Faith in God Is a Social Mandate But Not Rational

We have had religion for as long as we have existed as a species. Our natural instinct is to seek for a source, an explanation of the phenomena we experience. In our ignorance, we attributed natural forces we couldn't see or understand to a

 god or gods. The presence of religion has shaped society for as long as societies have existed. The laws and traditions were built upon and incorporated into religious ideology. Behavior that was detrimental to society as a whole, or to the power structure specifically, were named as "sin" and were also incorporated into social life as well as religious doctrine. Religion was law and morality and piece of mind. To question the law was tantamount to breaking the law; to believe in different laws or gods was anathema to the smooth functioning of society. Thus, questioning the validity of belief was dangerous and, until shockingly recently, was dealt with in the most severe ways imaginable: torture and execution.

It is no wonder then that we have a deep-seeded social impetus to believe in a god. Society was built on this, after all. This is why even those of us who are otherwise rational still entertain the idea of a god somewhere "out there" (or in here or wherever). It is required by society. Some people take a large view and say that existence itself is god. Others say the idea of god can't be disproved so it must be entertained as a possibility.

This sort of belief is not harmful to others, unlike the more concrete beliefs that encourage entitlement and persecution, so I have no problem with them, per se. But my question, my point, is why do you feel the need to name anything god at all? My contention is that the desire to name a god is a social instinct. There is no reason, seeing the wonder of nature, to then name that God, or to claim the ineffable as god. This is an extra step in our process of understanding, giving a name to something we already have a name for and laying all the extra trappings of superstition upon it. This mandate to believe in some sort of god is imposed on us by history, by the evolution of society, but it has no basis in rationality.

I urge anyone with a willingness to proclaim a god, no matter how far removed from the gods worshiped by the devout, to question their own motives for this desire. I contend that it's something you don't need to do, but feel compelled to because of an all-but-inborn stigma attached to non-belief.

The Numeric Doomcult

Numbers are a myth. Humans invented numbers. We are measurers and catalogers by nature, keeping track of the world and events around us in minute detail. It's important to us to know what might happen, to predict the future as accurately as possible, based on generalized past experience, in order to allay the deep fear of the unknown and of of lack of control that are endemic to the human experience.

When I say numbers are a myth, I mean we have named the numbers and declared their progression from one to the next; we have accepted them as the framework of our reality, given them a sort of power-of-attorney to represent everything for us in our understanding. We fetishize our use of numbers to the point where their use can make us feel better about world once it has been re-envisioned in their terms.

That is not to say there aren't quantities and distances in reality. Obviously there are. For example, if there is a tree in the yard and another tree near it in the same yard, we would say there are two trees in the yard. If there are two trees in the yard, the fact that we invented the concept of "twoness" and all the attendant constructions doesn't mean there are no trees. But the trees don't have twoness, the twoness is a trait assigned to it by us based on our constructed representation of a world where everything has quantity.

On the one hand, our love of numbers helps us allay our fears of the unknown. By measuring the chasm, we seem to believe, we can be less afraid of its gaping dark abyss. On the other hand, it gives us an impartial way to rationalize our own actions. We seem to believe that if we can provide numeric proof of the benefits of our behavior, we have proved that our behavior is morally right.

This is an underlying tenet of the model of capitalism utilized by some of our greatest financial entities. As long as an action can be shown to benefit the company, they can go ahead with the action with no moral qualms. In fact "moral qualms" aren't frequently listed on the cost-benefit analysis unless they can be expressed in terms of numbers. The benefit is shown using carefully-selected sets of numbers and ignoring other numbers and other non-numeric factors. If we were to examine the whole spectrum of knowledge surrounding such an action, there are usually many "variables" involved, including the desires and preferences of everyone who might be affected. Yet, because these non-numeric concerns are non-numeric, they are deemed irrelevant to the argument. If you can't express it in numbers, you can't say it and be taken seriously.

Our adoration of numbers gives us great peace. It also gives us a very convenient set of labels and pigeon holes and black-and-white demarcations with which we may carve out our world. The apotheosis of the number will not diminish. The myopic approach to life will continue to allow atrocities to be committed for the sake of the bottom line. Only an eye for the bigger picture will allow us to avoid getting sucked deeper into the mythos with which we are slowly killing ourselves.

