Morality and Religion

For many people, far too many, the only moral thinking they engage in is through their religion.  The question “Why be Moral?” often never comes up, for some, outside religion.  Yet, morality and religion are different things in some sense.  One ought to be able to be moral without religion, after all civilized society needs atheists and agnostics to also be moral.  But for those who are religious, there is a very important question they ought to consider concerning the relation between their religion and their attempt to be moral.

“Is what is right what God commands by definition or does God command what is right?”  These are two different things.  Many people would hold to the notion that what God commands is by definition right,  but that makes God capricious.  But, if God commands what is right he must appeal to something other than his will namely some standard of right and wrong which is independent of him and his will.  God therefore is not, all-knowing, all-mighty and all-powerful because there is something other than himself or higher than himself which he appeals to when issuing a command.  There is a parallel here with the Euthyphro dilemma or question: "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (Plato: Euthyphro 10a)  This is the real thrust of the question regarding religion and morality, it is not why people are religious, or depend on their religion for their morality.  Quite honestly for many, too many, people the threat of eternal damnation is the only thing that makes them moral and they therefore cling to their religion for fear of eternal punishment or even punishment by God in the present or near future.  In fact I would say that many of these people refuse to do any thinking other than responding to their religious training.  This is a fault of many religious thinkers and educators who do not wish to make philosophic reasoning a part of their religious training.  In fact until rather recently Religion and Philosophy were tied together in such a way that anyone studying Religion or Theology was required to take many courses in Philosophy.  Today many religious schools and colleges have divorced themselves from philosophic thinking.  But that doesn’t mean that Religion cannot be discussed philosophically, and if one did give his/her religion a philosophic scrutiny, one might be the stronger for it, because they would have reasons other than ”my religion dictates or teaches that…”.  Which of course is no better than “my mother told me…” as a moral theory.  Both are inadequate.

I often muse over this thought: that morality ought not be dependent on any particular religion, but at the same time the purpose of any religion is not to make someone a good, pious and obedient person to the commands of God.  The purpose of religion is to make a person a good citizen in God’s Kingdom, which by virtue of God’s creation, is right here and now  This requires us to not only treat others (other persons) morally, but also to treat all of God’s creation morally.  Exploitation of nature is therefore immoral if done improperly - for selfish and solely profit motives.  I am reminded of a sermon I once heard about God’s giving Mankind dominion over nature.

            “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

All depends to some degree on the meaning of ‘subdue’ and ‘dominion’.  If we think in exploitative terms it seems that mankind has the right to conquer nature and reap all profits that one can from her (Nature).  But if one considers that a dominion is a kind of protectorate, the meaning of the Genesis text becomes more one of protecting the environment (Nature) and subduing the reckless exploitation by maintaining Nature in some form of order.  I naturally prefer the latter interpretation over the exploitive. Thus our religion aims at making us good citizens and stewards of the gift of Nature.  As I watched the grass swaying in the wind the other day, I am also led to the opinion that plants also are included in “every living thing that moves on the earth.”  When I think of mountains and valleys, plains and prairies also changing over time, they likewise are included.

The conqueror

Veni, vidi, vici.

These are Julius Caesar's  words in 47 BC; used  to describe his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus in the Battle of Zela to the Roman senate.

Literally these words translate as I came, I saw and I conquered.  But today they have a more sinister meaning.  They describe perfectly the American way.  I came upon it, I saw it, I took it.  This describes everything from our manipulative purchase of Louisianna  to our current war in Iraq.  It's our supermarket mentality.  We see it, we want it, we take it.  Somehow we feel we are justified in doing so, as if seeing and wanting justifies taking.  But does veni and vidi justify in any sense at all vici?  Is anything and everything there for the taking?

In hoc signo vinces

This is a latinization of the Greek ἐν τούτῳ νίκα.  According to Eusebius, Constantine the Great adopted this as a motto after his vision of a cross in the sky just before the Battle of Milvian Bridge against Maxentius in the year 312. The cross he supposedly saw was a labarum, which is a capital letter P [rho] with a capital letter X [chi] on the shaft of a sword. These Greek letters chi and rho, are the first two letters and was an abbreviation for Χριστός, or Christ, in Greek.

We American Christians seem to think that we are the new Jerusalem, the new covenant with God and our nation is the new Israel.  Therefore, we seem to think that we have the right, or perhaps the obligation, to conquer other nations in the name of that new covenant.  If you don't believe what we believe, we will conquer you (vinces) and force our views upon you.  I'm afraid that this mentality, is contrary to the words of Christ “ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους.”

