President Obama comforting a mourner in Missouri, 2015)
            (credit: Pete Souza, Obama White House Archives)

Flow

Content to let the seasons flow

The living grow

the dying go

I am

WHAM!

                                   
                    

          Dostoevsky (credit: Vasily Perov, Wikimedia Commons)

Dream

Is any man's best hero ever himself?

The pictures in my head, I touch them up.

The tones can be enhanced by subtle shades.

A feature here obscured or there re-traced

My image of the Hero, against the sky

Could be torn out -- blood-fringed -- but not erased

Not changed in size or posture very much.

A giant form, impassioned, strong ... and such.

Too large to ever fill? By God, no way!

I'll die. I'll burn in Hell before I'll say

I've shrunk my dream to match the everyday.

To live and never dream lives not at all;

It wanders numb, not knowing Awe or Fear.

To dream and never live is to love Death

And be a coward Joy will not come near.

But dream of dreaming, life becomes a song

A rapt, unending, haunting melody

Of rhythm deep, insistent, intricate

And lyric strange, of words and thoughts outlawed

That swell the singer's certainty of God.

                      

                                              Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

                 (Caspar David Friedrich, via Wikimedia Commons)

          

   

         German mother shields son from seeing Holocaust horror 

                           (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

   

                                     Hitler encouraging young soldier (1945)

                        The Women of Berlin

The women of Berlin

Searched stockyards as the Russian troops closed in

For cow manure still contains some calories, you know

And children have to eat

Not boys past twelve, of course

From house to church to school to store

Eight blocks away, they fought

In uniforms all baggy on their skinny limbs

Lugged rifles and grenades in grim despair

Were ripped like gruesome dolls

To guard the Bunker.

The women of Berlin

Looked on the even smaller boys

Eyes bright as hope

And shrank from any thought

Of what time held

For boys like these

For who would teach them now

How to be men?

   
                                                       German children, 1945
                  (Bundesarchiv, Bild, via Wikimedia Commons)

                     

                                   Sgt. Will Rupel with captured Russian gun
                                  (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

                             

                                                 (credit: Wikipedia) 

Florence Nightingale 

Lady with the Lamp, exhausted

One warm night, near Balaclava,

Drinking brandy, speaking bitter,

Muttered: 

“I must change this apron;

Corporal Jones was quite a shitter.

“Men can’t seem to stop their warring.

Pers’nally, I think it’s stupid:

Brats confronting brats by tantrums;

Politicians’ noble causes,

Noble as their sagging asses.

“What’s a woman meant to do here?

Sterile instruments and dressings,

Sutures, sheets, and even pillows:

Cleanliness, complete, fanatic,

Soothing words and smiles -- unfailing.

“Which will get to home? Can’t say here.

But I know that more will do so.

More will get home from their stay here.

“Policy and practice matter,

More than all their manly chatter

Of their strategies and tactics.

“Change the focus off of dying; 

Change the focus to surviving.

One day, war wears out and ceases.

“This day, if one single soldier

Gets to go home to his mother

To his sweetheart -- live and prosper  --

I will be more than contented.

“I have long since ceased to listen

To the politicians’ speeches.

I can do the things that I do.

Nothing changes old men’s habits,

Learned from old men, learned from old men,

Nor the simple, wide-eyed trusting

Of the young for so-called leaders.  

  

“God, please grant me full attention,

In the moment, in my station.

I will do more good tomorrow  

Than the sum of kings and generals

Since the time of Cain and Abel.

“Now we sleep for just three hours.

Brandy has its decent uses.

“Out! Get out!! I’m spent. But call me.

Call me at four thirty latest.

Now get out! No more explaining!

No more, just get out!!”

   
                                 
                             (credit: Wellcome collection, via Wikimedia Commons) 

                   

   

                                Labrador Retriever  (credit: Wikipedia) 

Oyama Morning

The restful sleep of boyish innocence

Awakens, stretches, smiles through dreamy eyes,

Looks over sunlit window ledge and spies

His Labrador, Black Queen, fixed, pointing, tense,

Below the dewy grass and picket fence,

Stock still, as now the air her black nose tries,

Then delicate with stealth, she steps ... Surprise!