Instant Nostalgia: Hushed Past, Screaming Future

History was made by people who were not so fixated on their place in history. Some might have thought of how they would be remembered, and attempted to color their reputations toward that ends. But they did not declare their historical relevance preemptively to the extent that we do now. We are keeping so many records today that they lose significance to the future. Historical events only become significant by virtue of our ability to forget everything else. We now memorialize so many things that none will be remembered. The bar is raised, but the historical process is fulfilled.

Information glut has cleared the way for instant nostalgia. In the past, eras were named after they had passed, their significance taken into account with the perspective of distance. Today, we seek to name the smallest piece of history, to declare its importance to posterity before that posterity has even arrived. We declare fond memories of things as they are happening. We become nostalgic for the moment before.



Nostalgia itself is a myth, a fairy tale. Hindsight is not 20/20, it sees through prescription rose-colored glasses. We have chosen to forget innumerable details, any one of which could cast our memory in a completely new light. So nostalgia is the edited highlights of the event as we perceived it. We may not have even perceived the event accurately. Prejudices, assumptions, misinterpretations, incomplete understandings of circumstances, all these conspire to rob us of a true and accurate picture of the past.

In this sense, the new information glut is of benefit to future history. The history of today is composed of half-tellings of half-remembered stories, half-understood. Now that we are keeping such close track of our every day lives, it becomes easier and easier to construct a picture of ourselves based on more complete knowledge. The knowledge is still biased, but one hopes there is enough of it to allow us to piece together a more accurate view of what our stories are attempting to describe.

At the same time, there is a great deal of information being stored that is just plain wrong. Whether as a prank, out of spite, or from within delusion, there is at least as much false information available as there is of the usable kind. Fake science, irrational arguments, opinionated conjecture passed off as fact, the Internet is rife with these. Any future historian will have to be careful to keep this in mind or face the same pitfalls as we face now with our partial pictures of the past. Just as there was hardly anyone recording things before, now with everyone recording things, hardly anyone can still be believed.

There is very little to prevent someone from screaming into the cybervoid, no filter on what is said. All that can prevent someone is an inability to use a computer. This is an obstacle for a great many people, yet for others it is not an obstacle, despite their possible lack of personal status. A denizen of rural Bangladesh, for example, might not find it easy, or even desirable, to make their voice heard online. A penniless and homeless person in the US, on the other hand, can find a way to get connected, using publicly available systems.

This is just to say that, while the internet is set up so that only those of a certain privilege have access, there are also ways for those outside that group to find access as well. What this means is that most of the information being recorded is generated by a small minority of the Earth's people. This is also parallel to the problems faced by current historians: how to determine actual events based on the accounts of a privileged few.

Our relation to memory and truth does not actually seem to be changing, given these parallels. The change seems to be a question of degree, when considering the task of the historian. But when considering the role of information in our day-to-day lives, some pretty marked changes are occurring. There is so much information available so quickly that we are not required to actually remember it any more. We hold our beliefs and trust the specifics of our knowledge to the online databases which we access so carelessly. But when the misinformation I mentioned above becomes part of the underlying data, how can we hope to maintain the integrity of our very selves?

Ideas: What's The Deal?

Thinking about ideas is the occupation of an entire branch of philosophy. So I don't think I'm going to solve anything here. But I wanted to outline an interesting, possibly fundamental, conundrum related to ideas. Namely, who do they belong to and how are they to be used?

As I see it, there are a few possibilities. One, that your idea belongs to you, and you deserve complete ownership of it. Another is that it belongs to the world and is your responsibility to bring about. Or it could be somewhere in between. If it belongs to the world, is it your duty to selflessly fork it over, or is the world to be grateful to you for your contribution? This responsibility direction runs toward theological or collectivist notions of society, in which the individual is subordinate to more over-arching concerns. Conversely, the ownership direction heads toward Nietzsche, Ayn Rand and libertarianism, which can lead to extreme solipsism. The discussion of selfishness versus compassion is best left to another forum.

