Fighting Authority In the Name of Spirituality

Recently, I attended a talk by author Brian McLaren, a figure in the emergent Christianity movement. He was wondering why religion and spirituality can seem so distant from one another. Frankly, I am beginning to expect that religion and spirituality are destined to remain in conflict, when I think about the nature of the relationship between religion and authority.

I can't help but consider another recent religious encounter of mine. After I befriended an evangelical Christian classmate last semester in a political theory course through some friendly bickering about politics and religion, he insisted that I join him in a discussion group with his pastor. I may have to write a separate blog post or two about that evening later, but for now, what strikes me from the conversation is the pastor's declaration that "Christianity cannot be about morality". The pastor reasoned that since multiple religions not only allow, but encourage, their followers to lead what most people agree to be a moral life, that Christianity cannot primarily be meant to enforce morality.

Finally, I have been reading "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, and as I told my girlfriend, the major lesson I have learned from Armstrong's book is that I must never again generalize about any religion. With that lesson in mind, I will say that Christianity is a diverse vehicle for many interests and ideas, not only about God, but about humanity. Because Christianity comes in so many forms, perhaps that alone makes it unlikely that spirituality could coexist peacefully with other values.

It is evident that religious teachings contain moral content - even if that content is difficult for its followers to decipher, or if it is difficult for people in the 21st century to decide how to apply the advice of prophets and poets from thousands of years ago. Yet, I tend to agree with my evangelical friend's pastor that in many ways, religion is not just about morality. Another important part of religion I wish to explore is religion's justifications and support for authority.

I do not have a hard time envisioning religion as a set of community standards and practices which can define the values and the identity of a community. Perhaps the process of trying to reach a better understanding of God/gods mirrors the process of individuals trying to reconcile their own interests with the interests of their communities.

When the religion of a community echoes the identity and the values of a culture, it is not surprising that the existence of people who do not embrace the dominant religion would feel threatening, and frighten a society. Perhaps, to those members of the dominant religion, the people rejecting the local religion are also rejecting the local culture, tradition, and identity. Perhaps, from their perspective, those unbelievers are literally destroying the social fabric itself, which provides their lives with meaning and purpose.

If you believe the Gospels, you will witness how the Jewish authorities of Jesus's day mistrusted Jesus and deeply felt that his actions were undermining and eroding the local culture. When Jesus overturned the tables at the synagogue, when Jesus spent time with tax collectors and women of unfavorable reputations, when Jesus associated himself with the despised officials of imperial Rome...when Jesus did all those things, he was acting against his culture and tradition, undermining not only the power of his culture, but the stability of its authorities.

If you believe the Qu'ran, you will witness how Muhammad (pbuh) was chased from Mecca to Medina. His insistence that there is only one God, instead of a multitude of gods, must have absolutely driven people mad with anger and resentment. Why would someone interfere so radically and wildly against society's most dear and sacred practices? Why would someone callously seek to destroy the elaborately devised system of religious tribute and tradition which had been so carefully maintained?

How can spirituality coexist peacefully with authority? Authority thrives when individuals do not question their relationships. Spirituality thrives when individuals question everything, in the name of greater awareness, understanding, and closeness to God or other forces. It is impossible to practice religious mysticism in a condition of blind and passive acceptance. Where is the mystery in the faith then? Where does the mystery go, when the Emperors and the kings and the Presidents tell you exactly what to believe?

No thanks. Because I refuse to accept the religious answers of a majority of my society, I will probably never win a political office, and many members of my culture will despise me and wonder how I could be a moral and loving person - but I will remain free to help create a new social fabric. I will remain free to help expand human cooperation, respect, and brotherhood, in any way that I choose - just as Jesus and Muhammad (pbuh) chose to do, at the risk of their possessions, their families, and their lives, so many years ago. As those prophets chose before me, I choose to exercise the authority of freedom and true spirituality.

America's Exceptional Leadership

America is special. America is called to lead the world in liberty and freedom. America is not just special in the way that each country is special. No, America is even more than that. America is exceptional. America is special in a way that no other country in the world can assert.