A pheasant cock splits dawn light rays' suspense

And arcing, flapping, squalling, climbs the skies,

Squawks window-by, a boyish reach away;

Flinch-startle back, now pause, now hear him bray;

Lean out and see the green-red-golden glide

Fade into drifting dust of breaking day,

The flowing tail and wings in squawking pride,

Through fresh, rose-saffron Canada, immense.

   

     

      Pheasant in flight  (credit: Archibald Thorburn, via Wikimedia Commons) 

   

                                   Vineyard in Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada

                                           (credit: Kelowna09, via Wikimedia Commons)

   

                                                          Child Thai folk dancers 
                                    (credit: Wikimedia Commons)



The heart that yearns to make a thing so pure, 
To carve its curves and dance its moving sense, 
To sing its notes with words that will endure,
In harmonies unbearably intense ...

Is filled with aching, fearing making 
Things
Most surely and most finally empties 
Things. 

The aria is yelled at yawning toads. 
The ballerina stumbles and unloads. 
The staring, glaring portrait fades. 

Believe first in believing.
Only then, 
In one uncharted wing within your soul, 
I will be entering your secret den, 
The room where precious things are safe and whole. 

And look! A red oak harpsichord! Still tuned! 
A Strad, a music stand, a bacarole! 
A rare edition beneath a Renoir nude. 
And all arrayed about a blue-white gem. 
Exquisite, perfect beauty ...ah ...still gleams!

Where could we meet, we two, if we were rich? 
What gallery or trove could equal this? 


                                        
                                           (credit: Pierre-Auguste Renoir)
                                        (Wikimedia Commons)

   

    Elk Bath: wildfire, Bitteroot National Forest, Montana, U.S.  

                     credit: John McColgan, Wikimedia Commons)

  

              wildfire near Yosemite, California, U.S. 

                         (credit: Wikipedia)

                        Eyre Peninsula bush fire, Australia

                 (credit: Mark Modra, Wikimedia Commons) 

  

                                    Pirque Santiago, Chile

                      (credit: Pablo Trincado, Wikimedia Commons)

What kind of a world will our grandchildren get? 

But you, you do not want me making your guests all upset. 

(Every way that I come near my species brings only regret.)

We're burning down, we're burning down the world. 

We're burning, burning, burning down the world. 

Postmodernist thinking is just a disguise for neglect. 

It enervates where comprehension and senses connect.
What did you still care for the last time that you even checked? 

We're burning down, we're burning down the world. 

We're burning, burning, burning down the world. 

You're young. You should get, for a while, to live worry free. 

And then you're an adult and worrying financially. 

I am old and I'm tired. Don't start asking too much of me. 

We're burning down, we're burning down the world. 

We're burning, burning, burning down the world. 

                                    Wildfire, Loon Lake, British Columbia

                      (credit: Shawn Cahill, Wikimedia Commons)

   

                           La Tuna Fire above Los Angeles

                     (credit: Scott L., Wikimedia Commons)

   

                                         Wildfire near Madeira, Portugal 

                                   (credit: anagh, Wikimedia Commons)

                           

                                                  Stefan Jakobielsky (credit: Wikipedia)





Vodka Vobrufka

“This time I’m really done.”

“Done with Victor.”

“Yes.”

“Something happened.”

“Yes.”

“That made you see him …as he is.”

“I used to think his flip attitude was just his way. And most of the time, it was funny. But I saw last night that if it is his so-called ‘way’, I want no more to do with it. Sometimes, it isn’t funny. To anyone. Me. His family. We were all rolling our eyes for real last night.”

“Shauna, I think you need to talk. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

“Hah. Am I lucky! Most girls talk to a girlfriend. I talk to my brother.”

“Five years older, and very wise.”

“Wise, schmise. But you are a good listener. I’ll admit that.”

“So. What happened?”

“We went to the Polish Hall last night. You knew that.”

“His parents are Polish. It’s a given for half the Poles in Edmonton. New Year’s dance at the Polish Hall. They got some tough guys. Happy 1972, by the way.”

