Stephen Hawking 



I am now ready to return to the project of building a moral code for all of humanity, one that moves past the moral relativism that has paralyzed our efforts in moral philosophy in the West for so long. 

A first major principle that I think all humans are eventually going to have to learn, absorb, and come to put into practice unconsciously is the one that tells us all humans are equally valuable and worthy of respect. Every human being has rights that are on a par with those of every other human being. 


  
                                                          American courtroom (Colorado) 


What this abstract principle will mean in practice is that, because people are individuals with varied talents and tastes, we are going to have to accept in our day-to-day activities, people who look, act, talk, dress, and so on in ways that are different from what we're used to. At least for a generation or so. Then all citizens will gradually come, not to one set of mores and customs and ways of talking, but rather to a way of thinking that is used to a whole constellation of looks, behaviors, speech patterns, modes of dress, and so on. So much so that no one notices superficial things anymore. 

Out of pluralism will come variety. Variety will prove valuable to our society over the long haul because it will give us the resilience to react effectively to the uncertainties that are built not so much into human societies, but into the fabric of reality itself. Life is full of rude awakenings, not because some people in society put them there but because the universe itself does. A community has better chances of handling the rude awakenings if it contains a lot of different kinds of people. 

History shows that many of a society's best contributions come from "different" people. Einstein was a Jew, a small minority in Germany at the time, who ate, dressed, worshiped, and partied in ways different than the rest of the German population. Alan Turing was a homosexual, as was Tchaikovsky. Stephen Hawking has ALS. Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant. Joe Louis was black, as were George Washington Carver, Ralph Bunche, James Baldwin, Marion Anderson, Jack Johnson, and so on. Beethoven was a grumpy loner for much of his life. Wagner was so self-centered that, nowadays, reading about how he really acted is uncomfortable and embarrassing. Kant was a sickly old man long before he was old. Marx was a poverty-stricken German Jew living and writing in London for much of his life. 

                        
                                      Jack Johnson, world heavyweight boxing champion, 1908 - 1915



By this time, I hope I'm boring you. I should be. The point is that these traits attached to these people's identities just don't matter. All that matters to human history is that they did things that made a difference and moved society forward. 

So I'll close by reiterating one of my main points one more time. If you are the kind of person who is made uncomfortable by ambiguity and variety, you had better start working now on getting over it. Learn to love your neighbor, not in spite of his or her quirky ways or looks or manners of speech, but because of those very idiosyncracies. One day one of those very quirky ways could save you and everyone you hold dear. 



  
                                                                      James Baldwin 

Have a nice, lovingly tolerant day. 

  
                                                            Tokyo after firebombing (June 1945)



As I was re-reading my post from yesterday, I decided that this is a good place in which to insert another piece of my basic view toward the main super-power in the world today, and to analyze its ethical status at this point in world history. In other words, talking about Lincoln yesterday has made me think once again about what the US has brought the world to in our times.

America has made huge inroads into the cultures of nearly all other nations in the world today. Kids all over want iPads and iPods or their equivalents from some other company than Apple. Many of these same kids want Nike running shoes and baseball caps lettered "Chicago Bulls" or "New York Yankees" or "Manchester City", for that matter. People can eat Big Macs in most major cities in the world. They can do so because there are McDonald's outlets all over, lots of them in Walmart stores.

Americans burn the biggest share of the gas that is burned in the world, and up until quite recently, they bought most of the oil that was used to make that gas from other states. Big American-based oil companies ran the exploration and extraction industries in most parts of the world. Then the oil, most often, was sent back to the US for refining. In many of these Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African nations, the wealth left in the countries for the oil went almost entirely to a small, rich elite at the top of the social order in the country, who promptly used it to buy cars, airplanes, clothes, shoes, and toys for their own use, investing little to nothing in the education of their own people or the building of their nation's infrastructure.

All of this detailing of the various influences of America on the developing nations of the world can start to sound irritatingly familiar. The media are full accounts that have this same tune to them.

But if we are going to tell this story, let's tell all of the story.

The American people have a culture, and it has its ways and mores the same as any other culture. The American people, in general, are not responsible for the behavior of a few of their corporations, which sometimes has been pretty unethical. Ordinary Americans didn't vote for such policies; they're just trying to live and get by as best they can, like people everywhere.

But there is still more to the story. The vast majority of these American corporations, both modern and past, did not take over resource development industries or move their factories into these countries at gunpoint. They came in when they were invited to do so by the country's ruling elites. Furthermore, they negotiated hard, as businesses do, but they paid what they had agreed to pay, and they took what the contracts said they were allowed to take. And if they paid a lot of bribes to a lot of bent officials, that was what was being done generally in these countries, including by the people who lived there. You couldn't get anything done otherwise. If they supported regimes that were pretty oppressive, the truth is that the heads of these regimes were often the only local leaders who could bring order out of the tribal strife that had been going on there for generations. If their influence eroded local culture, as American workers made local people familiar with American goods and entertainment and so on, the whole story is that local people were not forced to watch American t.v. or listen to American music. They chose to do so because the programs made them laugh, and the songs had catchy tunes.

