Part 2: Living the Questions: Meta-Stories about Reality

Living the questions, without definitive answers--somewhat lost, unlike most humans who seem so sure they know what it's all about.

I’m lost...not lost in the sense of the religious pietistic term, not un-rescued in the moral sense...not blind to ethical and transcendent truths...not existentially estranged in the sense of not having hope in the future, not lost when it comes to moral realism.

No, I’m not lost in those common meanings—nor am I caught in destructive habits or delusions or nontheistic confusions.
Though I often find I don't live as good as I know I ought to do,
I do seek to do what is right. And I do often experience the Light,
have a sense of the Good, the True, and the Just.

In all of those, I am found.
Thankfully.

No, how I am lost is
that I no longer have a vivid meta-story to identify with, a cosmic narrative.
I no longer have a sense why natural evils occur, such as Covid-19, cancer, etc.

About 10-15 years ago, I finally lost all hope in the Christian meta-story.
It turned out to be even at its best, an illusion. So I lost the philosophical
and theological understandings of my Christian worldview that I had thought
was a fairly stable foundation, despite my questions.

But the Christian meta-story turned out to be only many mirages, swirling sand that blew into a shifting Sahara of fading dunes. Besides, there were so many contradictory versions of what other humans claimed Christianity was!

Heck, most Christians claimed that Christians such as myself, who was one for 55 years, actually never were real Christians.

Furthermore, even all of those years as a Christian I never believed in their Creeds or their horrific concept of God.

But, finally, I realized, deeply, that I was trying to live a “true Scotsman” version of Christianity, one completely contrary to what most Christians claim. I realized down to the marrow of my bones that not even the Anabaptist/Quaker version of the Good News can be true.

I’m lost in that sense--from an intellectual standpoint. When in reflection, I step outside of my own personal commitment and try to see Life impartially and accurately, I have to admit that I don’t know the ultimate nature of Reality.

Unlike all of those who support various contrary versions of Christianity, those who claim they know that the meaning of existence is Islam, and those who claim to know that there is no god, etc., I am uncertain; indeed, never was “certain,” but now am very aware how little I know.

This is not the first time, I suddenly woke up lost--doubting my thinking and my perceiving, not knowing as much as I thought I knew when I was young.

Not long ago, about 10 years ago, I was sharing my spiritual struggles, a crisis I was in,
and one of my family joked “Oh Dan’s whole life has been one long spiritual crisis.”

And, in a sense, I suppose that is true as far as it goes:
from my earliest remembrances, I have—more than many—been the living human primate of “questions” far more than “answers.”


in process

"All things sick...evil great and small...foul": Covid-19 Virus and God

Jeremiah 14:11--16 "The YHWH said to me: “Do not pray for the welfare of this people.
Though they fast, I will not hear their cry,
and though they offer burnt offering
and grain offering, I will not accept them.
But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Many, many verses from the Christian Old Testament deeply stress and trouble humans. In the numerous readings through the entire of Bible, studying its various books in depth, listening to many sermons, and reading plenty of scholarly books, the great evil of such passages grows like a cancer within our moral selves.

Where in these vindictive, slaughtering, hate-filled parts of the Bible--that claim all natural evil and human evil are brought into being by God--is there the God of infinite love of the Good News, the God who never gives up on any human, the God who is the Good, the True, the Just, the Loving?

Then besides this textural hell, more and more Christian leaders--millions of them--emphasize these passages as central to Christinaity! They base their views in part by the study and promotion of Romans 9, the chapter which claims that God hates some humans, predestined billions of us to destruction and hell.

One famous Christian leader claims that God makes some humans "toilets" "spittoons."
Most state that all humans are "worthless," and "in essence, evil."
And so on...

Romans 9:
"11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay..."

Then there is the whole Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin.

Covid-19, the Black Plague, the Spanish flu, the Indian Ocean tsunami that slaughtered about 170,000, etc. all occurred because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. And God had foreordained their disobedience and punishment and that it would be inherited by all of the billions of infants conceived and born after them, over many thousands of years.

Even many Orthodox Jewish think that G-d created evil!
They quote Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the YHWH do all these things."