“More fighting nonsense. Guys in this town are apes. Who cares ‘who can take who’? It’s such stupidity.”

“But anyway ….”

“Yeah. Anyway. The usual. A bunch of guys drinking beer and vobrufka. Some old ones sitting around the outside of the hall. A bunch of yappy women, talking sixteen to the dozen. Reeking of Coty perfume. Lunch at 12:30. The usual.”

“And wishing someone cute would dance with them.”

“You wishing you were there?”

“Well …maybe, yeah. Linda’s party was so boring. Her mom peeking in and out the whole time. The Polish Hall has some big-chested broads. Kim Novaks.”

“Haha. Yeah. Laura Chernowski was there. Eat your heart out.”

“Now that’s cruel. Now that’s just cruel.”

“Thirty eights and all. In tight mohair.”

“Ooooh. But enough about me. C’mon. What happened?”

“Well, you know Vic’s jahgoo …Grampa …lives in their basement.”

“Vic is still a sort of a friend of Wayne and me. Sure I know.”

“But did you know he was a big general in their army in ’39 to ’45? Regular army and underground. I forget the word in Polish.”

“I think I heard that. Got out when the Russians started cleaning house.”

“That’s it. But he fought the Nazis, then the Russians. Got out with six trusted guys left. It must be some story. And he’s a member of what they call ‘the Polish government-in-exile’. I didn’t know that till last night.”

“Who told you that?”

“We came in the door. Whole family. Even Cathy and she’s just 9.”

“Polish New Year dance. They all gotta go.”

“Anyway, we all go in the door in the usual way. Say ‘hi’ to people. Jahgoo comes in last. An’ a bunch of men let up a yell and come rushing over to him.”

“They weren’t gonna fight with an old guy?! He must be over 70. Nah!!”

“Oh, no. No, not that at all. They were Slavic ecstatic.”

“Slavic what? That’s hilarious. Thought up that word yourself, did you?”

“Well, it fits. I’ve seen it enough times by now. Moaning and weeping.”

“I’ve seen it. What was going on? They like Jahgoo that much?”

“Love, brother. Love. There is no other word for it. He hasn’t been there for a couple years.”

“Well …in honesty …I’m not totally surprised. Have you read any history? You know. Polish struggle in World War 2?”

“Lording your education over me again?”

“You’ll be there in a few months. You can study it for yourself.”

“I’m taking Life Sciences. History bores me cross-eyed.”

“It gets interesting. Trust me. You just have to get past the dates of battles and stuff like that. Start looking for causes. Like Science. Then it gets fascinating.”

“For you. It’s still dry as the Sahara to me.”

“We’re wandering. So what was it Vic did?”

"Oh, he got pissed drunk. And these men were coming up to Jahgoo all night. Talking. Sharing memories, I guess. Praising him to the skies. I know a little Polish. Enough to get that much. This grey old guy. To them, he’s a god.”

“And Vic got mad? Resentful or something?”

“You know him. Yes. Basically.”

“Lemme guess. He started mocking the whole scene.”

“He started coming over to Jahgoo and kissing his hand. The old man didn’t want to criticize his grandson in public. He was trying to pretend it was cute or funny or something. And two of Vic’s drunk buddies came over and did it too. All exaggerating that sarcastic extra bit.”

“Okay and then it got ugly. Dad, I bet. Stan.”

“He dragged Vic outside. Vic’s pretty strong, but his dad is a piano mover.”

“I told you they had some tough guys.”

“Tina and I followed them out. She was crying. Well, her husband and her son.”

“How ugly’d it get?”

“Oh, Stan slapped Vic about six times. Knocked Vic right to the ground. In the snow in the parking lot. Picked him up and tossed him in the air. It was scary.”

“And Vic and his buds. Finally shut up, didn’t they? I wish I’d been there.”

“I just ached for Tina. Vic’s mom. You know. She was hysterical.”

“Only met her twice, but she’s a good egg. Vic and his buddies leave?”