And let's not pause here.

  
                                                                the Reichstag in ruins, Berlin, 1945



After World War II, American gross domestic product accounted for over half of global gross production. The situation stayed that way for more than two decades. This occurred because in the background situation, unlike China, Japan, or many of the states of Europe, America had not been bombed or shelled or overrun and ransacked. In fact, American industries had been re-tooled extensively during the war, new technologies had been invented and implemented, and huge labor forces trained. War is good for business -- for the victors.

But the Americans brought in the Marshall Plan pretty promptly after WWII and similar plans for war-ravaged Japan and other Asian nations. American money, know-how, and guidance -- which is what it was, however politically incorrect and offensive some people may find the term -- re-built the free world.

People all over, by the millions, put themselves back into prosperity by hard work and American aid. Once they had done so, the Americans unobtrusively handed their countries back over to home rule in every case.

  
                                                                  re-built Tokyo, 1955



In return, the Americans got ...what? Most of the billions that went out to aid the war-ravaged lands were never repaid. Even worse, many of the nations that took aid with both hands found it intellectually fashionable for long stretches to resent and criticize everything about the US.

Thankfully, such has not been the case, for the most part, in Germany or Japan. The big majority in these countries are willing to tell you, privately, that they owe their countries' economic miracles to the Americans.

My point? My point is pretty simple. Lincoln's way of forgiveness, letting go of the past, and getting on with re-building ...works. It's not just "niceness"; it's smart business.

There are companies that exploit and pollute and local officials who line their pockets. But sooner or later, they get busted. Witness the Arab Spring, the new Paris Agreement, and so on. The evidence, by and large, shows that the crimes and excesses can be handled. The system works. And over the long haul, one of its deepest principles is the one Lincoln stood for. Forgiveness. Let the past go.

This way should be a way of life for all of us. Yes, sometimes wrong had to be stopped. Sometimes suffering had to come, and atrocities were committed on every side.

But we can see, after this much human history, that generosity and forgiveness right up to the level of international affairs, can work. Better than any of the alternatives. So well, I hope, that maybe, just maybe, if we can implement this lesson, we may soon be able to get rid of war entirely.

There are still a few really old Germans and Japanese who swell with pride - and rightly so - when they speak of their countries' economic miracles. Let us never forget that these would never have occurred were it not for the quiet generosity of America.  


 
                                                            re-built Reichstag, completed 1964

        
                                                           Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 


This may seem like an odd post to some readers who have been following this blog for some time and who know my philosophy. I am going to get back to my project of soliciting input and trying to build a widely based consensus on a new moral code for all of humanity in a day or so, but I have to digress today because an item in the news has really upset me. 

In the last day or so, Abu-Bakr al Baghdadi has gone online and pleaded with Muslims everywhere, and especially those in Saudi Arabia, to come to the aid of the new caliphate, the ISIS state in the parts of Syria and Iraq that his forces are now controlling. That area is shrinking by the day, and the forces lined up against it are far beyond the capacity of his fighters to handle. The destruction of ISIS is pretty much a foregone conclusion, in other words, unless Allah intervenes personally, and I don't think Allah will do so for a state that has allowed so many cruel excesses. 

Russia, China, India, the states of Europe, the U.S. ...almost any powerful, potentially useful ally that we can name is guaranteed to align against ISIS. All of these have militant Muslim minorities of their own that are causing them trouble, Chechens in Russia, Uighurs in China, and so on. In the last few months, the coalition lined up against ISIS has even begun to cut off the one real stream of revenue that ISIS had, namely the black market oil being trucked out to various shady buyers all over the world. I'm sure that the remaining ISIS fighters will go down with great courage, but in the end, which isn't far away now, they almost certainly will lose. 

If you've been following this page, you will know that I bitterly oppose the whole idea of a world caliphate under Sharia law. I hate even the concepts that such a state, hypothetically, would be founded on. The subjugation of women, the execution of apostates, and so on. 

So why am I upset to see that al-Baghdadi and his naive young fighters are on the ropes and ready to be taken out? Because in the last twenty four hours, many "tweeters", as they call themselves, have reveled in mocking and ridiculing him. 

If we really want a better world someday, and we want to start working on it in our daily words and actions now, that baiting is the exact kind of thing that we should not do. Such worldwide baiting of a bunch of idealistic young people, who really believe they are doing the right thing, is completely counterproductive in the long haul. Young people -- young men especially -- all over the world will be reading this gloating and silently vowing that one day they will get even. This instinct for vengeance drives us to actions that only make everything worse, but it is a very old instinct. "It's us against them. Alright, they got this match, but we'll be back, better than before. Just you wait. All of you!!" 

Did ISIS have to be defeated? Yes. Do we have a right to gloat? Absolutely not.

We could all take a lesson from Abraham Lincoln at this point. 150 years ago, near the end of the bloodiest, most destructive war that the US has ever seen (the US Civil War is still larger, in total numbers of dead, wounded, missing, and displaced Americans than all of the other wars the US has been in added together), Lincoln made his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. In it, he basically offered the Southerners who had turned against the Union terms which he was pretty sure they could accept. He did not seek to crush and humiliate them, even though the temptation to do so must have been strong. He knew that large numbers of them were enraged and humiliated and hated him personally with a vehemence that verged on maniacal. 