Curious isn't it we have changed love to conquest?

Curious also is the fact that this motto is used by Pall Mall cigarettes.

The fact is, in the History of the World, our missionaries have either been a part of, or led to conquest.

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Time and Time again

It is curious that if we could go back in time, we might confront some existential paradox that would cause us to not exist now.  For instance, if a person goes back to a time before his father was born and say kills his grandfather, he would not exist and could not go back into the past to kill his grandfather.  So one might say he would not be able to go back in the past and effect anything of his personal past.  This is the paradox that presents itself in the fantasy films Back to the Future and the romantic film Somewhere in Time.  We watch these films, but I wonder whether we actually see the paradoxical nature of time travel into our own past. 

It is quite obvious that we cannot go back and correct the mistakes of the past.  We might be able to go back into the past as observers, but we would not be able to do anything about the past which would alter the present.  We clearly could not go back into the past and effect a change which would prevent us from going back into the past.  In this sense the past is necessary.  We cannot alter it, it has already occurred and we are unable to change it.  It is what it was and it is not possible for it to be anything other than what it has been.  

On a more personal level we cannot go back and correct our errors and mistakes of our own past  We might regret them, but we cannot correct them in the past  The best we can do is to make amends for them or in the present act in such a way as to mitigate the effects of our errors, in short mend our ways and our fences and broken bridges too.  But doing so requires action in the present and future.  If we alter our behavior in such a way that we no longer commit those errors, we must continue such action throughout the future.  In other words correcting the mistake of the past must result in that mistake never again occurring. 

Time and time again we fail to do this, because it is extremely difficult.  Those we injure by our errors might not accept our mended ways and we might not ourselves forgive those who have in some way injured us.  We are often reluctant to forgive, but that is the capacity each and everyone of us has to effect the future and mitigate the effects of past errors and mistakes.  In this sense to seek forgiveness is virtue, and seeking forgiveness involves altering our present and future to mitigate the effect of a necessary past.

Time Again

We often are caught up in a nostalgia for what we believe to be better times, those of our past.  It is curious that with every generation there seems to be a tendency to get caught up in a negative response to the culture of our youth.  We often hear expressions like "well in my day..." or "young people today don't know the meaning of work".  I always tell my children that "in my day we had to walk to school, up hill and down, both ways, in the snow or pouring rain".  It was actualy true because there was a hill between where we lived and where my school was located, but my children didn't ever realize that fact and laughed at their dad for saying such ridiculous things.
 
I often get caught up in thinking that in my day students were much more discerning, better equipped to understand analogies and metaphors, more studious, and overall the education system in my day was better than today.  However, when I am in a more sane moment, I realize by looking at  people my age, that such a notion is simply untrue.  Perhaps it's the disappointments in life or possibly the craving for the strength and vigor of youth, that leads us to feel that times were once better.  Perhaps also it is our fear of what we are approaching and the uncertainties that the approach carries, that make us feel that times were once better.

This personal psychology works well in our political life too, when we have conservatives telling the public that we need to cut back and eliminate some of the complexities of government (smaller government) and our problems will be solved.  In our religions we tend to preach "old time religion" as if that kind of faith was simpler and therefore better.  But I have some doubts, true skepticism, about such things.  Perhaps it is merely a new form of sophistry aimed at promoting an agenda that employs such notions, but it is in the background all the time, that our past was somehow better and all we have to do to verify this notion is to remember or become nostalgic for our personal pasts.  I believe we tend to remember the good and forget the bad, forget the struggle and look at the past through rose tinted lenses.  This leads us to misinterpret and forget our actual history.  What we would really like to do, is go back into the past, recapture our youth and bring our computers (facebook and twitter), big screen TVs and air-conditioning, both in our homes and vehicles, with us.  Of course that would be impossible or pure fantasy, because the past would not be simpler, easier and therefore better, if we brought the complexities with us on our journey into our own personal past.  We tend to look nostalgic to the past from our current economic status and forget the struggle of the lower economic status of our past.  We want to go back but at the same time earn the salaries we are making today in that past.

Nothing captures this awkward feeling of trying to recapture our past better than a poem stuck inside the leaves of Cervantes' Don Quixote:

"Dame Fortune once upon a day
To me was bountiful and kind;
But all things change; she changed her mind,
And what she gave she took away.

