Science and religion share more than you think

Recently, I've been reading a fascinating little book, namely Bernardo Kastrup's Brief Peeks Beyond: Critical Essays on Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Free Will, Skepticism, and Culture (iff Books, 2015). I know, some of you have already jumped ships and the rest are looking for any remaining lifeboats, but it's not what you think. Yes, the Enlightenment proclivity for book titles as long as the texts seems to be returning, but Kastrup's "essays" are reworked blogs and interviews for the most part, and are written in an engaging and easy-to-read way; that is, for the rest of us, not the professional philosopher or neuroscientist. Anyone with a little openness and willingness would find them both understandable and thought-provoking.

While reading, one of the essays on the theory of evolution and what Neo-Darwinists have unfortunately done with it, I was struck by an idea. Part of the striking goes back to a post I made not long ago on how so many classic authors are seriously, if not maliciously, misquoted, as the victim this time is not Adam Smith but Charles Darwin. Now there's a really nice guy that got a bum deal.

To almost everyone, Mr. Darwin is known for his evolutionary principle of the "survival of the fittest". As you might have guessed, though, Charles never said, nor wrote that. Truth be told, he adamantly opposed the notion which was actually put forth and promoted by Herbert Spencer, not unsurprisingly an economist (because we saw in that other post what happens apparently when economists read, or something like that). Of course, these days, economists are quick to quote this non-Darwinian "truth". No, Darwin himself promoted the idea of "cooperation" as the most favorable factor in evolutionary survival and benefit. He spent years hoping to find a genetic link to it, of course, without success.

This blarney about the fittest (meaning in most instances the so-called strongest) surviving is a one of those ideas that appear intuitively obvious and brilliant, until you think about them. The strongest is the one that has to constantly prove his strength, so he's the one that fights the most and has, as a matter of simple consequence, the greatest chance of gettting killed. While all the tough guys were out and about getting their genes eliminated from the gene pool, the more reflective (and I'll readily admit, cowardly), but certainly more cooperative types were adapting our plans to get through this life and our genes into succeeding generations. And what the overwhelming evidence that we have for the notion of evolution is that we cooperative types were simply more successful, as is the case in every other species on earth.

Put another way, those who are willing to share -- quite simply, adjust their behavior positively toward others -- be it food, shelter, knowledge, comfort, and love, live longer in this life and through the lives of their offspring.

Similarly, Stan Tenen at the Meru Foundation has pointed out that not only is the so-called Golden Rule the most widely spread principle common to all the world's religions, he reminds us that the science writer Michael Shermer has argued that the Golden Rule "does not rest on any underlying religious belief, but rather is simply the most logical and reasonable way for a human to behave". That is, doing to others as you'd like them to do unto you is, well, the essence of sharing, isn't it?

Those who think the world is too huge and complex for us to understand are simply avoiding the obvious. In the end, at bottom, life is really rather simple. For as complex as evolution may seem to be, it works best for those who share. For as much as we like to insist on how different the different religions are, they share the most fundamental tenent in common. And for those who think that science and religion are incompatible, well, apparently you never really stopped to look at or think about either.

Quite often, life is only as tough as we make it.

We have to get over the hill before the holiday

Easter's coming (and I'm going to talk more about that next time). Easter's also a big deal -- I don't care if you're Christian (professing or avoiding) or not. In our oh-so modern, secular, ununderstanding, misunderstanding, materialist, person-centered realities, it's difficult to make anyone aware of anything more than themselves.

Now, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you/your ego/your view of yourself aren't the center of the universe; your city/region/country is not the center of the universe; your social/political/moral views are not the center of the universe. I know you like to think that they are, but they're not.

There was a time (and I'll be the first to admit that I miss it) when "meaning" meant something. We could (and were encouraged to) find "meaning in our lives", "meaning in the things we read", "meaning in our jobs", well, meaning in just about everything. Most of us don't have that anymore. Science, for example, has shown/told/proved to us that "meaning" is mere illusion: the world as we know it and encounter it is the product of a random series of random mutations of genes that has brought us to where we are and we have no idea where anything is going. In reaction to this, some have sought refuge in religion, each of which have thick books written a long time ago that tell exactly where we came from, why we're here, and in most cases, why we're suffering now and will continue to suffer throughout all of eternity. Yeah, I always found comfort in religion too.