But he kept his head and did the rational and compassionate thing. He showed all parties on all sides, North and South, that they could put the madness behind them, forgive the mistakes of the past, and get on with building their country. And for the most part, it worked. The US emerged stronger from the ordeal. Even though real civil rights for African-Americans were only half won at that point, the way to realizing them was made clear: reasoning and evidence. Patience and persistence. And faith that decency and sense will win out in the end. 

What we ought to be saying to the young people now serving ISIS, and to those all over the world who support them in their hearts, again and again, calmly and rationally, is something like this: 

"We do not think you are evil; you are simply wrong. The world is moving toward democratic social, ethnic, and religious pluralism -- a lot of different people living together, getting along, and agreeing sometimes to disagree and let a matter alone, if it is at all possible to do so and still keep a civil society going. The dream of a world caliphate under Sharia law - a uniform, obedient population - if it ever were realized, would be a large step backward for humanity, one that would eventually, inevitably have to be reversed. We are coming into a world democracy because we have to. History, if you look at all of it, will tell you that. 

"But I feel that it is important for me to say again that, in spite of all of the atrocities on every side, I don't think you're a monster. I think you have made a mistake. That is all. A mistake. And which of us would dare to say that he or she has never made a mistake? Come home, forgive, and, even if it takes years, let yourselves be forgiven." 


  
                     CBS reporter Holly Williams interviewing captured ISIS fighters 

         



I thought I'd open up a bit on matters of morality today, give a more personal perspective. 

In the end, how are we to judge what other people really believe? For example, they may be agnostic deep inside, but lie about what they believe because it is simply easier, socially, to do so. Thus, even what they say sometimes can't be trusted as an indicator of what is going on inside of them. 

What they do, on the other hand, is real and, in most cases, irreversible. My actions reveal who I am, which can be a surprise even to me. I can apologize for mistakes I've made, but I can't take them back. They're in the past, and to reiterate the obvious, the past is set in concrete. It is what it is. It can't be undone. Long established patterns in words and deeds are the more reliable indicators of who we are, and even these evolve for every one of us over time. 

Let me offer a personal example of how actions reveal beliefs. 


                




For about six months after my first marriage broke up, I used to see cunning and manipulation in the faces of the pretty girls on the magazine covers in the drugstores and super-markets. An arch look. They were all, for me then, aiming to entice and control men. Hamlet has a similar period of anger and disillusionment in the play that bears his name. He does come out of it in the end, though sadly for him, only after Ophelia, the most innocent party in the play, is dead and gone. But he does come back to himself, I think, as I did after about six months of anger. My point is that I know that in those times, I said some mean things to women who had never done me a particle of harm. I could not hold the meanness in.    

As an aside, if you are a male who has periods of misogyny, let me point out the obvious for you: all of those women with the artful make-up and hairstyles, and the clothes that show various levels of cleavage, are mostly unaware of whatever effects such enticements may have on men because men show no reaction most of the time anyway. What those women are doing is imitating a look that they saw on a t.v. show or in a fashion magazine or even on some other confident women that they look up to. There is no diabolical plan, no maneuvering for control. The truth is that, just like most men, they aren't that organized. They are just trying to get by and preserve their own self-esteem. As Thoreau said, the mass of human beings truly lead lives of quiet desperation. We're mostly sad and scared and barely holding on. 



                            



What is really driving daily actions for all of us, men and women, is the cultural code of whatever nation we have grown up in. That code is written, never forget, to serve and preserve itself. If that means that it destroys the spirits of many of its citizens, both men and women, to the system, such little tragedies are irrelevant. The culture has been written by evolution to drive people to work, reproduce, and then raise their young to do the same. The rest is ornament, and much of the time, for both men and women, it doesn't work anyway.  



                


Where is this train of thought leading? 

My obsession, in spite of all of this, is to get ordinary people to see that our cultures are programmable. This means that we still can re-make our world from the inside. We only need to agree to look at what makes a "way of life", a culture, and then, together, begin to sift out the most logical, basic "ways" (that is, mores and customs) from many cultures and write those into a code of values and behavior that we will teach to all of the kids coming up. This task will be hard, but far from impossible. My suspicion is that it will be roughly as hard for each adult in the masses of human beings as learning to drive is for those who have never driven a car. In the meantime, for the children, if we do the work conscientiously, a universal moral code to guide all human behavior will soon come to seem natural, the way things are "supposed to be".

We will have to do the work together because freedom and love are prime values; they are parts of the foundation on which we must begin to build, the values that empower us over the long haul of millions of people and thousands of years to handle uncertainty, a basic trait of the universe. But it can be done. If we embark on this project and accomplish it, the hard work will almost certainly fall to elected representatives. Direct participation by seven and a half billion people would be impractical, though computers and "big data" have made all of us having some meaningful input doable. 

The theory is there; we only need to put it into practice.  

