To Live in the Light, to Act Truly Human

Of late, there have been so many negative actions by religionists and politicians, that it's hard not to focus on that chasm, and spend time 'cursing the darkness,'
BUT as the title of this blog emphasizes, instead, become a "lightwave seeker."

So, today,
here is a short summary of Transcendent Humanism and Moral Realism.

To Act Truly Human

Part #1: To Live in the Light, Focus on the New Ought, Not on the Past---of What Is or Has Been

"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him."
--Martin Luther King Jr.

Part #2: To Act Truly Human, Be Generous—Freely Give to Those in Need

Part #3: To Live in the Light, Treat All Others as Equal—View All Humans as Inherently of Worth and Value

Part #4: To Act Truly Human, Focus on the Transcendent—Live for the Good, Beyond the Temporal and Transient and Any Action that Is Wrong

Part #5: To Live in the Light, Do LovingKind Acts—Live with Empathy, Compassion, and Caring for All Others; Cherish and Help

Part #6: To Act Truly Human, Seek Justice—Work for Human Rights, Fairness, Impartiality


Part #7: To Live in the Light, Live in Fidelity--Commit to One Other Person in a Covenanted Relationship Meant to Be for Life;

Reject and Resist the Wiles of Adultery, Promiscuity, Polyamory, Polygamy, Pornography

Part #8: To Act Truly Human, Speak the Truth in Love to Everyone--Be Honest; Oppose Lies, Deceptions, Manipulations,
Obscene Cursings, and All Forms of Propaganda

Part #9: To Live in the Light, Cultivate and Cherish Community. Commune with Ultimate Reality (whatever you want to term it--God, the Divine, the Good, etc.) and Commune with Other Humans. Share Deeply

Part #10: To Act Truly Human, Live in Wonder; Rejoice in Beauty and the Mysteries of the Universe

(For instance, Albert Einstein
explained that he wasn't an Atheist
because, unlike them, he was enthralled
with the beautiful structure of the cosmos and said, if he wasn't Jewish, he would become a Quaker.)

Part #11: To Live in the Light, Care for Nature and Its Creatures
(This ethical goal is a good alternative against
the wrong extremes--
that of Paganism and Hinduism which claim that
natural evils such as malaria are somehow "holy"
and okay!
versus
that of Secularism which too often sees
the natural world as only a thing to use,
even exploit.)

Part #12: To Act Truly Human, Create New Concepts and Things of Wonder

Part #13: To Live in the Light, Focus on the New Ought, Not on the Past of What Is or Has Been

"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him."
--Martin Luther King Jr.

I'm working on the central concept of what it means to be truly human, not in the basic evolutionary sense, but in the ethical one, in the transcendent sense.

(Most of us know that we are homo sapiens, one branch of primates resulting from over 3 billion years of evolutionary history.
For a biological explanation of our species, check out any fine book on evolutionary biology.)

What ethical truths should I add to the beginning list of 10 for 2018?

Become a committed theist, humanist, Enlightenment ethicist, moral realist, free-seeker.

Do avidly seek the Good, the True, the Beautiful, equality, peace, justice, mercy, compassion, fidelity, monogamy, generosity, meticulous honesty, and so forth.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox
Posted by Daniel Wilcox at 9:48 AM 2 comments: Links to this post
Labels: adultery, compassion, covenant, empathy, equality, fidelity, honesty, human rights, justice, lovingkindness, obscenity, polyamory, polygamy, pornography, promiscuity

Discern True Ethics

Follow the true precepts that many humans have discovered in history and the recent past.

These are the ethical “oughts” that millions of us give lip service to, but often ignore or, even worse, intentionally violate.

There are, also, now many naysayers and ethical skeptics who claim that ethics are only subjective “likes” and “dislikes,” not actually true.

Some even claim, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do.' So they say that while you might not like the female mutilation of little girls, it is none of your business whether or not 80% of Egyptian parents do choose this as a good action. According to relativists, moral rules are only a matter of private or cultural opinion.

However, this doesn't appear to be true.

We humans wouldn't even be able to have functioning criminal justice systems if humans functioned by their subjective likes and dislikes in court. In fact, it is exactly when humans act subjectively that societies and the nations of the world aren't just!

