, shelter and other necessities so that we do not have to be so competitive just to survive.

What happens when certain people are uncompetitive? What do we do when those who do not compete well become poor? There are several options. We can take resources away from those who do compete well and give these resources to the uncompetitive. We have done that for some time, and the practice does not decrease the number of poor. We can try to make the uncompetitive more competitive, but if resources remain scarce, it will be difficult for the poor to rise up with their newly acquired strength and skills and be competitive enough to rise up out of poverty.

I believe that there is no single thing we can do to magically make everything better. I look at the problem through Deist eyes. I look to reason and nature. It stands to reason that we should continue to increase our productivity, because that will increase the availability and lower the price of products and goods available for everyone. We should conserve our natural resources, because we have only one Earth, and its resources are finite. We must be careful about overpopulation There was a time, a few thousand years ago, when it made sense to say, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” That time has long since passed.. More people means more consumption of natural resources and the food and products we produce. We cannot sustain infinite growth in a finite space.

We must educate our children. The poor are poor for many reasons. It may be because they are denied opportunity. That is an injustice, and we must correct this injustice wherever we may find it. Some remain poor because they do not take advantage of opportunity. This too is an injustice, and we must work harder to build character in our children so that they long for and strive for a better life. Growing up to be a top gang member or a successful drug dealer is not the type of competition and achievement we wish for our children.

But we must also remember not to punish the successful for being successful. If you work hard and achieve much it is very dispiriting to have half the fruits of your labor confiscated because people in a position of power believe they know better how to spend your money than you do.

We can fight nature and try to “have dominion over” nature , but we can never defeat nature. The laws of nature will not be violated. Involuntary cooperation is coercion. Involuntary charity is robbery. Involuntary service is slavery. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our natural rights. Denying them is tyranny.

These were my thoughts over that glass of white wine. It was pretty good wine. I wish I could share it with every politician in the land.

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Comfortable in your own skin

Posted by Reflections on July 12, 2009

“Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.” The Tao Te Ching contains much of such wisdom. As we learn and grow in experience, we gain wisdom. We seek, we examine, we weigh. We reject that which makes no sense to us. Those things that we deem worthy and sensible we may choose to incorporate into our own worldview. And the wisdom that we hold dearest remains uppermost in our minds.

The environment we live in is important, but what is inside us is vital. We hunger for truth, but where truth actually lies is something we must ultimately decide for ourselves. We must think critically and form our own opinions. Allowing someone else to dictate to us what is true and what is not makes us slaves to another’s beliefs. If our minds cannot be chained, we will remain free, even if our bodies should be enslaved.

All good people seek peace, harmony and comfort. Some of us cannot find these in organized religion. Peace? Too often organized religion leads to conflict, hate and war. Harmony? When organized religions assert that they are right, and all other religions are wrong, someone has to be wrong. The result is anything but harmony. Comfort? Comfort comes from acceptance. If you find comfort in your beliefs, I would never want to deny you that comfort. Your faith may be among the most important things in your life. But you must bear in mind that I have found peace and comfort in my own beliefs, and these will be profoundly disturbed if you try to force your beliefs, or worse yet, your practices, onto me against my will. I think it is fair that we all be free to evangelize. By evangelization I mean spreading the word and being witnesses to the joy we find in our faith. I distinguish this from proselytizing, which I define as an intrusive and pushy way of trying to convert someone. When we evangelize we make our beliefs public, out where people can see and hear them so that interested parties can be exposed to our way of thinking. Some people want to be left alone. I don’t think we have any right to suppress the free exchange of ideas or to force our beliefs on others.

As a youth I adopted the faith of my family and peers. I tried very hard, but I never felt comfortable in that faith. I drifted for many years, frankly, not caring much about faith at all. Later, I sampled many beliefs – Eastern, Western and New Age – but I did not find comfort in any of these beliefs. Then, some time ago, I read Paine’s Age of Reason, and I realized I was a Deist. I found Paine’s critical style wearisome after a while. I think critical Deism is necessary at first, but ultimately we must figure out what is right about Deism, not just what is wrong with other religions. While I knew I was a Deist, my comfort level increased greatly when I discovered positive and affirming forms of Deism.

Shira Tehrani said that you can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. Deism has broadened my horizons, and I now feel a profound appreciation of nature and life. I weigh important questions against my beliefs. I seldom find conflicts. I am even comfortable in relationship to my former faith. I think there is much wisdom there if people don’t take things too literally.