And why would we make the effort? Because the alternative, the one that history tells us has kept coming around again every generation or so for thousands of years, this time might very well be the end of us all. We would make this stupendous effort because it is rational, what reasoning and evidence tell us must be done and will not occur unless we make it so.

In the shadow of the mushroom cloud, have a nice day anyway. 

   
                        Christians protecting Muslims at prayer during an Egyptian protest (2011) 



We live, as Charles Dickens said in "A Tale of Two Cities", in the best of times and the worst of times. We have everything before us and nothing before us. Those lines irritated me so much when I was a teenager first reading his book. I didn't understand what he was trying to say at all, and I felt bitterly disappointed in this supposedly "great" novel. I hated his waffling and equivocating about the times of the French Revolution and, by his clear implication, about my own times, the Sixties. Either we were in good times for great and noble actions or we were in bad times and nothing of lasting worth was being accomplished. He ought to make up his bloody mind. 

I'm older now. I think I understand better what he was trying to say. In any "times", you start out assessing the problems and you work out balanced and thoughtful solutions in consultation with your colleagues. You then make plans to realize those solutions, and you begin to actively implement them in the real world. But ... ah, yes, but. When you're up to your ass in alligators, it can be difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp. 

In other words, when we get into the middle of the confusing details of real, daily life, we have difficulty staying focused on our long term goal to solve, let's say, some major social problem that has been plaguing us and our community for, perhaps, decades. The forces resisting most real changes are deep and insidious. How they will manifest themselves in our own communities and workplaces can seem very confusing and overwhelming in the daily ups and downs of life. 

At times like those, we need to keep believing in the justice of our causes and long term goals. This is important to see because what I am saying is that belief in the long term rightness of our creating a society that contains wisdom, freedom,and justice for all requires a deep belief that will not be shaken by the ups and downs of temporary crises. 

The more determined atheists don't like the word that I am leading up to now, but it is the right word, and therefore it should be stated explicitly. What we need in order to make a better world in which we all really will survive and live together in peace is faith. Yes, faith. Even among the hardest of hard core atheists. 

Continuing to actively oppose the exploitation of women, the degradation of the natural world, and the spread of nuclear weapons, just to list three examples ...these causes are right. Even when you are facing an angry company of soldiers outside a girls' school in the developing world or a missile factory in the West or a coal burning power plant in India. If you stay and confront Power with the truth, force them to face it, you must have some kind of belief that is resting in deeper truths that are not at that moment visible. You believe in the justice of your actions even when you can't see how they can ever bring about any real change. Your actions at that moment would have to be viewed as irrational if you did not have some such belief guiding them. 

Faith in one of its simplest definitions is simply a belief in things not seen. And it is what, through humans, over time, makes abstract principles real. Pluralism really can survive and grow, even in a world stuffed with fundamentalists of every stripe who can't seem to get to hitting one another fast enough. We are emerging -- slowly, uncertainly, but with a gradually growing confidence -- into a new era in history, folks. Pray that it will come in time.  


 
            Muslims join hands to protect Christians in St. Anthony's church  (Pakistan (2013) 

  
  copy of "The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem Under the Command of Titus" (D. Roberts) 


Good day, readers. A public apology is in order. It turns out that I was mistaken about who had sent me the link in my last post. I exchange emails with 3 David's and it turned out I had the wrong one. But the right David sent me a thoughtful response to my critique of the "Christmas is Bullshit" song, and I have posted the most important part below. 





From my friend, David, (not my cousin, David): 



I did take notice of a couple of things you said and would like to briefly comment. In your reply to "sooutthere", you say, in reference to Jesus (whom we know absolutely nothing about outside of the 4 gospels):
 
"And he did see clearly down the corridors of the centuries that if the weapons kept improving and the belligerent nature of some people stayed just as belligerent as it was in Roman times, the story could have only one ending. Human annihilation. "
 
That is sheer speculation on your part, Dwight, as there is no indication in the gospels, or anywhere else, that Jesus held those sentiments.  On the contrary, there is a huge amount of data that demonstrates that Jesus expected the Kingdom of God to appear on Earth within the lifetime of his disciples.  The end was at hand, and that belief was supported by all the writers of the New Testament (again, the only record that exists on Jesus' life.)




I sent a reply back to the right David this morning. It said the following: 

I value your insights so I wonder if you could give me your thoughts on the ideas below. 

I am inclined to believe you when you say that Jesus was likely not thinking two thousand years ahead. He was probably expecting an apocalypse and then a new heaven and a new earth within a generation of his time. But then again, we really don't know. We know little about him. He may have been looking ahead in the way I described.

However, what fascinates me and what I see as an important insight is his belief that people learning to love each other was vital to our being what he called "righteous". That was crucial. If we didn't have that, we could not, in his view, find our way into heaven.

But then ...his view gained more and more followers because, over the long haul, it worked. It caused societies that even roughly tried to live closer to his way to multiply and spread. What I'm saying is that his way was what made Western-style societies, with their giant market places and industries, possible. Commerce can't grow up to what economists call "scale" - where unit prices for goods come down and nearly all workers can afford a decent life - until the mass of people, including workers and managers and owners -deal honestly with each other. Graft and corruption just eat up all of the spare capital otherwise, and creative ventures never get tried. This is the minimum level of Jesus' way. If you love people, you don't cheat them or lie to them or rob them or bully them. 