And it gets worse....
--

Now many current Christian leaders are applying these doctrinal beliefs to the current pandemic, that Covid-19 has been sent by God to punish America, the world.

According to the latest poll, 2/3rds of religious people (American Christians, Jews, and Muslims) think God sent Covid-19 as a message to all humans. So even though hundreds of thousands of innocent people are suffering and dying, this pandemic is God's way of warning us.
--the poll is from the University of Chicago and NORC Center for Public Affairs, May 2020

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE GOOD NEWS?

Here's a parody/satire of Christian beliefS.
from Monty Python Contractual Obligations Album:

All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The lord god made the lot

Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous
The lord god made them all
--
"Black Death, a mid-fourteenth century plague, killed 30 to 50 per cent of the European population in just five years. The pandemic was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria with millions dying from the disease in two major outbreaks. This image is of a plague pit in Marseille, France"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3412769/Black-Death-lurking-centuries-DNA-plague-victims-France-backs-theory-bacteria-lay-dormant.html

Each nasty little hornet
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin
Who made the shocks... he did

All things scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous
The lord god made them all
Amen


--Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: John Du Prez / Eric Idle / Trad
All Things Dull and Ugly lyrics
© Python Monty Pictures Ltd.,
Emi Virgin Songs Inc
--

So in Summation what are the “Books” of Nature and the “Books” Library of the Bible Teaching Us Humans?

#1 At one extreme are the Augustinian-creedal Christians, Orthodox Muslims and Orthodox Jews most of whom claim that both sets of books accurately describe the will of the nature of Ultimate Reality—that God causes whatever happens to humans.

Their views is already briefly described in the first part of this reflection.

HOW DO WE KNOW IF AN EVENT IS FROM GOD?

If it happens in nature or human history, then it is “God’s will.”

So, it is God’s will that Covid-19 happen.

Why?

To give God “glory,” “good pleasure,” to punish humans for failing to worship God.

#2 At the other extreme are the Naturalists, Materialists, and Atheists most of whom claim that there is no ultimate reality—that “God” or the “gods” are delusions of the human brain.

They state that there really is no good or bad, but only subjective morality, mere preferences, and that our preferences aren't really ours. We have them because it was determined by nature, the Laws of Physics, etc.

All of what appears to be horrific disasters, diseases, plagues, etc. including somewhat minor ones as Covid-19 aren’t even really "bad."

That judgment is only our subjective preference because we humans have a survival instinct instilled into us by natural selection. Besides, it was determined that that would happen because there is no free will and no moral responsibility.

"Free will" and "moral responsibility," according these thinkers, are delusions of the human brain that were determined to occur for who knows why. We humans don't choose our views or our actions.
We are "puppets" of nature.

Of course, why this happens, they state is for no reason.

So take your pick--God determined Covid-19 or the Laws of Nature/Big Bang determined it would happen.

#3


TO BE CONTINUED--

*The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1562)
*

Review of Once Upon a Country, a Palestinian Autobiography by Sari Nusseibeh

Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh

Powerful autobiography and political history from one family’s perspective of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict of the 20th Century!

It restores my hope in Palestinians and makes me realize that the real problem in the Middle East (an elsewhere as well) isn’t any certain group of people, nor even any particular religion, but rather extremism, blind faith, and the dark side of human nature.

The central answer to intolerance is educated reason and the rejection of religious and political ideology!

I seem to have far more in common with this Palestinian, Sari Nusseibeh, than my own relatives for instance, more agreement with him than probably with anyone here on the Central Coast of California, where most people are fanatically supportive of the present administration of the U.S. and the Israeli government, and for various forms of creedal Christianity!

What Once Upon a Country also does is—despite Sari’s evident practical agnosticism and nominal faith—is restore confidence that we as humans can find hope and change despite the almost insurmountable problems and catastrophes of human history.

Sari communicates his life story and rational hopefulness and how he stood for nonviolence and reconciliation in the midst of intense hatred and violence, some even coming toward him and his family.

The book, too, again makes one cognizant of how much human destiny is affected by background, that while we do have some free creative choice (are morally responsible), some of us are better able to choose than others--
how upper class individuals who are bright and secularly educated, can have tremendous impact on their nations and the world, unlike average people who are more likely to be blinded by popular media and religious and political propaganda.

Part of the reason that Sari can be so rational and tolerant is that he comes from brilliant tolerant parents who sent him to England to be educated, where he earned his B.A. Then he earned his PhD in literature and philosophy in the United States at Harvard.

Such a background, while not guaranteeing moderation, hope, and nonviolence, certainly makes such moral qualities more possible than if he had grown up poverty-stricken in an intolerant family in Gaza with only a rudimentary education and filled with intolerant religious doctrines.

The extreme historical irony of reading this book is that Sari has been waging his nonviolent campaign for years yet the news never mentions it, but only the Palestinian extremists with bombs and Israeli settlers taking Palestinian land.

What if the international and U.S. news instead focused on Sari and other Palestinians’ peaceful protests and their efforts at education (such as Mars Elias Schools and Ramallah Friends School)?

This book has reignited my tremendous concern for Israel-Palestine. Thanks Sari!


In the Light of tolerance, education, and creativity,

Dan Wilcox

Human Species: "All you are is a bag of particles..." Claims Atheist and Physicist Brian Greene

“All you are is a bag of particles acting out the laws of physics. That to me is pretty clear.”
Brian Greene

Like some other famous atheists, Greene in his new book, Until the End of Time, claims that humans don’t have “free will” because that ability would violate the laws of physics. Furthermore, there is no meaning to the cosmos.

Those aren't scientific statements but extreme philosophical claims. There are other astrophysicists who strongly disagree such as South African physicist and anti-Apartheid leader George Ellis.

IF we accept Greene's denial of free will, then think of the nature of the claim.
So when President Trump demeans, belittles, and name-calls other Americans, it’s not him bullying them, it’s the “laws of physics” doing that to other “bags.”

What’s also odd is that after making such extremely negative statements against human worth, against morality, against human creativity, etc. in the first half of Until, Greene appears to contradict himself later in his chapters on literature and other fields of study. In those, he writes of human creativity, marveling at what humans have achieved and the wonder of life.

Huh?!

IF all humans are only “a bag of particles acting out the law of physics” and determinism rules all, then like Sam Harris as claims human primates are only “biochemical puppets.”

Individual humans have achieved nothing but what cosmic strings yanked them into! So, the Germans didn’t choose to murder 10 million humans in concentration camps. They were forced by the laws of nature to do that.

Islamic State leaders didn’t choose to behead innocent civilians in the Middle East. That must happen because it was determined by the Big Bang.

According to these naysayers, the cosmos or evolution or nature or the Big Bang have lockstepped all of us humans to do whatever us “bags” do in this tragic life, this absurd existence.

Well, at least Greene didn’t compare us to “bacterium” or “scum” like two other famous scientists.

DON’T LET THESE PIDED PIPERS OF NEGATION GET AWAY WITH THESE NON-SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS.

It is true as Greene says that at the quantum level, a human is in popular lingo, “moving particles.”
But that ISN'T all what he/she is.

In physics, this mug of coffee and the individual holding it are only particles, and at a higher level only a mixture of various chemicals.

BUT at a conscious rational level, it is a teacher, a morally responsible human getting ready to teach over one hundred teens during a creative but exhausting day at a high school in Santa Maria, California.


In the Light of what is True, Good, and Just,

Dan Wilcox

Friendly Poets' Short Poems of Wonder

Keswick Meeting room | British Quaker Meeting Houses/flickr CC


The spirit connects
Even when two are apart.
They ride the same wave.

--by Peter Rabenold

Read more by Peter Rabenold at https://www.patuxentfriends.org/writings.htm

Midst thorns the cactus
Splurges its gorgeous blossoms
And allays our fears.

--by Peter Rabenold
-----


first freeze--
a leaf on a film of ice
trickling water

by LA Quaker

To see more by LA Quaker go to http://laquaker.blogspot.com/2011/01/haiku-written-during-year-at-zen-center.html