From John Kennedy to Barack Obama, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, this belief in American exceptionalism is a central belief of the leaders of both political parties. The belief in American exceptionalism is unchallenged and unopposed in the United States. Disagreement with American exceptionalism is suppressed, mocked, and generally understood to belong only to the political fringes, to be found only on the outside edges of the relevant American political debates.

There is no possible way that I could oppose American exceptionalism. Listen to any politician heap praise upon it: what do you hear? You will hear praise for liberty, praise for freedom and openness, praise for competition and the free market of ideas, praise for pluralism and choice, praise for America's moral leadership, a leadership made possible only by the most free and most democratic society in the world.

American ideas are the best in the world. The American way of life is the best in the world. America is therefore, obviously, the best country in the world. What a disaster, what a tragedy it would be, if the world were not led by its best and strongest nation? The leaders and politicians in America can't stand to imagine that any other nation is superior to America, or that any other nation should lead the world besides America, or that any nation should exercise more influence and power than America.

There is simply no way I could oppose American exceptionalism, as it is depicted by American politicians. If American beliefs are so superior to others, and if America is only acting in the world to defend and spread those beliefs, then it would be foolish for me to oppose America standing up for those beliefs!

All is not what it seems. The theoretical American exceptionalism lavishly praised by politicians is a far different animal than the American exceptionalism actively practiced in reality. The American exceptionalism which now exists is the exceptionalism of economic strength, the exceptionalism of raw power and military might, and the exceptionalism of authority and ideology over law and responsibility. Current American exceptionalism is a creature of fantasy and propaganda.

America is not exceptional because it encourages liberty - it is exceptional because it can deny the liberty of others (imprisoning without trial, torturing, and ordering assassinations of American citizens without due process) and ignore the consequences. America is not exceptional because it encourages openness - it is exceptional because it dismisses and attacks those who disagree with its policy, while criticizing other nations who act in the same ways (mercilessly prosecuting whistleblowers who expose fraud and journalists who expose corruption). America is not exceptional because it encourages competition - America is exceptional because its economic policy is corrupt and narrows the path of prosperity (reducing equality of opportunity by rewarding the rich with tax cuts and slashing social safety nets). America is not exceptional because it encourages democracy - it is exceptional because it has supported dictators (such as Hosni Mubarak) who have suppressed democracy and persecuted those who protest against them.

However, I refuse to abandon American exceptionalism. If America wishes to be a leader in the world, to be a leader of freedom and liberty with a legitimate claim to moral guidance and direction - then Americans must demand that their government adopt and practice a new kind of American exceptionalism. America must not use its force and influence to merely gain power for its own interests, but must instead accomplish the things its politicians so forcefully endorse but do not pursue: greater liberty, greater freedom, greater choice, greater openness, and greater democracy, under the law, with true equality for all people.

America must be exceptional in its compassion, in its empathy, and in its forgiveness. America must be exceptional in its patience, in its purpose, and in its sacrifice. If America is fighting three wars to remain a great nation, let's be entirely sure what kind of greatness is worth the lives of our soldiers and the lives of innocent civilians in the countries where we fight. Isn't it a waste to destroy so many lives if all we are doing will only ensure that America remains a great economic power or a great military power? Isn't it a tragedy that so many lives have ended in the name of naked brute force and the almighty dollar alone?

There is no more exceptional sacrifice for a cause than the relinquishing of a human life. Perhaps Americans should remember that unrelenting fact before demanding further sacrifice of that highest kind for any cause which is less than fully exceptional.

For the good of the world, and for the good of its own people, especially for those sent to fight and die in our conflicts, America must be exceptional in its adherence to law, exceptional in its concern for the well-being of its own people and for the peoples of other nations, and exceptional in its undying commitment to the principles of freedom and liberty which have justified, but do not yet govern, American actions.

Doubt and Atheism as Faith

Comparisons between religion and atheism are typically more a matter of rhetoric than logic and a matter of emotion more than measured analysis. There is not a single assertion about religious or philosophical thought which will not offend someone. While I will do my best in this post to be fair and consistent, I am certain it will inevitably disturb. If that possibility is too much for you, please do not read what follows.

I am continually disappointed that people parade their own knowledge and their own experience as the pinnacle of absolute truth. I am thankfully not alone. There are both religious and non-religious people who agree with me that each person should express his or her own views in humility, taking caution to remember the limited perspective and knowledge of each human being.