It isn't politically correct to say so, but the evidence for this view can be seen around us today. Countries where graft and corruption at every level are just basic to daily life don't grow economies that really work. They tag along after the West, cursing us all the way, and their big industries get taken over by transnational corporations that run in Western ways. And some corporations will cheat too if they can, I know, but people in the West who analyze and police commerce bust them all the time and the honest, gradually, over decades, win out. (Volkswagen is losing millions of Euros a day right now.) Commerce depends on rule of law and rule of law depends on mutual respect and trust. Fear of getting caught and punished is not nearly enough. If, in a given society, most people most of the time will cheat if they can, then that society can't keep enough policemen to even begin to get an efficient economy of scale going.  

If I'm right about all of the above, that means that Jesus' way is still around because over the course of two thousand years, nations that lived by his way, at least roughly ...those nations rose to power. In short, decency and sense aren't just nice; they are the strongest way for humanity over the long haul. They work. The most effective ideas inform some ways of life and those ways of life keep getting stronger because they enable the people who follow them to multiply and spread.

The larger insight, for me anyway, is that all abstract principles have concrete consequences. The consequences just sometimes take a while to arrive. A lot more than one or two lifetimes. This would also mean that my saying Jesus' ideas about how society could and should run do apply to the arms race and to international politics. In a way, he did see down the corridors of history, in the sense that he saw how humanity would have to think in the future if it was to survive at all. He probably believed that some kind of divine intervention would take place before the new earth was realized. I think the intervention will come, but only inside of human hearts. But it will come. That I believe. The only real question is whether or not we will have to have a WWIII and the extinction of 95% or our species before we smarten up. 

For my grandchildren's sake, I hope not. Desperately. 

  
                                       ICBM's in military parade - People's Republic of China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bYrkUDR9jQ

A different post today. One of my cousins sent me the link above. It contains a bitter condemnation of all that is Christmas. I wrote to my cousin, the following: 

There is not one line or one point made by this "sooutthere" person that hasn't been made by thousands and for centuries. I think you know that. And they can all be answered. For example, the number of starving in the world is up because the population of humans on the earth is up. The percent of the whole human population that are starving is actually declining and has been doing so for decades. About the time you were born (1961), we were being told on a regular basis that two thirds of the world's two billion people were going to bed hungry every night.

I'd have to go through too many steps to answer this sooutthere clown, but if you like you could post the lyric to "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". It's corny by today's standards, but it hit me very hard as a teenager when I was feeling very cynical one Christmas. The lyric was written by Longfellow shortly after his oldest son was killed in the US Civil War.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

We hang in there in whatever way works for us, Dave, because we have to. And there is much reason for hope. The agreement that was just signed in Paris may be too little too late for the earth, but it may not, and it is better than doing nothing; if it is respected by all the signatories, it may yet save us. Even so many nations with opposing interests signing it is little short of amazing. Five years ago, many experts were saying such an agreement would never be reached.

Finally, I have to say to sooutthere, in the hard terms that adults sometimes have to use, "No, you're the one who's full of bullshit. If you really thought there was that little reason to hope, you would have killed yourself long ago. The fact that you are online and we are having this argument - that you're still here, in other words - belies your whole case. It's juvenile whining. Get with the program. Go hard or go home." But getting on to Youtube comments so that I can reply, when the answer is so obvious, is more hassle than it's worth.

In the meantime, you have a happy Christmas. The guy that the holiday is about ...no, I don't think he was divine. He was a guy. A talented one, but a mortal one, nevertheless, whose shit stank the same as mine does. But he was born into the greatest military empire that had ever existed up to that time. And he did see clearly down the corridors of the centuries that if the weapons kept improving and the belligerent nature of some people stayed just as belligerent as it was in Roman times, the story could have only one ending. Human annihilation.

However, the story does not have to end that way. He put into our species' total mix of ideas, philosophies, or memes, whichever word you like, the idea that people could learn to love one another; we could all be one big family that basically got along. Not perfectly, but functionally, which is all that really matters. For that alone, I celebrate this day. He turned history. One day there will be a science that proves that.

                                                              love,

                                                                      Dwight 

                  
                         Eleanor Roosevelt holding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 



To all my readers then, I want to now propose a project in which every interested individual can share. The composing of a global moral code that is based on courage, wisdom, freedom, and love will have to be done democratically in order to stay consistent with its founding principles of love and wisdom.

Send me comments. I will publish everything that is rationally argued, even if it ridicules my whole argument. I have what is idiomatically called a "thick skin". Or if you don't like leaving a comment in my comments sections then send me an email. Compose the comment you want to be shown on my blog on your word processing program first and then copy it and send it as an attachment to an email. In the email itself, you can send me thoughts that you may not want to be shown to the public, and I give you my word that I will keep those thoughts confidential. My email address for this blog is <drwendell49@gmail.com> . 