It's time for a confession: I love science and have for as long as I can remember. The science I loved, though, the one that was searching for truth, that was willing to adapt based on the evidence, that was putting forth hypothesis to be falsified, and more, no longer exists. I don't recognize science anymore. Another confession: I love religion and have for as long as I can remember. The religion I loved, though, the one that had a view of truth, that was willing to measure itself against others, that was willing to proclaim that its approach to life could make life better for all, and more, no longer exists. I don't recognize religion anymore. The same is true for many of the big-ticket subjects we have to deal with: politics, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, ethnology ... the list goes on. At one time, all of them seemed open to what was new, what was to come. Now, they all pride themselves on their exclusivity. How sad, how sad.

And so, I find myself in something of a "meaningless" world. As Buffalo Springfield sang, "Nobody's right, when everybody's wrong." Unfortunately, inspite of everything, I am still looking for meaning because I personally believe that without meaning, life is, well meaningless. But, I hasten to add, I'm willing to talk about it.

A notion close to "meaning" is "sense" and I'm one of those hopeless idealists who would like some "sense" in his life, even if there's on meaning. It may be that we can't have it all, but it would be comforting to think that we could at least have something, anything, no matter how meagre it is. Our modern world doesn't want that.

Oh, I understand when people flee into pre-packaged solutions (or promises of solutions): believe science because they know; accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and you'll go to Heaven; get more guns because Obama is curtailing the Second Amendment; the one who dies with the most toys wins; I'm rich because I work hard and you're poor because you're lazy; or many, many more. Yes, I can understand that people do that, but I'm having difficulty understanding how, in a world of universal (so-called) education, we can still fall for the same old snake-oil cons that we fell for before. Maybe, just maybe, we haven't been educated at all.

We're not over the hill yet, but we're getting there. We've a holiday coming and I think we should stop and enjoy it. We hardly ever take the time. But, we should always take the time.

Gotta shift gears, we're heading uphill

Sometimes I think the world is simply going insane. I know a lot of you agree with me. You can't open your Facebook page, read your daily newspaper (on or offline), watch the news, or simply turn on your TV without being overwhelmed with more insanity than the normal person deserves: war, plagues, famine, aggression, crime, immorality, corruption ... it's the order of the day. Yes, these topics have been attracting our attention for as long as we, as humans, have been around, but I know a lot of think that there all getting worse, not better.

We do have major issues confronting us, no doubt about it: global warming (it's a fact, learn to live with it), wealth inequality (it's not getting better), worldwide migration (both due to climate change and unwarranted military aggression), debt, food insecurity, water insecurity, natural-resource depletion ... all of these things are very, very real, and whether we like it or not, they affect all of us. We may not agree on the definitions or delimitations of these issues, and we may have differing views on who is allow and justified in doing what on the world stage, but the least that we can expect at the beginning of the 21st century is that we should be able to talk, discuss, and debate about them. But we can't.

In my (OK, perhaps not-so-humble) opinion, that is the biggest, most threatening problem facing humankind: our unwillingness (in too many) cases and our inability (generally) to interact with one another to resolve it.

In a world in which everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, how can we decide which opinions are worthy of further consideration and debate, and which ones are nothing more than what they are on the surface: opinions (the replacement, not the result of thought)? You can shrug this off as mere playing with words and clever turns of phrase, but the real issues around which these words are dancing is as real and as threatening and as potentially devastaing as any we have faced as a species thus far. What I am seeing -- and what particularly disturbs me -- is a decreasing willingness and abililty to talk (in the most fundamental and essential sense of the word) with others. In a word, this bothers me tremendously.

There was a time, not long ago, when we could discuss and debate. The reasons we can't anymore are legion. I don't care at all who is at fault. For me, I would much rather fix the problem than fix the blame, but that's one of the reasons so many people think I'm odd. That's not how things are normally done.