People of many creeds and traditions have adopted and cultivated an active sense of doubt. While individuals often disagree on which things they doubt and which things they accept, there is a consensus that each person should doubt all opinions equally and persistently.

Some people who are not religious believe in doubt so strongly that they refuse to claim belief in any faith. Those who would undermine the supremacy of doubt as a value often reply that doubt itself is also a faith, as strong as any religion. This accusation begs the question of what constitutes a faith.

It is difficult to say with any certainty precisely what faith is, which is fitting, given the difficulty in providing any absolute definition of an individual faith, such as Christianity or Islam. I realize it is dangerous to claim that beliefs are a faith before I have discovered what makes something a faith. I must admit I already have assumptions about what makes a belief a faith.

For me, a faith begins as an idea. An idea is some sort of guess about the world, some kind of hunch. A belief is an idea that one accepts strongly, and I view faith as an even stronger form of belief. Doubt is definitely a belief, because it is a pervasive idea with an extremely high number of applications. I disagree, though, that doubt alone is a strong enough belief to be a faith.

When I was in a class called "Contemporary Political Thought" last semester, a friend of mine and I had a very similar argument. He claimed that "if you state that all truth is provisional, you have asserted an absolute truth, so you can't really say that everything is provisional because it self-contradicts". I responded by stating that if the idea that truth is provisional can itself be contradicted by evidence, then it is not an absolute claim. The test of absoluteness is not whether a belief claims that it applies universally, but whether it could be hypothetically overturned by evidence at some point and then no longer apply universally.

I believe that a faith is something that claims to apply universally, but cannot be demonstrated by evidence. A faith is a belief so strong that it cannot be falsified by evidence; it is beyond even contradiction or non-contradiction. No one can challenge it rationally. This distinction is why atheists will turn funny colors and foam at the mouth a little bit if you claim that atheism is a faith. Perhaps a very strong atheism is a faith - I agree that the non-existence of any supernatural or metaphysical presence cannot be falsified by evidence. However, a weaker atheism, which asserts that only as a condition of the lack of evidence for supernatural forces, that one should not accept supernatural forces, does seem entirely different from the concept of a faith, in that its conclusions are not so strong that they could never be challenged by direct evidence.

That so many religious people claim that "people of faith" are every bit as capable of doubt as non-religious people is fine. It's a valid claim. By definition, you can only doubt a belief that is falsifiable. I also believe, however, that it is worthy of debate whether a person should believe in something which no possible evidence can disprove. I do not have any problems with this sort of belief on principle, as long as its practitioners acknowledge that it is a belief beyond the bounds of rationality and non-rationality. When people use their religion to make scientific or historical claims, those claims entirely undermine the concept of faith. A religion underpinned by scientific or historical claims should not be recognized as a faith, but as an ideology.

And in practice, religious ideologies often use their untestable claims to support actions which damage and hurt peoples' lives, because the ideology claims absolute superiority for itself and does not act in humility, and does not recognize its own limited knowledge. Very strong atheism is one of these negative ideologies, and also harms people - I already accept this to be true. When people absolutely believe that religion is a negative force in the world, there is much good and positive benefit that is ignored.

It is important to state, however, that atheism and doubt are not necessarily a faith. If you wish to challenge atheism, please challenge it not with insults, but with a response to its claims. Just as it is not fair to insist that religion should be accepted unless it meets the standards of rationality, it is unfair to insist that atheism is necessarily a faith. By definition, it is true that faith is not necessarily about evidence, and that atheism is not necessarily a faith. When challenging an idea, one must first understand what the idea means, and then challenge the meaning of the idea as it is understood by those who accept it. Only once you have responded to the claims of an idea that it actually makes, should you pretend to have made a serious intellectual challenge!

Is there anything directly wrong with faith? Not necessarily. Sometimes, there are questions people have about meaning, about values, about things outside the boundaries of science, which are almost impossible to answer but demand an answer. Occasionally, there are questions which may never have one right answer that can be rationally confirmed. Perhaps some moral and ethical principles are a faith - but perhaps they are not a faith. Perhaps there is rational evidence available to ground our values and ethics. May we never know for sure? Certainly. That's why I'm not certain.