I have come to the realization that when religion takes the blame for something terrible, the real culprit is groupthink. When people act like mobs and let other people do their thinking for them, bad things happen. Religion is not the problem, groupthink is the problem. When people stop thinking for themselves and let their religious, philosophical, ethnic, racial, or ideological leaders do their thinking for them, individuality will be trampled, rights will be abridged, people will be hurt and lives will be lost. You can stand up to the Taliban, whether they are wearing turbans or thumping a sacred text or sitting on a school board. Think for yourself, and stand up for your rights. Do not be intimidated. Be comfortable in your own skin.

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Reason, intuition and more

Posted by Reflections on May 10, 2009

Galileo said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended for us to forego their use.” I strongly agree, but I must add that this same God endowed us with imagination, intuition and inspiration. I think we should celebrate all these gifts. In my opinion it is the combination of all these attributes that makes us distinctly human.

I believe our ability to reason is our most important human characteristic. Reason and intellect distinguish us from mere animals. David Pyle said, “Without faith, reason is cold… but without reason faith is blind.” Reason alone can be cold. Spock, of Star Trek fame, is the personification of reason, but he is also human. So even though this half-human suppresses his emotions, we can warm to him, because he does not lack imagination, intuition or inspiration. Our passions can make us all too human when they exceed reasoning’s ability to keep them under control. But I would not suggest that we suppress passion too much. At a healthy level it provides drive and energy to push us forward when we encounter obstacles. We know what happens when passion is at its worst. And while you can be too passionate, I don’t know that you can be too reasonable, not unless you suppress your other human characteristics.

My notion of God must make sense to me. And life simply makes more sense to me with God than without. My faith is a faith based on reason, but not on reason alone. My intuition tells me it is sensible to bridge the gap between knowing and believing. Nature inspires me to believe that there is a reason that we exist, even if our intellect cannot yet identify that reason. Is it imagination that attributes this mystery to God? Is God simply the name we give to this mystery? I am not so arrogant that I claim to know. I am suspicious of anyone who makes such claims. I claim only to believe, and I don’t expect anyone else to believe except on their own terms.

So how can any religion or philosophy ever be true if it treats us as though we are all the same when clearly we are not? If a belief system does not celebrate individuality, I recommend that we proceed with caution. We can benefit from the experience of others, but we must think for ourselves. What works for one may not work for another. We are all born with potential, but we do not have the same beginnings; we should not expect to achieve the same ends through the same means.

We are reasoning beings. It doesn’t make sense to me that we should ever abandon reason, no matter what. I believe our reason and our intellect should guide us, and I think we should take advantage of all the gifts we are given to reach our full potential. Sense, reason, intellect, imagination, intuition and inspiration are positive qualities I think we all should nurture. Be wary of those who suggest that you should hide or suppress any of these traits. Question whether such people are looking out for your best interests, and consider the possibility that someone else is doing their thinking for them.

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Intuition

Posted by Reflections on May 3, 2009

Proof that God exists? Sorry, I don’t have any. I’ll let you know if I ever do. So how can I believe in God when I cannot even prove that God exists? I trust to reason, and I trust my intuition, of course. I try always to trust in reason, but some things are unknowable through logic and reason. There is not enough information to support a logical argument. So I must go with what feels right. After all, I have often trusted in my intuition, and it has rarely led me astray. Easier yet is to reject what is illogical and intuitively feels wrong.

What is intuition? Intuition is a wonderful human mechanism through which we know the truth of things without a lengthy process of deductive reasoning. Quoting Florence Scovel Shinn, “Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.” I believe we are born knowing some things intuitively or instinctively. Intuition is part of human nature. We all have it to a greater or lesser degree. I suspect Deists have it to a greater degree.

Deists rely on both reason and intuition. I find it odd that in online Deist discussion groups women are distinctly in the minority when the fairer sex tends to be more intuitive. Those women who are there in Deist groups tend to shine very brightly, both positively and negatively. You won’t overlook them. It makes me ponder.

We rely on intuition for survival and for success. Very often we base our decisions on visceral knowledge; we go with our gut. We go with what feels right. This is neither irrational nor illogical. Intuition bypasses those processes. And if logic and reason cannot subsequently prove that our gut was wrong, it makes no sense to change. Certainly, we can rationalize anything. If you find evidence of absence, or the absence of evidence is convincing to you, then Atheism or Agnosticism may be a better choice for you. I’ve been there, and I know that they are not better choices for me.

So I go with reason first when there is enough information and enough time to make a rational decision. And I rely on intuition when reason fails for lack of information. If I cannot achieve a conclusion based on facts and reason, I must go with what feels right, what intuitively makes sense to me. And I am very comfortable with that. How about you?

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