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Forgiveness

Posted by Reflections on February 23, 2010

At one time I had a problem with Christians and Christianity. I was raised as a Christian. I was baptised as a Christian, a Southern Baptist, no less. I came to the realization that what I had believed was almost certainly not true, and frankly, I felt betrayed. Now I question myself. Who had the problem?

I never have felt that anyone personally misled me, certainly not intentionally. I was misled by the misguided and misled, people who did not just believe. They knew. The “blame” lay further down the line. I was deluded by the deluded. I felt that Christianity had violated the trust I had placed in its doctrines. It is easy for a former Christian to feel that way. Who is to “blame”? Why, “they” are. They, the ubquitous, faceless “they misled me”. Could I name names now? No. Could I name the names of Christian leaders who are misleading people now? Well, certainly. Pick a leader, any Christian leader. Are these leaders bad people? Probably not. They were probably misguided themselves, spectacularly misguided. And they are spectacularly misguiding others. Bad people? Probably not. Their intent is pure. Their message is not.

Is Christianity bad? Certainly not, not the way it is preached and practiced by many, probably most, Christians. Christianity has some of the most loving and forgiving characteristics of any revealed religion. Do I believe in or agree with Christian doctrine? Certainly not! To go back to being a Christian I would have to believe in things that don’t make sense. Can Christians be bad? They can be horribly bad, especially when they throw their weight around and try (and often succeed) to impose their worldview on the general population.

In my opinion that’s why we have Christian Deists. I’ve gotten to know John Lindell pretty well over the past couple of years, and he has told me his story several times. He was a Baptist minister when he came to the realization that he could no longer believe the awful things that Christian doctrine said he must believe. He gave up his ministry. John invented his own religion, and then later he found Deism. It was exactly like his own invented religion. John is a Biblical scholar. He sees Deism in the life of Jesus. He believes Jesus was a Deist, a man, not divine. John is a Deist first and a Christian Deist second. I believe that deep down inside John would love to be a Christian, but he cannot accept the horrible things in the Bible. So John takes the good and leaves the rest. John sees Deism in Jesus’ words and actions. I have problems seeing the same thing. I can’t look past the other things.

Does that mean that John filters Jesus’ message from the Bible? Yes, but he is very up-front about it. I think we all filter things that way. We see what we want to see. We hear what we want to hear. We deemphasize some parts and apply emphasis to other parts. We take a subject and make it our own. Humans do that. I do celebrate humanity, even with all our imperfections. These imperfections make us human. Christianity is based on the Bible, which has some of the most inspirational and uplifting messages on Earth, and it has some positively dreadful and ghastly parts. And both the good and the ghastly are attributed to God. So Christians face a dilemma. They want desperately to believe the good parts, so they ignore the bad parts. Not even the fiercest hellfire and damnation preacher encourages his flock to go out and stone someone to death these days. The best Christians suppress the distasteful and stress the glorious. It is the only way they can deal with their dilemma.

The Christian message of love and forgiveness represents two of the best facets in a flawed jewel. When you add salvation to the mix, you get a very powerful message. I cannot, however, make the bad parts go away, so I cannot be a Christian. Like many who have left Christianity, I felt betrayed. People I trusted had told me that the Bible was inerrant, the word of God. I believed, then I found that what they told me was false. So I turned my back on Christianity, a very human reaction. I rejected it all.

There is nothing about getting older that makes you any wiser unless you learn along the way. We learn from the good people, and we learn from the flawed people. We learn from the good experiences, and we learn from the bad. But we only become better ourselves when we apply what we have learned and improve our own behavior. I have taken a page from the Christian Bible and have decided to forgive Christianity. I forgive the well-intentioned Christian ministers and lay leaders who filled my head with nonsense, because they put some good and useful lessons in there too. I forgive the hypocrites who populate so many churches; they have taught me well through their bad examples. I forgive myself for turning a blind eye to the atrocious things in the Bible. I studied more than the parts my mentors wanted me to read. There is much good in there, along with much that is bad or absurd if taken literally. Allegorically, much of the Bible is beautiful.

So I have forgiven Christianity. It is the Christian thing to do. A good friend who went from being an Atheist to being a devout Christian has told me several times, “Don’t judge Christianity by Christians.” I do, of course, but I get the drift of his advice. Just as we should not judge a book by its cover, we should not condemn the good along with the bad. There is much about Christianity to dislike, but to discard the positive aspects along with the negative is very short-sighted. We should eat the fruit and discard the rind. I think Ziggy got it right. “You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.” Kahlil Gibran perhaps said the same thing a bit more poetically, “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”

To withold forgiveness is to be negative and pessimistic. Try forgiving yourself for having been unforgiving.