Racist. Sexist. Homophobes.

I love college. Part of why I love college is because I am fortunate enough to revel in new experiences, to hear new ideas and grasp their implications, and to discuss and expand my ideas with other people who have different backgrounds or values.

I am currently enrolled in a class called "The History of the Modern Conservative Movement". I decided to take this class because it was in my major, and also because I am an avowedly fierce liberal. I wanted to hear the "other team's" take. I wanted to better understand conservatives and their ideas.

My professor, politically speaking, can match my liberal beliefs with his conservative beliefs, blow for blow. He doesn't usually advocate for his beliefs in class, but rather uses the lectures to deliver an understanding of events which the "conservative movement" would espouse.

I am extremely committed to understanding other people's beliefs. How so, you may ask? I agreed to take this class once a week from 8:10 PM to 10:40 PM at night. That's right - PM, not AM. Honestly, it's probably a good thing, because if I was more awake, it would be harder to restrain myself from vehement disagreement (just kidding, just kidding).

Several weeks ago, I was listening to our professor deliver his lecture, when he lamented that conservatives are constantly, unfairly portrayed and vilified by the media and by liberals as "racists, sexists, and homophobes".

Is this an unfair accusation? No, I believe it is an entirely fair charge. I find plenty of evidence to substantiate the accusations.

Please observe the virulent, entirely over-the-top outright hatred for President Obama. The demeaning, racially-charged nicknames. The implied foreignness and otherness expressed in the ridiculous campaign to assert that the President was born in Kenya, not in Hawaii.

Note the ludicrous statement by Senator Jon Kyl (R-what else?, AZ) that women could receive pap smears at Walgreen's, that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion, a blatantly false exaggeration, even if it was "not intended to be a factual statement" - which itself is a ludicrous assertion.

Even worse are the efforts of Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana to end all public funding for Planned Parenthood in his state, an action which displays an outright contempt for women's health.

Bemoan the foul river of accusation and negative portrayal of homosexuals. The statement of a Tea Party leader that a condition for raising the debt ceiling should be the reinstitution of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the removal of woman from the military. Witness the absolutely stubborn and close-minded refusal by many people to recognize that you are a human being with the same fundamental rights, no matter what gender you are or who you love.

That's not all. Let's tackle some other "unfair accusations" conservatives have decried.

My professor also resented that conservatives have been labeled as "reactionaries".

Let's examine the mad-cap rush to screw the poor and the elderly and reward the rich, evidenced not only in the provisions of the Paul Ryan plan, but in Republican economic policy over the last 30 years. See the rampant hypocrisy in the fight over deficits: Republicans insist that the deficit is an immediate and overwhelming problem, but refuse to take any steps to raise revenue. An absolute refusal to raise taxes is as reactionary a stance as any in American politics; if that stance is not reactionary, then the word itself has lost all meaning.

Conservatives will stop being called racists, sexists, homophobes, and reactionaries only when they purge the elements of their coalition that are racist, sexist, homophobic, and reactionary! A mere whitewashing and meaningless rebranding of history (and language itself) may work in some isolated cases, but Americans will ultimately see through the charades, if President Obama and other liberals will quit relenting their positions, commitments, and promises.

I'm not only speaking as a liberal, but also I speak as an American. Our country cannot allow the whitewashing and implicit censorship of our political and historical records. We cannot allow our history to perish from the Earth, or our democracy shall soon follow it.

What Are Liberal Values?

What Are Liberal Values?

I am currently taking a class called "History of the Modern Conservative Movement". My professor is an ardent conservative. He usually does not engage directly in political arguments during class, but he occasionally challenges liberal ideas in an indirect and subtle way. He'll offer a conservative attack on a liberal idea, and then say "this is what conservatives tend to think, not necessarily what I think - and you're taking this class to hear the conservative view, so here you go".