“They looked almost sober. Stan scared them. He isn’t usually like that. And he wasn’t at all loaded. Just mad. Mad like I never seen anyone. Man or woman.”

“Wow. Just wow. That is a story.”

“I’m done. With them all. I like his mom. But Vic isn’t gonna change.”

“I’m not surprised. But embarrassing for you. You okay?”

“I’m fine. Better than I’ve been for months. I saw what I needed to see. And no, I won't change my mind this time. It's done. I gotta go, but …David, thanks.”

“For not saying ‘I told you so.’?”

“Yes.”

“It never entered my head.”

“I’ll swat you.”

“No, oh nooooo. Don’t hit or do bad stuff!”

“Oh, stop it! I gotta go.”

“You’re welcome, little sis. You’re welcome.”  

Outro: Farewell

Thus, the philosophical argument of this book closes.

But I thought I would also add a creative bit of writing at the very end. It isn't expository in style. It is a short dialogue that attempts in a more creative way to capture the whole case that this book has tried to make. A brief one act play, if you like, with almost no physical action, but a great deal of the mental kind.

I hope you enjoy. Farewell.  

__________________________________________________________________

(A scene in a sidewalk café in Vancouver, Canada, where two characters meet and have a Socratic dialogue. University of British Columbia graduate student, Titus Flavius, known to his friends as Flux, is drinking coffee and relaxing in the spring sunshine. His friend, Evo, another grad student, strolls past. Flux recognizes him and calls out.)

Flux: Evo! Evo, you subversive element! Over here!

Evo: (Drawing near.) Well, well. The quarry you see when you don’t have a gun. What mischief are you plotting now? Wait. I’ll get a coffee. (Goes to counter.)

Flux: (Muttering to himself.) Hmm. Just the guy I wanted to see. I think.

Evo: (Approaching with his coffee in hand and sitting.) So, what’s up?

Flux: The truth is … I’ve been getting more and more obsessed in the last few weeks with the whole debate over the existence of God. And moral relativism, and whether we need to believe in God to be good. Whether people in general do, I mean. Not you and me. We’re so good we’re excellent. That’s an axiom. (Laughs awkwardly.)

Evo: (Glancing at a girl going by.) I can resist anything but temptation. Wild Oscar said that. But seriously, folks.

Flux: (Looking glum.) It is serious, actually, this moral thing. These days, I can’t seem to think of anything else. Almost everyone I talk to at UBC despises religion, but none of them have a way of deciding what right and wrong are. It’s all relative, they say. Then I say they’re committing humanity to permanent warfare, probably annihilation, when they say things like that. They shrug and tell me to grow up. We’re doomed, my friend. Humanity is doomed, even if it is a nice day. (Laughs darkly.)

Evo: Are you sure you want to start this conversation? I have a lot to say on the subject, you know. And, after all, I am older and wiser than you are. (Laughs.)

Flux: Ah, be serious. But … yeah, I know you’ve thought about this one. Which makes me ask – if you’re okay with talking about it – you still believe in God?

Evo: I do.

Flux: When we talked about this before, your answers didn’t really work for me. But you’re saying you still believe?

Evo: Yes. (Pauses.) I don’t buy most of the world’s religions, or priests, or holy books. But the answer is, basically, yes.

Flux: Still.

Evo: More than ever. When did we last talk about this stuff? At that party at the lake?

Flux: Yeah. That was it. And you haven’t changed your mind? At all?

Evo: No. (Pauses.) The short answer is “no”.

Flux: What’s the long answer?

Evo: (laughs) How much time do you have?

Flux: It’s Friday afternoon. I got no place I have to be till Monday morning. Come on. Seriously. The whole issue is weighing me down.

Evo: Well, how about you ask questions, and I’ll try to answer them.

Flux: Alright, so be it. So, do you really believe in God, in your most private heart of hearts?

Evo: Yes.

Flux: What was the crucial moment or crucial logical step, or whatever you call it, for you?