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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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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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You can do magic

Posted by Reflections on September 21, 2009

Do you believe in magic? If magic is that which fills us with awe and wonder, magic is everywhere. Every day is filled with magic. Nature itself is one miracle after another. What could be more magical? Look at a seed. How does that turn into a plant? How does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly? Life is filled with wonder.

Do I believe in miracles? I see them happen every day. The fact that I am here at all involves several miracles. I have three wonderful children and four grandchildren. There are no greater miracles on Earth.

Do I believe in religious miracles? Do I think that the natural laws have sometimes been suspended on behalf of a person or a people? No, but I believe that other people believe. I see miracles every day, but I’ve never seen a supernatural miracle. I don’t believe in elves or fairies or leprechauns or ghosts. I just don’t believe in the supernatural at all. I do believe in the power of human imagination. I do believe that some of life’s great lessons are best told in myth and allegory. I believe that stories and fables and parables and myths are wonderful vehicles for teaching and inspiring. Some of the most moving lessons I have ever learned I learned through stories.

But when we start treating myth and allegory as reality, when we take ancient texts full of important lessons intended to help us to live better lives and take these stories literally, we can lose the important core lessons in a lot of detail that might have made sense to desert tribes 2,000 years ago, but doesn’t make sense now. That was then, and this is now. We need to winnow out the important lessons from the chaff.

There are so many natural miracles that I cannot spend my time chasing other people’s dreams. The magic of reality far exceeds any person’s imaginings.

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Deist Bible

Posted by Reflections on August 16, 2009

Yes, a Deist Bible. It doesn’t sound possible does it? Nonetheless, I have compiled a Deist Bible and have decided to publish it online. Outrageous? You will have to judge for yourself.

So far I have not been persuaded that the idea of a Deist church cannot work, so I guess it is not too much of a stretch for me to suggest that there can be a Deist Bible. If Deism is a religion, and there are those who will argue that it is not, it should not only be possible, but desirable for Deists to come together and agree enough on some basics that will allow us to maintain a fellowship. Also, Deists everywhere can benefit from a framework that will help them organize their thoughts, beliefs, hopes and aspirations, and these are the reasons behind the Deist Bible. But let me not give it away. I do want you to check it out.

Life is wonderful, but it has been proceeding at an insane pace. The family is fine. The grandchildren are our joy. The four-year old was a joy staying with us this weekend. Work during this recession is so successful that I can hardly stand it. (Help is on the way!) The heat and drought here in Central Texas are brutal, but life goes on (except for the plants that have died).

There are so many positive things going on that I just have to share, and I hope things are going as well for you!

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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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Through Deist eyes

Posted by Reflections on June 24, 2009

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. — George Bernard Shaw, playwright

How does Deism help us live better lives and be better people? I think reason, nature and experience are key not only to Deism, but to life itself. Take the quote above. There is nothing particularly Deistic about it at first glance. But think further. We are born with intelligence and reasoning powers. They are part of our human nature. Ingenuity, inventiveness and imagination are part of our nature. We also have many negative qualities in our natural makeup. There are, unfortunately, people who sit on their backside and let opportunity pass them by. Then they complain about how unfair life is. What makes sense? I believe that using reason to recognize and emphasize the positive qualities over the negative makes us better persons and makes the human race better across the board. Deists just require their religion to make sense along with everything else they choose.

As mankind has seen the advantages that cooperation brings, we have long gathered together and built societies. When hunter-gatherers saw the advantages agriculture provided, civilization was born. It is in our nature to try to make life better, and the general direction for the development of  our civilization has been to the better. Individually and collectively, we sometimes misstep, and something that we think will lead to making our lives better actually makes things worse. We learn from our experiences, and try not to make the same mistakes twice. When we fail to learn from our experiences, we regress as individuals and as a species.

If you are a Deist, try this experiment. Take a quote that you find meaningful, one that rings true and offers wisdom. Better yet, make sure that quote is an affirmation, something very positive. Look at that quote through Deist eyes. How can your chosen bit of wisdom improve your life? Is it consistent with your Deist worldview? What does this exercise tell you about your worldview? This exercise will take practice. It is worth the time. Remember: it is your understanding of life, nature and God that counts with Deism. With organized religions you are supposed to just accept your religion’s tenets and views as your own. Not doing so is “wrong”. It is a sin to not believe exactly as you are told. You must believe what someone else tells you is the word of God. Acceptance of tenets or dogma is not optional if you want to remain true to an organized religion’s beliefs. Such is not the case with Deism. You are responsible for deciding what makes sense to you. To me, believing nonsense is just not an attractive prospect. I will decide which principles I should live by, ones that are best for me, my family and, in my opinion, for society. Interestingly, when given the choice, a Deist tends to make choices that are similar to those of other Deists. That makes sense. What is reasonable is reasonable. Still, we Deists have the freedom of choice. We are servants only to reason and common sense, not to a church or a sacred text or anything the clergy claims to be the will of God.