O Fortune, long I've sued to thee;
The gifts thou gavest me restore,
For, trust me, I would ask no more,
Could 'was' become an 'is' for me.

No other prize I seek to gain,
No triumph, glory, or success,
Only the long-lost happiness,
The memory whereof is pain.

One taste, methinks, of bygone bliss
The heart-consuming fire might stay;
And, so it come without delay,
Then would I ask no more than this.

I ask what cannot be, alas!
That time should ever be, and then
Come back to us, and be again,
No power on earth can bring to pass;

For fleet of foot is he, I wis,
And idly, therefore, do we pray
That what for aye hath left us may
Become for us the time that is.

Perplexed, uncertain, to remain
'Twixt hope and fear, is death, not life;
'Twere better, sure, to end the strife,
And dying, seek release from pain.

And yet, thought were the best for me.
Anon the thought aside I fling,
And to the present fondly cling,
And dread the time that is to be."

Today’s Gospel - July 17, 2011, The Parable of the Tares

῎Αλλην παραβολὴν παρέθηκεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ σπείραντι καλὸν σπέρμα ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ αὐτοῦ· 25 ἐν δὲ τῷ καθεύδειν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἦλθεν αὐτοῦ ὁ ἐχθρὸς καὶ ἔσπειρε ζιζάνια ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σίτου καὶ ἀπῆλθεν. 26 ὅτε δὲ ἐβλάστησεν ὁ χόρτος καὶ καρπὸν ἐποίησε, τότε ἐφάνη καὶ τὰ ζιζάνια. 27 προσελθόντες δὲ οἱ δοῦλοι τοῦ οἰκοδεσπότου εἶπον αὐτῷ· κύριε, οὐχὶ καλὸν σπέρμα ἔσπειρας ἐν τῷ σῷ ἀγρῷ; πόθεν οὖν ἔχει ζιζάνια; 28 ὁ δὲ ἔφη αὐτοῖς· ἐχθρὸς ἄνθρωπος τοῦτο ἐποίησεν. οἱ δὲ δοῦλοι εἶπον αὐτῷ· θέλεις οὖν ἀπελθόντες συλλέξωμεν αὐτά; 29 ὁ δὲ ἔφη· οὔ, μήποτε συλλέγοντες τὰ ζιζάνια ἐκριζώσητε ἅμα αὐτοῖς τὸν σῖτον· 30 ἄφετε συναυξάνεσθαι ἀμφότερα μέχρι τοῦ θερισμοῦ, καὶ ἐν καιρῷ τοῦ θερισμοῦ ἐρῶ τοῖς θερισταῖς· συλλέξατε πρῶτον τὰ ζιζάνια καὶ δήσατε αὐτὰ εἰς δέσμας πρὸς τὸ κατακαῦσαι αὐτά, τὸν δὲ σῖτον συναγάγετε εἰς τὴν ἀποθήκην μου.

....

36 Τότε ἀφεὶς τοὺς ὄχλους ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ. Καὶ προσῆλθον αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ λέγοντες· φράσον ἡμῖν τὴν παραβολὴν τῶν ζιζανίων τοῦ ἀγροῦ.  37 ῾Ο δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· ὁ σπείρων τὸ καλὸν σπέρμα ἐστὶν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου· 38 ὁ δὲ ἀγρός ἐστιν ὁ κόσμος· τὸ δὲ καλὸν σπέρμα, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ υἱοὶ τῆς βασιλείας· τὰ δὲ ζιζάνιά εἰσιν οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ πονηροῦ· 39 ὁ δὲ ἐχθρὸς ὁ σπείρας αὐτά ἐστιν ὁ διάβολος· ὁ δὲ θερισμὸς συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνός ἐστιν· οἱ δὲ θερισταὶ ἄγγελοί εἰσιν. 40 ὥσπερ οὖν συλλέγεται τὰ ζιζάνια καὶ πυρὶ καίεται, οὕτως ἔσται ἐν τῇ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. 41 ἀποστελεῖ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ, καὶ συλλέξουσιν ἐκ τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ πάντα τὰ σκάνδαλα καὶ τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν, 42 καὶ βαλοῦσιν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν κάμινον τοῦ πυρός· ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων. 43 τότε οἱ δίκαιοι ἐκλάμψουσιν ὡς ὁ ἥλιος ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῶν. ὁ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκούειν ἀκουέτω. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