Evo: No one moment. No one step. No epiphanies. I came to it gradually for a bunch of reasons, backed by logic and evidence. Later, it did get personal. It’s in my “heart of hearts” as you put it. I call my own kind of religion theism, which isn’t a very original term. But I need to be clear that I think each of us has to work out his or her own way of conceiving of God and relate to that personally in their own good time. I came to believe that moral beliefs can be based on what Science is based on – the facts of empirical reality. That’s moral realism, and it led me gradually to think we have to design a moral code that’s acceptable for all people, and then live by it …and learn to live together. Gotta do that if we’re gonna survive. I got motivated to think hard for a while. I came to two conclusions. First, that moral values do name things that are real, and second, that the core belief in the moral code that will allow us to survive …that core belief is theism. In other words, moral realism logically entails theism.

Flux: All right, wait a minute. Realism? You’re saying values are real like this cup is real? I’m not gambling on whether this cup of coffee is in my hand right now. It’s there. It’s real. I’m certain of it.

Evo: No, actually that statement isn’t a certainty, even if you think you’re certain of it. Human senses can be fooled. That’s what the movie The Matrix is about.

Flux: Hmm. Okay. I take your point.

Evo: Every belief is a gamble, even our belief in Science and the scientific method. The smartest of smart gambles is theism. Believing in God. Not so I can improve my odds of getting into some dimly imagined afterlife, but so I and my kind can survive. Here. On earth. So we can handle what the future’s going to throw at us. Navigate the hazards. Once I proved my version of a universal moral code to my own satisfaction, from there it was a series of small steps to the core belief in God.

Flux: But you must have periods of doubt? Surely.

Evo: I used to. But they’ve almost gone. Mostly because I keep answering the doubts inside my own head. Over and over. I’ve seen the doubters’ best moves. I can whip ’em. (Laughs.)

Flux: So …what then? Your belief, in your head  ̶  your theism, I mean – is constantly fighting for its life?

Evo: Pretty much. All beliefs in all heads have to fight to survive.

Flux: But you don’t worry that one day the theism in your head is going to lose?

Evo: I don’t know for sure that I’ll never lose my faith, but the signs are that it’s pretty durable.

Flux: And yet you love Science?

Evo: Absolutely. Science is God’s way for us. For humans in general, I mean.

Flux: Were you ever an atheist?

Evo: Oh, sure. I look back on it now as a phase I had to go through. Everyone does. Some people don’t ever get to the other side, that’s all. Other side of that atheist phase, I mean.

Flux: You don’t worry that what you see in the real world is …only what you want to see?

Evo: I see Science and the theories of Science, Flux. Testable. Repeatable. They and all the experimental evidence that supports them keep telling me, more and more, that God is there. Here. Real.

Flux: But you did have periods of doubt?

Evo: Oh, yes. For fifteen years. And then I only came around a few years ago to believing I ought to believe in God. That it was a smart gamble. And that everything in life is a gamble in the end. Even the most basic things you trust – not just Science, but even believing your hands are at the ends of your arms because you see and feel them there. Sense data. Things you sense. But for a long time, that smart theistic gamble wasn’t personal. Not personal like you love Marie or your mom and dad. It was only cerebral. I believed in believing in God, but I didn’t believe – like – primally, if you get my meaning.

Flux: Yeah, I get your meaning. So what changed?

Evo: I started meditating. Every day. Half an hour or so. Sometimes, twice a day.

Flux: Did you take a course?

Evo: Yes.

Flux: Which one?

Evo: It doesn’t matter. Check around. Find one that works for you. Then it’ll feel like it’s yours.

Flux: Hmm. Okay. That’s fair. And then what? God just arrived?

Evo: Basically, yes. I realized one day that I was hearing an inner voice. Not a great way of putting it, but close enough. During the time when I was trying to control every detail in my life, I was going nuts. Then I learned to accept handling just the details my conscience – God’s voice in my head – told me were mine to handle, my responsibility. It was like, I became “response-able” – able to respond – and then I got good solutions just as I was coming out of my meditation, or right after. It was a way of thinking about God that made sense to me. Let God – the universe, if you like – talk to me. Then I’d get some quiet, excellent answers. Like a presence was hovering by me, nurturing me. That’s not very dramatic. But it’s how I experience my personal sense of God. Like I love my kids. Or my dad. Personal. First, for large, evidence-backed reasons, and then, second, for internally felt ones.