As we progress in our Deist spirituality we grow in many ways. M. Scott Peck describes four stages of human spiritual development. By Peck’s definition, Deists would be at Stage III on the path to enlightenment. Peck was a Christian, not a Deist, but in his definition of Stage III, he describes Deism perfectly. So if by becoming Deists we achieve Stage III spirituality, how then do we progress to Stage IV (which seems desirable)?

Peck uses Christian, Sufi and Zen mystics as examples of Stage IV spirituality, but when we examine his definition for Stage IV – … the stage where an individual starts enjoying the mystery and beauty of nature. While retaining skepticism, he starts perceiving grand patterns in nature… – we see a clear path for Deists to progress spiritually. I can, for instance, look back now at Christianity with a certain serenity and acceptance, not of the literalist and fundamentalist view of Christ, but the wonderful lessons that we can learn from the Christ story. Christ’s message is part of the overall celebration of our human spirituality. As Peck puts it, “not …mythological stories interpreted as literal accounts, but rather as one loving the whole, the outcasts, overcoming prejudices, incorporating inclusiveness and unconditional love, this, with the courage to be as oneself – that is what I must follow for my salvation.” In Peck’s description we see that we don’t have to have some special or magical redemption to arrive at salvation.

When Deists look at the world through eyes that understand that nature is the ultimate arbiter in life, and reason is the best way to make sense of things, we come to many realizations. We begin to understand that no one has a monopoly on truth. If anyone tells you that they do possess the only real truth, they are probably telling to think just like they do. I think that as we progress spiritually we find that natural religion is the basis for all religion. Even the revealed religions have a lot of value if we discard the literalist and fundamentalist interpretations that have been supplied by the clergy over the years. And then as we grow as Deists I think we find that even reason is not enough. Some people cannot distinguish reason from rationalization. When we open our Deist eyes to all the possibilities we begin to see our commonalities with other belief systems. I believe we become less judgmental, more intuitive and more accepting. When we look at life through Deist eyes we come to know that nature is speaking to us, just not with words. I believe that is how God communicates; otherwise, how would we hear? What language would God use?

The most spiritual people I know attain a type of serenity that tells you they have moved past religious strife and conflict. The most spiritual people I know don’t get hung up on literal interpretations of any religious texts. They lead by example, and you end up wanting to follow them. You follow because what they say rings true to you. And when you look at these spiritual people through Deist eyes you tend to choose those whose message not only rings true, but it also is grounded in common sense. That is our Deist heritage.

always always

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Love

Posted by Reflections on June 3, 2009

Love is the most important and positive human emotion. Love motivates us in many ways, and there are many types of love. There are also many emotions and urges we may mistake for love.

M. Scott Peck defines love as “the willingness to unselfishly extend yourself in order to serve the spiritual growth of another human being.” But Peck also tells us up front that he feels that love is “too large, too deep to ever be understood or measured or limited within the framework of words.” We cannot explore all the profound possibilities of love here in this short work, but I can try to look from a Deist’s perspective at a few facets of the jewel that we call human love.

Robert Heinlein described love as “a subjective condition in which the welfare and happiness of another person are essential to one’s own happiness.” I have spoken before about two types of happiness, feel-good happiness that we get from pleasurable things and value-based happiness that comes from finding and fulfilling one’s true purpose or by accomplishing something significant or worthwhile. I believe that we experience both types of happiness when we love according to Heinlein’s definition.

Falling in love in the romantic sense has a physical element to it. There is always some degree of sexual attraction involved. That is good for the perpetuation of the species, but such love does not always last. Commitment is difficult for some people, and the giving of oneself can be even more difficult. It takes time and hard work to understand that making another person happy is the key to your own happiness. Selfish love is shallow, if it is love at all. Concentrating on someone else’s happiness is ultimately more rewarding than focusing on yourself. If that other person can return your love just as deeply, you will experience greater happiness than you can ever find on your own.

When we love deeply, we get to know someone better than we’ve ever known another person before. We lower our barriers and drop many or most of our inhibitions in such an intensely close relationship. We learn which actions lead to which responses. We learn how to elicit pleasurable and joyful responses, and we also learn what brings pain to our partner. We must be extremely careful with such knowledge. We have the power to produce strong reactions in our partners, and we can cause enormous damage when we become angry or try to be controlling if we use this power inappropriately.