I think it is reasonable to begin trying to draw up a global moral code with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was first drafted by a Canadian law scholar named John Humphrey. It was then modified and extended by a committee chaired by the former US First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. The committee included members from 18 different UN member states, among them Rene Cassin from France, Charles Malik from Lebanon, P.C. Chang from China, and Hansa Mehta from India. 

The UDHR was adopted by a vote in the UN General Assembly in 1948. Abstentions included the USSR, Saudi Arabia, and (apartheid) South Africa, which is an interesting group to say the least. I have long said "interesting" is an interesting word. 

But to propose a topic for the next few days, I ask that you mentally chew on the position taken by the Saudis at that time. They claimed the the UDHR was not acceptable because it violated Sharia Law. The American Anthropological Association at the same time objected to the document on the grounds that it did not recognize cultural relativism in general and that it, more specifically, did not recognize that: "1. The individual realizes his personality through his culture, hence respect for individual differences entails a respect for cultural differences, 2. Respect for differences between cultures is validated by the scientific fact that no technique of qualitatively evaluating cultures has been discovered., and 3. Standards and values are relative to the culture from which they derive so that any attempt to formulate postulates that grow out of the beliefs or moral codes of one culture must to that extent detract from the applicability of any Declaration of Human Rights to mankind as a whole." (from the Wikipedia entry on the UNDR). 
  
If you have been following the argument in my blog, you will be aware that I disagree strongly with the AAA on especially their second point. We can see evidence that beliefs and values lead to patterns of behavior among whole populations and that some of those patterns of behavior are more likely to favor the continued survival of the nation and of our species on into the future. 

There are many good things in Islam, the most salient being its emphasis on the oneness of God ("God has no partners.") which, I believe, is pushing us all in the direction of our having not so much one conception of the sacred for us all, but far more importantly one system of values and one system of laws for us all. But I cannot accept that this means I must be a Muslim to be a good person. And I also cannot accept that Sharia is the final word on how humans should live together. I wish for myself and therefore I wish to extend to all others, the right to decide matters of religion for myself. In fact, as long as they are not trying to force me to think as they think, speak as they speak, and worship as they worship, I am comfortable with them believing and worshiping in whatever way works for them. I would also add the proviso that a nation has the right to say that all of its children must be educated up to at least a basic level at which they can function as citizens of a democracy and that children must attend a public, secular school or an alternative one which gives children the main skills of literacy and which is open to inspection by government inspectors on a regular basis.

In short, girls must get to go to school, to college, if they show the ability and inclination, and on into jobs with access as unfettered as that granted to boys. 







Most fundamentally of all, people who once professed to be Muslims, and who subsequently decided that they wanted to leave that religion, are not guilty of some capital crime and are not to be hunted down and killed. Salman Rushdie can show all of the Muslims, all of the Christians, all of the Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. his bare bottom and invite them to kiss it if he wants to. As long as he is offering his novels and his opinions in an open market of ideas and forcing them on no one, he has that right.






The point is that moral realism tells us that stifling dissent and segregating our girls are simply counter-productive policies in the long haul. Whatever gains a nation might enjoy in the way of greater social cohesion are more than outweighed by the simple fact that such a society is losing talent. Over the long haul, nations that circumscribe the rights of women and girls are making a bad move. If they closet away half their human resources right from birth, and then further stifle some of their most creative minds - which artists usually are - then in the competition that goes on between nations endlessly in history, they are going to lose. Simple reason says this is a struggle in which repressive states go into the fight with one hand tied behind their backs. The policy of executing apostates is weakening Islam, not strengthening it. 

For me anyway, it's that simple. It's a matter of survival. Do they want to live with at least some of their beliefs and practices intact or do they choose to die out entirely? Most Muslims, even devout ones, I believe, know this. They see that some of the Islamic beliefs and mores of the past are due for a complete overhaul, and they are embarking on that project. Every religion that has made it into today's world is going to have to do similar things if it wants to survive.  

But someone needs to say it out loud: Sharia is obsolete. Major parts of it are going to have to be re-written if it is to survive at all.    

What do you think? 

What is this ineffable thing we are trying to grasp? Does God have a consciousness vaguely like ours? The evidence of modern science suggests such a consciousness would have to be as much beyond our kind of consciousness as the universe is beyond us in size. Infinite. Trying to grasp this concept—more now, in the Age of Science than in any previous era—strikes us numb.

The belief is no longer trivial in more personal ways as well. If I truly believe in the axiom on which my model of science rests—that is, the constancy of natural laws—and also in the relevant models of reality that science has led me to—that is, the “aware” nature of the universe and the values-driven, cultural model of human evolution—then to maintain my claim to being rational, in my own eyes, I must live my life in a moral way. 

I must choose to act in a way that views my own actions as rational, not as the mere wanderings of a deluded, self-aware, absurd animal. That absurd world view, truly believed and lived, would inevitably lead to madness or suicide.

And the theistic view, when it is widely accepted in society, has large implications for the activity called science. A general adherence in society to the theistic way of thinking is what makes sub-communities of scientists doing science possible. Consciously and individually, every scientist should value wisdom and freedom, for reasons that are uplifting, but even more because they are logical. Scientists know that figuring out how the events in reality work is personally gratifying. But much more importantly, each scientist should see that this work is done most effectively in a freely interacting community of scientists supported within a larger democratic society.