My professor addressed the following challenge to liberals during the first month of class, and I have been considering how to answer his questions since then:

"A conservative recognizes the same rights that have been traditionally recognized by thinkers such as John Locke: life, liberty, and property. Also, a conservative believes that these rights are not given by the government - but by an external source. I always want to ask liberals this: what is your vision of the country? Where would you stop if you could have your ultimate wishes? Conservatives know what kind of country they want - with the protection of the same traditional rights which have been the heritage of America since the Founding. But liberals keep trying to create new 'rights'. Where will you stop? You can see that there may be a kind of validity to Hayek's argument that once citizens depend on the government for more and more 'rights', the government can become oppressive."

Why do liberals keep trying to invent new rights? This is the wrong question.

What's the right question?

Why aren't conservatives doing more to preserve and secure the rights they cherish?

That's the correct question.

Securing Our Rights

Life. Liberty. Property. That's a celebrated trifecta - a trilogy - a trinity - and it seems simple and convenient enough to understand. If you're an American, you heard about it from Thomas Jefferson, who scribbled something about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" once upon a time.

Isn't it enough that the government assist individuals in their pursuit of these three things? Why should the government do otherwise? Government is inherently oppressive - the less it does, the better the country.

Point taken - let's start there. Suppose you want to establish a government solely devoted to ensuring the rights of life, liberty, and property. Let's assume that the government should only intervene in cases where the public cannot accomplish a task effectively on its own, and the task relates directly to one of our big three times: life, liberty, or property. For each right, let's assess the capacity of individuals to secure the right on their own, without the intervention of government, and see if it's plausible for a government to take any additional measures to secure those rights.

Life

The right to life is the right to personal security. If society is enmeshed in a condition of anarchy and lawlessness, the right to life may be extremely difficult to secure. Can private citizens secure law and order successfully without the aid of a government? Perhaps - to a limited extent and for a small scale. A voluntary association of citizens could access a certain supply of small arms and protect a smaller area. However, most people lack the resources to defend themselves against more threatening fears, such as a conventional military or terrorist attack.

Another option is to establish a corporation which individuals pay to protect them. However, it would be difficult to distinguish in an emergency who paid dues and who did not. Further, by failing to address a public threat only because someone did not pay for protection, there could be harm to those who did pay. It would be far more practical to establish a police force or a military. I feel that this assertion is non-controversial, and that the majority of conservatives would agree with me on this.

Liberty

Liberty is a difficult concept to understand. It's not a tangible object, like life or property. Alexis de Tocqueville noted this in "Democracy in America", when contrasting public support for liberty and equality: because equality is more tangible and easier to understand, there is a danger that the public will always favor measures which bolster equality at the cost of weakening liberty.

Unfortunately, the problem is even worse than de Tocqueville imagined. The public also is liable to favor measures which bolster security at the cost of weakening liberty. However, this assertion cuts across many political ideologies. I know conservatives and liberals who are wildly opposed across political issues who would make this same argument regarding the dangers of abandoning liberty in the name of security. The funny thing about this phenomenon is that it is completely foreseeable. The culprit here is that there is a wide variety of definitions of liberty.

I told you liberty was a renegade. How many possible human activities can you imagine? That's how many definitions of the word 'liberty' exist today.

Rights as Restraints

This quibble over the meaning of the word 'liberty' leads me to an important point about the understanding of rights: many of the Enlightenment thinkers believed that rights can only be secured when the actions of other people are restrained. My professor for History of the Modern Conservative Movement put it this way: "our Founders believed that with every right comes a certain responsibility".

It's no wonder liberty is preposterously hard to grasp - it's an internally contradictory concept. Every person who uses the word 'liberty' has a hidden assumption of which kinds of behavior citizens should have liberty to choose. Generally, it has been suggested that the proper limit on action should be taken when an action would infringe on another person's life, liberty, or property. Said another way: you can basically have the liberty to do what you want until you take away someone else's liberty.

Let's assume we can decide that the type of liberty we should protect is the kind that does not take away someone else's liberty - that's a simple enough definition. Now let's return to the original premise of our discussion: what should be done to secure liberty (as we have defined it), and who should be in charge of those efforts?

Reconsidering Liberty

To secure liberty as we have defined it (that individuals should have the liberty to do all things which do not remove someone else's rights) - let's try to identify some actions which may or may not violate liberty, and decide on that basis whether they are permissible. To secure liberty, we should want to stop actions which erode it.