But my question for myself is, if something occurs to me, do I have a responsibility to share it freely? Can I keep it to myself and demand payment for sharing part of the idea with another person? If I share it without demand, should I feel slighted if I don't receive a standing ovation?

Can something I think of even be considered an original thought? After all, I am working with concepts that have all been well established over thousands of years of cultural progression. How many combinations of concepts can be said to come anywhere near a novel idea? And how many supposedly novel ideas can be reduced to combinations of universally available concepts?

When I am combining these ideas in my head, I, as a rule, don't stop to consider where they came from. All my words, and the concepts they represent, have been supplied to me from the world external to myself. On the other hand, it's arguable that the concepts themselves originated within my mind as a reaction to the raw stimuli I have experienced throughout my life. From that perspective, they are certainly my own, as they were generated by me.

Even if the thought is "mine" as just stated, that doesn't dictate whether i have a right to keep it to myself so that no one benefits from any possible advancement. The case could be made that the advancement of knowledge is more important than any one person. At the same time, if anyone is going to profit from an idea, all those involved in it should profit to the greatest extent possible. In a practical sense, if a company is going to make millions on an idea, a portion of that money is due to the person who brought them the idea.

The other side of the coin is often less fraught, as exemplified by open-source programming. In the open source community, experts contribute to the central knowledge base with little expectation of reward, except that the field will grow and users will be helped. They receive accolades from peers and the more knowledgeable members of the community, but the average user will not know who created the thing they are using. Nor will they every directly compensate that person for any of the effort that went into it.

This is the dilemma of selflessness. I said I wouldn't discuss this, but maybe just a little. If you share freely, it is not guaranteed that you will be reimbursed in any way. You could give away your life's work and still not receive in return the minimal resources needed to survive. You can donate your valuable ideas and yet you aren't sure someone else will donate the food, housing or clothes you will need to live your life. This seems an important factor promoting hoarding ideas over sharing them.

When you give something freely, is it right or wrong to expect recognition for the act? When receiving something given freely, what is the proper response, gratitude or entitlement?

If you refrain from freely sharing your idea, how do you then determine the price you can demand for the idea? If no one will meet the price, should you then let the idea die with you, or should you share it for a lesser price? It can be argued that if you don't ever share the idea, eventually it will be encountered again by someone else. Does this near-certainty relieve one of their responsibility to society to share ideas for advancement?

The  "Someone else will do it" attitude has allowed many people to refrain from helping their fellows. People have suffered great hardship and loss as a result of all those around them remaining aloof with the same thought. If just one or two of the bystanders had chosen to act, some truly horrible things could have been prevented. Yet the horrible things themselves are not always technically the responsibility of the bystanders (Depraved Indifference being a counter-example under the law).

Does this dilemma between responsibility and aloofness apply to the realm of novel ideas? Can not sharing an idea confer responsibility for calamities it could have prevented? It seems possible to make that argument.

So there appears to be a give-and-take of ideas between the individual and society. Balancing self-preservation with altruism, selfishness with compassion, is ultimately the task of every person. This approaches a fundamental consideration of an individual as it makes its way in a social setting. Perhaps by recognizing the question, we can begin to develop and answer, begin to understand how we fit into the larger world.

The (Short) Answers

Maybe you aren't too worried about the questions of life. Life is good, you are good, you are in a good place. If that's the case, stop reading now. You will either already have thought of the following, or it will conflict with what you are satisfied with. Either way, it's a waste of time.

What does it all mean?

If your answer to this question is some variation of "Duh," that means you didn't listen to me; you should really leave now. If things don't make sense the way you think they should, then read on. Meaning is what you make it and there is no meaning but what you make. In a world of sorrow and pain, the slightest act of kindness and generosity is the equivalent of salvation. In a world darkened by debasement and fear, love itself is a blinding light that warms all whom it touches.

How should I live my life? 

Follow your ideals and share of yourself. Simply by believing in yourself, you can inspire another to do the same. Believing in others will enrich your own life. The way we can transcend our humanity is to recognize our connectedness and compassionately champion one another.

How can I live with this abysmal existence?