Most of us in the West have become emotionally attached to our belief in science. We feel that attachment because we’ve been programmed to feel it. Tribally, we have learned that our modern wise men—our scientists—doing research and sharing findings with one another is helpful to the continuing survival of the human race. Of all of the subcultures within democracy that we might point to, none is more dependent on the basic values of democracy than is science.

Scientists have to have courage. Courage to think in unorthodox ways, to outlast derision and neglect, to work, sometimes for decades, with levels of determination and dedication that people in most walks of life would find difficult to believe. Scientists need the most sincere form of wisdom. Wisdom that counsels them to listen to analysis and criticism from their peers without allowing egos to become involved, and to sift through what is said for insights that may be used to refine their methods and try again. Scientists require freedom. Freedom to pursue truth where she leads, no matter whether the truths discovered are startling, unpopular, or threatening to the status quo. And, finally, scientists must practice love. Yes, love. Love that causes them to treat every human being as an individual whose experience and thought may prove valuable to their own.

Scientists recognize implicitly that no single human mind can hold more than a tiny fraction of all there is to know. They have to share and peer-review ideas, research, and data in order to grow, individually and collectively.

 

                                                 pluralistic group at a climate change conference

Scientists do their best work in a community of thinkers who value and respect one another, who love one another, so much as a matter of course that they cease to notice another person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. Under the values-driven, cultural model of human evolution, one can even argue that creating a social environment in which science can arise and flourish is the goal toward which democracy has always been striving.

However, the main implication of this complex but consistent way of thinking is more general and profound, so let’s now to return to it.

The universe is consistent, aware, and compassionate. Belief in each of these qualities of reality is a choice, a separate, free choice in each case. Modern atheists have long insisted that more evidence and weight of argument by far exists for the first than for the second or third. My contention is that this is no longer so. Once we see how values connect us to reality, the choice, though it still remains a choice, becomes an existential one. It defines who we are.

Therefore, belief in God emerges out of an epistemological choice, the same kind of choice we make when we choose to believe that the laws of the universe obtain. Choosing to believe, first, in the laws of science, second, in the findings of the various branches of science, notably the self-aware universe implied by quantum theory, and third, in the realness of the moral values that enable democratic living (and science itself) entails a further belief in a steadfast, aware, and compassionate universal consciousness.

Belief in God follows logically from my choosing a specific way of viewing this universe and my integral role in it: the scientific way.

The problem for stubborn atheists who refuse to make this choice is that they, like every other human being, have to choose to believe in something. We have to have a foundational set of beliefs in place in order to function effectively enough to just move through the day. The Bayesian model rules all that I claim to know. I have to gamble on some general set of axiomatic assumptions in order to move through life. The only real question is: “What shall I gamble on?” Reason points to the theistic gamble as being not the only choice, but the wisest, of the epistemological choices before us.

The best gamble, in this gambling life, is theism. Reaching that conclusion grows out of analyzing the evidence. Following this realization up with the building of a personal relationship with God, one that makes sense to you as it also makes you a good, eternal friend—that, dear reader, is up to you.

* * *

And now, to close, I would like to present a scene in a sidewalk café in Vancouver, Canada, where two characters meet and begin a Socratic dialogue. A University of British Columbia graduate student, Flavius, known to his friends as Flux, is having coffee and relaxing in the spring sunshine. Serendipitously, 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 to order.)

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 over 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. 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 make remarks 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’m older and wiser than you are. (Laughs.)

Flux: Ah, be serious. You’re six months older than I am. But … yeah, I know you’ve thought about this one. Which makes me ask—if you’re okay with talking about it—do 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: How much time do you have?

Flux: It’s Friday afternoon. I have 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: All right. 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 lot for reasons, backed by solid 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 every person has to work out his own way of conceiving of God and relate to that personally in his own good time. I came to believe 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 these things if we’re going to survive. So I got motivated to think very hard for a while. I arrived at two conclusions. First, that moral values do name things that are real, and second, that the core belief in the moral code that’ll enable us to survive is theism. In other words, moral realism logically involves, or entails, theism.

Flux: All right, wait a minute. Realism? I’m not gambling on whether my 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: 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 thinking. Over and over. I’ve seen all the doubters’ moves. I can whip ’em. (Laughs.)

Flux: So … what, then? Your belief, in your head, your theism, 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 don’t ever get out 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. Replicable. They and all the experimental evidence that supports them keep telling me, more and more, that God is there. 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 end of your arms because you see them 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 primally, if you get my meaning.

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

Evo: I started meditating. Every day. Half 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: 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 and 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 only then, second, for constant, internally felt ones.

Flux: (Studying his friend closely.) 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 events feel. 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 of daily life.

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 sciences, Flux. And they don’t examine the basic foundational assumptions of science. If they did, they’d reconsider their opinions.