We can be blinded by love, or at least we can be so consumed by passion, desire, need, longing and other deep feelings that we [i]think [/i]are love that we can ignore important danger signals. Sometimes the object of our desire (which we are certain is love) does not respond in kind with feelings and acts borne out of true love. Inconsiderate lovers can take advantage of our love, sometimes for years, only to show us their true colors at a time of their choosing, an act that can wound us deeply. When we give our hearts we must be careful not to lose our heads.

Love of family is a very different kind of love with no sexual overtones. We still care for our siblings and children. We are committed to their welfare and happiness, because these things are essential to our own happiness. When a relative is hurting, we also feel the pain. Often, we will sacrifice our own happiness for the welfare of family, especially our children. We are protective, sometimes too much so; we can inhibit our family members’ development by smothering them and preventing them from becoming independent. We can be domineering and controlling if we think that it is in their best interests to force them to follow a path of our choosing. There is much truth in the old saying: “If you love something, you should let it go. If it comes back, it is yours forever. If not, it was never meant to be.” We must be careful when choosing the time to let go, but with family, we must let go at some point. Sometimes we grow apart from family, and they from us. Love is usually still there, but it can grow cold. In rare cases, love for a family member can be lost if the rift should become too deep. This is not a normal situation, and there is normally some dysfunction involved when a close family tie is broken.

To me love for parents is different still than for other relatives. Our love for parents (those who fulfill the custodial parental role) will always be special. They raised us and taught us what it is to be the people we grow into. Under normal circumstances we accord our parents a type of respect that we reserve for our best teachers. We seek and consider their advice even after we become adults. We recognize all they have provided us: the sustenance, the nurturing, the counseling, the discipline, the comfort, all the things that allowed us to survive, thrive and become independent beings. When the love that should exist between parent and child is dysfunctional, a broken human being can result.

What about love of friends and neighbors, love for our fellow man? How strong should such love be? How much love can we and should we extend to strangers? Is “love” the right word?

Let’s look first at love for friends. Friends are people we like. We share interests and experiences, and we share our time and our lives with our friends. Our circle of friends is almost an extension of our family. Our friends can become as close as brothers and sisters, so our love for friends can be as close as love for family.

Love for neighbor is an important distinction. We are social animals. We live together in societies. Living in close proximity means that we have neighbors. These are people who share our experience. They may become friends, but whereas we choose our friends, we do not necessarily choose our neighbors. We may find that we do not share many interests, and we may not become friends, but the quality of our community depends on all of us who live together in neighborhoods.

I have known one of my neighbors for years. We are not close friends, but we talk, we share experiences, we do things for one another with no expectation of repayment. My other neighbors have mostly moved here fairly recently. We have never gotten to know one another. I volunteer in our community, and I am pretty well known, but I don’t find a lot of closeness in our neighborhood right now. Frankly, there are not too many ties that bind us. We get in our cars, and we go to work at many different places of employment. Our problems are pretty much our own. Our kids are of many different ages. They don’t associate or play together or necessarily even go to school together. In fact, there is not too much in our neighborhood or our community that brings us together. I have to admit that right now I am closer to people who live hundreds or even thousands of miles away than I am to people who live only hundreds of feet away. What does this say about the quality of our communities? What does this mean for love of neighbor? It depends on where you live, and it depends on how much you go out of your way to get to know and love your neighbor. It also depends on how you define community and neighborhood. I find that my neighborhood is global. It is defined by the places where I choose to communicate, not on the physical locations where I choose to live and work.

And love for strangers? I think we should always treat strangers with a respect that shows that we are loving persons. I believe in going out of my way to show kindness, expecting nothing in return. Ann Landers is not necessarily a great philosopher, but I think she got it right when she said, “Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.” Kindness is a virtue, even if you are never repaid directly. Your act of kindness may result in a better attitude and outlook in someone who is kind in return to someone else. Such kindness can be infectious. Selfless acts build character. Loving acts improve us as a species.

Love for God? That is yet another kind of love. Of the varieties of love we have already covered, the type that most resembles love for God is love for parents. God is our provider. Many people equate God with Divine Providence. But love for God can include much more: admiration, gratitude and reverence, which includes profound, adoring respect and honor, even awe. And I believe very strongly that anger, jealousy and fear have no place in our relationship with God. I fail to understand why God would be afflicted with these terrible human flaws.

Deism is all about nature and reason and making sense. Loving kindness makes sense, even if it is not repaid. When we sow the seeds of love and kindness, we do not know when they will sprout and take root. Still, the sowing is worth the effort. The seeds may fall on harsh and infertile territory and never germinate. But the worse tragedy is for fertile soil to never be kissed by the seed of kindness and to remain barren for want of love.

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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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