This Parable is particularly interesting  for someone who has a Dutch-American cultural root.  Some of my ancestors took this parable to reflect the separatist tendencies amongst their churches.  In some cases the Afscheiding of 1834 in Holland and subsequent separatist movements in America were partly responsible for this interpretation.  Those who were separatists became in the minds of some of my ancestors the tares, that in the last day of judgment the Lord would direct his angels to bundle together and burn them, while the grain, those who remained in the mother church would pass on to reward in the Kingdom.  I think this tendency to read this parable in such a way has existed throughout the history of Christianity.  Separatists were often seen as the tares, surely many in the Reformation – Counter-Reformation era saw it that way.  Perhaps it is a component of our thought patterns to read the other (separatist) as a tare (weed).  Of course those on the other side, the separatists, would see the mother church as a corruption of the gospel and those who remained as tares.  (There are always two sides.)  Perhaps the word ‘tare’ itself comes from the Middle Dutch tarwe =  wheat.

The hermeneutic of this parable given by Matthew (verses 37-43) lends itself to such a reading of the parable.  This is especially true considering the notion that the field is the world given in verse 38.  In more modern times we associate the tares with secular humanism.  This is especially true in more fundamentalist circles.  But should we do that?  Should we associate the field with humanity, the world, and give the others among us the interpretation of weeds in that field, which need to be destroyed in the end times, so that the true grain and pure (pietistic) person can be harvested?  It is easy for us to fall into the trap of seeing the other as a weed, and ourselves as true blue believers (grain).

But I would like to suggest a deeper level of interpretation here for this parable.  Let us suppose the world (the field, ὁ κόσμος) is our own personal world of our consciousness.  Perhaps the seeds are the seeds of love, compassion, empathy, sympathy, generosity etc, and the tares spring up from the seeds sown by the evil force in our lives, hatred, jealousy, fear, anger, envy, bigotry, priggishness etc.  Perhaps in the last days (our personal last days) we need to bundle up and burn those tares and let the seeds of love flourish in our minds.  After all, to the son of man belong the seeds of love and to the evil one belong the seeds of hatred.  Perhaps the field of our consciousness needs to burn the tares of fear, envy, bigotry etc and harvest the pure grain of compassion, empathy, generosity etc  called LOVE.  In my most reflective moments, although I often fall victim to the evil force of my consciousness and let the tares of fear, anger, envy etc take over the field, I know deep inside that I ought to be harvesting the grain of Love.

Trinity

Sixty-six years ago today an event occurred in the desert known as Jornada del Muerto, Spanish for "route of the dead man" at the White Sands Proving Ground.  It is significant because it ushered in the Nuclear Age.   It was a test of a device the result of the Manhattan Project, a secret project to create a Nuclear Weapon before the enemies of the day could create one.  The Scientists on the project did not know what the results would be.  Oppenheimer, head of the project and a scholar of Sanskrit, quoted the  Bhagavad-Gita in response to the success of the test. A few weeks later we used such a weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. 

Forty one years ago, on the 25^th anniversary of that event, I wrote this poem.  I believe it still applies.

Trinity

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

                                    Bhagavad-Gita

“In the desert prepare the way of the Lord,

let the message of peace be outpoured,”

In the desert in a place called ‘Trinity’,

occurred mankind’s most horrifying tragedy.

A formula was devised in such a manner,

as to create destruction never grimmer.

Its face was bright and golden yellow—

a mushroom cloud of tempest mellow.

Since technology and others saved the day,

and for future fear and pain paved the way.

What cause, what sequence, what reaction for

which to justify this bastard act of war.

The cause was victory, the sequence we,

the reaction death to Fascism’s plea.

But, in the wake of Democracy’s fame

we subsequently Neo-Fascists became.

                             July 16, 1970

                            

The Moral Universe

I cannot take full credit for this idea, I am indebted for it to Erdős Pál (Paul Erdos) a Hungarian Mathematician - the most prolific mathematician ever.

It is often instructive to think of things negatively and then by transposition of sign realize something about the positive.

Suppose the universe is so constructed that we are playing a game with the SF, the Supreme Fascist. [no theological, political or philosophical notions about the nature of the SF are assumed]

The SF devised the game.

If we as individuals or collectively do something we ought not to have done, the SF gets 2 points.

If we as individuals or collectively fail to do something we ought to have done, the SF gets 1 point.

If we do something right either collectively or individually the SF gets 0 points.

The object of the game (and also the strategy we ought to maintain in playing the game) is to keep the SF score as low as possible.

Of course one should realize that the SF would not devise a game where it would be possible that the SF could lose.