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

Evo: 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 one of them is a balance of courage and wisdom. Those values are our big-scale responses to entropy, the “uphillness” of life. Other balanced systems of ideas and morés 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 a nation behave. And that connects them to survival. And those basic qualities of adversity and uncertainty, remember, are built into our universe right down to the atoms and quarks. Those qualities are everywhere, all the time. We’ve learned to respond to them, not as individuals, but as tribes, over centuries, with societies built on those four prime values.

Flux: Those are some pretty large and vague moral principles to build a culture around. A lot of radically different societies could be constructed that all claimed they were brave, wise, and so on.

Evo: Which is only to say how free we 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.

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

Evo: We’ve been working our way toward that realization for, arguably, two million 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 more importantly, death. Which is why we’re taught to respect values so much. Our accumulated wisdom keeps telling us we don’t really want to revisit some of our really bad mistakes.

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

Evo: 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 thirty years. Long-term studies say so.

Flux: What if he lives a really long time?

Evo: In my system, barring exceptional circumstances, he’d still stay locked up. But most of them die in under twenty years. They’re the kind of people who live unhealthy lifestyles. Fattening foods. No exercise. Booze. Drugs. Cigarettes. Fights. They don’t last in prison or out.

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

Evo: Not as much as killing him does by, like, nearly three times as much. The studies say so. On average, the killers only live about seventeen years after going into prison.

Flux: I’ll look it up when I get home. But back to our point. You think we can solve everything by debate and compromise?

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

Flux: I think I’m beginning to see your point a bit. You see moral guidelines as being grounded in the physical facts of reality?

Evo: I’ve made that case for myself and some others many times over. Entropy and quantum uncertainty are built into the fabric of reality. As long as I’m in a universe that is hard and scary, then courage, wisdom, freedom, and love will be virtues. That picture—for me, anyway—is more reliable than my senses. It’s eternal. I’m 99.999 percent sure.

Flux: And that proves for you that God exists?

Evo: That and a couple of other main points. Even assuming the universe stays consistent from place to place and era to era is an act of faith. 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 today’s cutting-edge science—quantum physics. All the particles in the universe are what physicists call entangled, you know. Which just means that the universe has its own 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 in the awareness of the universe. The third is moral realism, which means believing that courage, wisdom, freedom, and brotherly love—the Greek word agape—steer us into harmony with the particles of matter, from quarks to quasars. Those three big beliefs—in universal constancy, universal awareness, and universal moral truth—when they’re added together, tell me this universe is a single, aware, caring entity. This aware universe is “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 assumption, even the quantum-entanglement-awareness one, but leave you right at that moral realism step.

Evo: Oh, I know. They keep trying to find some other way to extract principles of good and bad from the natural world. A lot of people don’t want God. They want to be in charge. (Laughs.)

Flux: Other species—chimps, squirrels, and so on—find altruism on their own, you know. Sometimes, one of them will do something for the good of the community and get killed because of it.

Evo: Then 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 moral question. Why is being altruistic – what they call “good” – a desirable way to be? So the tribe survives? Well, if that’s the case, then we have to ask again: what is that telling us about the basic nature of reality? 

Flux: All right, I see why you say that. Your moral values would seem moral to aliens in other worlds. 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 a bit. 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 sentence themselves to 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 still make progress and survive. That’s all that really matters. (Pauses.) But we must choose to live. Surviving’s not a given. So we need a system of ethics in order just 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?  The most efficient moral code will be the one that’s laid out so our decisions are quick, efficient, and accurate. Consistent with the facts, 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 work in yourself that it becomes personal. But it’s first of all just … efficient. It gets results.

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

Evo: I know, I know. I’d be a liar if I offered you easy grace. You first have to choose to be responsible for your own life. Then so many other challenges come. But they’d come anyway. It’s just that if you choose to bow your head and take the beatings fate dishes out, without trying to figure things out and improve your odds of happiness, your life will 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. A balance of forces makes 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, we make ourselves – and then our society – good, and 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 later they turn out to have scientific explanations. For me, everything I see around me 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 much more miraculous, and then … a 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 because 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 it up, but they do make it up. The priests, I mean. It gets them a slack lifestyle so they gravitate to rationalizing 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, I’m sure. 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 can give to the small, confusing ups and downs of everyday matters. I guess some would 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.

  

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.

(Author unknown)

Notes

1. Nicholas Maxwell, Is Science Neurotic? (London, UK: Imperial College Press, 2004).

2. “History of Science in Early Cultures,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 2, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_early_cultures.

3. Mary Magoulick, “What Is Myth?” Folklore Connections, Georgia College & State University.  https://faculty.gcsu.edu/custom-website/mary-magoulick/defmyth.htm#Functionalism.

4. “Pawnee Mythology,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 2, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnee_mythology.

5. “Quantum Entanglement,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 2, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement.

6. Jonathan Allday, Quantum Reality: Theory and Philosophy (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2009), p. 376.

7. “Quantum Flapdoodle,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 2, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism#.22Quantum_flapdoodle.22.

8. “Occam’s Razor,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 4, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor.

9. “Isaac Newton,” Wikiquote, the Free Quote Compendium. Accessed May 4, 2015. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton.