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The brother stories are pretty fascinating... especially with your talent for writing, reflection and your wisdom.
One thing I always try to remember is that for some people in their lives... what they believe is what they need to cope and manage. It is what they need to make sense of things... even if those things don't make sense to me.
My main mantra is that the (Biblical) story is not true. And that is what is important to me.
Others want to believe it is true. From a personal perspective... it is not my obligation to convince them otherwise. There is no great commission for non believers. There are no heavenly rewards for them or me. So there is no reason not to let them be.
Where it is tricky these days is from the political standpoint. It is heartbreaking that even if I were to discuss religion, Christianity or anything like that it... it would ultimately turn into a political conversation.
Out of respect for the moderators I will not expound on that a whole lot other than to say that I get nervous when I hear (for example) my father rant about this stuff and realize that he wants public policy to be based on his rather rigid social, religious and politically intertwined belief system. And there are many like him.
As a theist, I agree with your concerns about our current political environment.
Theocracy scares me. And the Christian nationalists are dreaming of the day, their version of the truth becomes the law of the land.
I will stand with anyone, including atheists, to take a stand against them.
All things in moderation, including your moderation. Seems to me the Bible has something to say about that.
The problem isn't politics or religion, it's within the nature of humans.
Ultimately, yes, but politics and religion and other abstractions matter because they tend to draw from the noble or ignoble parts of humans. Humans are living contradictions. Christianity misdiagnoses this as a "sin nature" warring with some imagined ideal / uncorrupted "image of god". This frames how we conceptualize the problem and the solutions we will come up with, particularly when, as in fundamentalism, we start confusing symbols with actual things.
It's my view that humanity (the species) isn't "savable" even if for the sake of argument it needs saving, because it will collectively be true to its nature. The same as, say, rabbits or tigers will still be rabbits or tigers a thousand years from now, so humans will still be humans.
Individuals can successfully override some of the worst human impulses and to support this they will create abstractions (religions, philosophies, political parties or frameworks, fraternal organizations, etc). Some of these abstractions are leakier than others, and thus less effective or even ineffective or downright harmful.
Ultimately, yes, but politics and religion and other abstractions matter because they tend to draw from the noble or ignoble parts of humans. Humans are living contradictions. Christianity misdiagnoses this as a "sin nature" warring with some imagined ideal / uncorrupted "image of god". This frames how we conceptualize the problem and the solutions we will come up with, particularly when, as in fundamentalism, we start confusing symbols with actual things.
It's my view that humanity (the species) isn't "savable" even if for the sake of argument it needs saving, because it will collectively be true to its nature. The same as, say, rabbits or tigers will still be rabbits or tigers a thousand years from now, so humans will still be humans.
Individuals can successfully override some of the worst human impulses and to support this they will create abstractions (religions, philosophies, political parties or frameworks, fraternal organizations, etc). Some of these abstractions are leakier than others, and thus less effective or even ineffective or downright harmful.
I read recently (I forget where) that selfish and altruistic behaviors activate/engage different parts of the brain. We are programmed to self-contradict when it suits us....
Ultimately, yes, but politics and religion and other abstractions matter because they tend to draw from the noble or ignoble parts of humans. Humans are living contradictions. Christianity misdiagnoses this as a "sin nature" warring with some imagined ideal / uncorrupted "image of god". This frames how we conceptualize the problem and the solutions we will come up with, particularly when, as in fundamentalism, we start confusing symbols with actual things.
It's my view that humanity (the species) isn't "savable" even if for the sake of argument it needs saving, because it will collectively be true to its nature. The same as, say, rabbits or tigers will still be rabbits or tigers a thousand years from now, so humans will still be humans.
Individuals can successfully override some of the worst human impulses and to support this they will create abstractions (religions, philosophies, political parties or frameworks, fraternal organizations, etc). Some of these abstractions are leakier than others, and thus less effective or even ineffective or downright harmful.
I have to wonder...
I don't really see it as humans being saved or being "savable." We will either survive what awaits us or not. Whether the challenge is ourselves or whatever the unfolding universe has in store for us. Here lately we're under another storm watch where yesterday eight people were caught by a "rogue wave" that put them in the hospital. More reminder of what climate change is doing around here according to some.
What I tend to wonder about is the nature of man. How accurate is your assessment? Apparently the latest counts have the world population up a little over 700 million so that we are now at a grand total of just over 8 billion. Somehow, despite ourselves, we continue to live together and actually grown in numbers. Despite ourselves or are there enough people with alternative natures that have allowed us to overcome some of the most dangerous of dangers presented by SOME people so far. Do all humans have the same worst impulses? I don't think so.
Rather than rabbits, take dogs for example. We recently got a puppy that is getting pretty big now, and she is unlike any other dog we have had before. She doesn't seem to have an aggressive bone in her body. All just love, love, love, and when we go to a dog park all she wants to do is play. Completely trusting of all the other dogs. Usually nothing but fun, but on three occasions now, there has been a dog that attacks her. Out of nowhere, just like that, for no apparent reason, she's attacked, and she goes into a tail spin as if totally traumatized. Does't seem to even think about defending herself let alone fighting back.
My point is that if dogs can be so different in terms of temperament, behaviors and impulses, does it not stand to reason that people are all different in similar ways? How many people do we know, also for example, who seem inconceivable to do any harm to anyone else. While other people seem to inclined toward impulses that repel most of us? I think the better nature that most people seem to share is what allows so many of us to live in peace, though of course we all know where this is not the case. It's a bit of a mixed bag far as I can tell anyway, and fortunately I think it's a bag with more people of a better nature rather than worse.
If not, I think things would be a lot worse for our species than they are...
I don't really see it as humans being saved or being "savable." We will either survive what awaits us or not. Whether the challenge is ourselves or whatever the unfolding universe has in store for us. Here lately we're under another storm watch where yesterday eight people were caught by a "rogue wave" that put them in the hospital. More reminder of what climate change is doing around here according to some.
What I tend to wonder about is the nature of man. How accurate is your assessment? Apparently the latest counts have the world population up a little over 700 million so that we are now at a grand total of just over 8 billion. Somehow, despite ourselves, we continue to live together and actually grown in numbers. Despite ourselves or are there enough people with alternative natures that have allowed us to overcome some of the most dangerous of dangers presented by SOME people so far. Do all humans have the same worst impulses? I don't think so.
Rather than rabbits, take dogs for example. We recently got a puppy that is getting pretty big now, and she is unlike any other dog we have had before. She doesn't seem to have an aggressive bone in her body. All just love, love, love, and when we go to a dog park all she wants to do is play. Completely trusting of all the other dogs. Usually nothing but fun, but on three occasions now, there has been a dog that attacks her. Out of nowhere, just like that, for no apparent reason, she's attacked, and she goes into a tail spin as if totally traumatized. Does't seem to even think about defending herself let alone fighting back.
My point is that if dogs can be so different in terms of temperament, behaviors and impulses, does it not stand to reason that people are all different in similar ways? How many people do we know, also for example, who seem inconceivable to do any harm to anyone else. While other people seem to inclined toward impulses that repel most of us? I think the better nature that most people seem to share is what allows so many of us to live in peace, though of course we all know where this is not the case. It's a bit of a mixed bag far as I can tell anyway, and fortunately I think it's a bag with more people of a better nature rather than worse.
If not, I think things would be a lot worse for our species than they are...
That is why I emphasized the humans as a species will not change, as en masse we just naturally follow our constitution. But that individuals can both vary in where they are on various spectrums such as empathy, intelligence, etc., as well as how far they can deliberately move out of their default comfort zones and transcend their set points. My hope is not for the species but for individuals and perhaps subsets or groups that could support each other and build better societies, at least for a time.
All that said, I do not see us escaping the meta-cycles of history, ever bouncing back and forth between predominantly authoritarian vs free societies. One reason for this is that the lessons of history aren't "real" to those that haven't directly lived them. The last of the people who experienced the WW2 era, for example, are dying and for all practical purposes are no longer with us. The holocaust, Naziism, Hitler, Mussolini, are all just dusty abstractions in history books, no more real than war dramas about that era. Few probably even understand the roots of the conflict in excessive punishing sanctions and penalties against Germany following its defeat in WW1. So ... now we are hearing political speeches right out of Mein Kampf and even though a few voices are raising alarms about it, it certainly isn't resulting in mass protests or the sort of reactions you'd expect if significant numbers of people were taking it seriously, such that we could avoid being condemned to repeat the lessons of history we fail to "learn". It is not precisely that we don't learn, so much as that this learning is very poorly transmitted to subsequent generations, and this problem seems inherent. Such transmission in my judgment just does not work at sufficient scale to be effective.
According to Freedom House, the leading think tank on this topic with the best reputation, the number of free countries in the world has dropped from 46% to 20% since 2005. This is a precipitous drop in a short time, and it illustrates my point. We as a species will just keep doing this; unfortunately we're in the down-tick of that cycle, globally speaking anyway. And in the low ebb of that cycle, people turn on each other, scrabbling for purchase without regard to others. Empathy dies. Times become dark. The only good news is that authoritarianism isn't sustainable, and must eventually collapse, and give birth to a new cycle of abreaction against it. For awhile, humanity has something to push against, you might say, then it looses the thread again. Rinse and repeat.
As an individual the best I can do is to live the best life I can in the midst of all this chaos. I benefitted from living through the uptick of the cycle, ca. 1950-2000, now I will probably experience the clearing at the end of the path during the low ebb. So it goes.
That is why I emphasized the humans as a species will not change, as en masse we just naturally follow our constitution. But that individuals can both vary in where they are on various spectrums such as empathy, intelligence, etc., as well as how far they can deliberately move out of their default comfort zones and transcend their set points. My hope is not for the species but for individuals and perhaps subsets or groups that could support each other and build better societies, at least for a time.
All that said, I do not see us escaping the meta-cycles of history, ever bouncing back and forth between predominantly authoritarian vs free societies. One reason for this is that the lessons of history aren't "real" to those that haven't directly lived them. The last of the people who experienced the WW2 era, for example, are dying and for all practical purposes are no longer with us. The holocaust, Naziism, Hitler, Mussolini, are all just dusty abstractions in history books, no more real than war dramas about that era. Few probably even understand the roots of the conflict in excessive punishing sanctions and penalties against Germany following its defeat in WW1. So ... now we are hearing political speeches right out of Mein Kampf and even though a few voices are raising alarms about it, it certainly isn't resulting in mass protests or the sort of reactions you'd expect if significant numbers of people were taking it seriously, such that we could avoid being condemned to repeat the lessons of history we fail to "learn". It is not precisely that we don't learn, so much as that this learning is very poorly transmitted to subsequent generations, and this problem seems inherent. Such transmission in my judgment just does not work at sufficient scale to be effective.
According to Freedom House, the leading think tank on this topic with the best reputation, the number of free countries in the world has dropped from 46% to 20% since 2005. This is a precipitous drop in a short time, and it illustrates my point. We as a species will just keep doing this; unfortunately we're in the down-tick of that cycle, globally speaking anyway. And in the low ebb of that cycle, people turn on each other, scrabbling for purchase without regard to others. Empathy dies. Times become dark. The only good news is that authoritarianism isn't sustainable, and must eventually collapse, and give birth to a new cycle of abreaction against it. For awhile, humanity has something to push against, you might say, then it looses the thread again. Rinse and repeat.
As an individual the best I can do is to live the best life I can in the midst of all this chaos. I benefitted from living through the uptick of the cycle, ca. 1950-2000, now I will probably experience the clearing at the end of the path during the low ebb. So it goes.
Freedom House gives the US an 83, while Canada gets a 98 (with political rights and civil liberties being the two components of the score). I'm a bit envious of the country located a 15-minure drive from where I sit. Norway, Sweden, and Finland all earned 100s
Freedom House gives the US an 83, while Canada gets a 98 (with political rights and civil liberties being the two components of the score). I'm a bit envious of the country located a 15-minure drive from where I sit. Norway, Sweden, and Finland all earned 100s
I am not sure Finland in particular and the Scandinavian nations in general are going to hold at 100 for much longer. Even they have problems with regressive/authoritarian elements.
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