Flux: (Studying his friend) And it still seems like a rational decision to you?

Evo: More than that, Flux. I think as a species we’re all going to have to come to some form of Moral Realism, then theism, if we’re going to get past the crises that are coming. Getting rid of nukes. Fixing the environment. Moral realism is the only option that has any chance of working. Nobody trusts the so-called sacred texts or the priests anymore. Most don’t trust personal epiphanies either, no matter how intense the event feels. We know it’s too easy to see what you want to see. First, we want models that fit our observations of empirical evidence, over and over. And Moral Realism, for me, is that kind of true. It’s a model of reality that fits the facts of History and life …every day.

Flux: You think Science proves that God exists? I know people who’d laugh out loud at that.

Evo: They don’t see History or Anthropology as science, and they don’t analyze Science itself. If they did, they’d reconsider.

Flux: So tell me. For you, what moral values are grounded in empirical reality?

Evo: Sure. For example, humans have gradually evolved responses to entropy, over billions of people and thousands of generations. The cultures that emerge may vary from era to era and place to place, but every culture seeks a balance of courage and wisdom. Those values are our big-scale responses to entropy, the “uphillness” of life. Courage and wisdom. Other balanced sets of values built around freedom and love are our responses to quantum uncertainty. All four values – courage, wisdom, freedom, and love (checks them off on his fingers) – inform the software of all nations that survive because they shape how people in those tribes behave. In other words, their values connect them to reality. And those basic qualities of adversity and uncertainty, remember, are built into our universe right down to the atoms. They’re all over, all the time. We learned to handle entropy and uncertainty, not as individuals, but as tribes, over centuries, by building our societies more and more on those four values.

Flux: Well, I gotta say you sure have your spiel down. But those are some pretty vague moral principles to build a culture on. A lot of radically different societies could be constructed that all claimed they were brave and wise and so on.

Evo: Which is only to say how free we truly are, Flux. But notice my system is way different than saying that moral values are just arbitrary tastes, like a preference for vanilla shakes over chocolate, or Irish Spring soap over Ivory.

Flux: I think I see where you’re going with this line of thought. Actually, in theory, we could build an ideal society or something pretty close, couldn’t we?

Evo: We’ve been working our way toward that realization for two hundred thousand years.

Flux: These moral values, the way you describe them, must have been worked out over a long time, and also with a lot of pain then …right?

Evo: Pain and death, Flux. Which is why we’re taught to respect our values so much. Our accumulated wisdom keeps telling us not to re-do our past mistakes.

Flux: Here’s a mental leap coming at you. How would the kind of ideal society you envision — brave, wise, free, tolerant — right? – how would it evolve, without war or revolution? How would it resolve an internal argument over some controversial social issue?

Evo: Yay! A smart question. An issue like capital punishment, say?

Flux: Whoa! Quick answer. But, yeah. Not the one I had in mind, but a good example, actually.

Evo: Reasoning and evidence. Gradual consensus-building. Scientific studies. Calm persuasion. The facts say it doesn’t work, you know. Capital punishment, I mean.

Flux: How so? It seems to me that it solves a problem permanently.

Evo: Countries that get rid of it see their murder rates go down, not up. It doesn’t deter potential killers. Just the opposite. It makes them determined to leave no witnesses. To any crime. And then capital trials drag on and on ’cause juries don’t want to make a mistake. In the end, it costs more to execute an accused killer than to lock him up …for good. Long-term studies say so.

Flux: What if he lives a really long time?

Evo: In my system, barring exceptional circumstances, he’d stay locked up. But most of them die in under twenty years. They’re mostly people who live unhealthy lifestyles. Junk food. Drugs. Smoking. Hate exercise but keep getting into fights. They don’t last long, in prison or out. On average, I mean.

Flux: But even if, say for the sake of argument, they only last twenty years in prison, it’s a long time. Guards to pay, meals, medical supplies, entertainment – Christ! Entertainment yet! … it’s gotta add up.