You may feel that nothing matters. What matters least is that nothing matters. Be yourself and recognize your own existence. Try to feel the nothing and you will find something there. That is God, as near as I can tell. Take a look at my poem In The Light. In the same way, you can express your own soul. By expressing, you let it outside of yourself and thereby escape its confinement. You can give it a shape and thereby own i. By calling it your own you can thereby control it. This is how you cope with the terrible gift.

Why does life suck? 

Treat life like a child. It has its own way and we can not hate it for going against our wishes. Love life and love what it does to you. Isn't that sweet, mommy doesn't love me. I can't walk, how precious!

Remember the story of the monk and the scorpion: A monk came to the edge of a river and met a scorpion. "Take me across the river, I can not swim," asked the scorpion. "If I do, you will sting me and I will die," said the monk. "I will not hurt you," said the scorpion, so the monk picked him up and went into the water. When they were no more than half way across the river, the scorpion stung the monk. As he sank into the water, the monk asked, "why did you sting me? You will now surely drown." The scorpion replied, "it is my nature. Why did you carry me when you knew I would sting you?" The monk replied, "because that is my nature."

All things have their place. 

Nietzche can be paraphrased as saying life sucks in order that you know it is there. Occupy your place. Within your boundaries the possibilities are limitless. In the realm of possibility, you have no boundaries. I have looked the nothing in the face, as you may have to before you are through. Try imagining nothingness. Let it suffuse you. As all things slip away, you may become afraid of losing yourself, but then the fear itself will slip into nothingness. You will become nothingness. You will find a light in the center that you did not expect. It is a warm light. In the midst of the nothingness, focus on the light. Feel it grow and become warmer. Feel it fill you.

Will The Bullying Issue Bite Progressives In The Ass?

Schoolyard bullying has come to the national spotlight. Tragically, several youths have taken their own lives as a result of severe bullying. The topic of the ridicule was usually homosexuality. Some of the kids were gay and others were not but were called gay by their peers. This has prompted the amazing and inspiring It Gets Better movement, in which many gay and sympathetic individuals, including quite a few celebrities and public figures, have made public statements about growing up with bullying. The message, of course, is "It gets better;" young people facing overwhelming bullying do not have to feel alone, can believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. So many people who have survived similar abuse have come out of it and lived rewarding and inspiring lives. This message is invaluable for all children, as well as many adults.

Some people are disgruntled at the attention being paid this phenomenon. What about when I was bullied, 20 years ago? What about the people who made fun of me? What about the kids who killed themselves so long ago and did not get any attention paid to the possibility they were driven to it by feelings of helplessness brought on by bullying? Kids today....

It's natural, I think, for an older generation to feel a little jealous of the advances made by the younger. Just as our grandparents apocryphally bragged of walking to school uphill in the snow, we too have faced obstacles that the younger generation might overcome. This is something to be valued, not derided.

Another objection is that kids always make fun of each other. It's part of the socialization process. Put briefly, those who conform are threatened by those who do not, and must lash out in order to reinforce their own commitment to the status quo. This is pack behavior dating back to time immemorial. Yet part of the greatness of the human condition is that there are those of us who do not fit into the status quo, who stretch boundaries and question assumptions. This is how progress is made, civilizations built, lives improved for later generations. This conflict between tradition and progress is also central to the human condition, and I do not propose to solve it here.

I think it's a great thing to have a newfound awareness of an issue such as bullying, so illusive yet debilitating. Bullying takes place in all walks of life, not just the schoolyard. In the workplace, people with fresh insights or different ways of looking at things are often ostracized to keep them in line. In America, intelligence is often poo-pooed by the mediocre of mind; the smart folks are forced to suppress their intellectual tendencies for fear of ridicule. This has begun to change with the new geek-chic that has emerged in the past few years. But nerds aren't the only ones bullied. People with racial or feminist agendas who try to deconstruct societal norms are frequently ridiculed for having 'radical' beliefs. For example, there is an old bumper sticker that says "Feminism: The radical notion that women are people." There are any number of issues that are suppressed from public discourse through bullying behavior of the majority, or status quo.