OK, I'm one of those hopeless, hapless dreamers who thinks that there are such things as right-and-wrong, true-and-false, correct-and-incorrect, but I am also one of those nerds who thinks we can establish rules and standards, criteria, against which we can judge our claims. These might be pragmatic (what works) or ideal (abstractions of some kind) ... I don't care. Some things are more physical than others and the measures that we might agree on to determine the goodness, badness, validity or inapplicability of any standard should be able to be discursively determined (that is, we should be able to talk about and agree on what we mean).

In other words, we could talk, discuss and debate, if we wanted to. This isn't going to happen politically at the moment, though there are certainly politicians who could. It isn't going to happen religiously, though there are people of faith who would be more than welcome in the discussion. It isn't going to happen nationally, for the issues that most need to be resolved apply to everyone, not just one nation or group of nations, and the issues transcend "interests", regardless of how they are nationally or politically defined.

What I'm saying, in simplest terms, is that we are in dire need of a new dialogue: one that doesn't care in the least who you are, but is completely concerned with what you have to say; one that is impervious to where you come from, but is in tune with how you apperceive the world around you; one that doesn't care in the least what your interests are if they are not in tune with everyone's interest.

I am not talking about some utopian ideal, quite the contrary. I'm talking about every serious discussion between any two human beings on this planet. For me, this is the absolute baseline. If you're not willing to engage, if you're not open to otherness, if you're not serious about what might be good, right or wholesome for anyone other than yourself or those close to you, you're never going to be part of the solution, you'll always be part of the problem.

I still owe you an answer

It would seem I got so wrapped up in the analysis of the question that I never got around to giving you an answer: should I be glad about all that political bad news or not?

Truth be told, I don't know. When looked at in a short-term context, the answer is probably "no". We've had protest votes before (for example, the Ross Perots and Ralph Naders, the Pirate Party, and more, come and go) and I'm sure we'll have more in the future (assuming, of course, that nothing is really going to change, and I'm pretty sure that most people I know won't be trying to change anything). What is more, there's always some movement left and right in modern politics (but that's because we're stuck in the 18th century politically and some places are so close to the edge (and I'm thinking about my home country here) they're going to go over the edge of the abyss before they step back from it), so nothing's really all that different. Mid-term? I doubt it. I find it amazing how people who will tell you every day that time is running out (for whatever reasons) have no trouble waiting through another election cycle to see if something does change (which it doesn't, and hasn't for the last 10 cycles they've been waiting through, but you never know, do you?) And when looked at strategically; that is, in a long-term context, well, anyone with the sense God gave a dog should see that we're not only digging our own graves, we're building and finishing the coffin and headstone, and are organizing the funeral as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not Chicken Little: the sky's not falling, at least not now, but our inaction will ensure that things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better. As they say, it's always darkest right before the dawn.

And I think that's my problem. For all my gun-totin', militia-leaning, gun-owning, true-'Murrican friends: don't worry about it; you'll be dead before you live your dream of whatever it is you're dreaming. For all my, you-gotta-work-within-the-system friends: don't worry about it; before the system lets you change anything and when the "system" finally goes away, you'll be lost because that's all you know. For all my there's-nothing-us-little-people-can-do-about-any-of-this friends, don't worry: you won't have any input to make in the chaos that will most likely ensue and since you've shown you've got no imagination, your silence will be welcome when people are trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and move on. You see, most people I know either think they're tough, don't understand the situation, or don't trust themselves in the first place. And that means that when things really do get tough, the tough-thinkers will be dead and everybody else will be more or less lost. Yep, that's my problem.

Things cannot continue as they are going now. Almost everybody's dissatisfied but hardly anyone I know has the desire, the willpower, the energy or the desire to start thinking about possible solutions. Things are certainly going to get worse before they get better, but there is every indication "out there" that better is possible.

The not-so-old American saying, "You can't fix stupid" is taking on new meaning. It's accurate in and of itself, and for that very reason, all those things we think are just given -- our economic system, capitalism in its current form; our political systems; our religions; our nationalities -- are what are going to break, and everyone who is holding on to any, or all, of these, is going to get hurt, when we find out how unsustainable all of them are.

So, am I happy about all this bad news? No, for the simple reason that too many people are going to get hurt. It doesn't have to be that way, but that seems to be the way we want it. You get what you pay for, and not enough people are investing the time and energy that is necessary to avert the obvious disasters that are facing us.