Does abortion violate rights? If the fetus is a person, then it has a certain set of rights which should be considered. However, the mother is also a person who has a certain set of rights, too. When does the personhood of the fetus eclipse the right to liberty a woman has over her own body?

Does the death penalty violate rights? If a person has been convicted of murder, that individual has already violated another person's liberty. Should the government violate a person's rights just because he or she did it first-isn't that fighting a wrong with a wrong? Or, should the government remove the liberty of a criminal to protect the liberty of the public?

Does a ban on online gambling violate rights?

Does a ban on marijuana violate rights?

Does a ban on same-sex marriage violate rights?

I hope you are beginning to understand the difficulty of weighing liberty against other rights. It is an extremely serious and delicate matter to consider just how far a government should act to limit the actions of individuals in order to protect the liberty of other citizens. Where is the balance between the greatest freedom of action and the strongest possible security of the rights of others?

I have heard conservatives argue this one way and I have heard liberals argue this another way, but both sides should agree that the question is a matter of balance and difficult to discern.

A Return to Our Premise

I mentioned earlier that there are two questions hanging over this exploration of rights:

1. Why do liberals keep trying to invent new rights?
2. Why aren't conservatives doing more to preserve and secure the rights they cherish?

It may appear that liberals accept a broader number of rights besides the major three enumerated traditionally: life, liberty, and property. However, I reject this view. I believe that liberals have a different perception of what is necessary to preserve and secure life, liberty, and property.

A liberal assumes that each right is dependent on a host of others. A liberal has a more extensive idea of what each of the three traditional natural rights entails.

If a bank forecloses on my home because they offered fraudulent mortgage terms, my right to property is violated.

If a corporation imported goods from China which contained poisonous lead, and I fall ill from ingesting it, my right to life is violated.

If the institution of public education is dismantled, and my ability to participate in civic processes in an engaged manner is therefore lacking, my right to liberty is violated.

A 'right to health care' is a right to life. A 'right to education' is a right to liberty. A 'right to consumer protection' is a right to life and a right to property, depending on the case. This is obvious, intuitive, and self-evident to liberals.

Does it make sense that these things are natural extensions of the rights to life, liberty, and property? Can a coherent notion of the rights to life, liberty, and property exist without guaranteeing those conditions which allow them to flourish?

A liberal doesn't want new rights: a liberal wants to secure the rights we have, and is dismayed when conservatives refuse to act to protect those rights for all Americans.

Surrender, Surrender (But Don't Give Yourself Away)

"Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away". - "Surrender", by Cheap Trick, © 1978

I have already affirmed the contest between change and stability as the greatest conflict in human life. Many other essential conflicts of human existence spring from this: the contest between the individual and society, between individuals and a relationship, between individuals and their religion, between individuals and morality, between individuals and ideology.

What does it mean to exist in such confusion? What does it mean to be an individual when one's very existence can only be defined in terms of its attachment to other, larger groups? What does it mean to live as one person in a world dominated by forces greater and more complex than any single human being?

It's fun to pretend that individuals can live only for themselves. We're all rational human beings, with perfect information at our disposal, considering all our options carefully, and then making the best decision for us. Our thoughts, our beliefs, our actions, our language, and the very words we use to express our innermost sensations, belong primarily to us first and foremost: they're not products of our environment, the groups to which we belong, or any long and tedious processes over which we have little to no control. We individuals like to imagine that we are more powerful than we are, but we are wrong.

What is the price of this knowledge? Have we sold our uniqueness and worth as individuals? Have we given away the sanctity of a precious human life?

No. We surrender, and surrender, but we do not give ourselves away.

I surrender to those groups in which I belong, to all those groups which make my life possible and meaningful. My parents, my family, my peers, everyone I've ever met: you gave me norms, values, ideas, words, and symbols -- you equipped me and gave me my power, gave me my ability to interpret this world and to shape it in my own image. And yet, this image toward which I shape the world is not just my own, but it also belongs to all of you, because you have given me the image of the world which I hold now.

I surrender some of my desires and goals, my resources, my aims and ends, because I have agreed to participate in a project which is greater than myself. When it is late at night and there are no cars in the streets, I stop at traffic lights until I receive the proper signal. I register for the Selective Service, which means I am eligible to be drafted into the military should my country ever decide again to mandate citizens to fight its wars. This summer, I worked a minimum wage job in the fast food industry to help pay for college, and some of my earnings went to pay taxes which support an entire system of government.

But I do not give myself away. Because who am I anyway? After all, I am society; I am a relationship; I am a religion; I am a morality; and I am an ideology. I express my individuality through the collective character I share with others. I accomplish my individual goals and ambitions because I am motivated by values which are instilled in me by other people, that I share with other people, and which serve common ends and common interests. A true individual must always, when acting in his or her own interest, strive to remember how this interest is inseparably and inextricably linked with the interests of others.

Yes, I am in one sense a self-made man. But I'm not the only self that's made it.

Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Wish to Live

What are the highest values in life? What ideas provide guidance for the best possible living? What is the inspiration which accords the best template for living, for fully realizing our potential as human beings?

Friedrich Nietzsche mentions the "will to power" as a force which has "succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life". Is this "will to power", though, merely a description of how the world works, of how life exists, or is it also a normative statement (an outline of how life should be lived)? Should we live only according to our instincts? Does living against the pattern of our instincts hopelessly obscure and defeat life itself? Or, rather, does life only begin to soar once it transcends our basic instincts for higher goals?

Which parts of the "will to power" should be embraced by society? Nietzsche repeatedly asserts that those conditions which enable life to flourish should be promoted. But what does it mean for life to flourish? Does life flourish when it is restrained, or when it is constricted; does life flourish only when it is maintained and managed, or only when it is free and independent? What does it mean to preserve and enhance life? And what kinds of life does Nietzsche value?

Nietzsche objects to those who place more emphasis on suffering in this life, in exchange for a better future life, than on experiencing life in the present world. But for many people, the experience of life essentially contains suffering - and suffering really can be described as the origin of life. Perhaps suffering is the main mode of life, after all: not the "will to power", but the "will to suffer" predominates, or perhaps the "will to power" is also a "will to suffer". Lastly, perhaps Nietzsche is not really against an acknowledgment of suffering, but merely disagrees as to what manner people should direct their suffering.

A preacher here on campus has suggested that God created the world in an act of love as suffering. I have heard it said, "to love someone truly, you must allow them to have the chance to make you suffer".

Did God create the world in an act of love as suffering? Even if there is no God, is this the essential state of our world as it exists now? Does all the world in the world owe its existence to some form of suffering?

And who would punish a lover for one's own love, if there is a God who has created such a world? Jesus in the Gospels tells the parable of the prodigal son. The father allows the son to experience life on his own terms, and allows the son to suffer the consequences of his actions. Would a loving God allow us to suffer merely as a consequence of Its actions, merely because a world was created wherein we humans were given this life which has built itself upon our suffering?

To love is in part to suffer. And suffer I do, as we all do...adrenaline, oxytocin, estrogen...coursing through the channels of my soul, of every "soul". Chemicals corrode my soul, yet they restore my body. My body atones for my soul. These hapless emotions, what poor excuse of a being am I? Too far gone in this world. Too near-sighted for the things to come. Not spiritual enough. Too human.

That lustful glance is the adultery of my spirit. But not to glance is the adultery of my body. To glance, to live: to commit adultery of the mind, or the heart? I have been ripped to shreds and torn apart, glued together again, haphazardly...this is the way life has developed over billions of years, ripping and tearing itself apart, to time and time again, build things that are newer and stranger, odd and more odd are these evolved creatures, these "thinking things" that are called human beings. This is the worst and the best that I am. I give my love, I give my pain, and I give my innocence...all in the name of life.

This is what God gave me, if it was indeed a divine gift...my own freedom, my own shame; my own love, my own suffering. All that and less: some of the things He gave me I'm apparently supposed to disown. In the name of a Higher Life. In the name of a Higher Love, and a Higher Truth.

Pilot washed his hands before he condemned Jesus. Did God wash His mind in the hormones of our psyches before condemning us?

If God exists, then God should commend evil instead of condemning it, for this evil has propelled us to life. We love ourselves. We love our family. We love our tribe, our sect, our friends. This is evil, since we love them for their suffering, because only that has brought us into this world and continually sustains us. Perhaps someday, when we remember the suffering that endures and surrounds us, the suffering that has created life in all its stark beauty and terror, then we will love our neighbor as ourselves, most of all because they suffer as we suffer.

Religion and Social Consciousness

I'm participating in a book study of Kevin Roose's book "The Unlikely Disciple". So far, I have only read the first two chapters, so there is no need for any spoiler alerts. However, if you've read the book before, please don't tell me what happens! I want to keep a fresh perspective.

During discussion in our study group today, I heard two rather broad, very compelling questions which I would like to discuss further on this blog.

1. Agnostic college student Kevin Roose transfers from east-coast, secular Brown University to Jerry Falwell's evangelical proving grounds at Liberty University for a semester to discover a greater understanding of evangelical Christianity. However, to fit in without giving himself away as an outsider, Kevin adopts a double persona as a fellow evangelical Christian. Is this double life justified?

I believe Roose had no other choice but to adopt the character of an evangelical Christian if he really wanted to obtain an insider's understanding. Was this choice a duplicitous one, a charade, a fraud? Maybe, to some extent - but I accept that his choice was no more a lie than the choices most people make every day. Why are any of us Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, liberal, libertarian, conservative, socialist, etc? Can we honestly embrace our own ideas as superior without honestly trying to understand all of the other alternatives which surround us?

Most individuals adopt convenient labels and narratives to use in their everyday lives with less thought than Roose puts into his pseudo-identity. How we do know that we are not defrauding ourselves? How do we know that when call ourselves something, that we are being true to ourselves, and whether we can really accept what we claim to be true?

Further, I think the only good way to understand someone else's ideas or values is to understand their experiences - or, even better, share some of their experiences. It really is futile to ponder someone's arguments or points without understanding why and how the person arrived at that place. Roose is doing the best he can to genuinely understand evangelicalism - he walks in their path and sees with their own eyes, instead of merely tracing their footsteps and following the breadcrumbs left in their wake, as so many other people content themselves to do and believe that they have a good understanding when they most assuredly do not.

2. Do you believe that Roose's beliefs will change during his time at Liberty University? Will he convert to evangelical Christianity, or even modify some of his beliefs to those of his peers? Why or why not?

To me, after reading just the first two chapters of "The Unlikely Disciple", it's inevitable that Roose will change many of his ideas as a result of spending a semester at Liberty.

But why should he change? Doesn't he already have many of his own well-established ideas, honed over the course of his entire life thus far?

Perhaps.

However, there is a key observation I must make to establish why I believe change is inevitable for Kevin Roose: that consciousness is a social product, evolving constantly with changes in one's environment and interpersonal interaction.

I'm currently enrolled in a philosophy course called "Persons and Selves". The last two weeks we've been discussing at various points how an individual's consciousness is shaped by a person's relationships with other people - that a person who is isolated eventually will begin to lose his or her personality, and that individuals gain much of their consciousness and sense of personhood as a reflection of the acknowledgement which they receive from other people.

I predict that by immersing himself in an environment dominated by evangelical Christianity, that Roose will experience a changing consciousness as he is recognized by other Liberty students for his actions as an evangelical, and that over time, he will slowly feel more and more attuned to those forms of recognition, so that his beliefs will shift in a way which accords with his social environment.

The consciousness of a human being is not a static product. You are not who you were as a young child or as an adolescent. You're not who you were a year ago, or a week ago. You're not even who you were yesterday.

I'm not on the record as someone who is very religious. But maybe there is a possibility that there is some kind of divine force in or behind our Universe. I believe that if there is a sort of animating force, akin to what is understood widely as God, that this God-like force most likely is a Process, which works through other things in the world.

Look around us: everything is in flux, and nothing is ever the same. Heck, that's what it says in Ecclesiastes (and on classic rock stations, if you like The Byrds). There is a season...for everything under the Sun, for agnosticism at Brown, for who knows what at Liberty, for hoping the Jets win so you can laugh at the New England Patriots, to ruing the day one said that because the Jets have just demolished one's favorite football team in the playoffs...