Evo: Not as much as killing him does by, like, nearly three times. The studies say so. On average, killers only live about sixteen years after they go to prison.

Flux: I’ll look it up later. But to get back to our point …you think we can solve all our disputes by debate and compromise?

Evo: Based on reasoning and evidence, the answer is yes. And patience. Just not war. The Soviet Union went from being an unstoppable superpower to gone in my lifetime. With no global war. I’ll never doubt the power of patience again.

Flux: I think I’m beginning to see your point a bit. You see moral …rules …maybe, guidelines is better …as being grounded in facts of physical reality?

Evo: Not in all lands. But they should be. I’ve made that case for myself and some others many times over. Entropy and quantum uncertainty are built into reality. As long as I’m in this universe, life will be hard and scary, so courage, wisdom, freedom, and love will always be virtues. That picture – for me, anyway – is more reliable than my senses. It’s eternal. I’m 99.99 percent sure.

Flux: And that proves for you that God exists?

Evo: That and a couple of other main points. It takes a sort of faith even to believe the universe stays consistent from place to place and era to era. No one can prove the future will go like the past. But we take it as a given that the universe has that kind of consistency. Science wouldn’t make any sense under any other first assumption. Then, I get direction from cutting-edge Science – namely Quantum Physics. All the particles in the universe are what physicists call entangled, you know. Which means the universe has a kind of awareness.

Flux: What, like I’m aware?

Evo: As far beyond your and my awareness as the universe is beyond us in size. Yeah, that’s a hell of a statement. I know full well what I’m saying. But look at the evidence. Let me say it all at once, as plainly as I can. The first step to theism is believing in the consistency of the universe. The second is believing the universe is aware. The third is Moral Realism, which means believing that courage, wisdom, freedom, and brotherly love steer us into paths through matter, space, and time. These three beliefs – in the consistency of the universe, in its aware nature, and in universal moral truth, when they’re added together, tell me this universe is a single, aware, caring thing. “God,” if you like that term. If not, that’s okay. Call it by whatever name works for you.

Flux: Cold sort of caring, don’t you think? There are a lot of cruel things in life.

Evo: No, it just looks that way to us sometimes. But it’s unreasonable and unfair for me to ask God to pardon me from getting cancer or meningitis or whatever …if the dice roll that way. God loves it all, all the time. God loves the avalanche that buries the careless skier who skis out of bounds. God loves malignant cells and meningococcal bacteria just as much as God loves me. We may learn how to change the odds, to cure meningitis or prevent cancer, but in a universe that is balanced and free, those scientific advances are up to us. Our brains evolved to solve puzzles exactly like those ones.

Flux: You know there are people who get the consistency-of-the-laws-of-science idea, even the quantum-entanglement-awareness one, but leave you right at that moral realism step.

Evo: Oh, I know. They keep trying to find another way to find moral principles in the natural world. A lot of people don’t want God. They wanna be in charge. Nietzsche said God couldn’t exist, because if he did, Nietzsche could never believe he himself wasn’t God. Something like that. What a child! (Laughs)

Flux: Other species like chimps and squirrels find altruism on their own, you know. Sometimes, one of them will do something for the good of the community and even get killed because of it. Trying to save others. From a weasel, say.

Evo: The next thing to ask is: What kind of a universe rewards those animals’ finding and practicing altruism? People finding altruism in nature and saying that means they don’t need to believe in God in order to be decent …that dodge is no dodge at all. It only delays answering the question. Why is being altruistic – what they call “good” – a desirable way to be? So the tribe survives? If that’s the case, we have to ask again: what does that tell us about life in this reality? 

Flux: All right, I see why you say that. Hmm. You aim to find moral values that would be moral even to aliens from other worlds, don’t you? Do you dislike people who keep, as you say, “dodging” the moral realism question?