This is why the focus on bullying can be such a boon to the plight of progressive ideas. So many ideas are suppressed by the people who are afraid of the changes that might occur if the ideas are widely received. So very many ideas.

Yet, if history has shown us anything, it is that traditional or conservative movements will use the language of progress to counteract the very same progress. This is what I fear will happen with the bullying issue. I can imagine a situation where a pro-life activist will object to being overwhelmed and sent away from the abortion clinic, crying that they were bullied. I can imagine the congressperson unable to pass the wild life preserve oil-drilling law, declaring that liberal forces are using bullying to discredit these money-making schemes.

Truly, we have begun down a slippery slope. This issue, however noble, has the potential to bite us in the ass. We must redefine the meaning of 'bullying' and reinforce the idea that the majority and the powerful are not welcome to intimidate the minority or the powerless. Keep the public discourse about bullying in the realm of improvement of society. Don't let it be appropriated by those who would continue to exploit the earth and devalue humanity.

Race Is A Racist Concept

Focusing on racial, sexual or any group-based understanding of difference rather than on similarities or differences between individuals, we focus on generalities. Making a generalization based on race or sex or anything is a form of prejudice. Race is a social construct vaguely founded in biology (and, possibly, socio-economic background): big surprise, different people look, think, act and experience the world in different ways. We group ourselves according to similar backgrounds and creeds. We mentally assign others to groups based on our perceptions of their backgrounds or creeds.

Our perceptions of things do not create reality in those things. Things exist as they are and are not directly affected by our feelings or assumptions about them. Yet, our prejudices about things, and people, will change how we respond to and act toward them and, in the case of people, how they respond to us.

Everyone is prejudiced. It is how we cope with the world of infinite variation and possibility. We form a conclusion based on past experience and make educated guesses about what that will mean next time. We catalog each bit of information we receive about the world and construct an explanation of the whole catalog that is coherent to us. For example, we generalize physics and assume if we kick a football, it will move and our toe will not be hurt very much, while the opposite will be true if we kick the side of a building. It is human to make assumptions based on partial information. This can also be called prejudice.

When the partial information is about a person, we run the risk of our prejudice becoming an ism. People make generalized assumptions about others based on limited information and their perceptions of what “group” the other belongs to. People are racist and sexist and all kinds of -ist, because they allow their natural inclination to form prejudices influence how they perceive and respond to other people.

The use of general terms for groups of people is a socially constructed shorthand to indicate a set of probable attributes possessed by members of that group. It is not “true,” but rather a socially constructed shorthand. The acceptance of the existence of racial groups is an acceptance of the “truth” of the assumptions contained in that generalization. Therefore, the belief in racial categories is a racist belief. Other types of categories are similar, whether sex or religion or nationality or age or body type or health status.

People, when you get them alone, are individuals. Each person has a unique set of experiences, beliefs and physical characteristics. Pair any two people and you will be able to find ways in which they are similar and ways in which they are different.

Similarities are to be celebrated. Differences are to be accepted and explored and learned from. Having compassion for others as unique individuals is the only way to counteract prejudice. We must reflect on our assumptions about others and note the inherent prejudices they embody. Prejudice is an inherent human quality and can not be faulted in and of itself. Hatred, persecution, discrimination, favoritism, these are all active expressions of the natural processes of prejudice.

Our prejudices are naturally created by our experience and background. The way we express them, or allow them to influence our behavior and future beliefs, is within our control; we are responsible for all of our own actions and for how we behave toward others. If we reflect upon our understanding of the world, we can become aware of our prejudices. If we are aware of our prejudices, we can take steps to prevent them from negatively impacting those with whom we interact, or our own perceptions.

NOTE: This is not a condemnation of any social programs, such as Affirmative Action. The important thing about those programs is they are necessary to counteract the institutional and sometimes unconscious prejudices people have against groups they believe a person to be a member of. It is another form of prejudice, that is certain. But while there is irrational prejudice influencing the behavior and decisions of those in power, a balancing prejudice must be use to counter it. Whether, or to what extent, humans, Americans, or anyone, can eventually find the rationality or compassion to guide their actions and reactions, is a completely different topic.