Evo: Not at all. As long as I can see that they’re trying to live lives of courage, wisdom, freedom, and love, I love them. They may get old and die and never say that they believe in anything like God, but I don’t care. I still love them. Hey, if they try hard to live decent lives, for me that’s enough. But believe in God? By the evidence that shows on the outside of them – which, by the way, is all Science cares about – they actually do. Do believe, I mean. They just choose a lonely existence inside. Which is their choice, of course. But I still love them.

Flux: They’d tell you that viewpoint is pretty condescending.

Evo: They have, many times. It’s still okay. We can live together in peace. And evolve and survive. That’s all that really matters. (Pauses) But we must choose to live. Surviving is not a given. So, we need a system of ethics in order to decide even simple things, minute by minute, day in and day out, about every object and event we meet up with. Good or bad? Important or trivial? Take action or not? What are my action choices? Which one looks like the best gamble in this situation? An efficient moral code will be one that’s laid out so our decisions are quick, accurate, and effective. Consistent with the facts of reality, short and long term. A central organizing concept – a belief in God – is just efficient. At least to start with. It’s only after a lot of change inside yourself that it becomes personal. But first of all it’s just efficient. It enables timely action. It gets results.

Flux: Your picture isn’t very comforting, you know, Evo. The mental space it offers to live in is pretty bare.

Evo: I know. I’d be a liar if I offered you easy grace. You first have to choose to live free – responsible for your own life. Then so many other challenges come. But they’d come anyway. It’s just that if you choose to live unfree, to bow your head and take the beatings fate dishes out, without trying to figure things out or act to improve your odds of happiness, your life’ll be even worse. You have to choose to choose, and even then life is going to be rough. God’s a hard case. But I’m okay with seeing God as a pretty hard case. To make something out of nothing, he has to be. It takes a balance of forces to make something out of nothing. And in that picture, God made us free, Flux. Whether we choose to rise to the challenge, to live bravely and creatively, is up to us. Out of the labor and struggle, we make ourselves – and then our society – what we call “good”. If we’re really good, we teach our kids to do the same. Hopefully, even better.

Flux: You don’t believe in miracles, do you?

Evo: “Only in a way” would be my answer there. I think events that look miraculous happen. Things that look like exceptions to the laws of Science. But they turn out to have scientific explanations. For me, everything I see all the time is the miracle. What’s it doing here? Why isn’t there just nothing? And then the living things in the world are more miraculous, and then …my baby’s smile …you know what they say. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Flux: Is there a church you could belong to? Are you pulled to any of them?

Evo: Unitarians, maybe? Nah, that’s another question that you need to answer for yourself.

Flux: Any you hate?

Evo: Honestly? Nearly all of them. Priests make up mumbo-jumbo to take away people’s ability to think for themselves. It’s easy with most people ‘cause they don’t wanna think. They want security. But there’s no such thing. Not in this lifetime. That one I’m sure of. Maybe they don’t consciously make up the b.s., but they do make it up. Priests do, I mean. Religion gets them a slack lifestyle so they gravitate toward making up ways to protect that. Over generations, the lies just keep getting worse. No, I’m not big on organized religion.

Flux: Would you call yourself a dreamer? A starry-eyed optimist?

Evo: I seem that way to some people. My view of myself is that I look at the long haul. I’m most interested in that. Then, what energy I have left over I give to the confusing ups and downs of everyday life. You could call me a dreamer. But cynics are cowards to me. It’s the dreamers who have courage. And once in a while they turn out to be right, you know. (Laughs.)

Flux: I better let you go, Evo. I’ve kept you long enough. I was just feeling …down …you know.

Evo: You’re not keeping me from anything that matters as much as this talk does, bro.

Flux: Alright. I’ll take that as being sincere. Actually, knowing you as long as I have, I know it is. Thank you. I’m feeling …I don’t know …hopeful, somehow, right now. (Pauses.) Actually …I think I get it.

Evo: Welcome home, Flavius, my friend. Welcome home.

 

                                                      Korso, Krosko, Sandon

                               (credit: Arild Vagen via Wikimedia Commons) 

Here the Great River Now empties into the sea;

Here the babbles and roars of Duality cease;

Every echoing gorge, every swirling façade

Is dissolved in the infinite ocean of God.