On many moral issues, we don't need to reinvent the moral wheel, but live up to what we already understand.

Think how far more messed up the world would be if the following lists of “oughts” were regularly broken and violated.

And consider how wonderful the country of Palestine/Israel would be if Israelis and Palestinians committed to doing even a few of these basic ethical actions toward each other.

Or the Russians and Ukrainians worked together instead of killing and stealing. And if Sunnis Muslims and Shia Muslims forgave each other and sought to help each other instead of blowing up mosques, hospitals, schools, and markets!

First, the most basic moral truth, probably early discovered and discerned very early in human evolution:

#1 --Act fairly toward others.

Think how different the current presidential campaign would be if only this rule was followed!

#2 --Be courteous and sensitive to others.

#3 --Treat each person you encounter as an 'end,' not a 'means.'

#4 --Live honesty. Tell the truth. Be a person of your word.

#5 --Seek to understand; learn to listen to other people’s views, trying to see life from their perspective.

#6 --Avoid ad hominem, personal attacks, obscene slurs, put-downs, etc.

#7 --Give generously to others in need. Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you.

#8 --Support equality, human rights; oppose slavery, human trafficking, torture, and all forms of abuse.

#9 --Choose another human to be committed to in intimacy and fidelity. Don’t be promiscuous, or live in polygamy.

#10--If both of you desire to have children, (further the human species), create to bless and guide and free.

#11--Care for the elderly and the young. Oppose killing those who are disabled and unborn infants.

#12--Care for yourself.

#13--Work hard and diligently. Recreate. Exercise.

#14--Oppose self-destruction, whether by suicide or living dysfunctionally in eating and drinking to excess.

#15--Be compassionate, empathetic, understanding, patient, and persevere.

#16--Seek peace. Refuse to engage in violence or support violence.

#17--Never attack, only defend and protect.
Vote against first-strike wars, the intentional bombing of civilians, conquests, and holy crusades/jihads.

#18--Treat life and others as of great value and worth.
Oppose revenge, pornography, prostitution, obscenity, manipulation, subjugation, racism, sexism, and any other form of harm.

#19--Work to end poverty; help others to become all they can be.

#20--Support the improvement of all lives on earth.

#21--Protect the environment. Show concern for animal life. Don't litter or waste.

#22--Seek earnestly for new ethical truths not yet discovered.

Do this by considering the ethical method of the Categorical Imperative.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary--
Categorical Imperative: “a moral obligation or command that is unconditionally and universally binding”

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals














In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Why Are These Behaviors Immoral? Yet Many Claim They Are Good?

#1 Polyamory

#2 Polygamy


#3 Promiscuity

#5 Pornography

Prostitution--selling sex (now called "sex worker") for money; what is meant to be an expression of intimacy between two committed individuals in romantic passion becomes the use of humans as objects for commerce

#6 Profanity-Obscenity



#7 Purity Culture--obsession with women as objects related to men's "honor"--in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.

#8 Pride “Patriotism”--Nationalism; "God Bless US"

#9 Propaganda--Merriam-Webster Dictionary: "ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government...;"

Almost all government officials and political leaders of all countries incessantly use propaganda.

Tragic historical example of propaganda: The U.S. government falsely reported in the late summer of 1964 that Vietnam had attacked U.S. ships. Quickly, the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed which dramatically increased the U.S. war attacks there.

Millions suffered and died because of lying by the American Government. Not that the Government of Vietnam was any more truthful. It also filled the airways with lies.


Another example: Justification by the U.S. for invasion of Iraq in both Gulf Wars; even though Saddam Hussein was a ruthless killer, the U.S had previously supported him in his other invasion, that of Iran!

Even more strangely, the U.S. has for many years supported Saudi Arabia, even though that government/country is much worse in human rights violations, persecution, and injustice than Iraq!

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has set up repressive Islamic schools and mosques around the world with billions of their petrol dollars, and supported, funded, and sent out Islamic terrorists for years.

Political Elections: Consider all the propagandistic statements being made daily by the various presidential candidates at the present--one-liners, personal attacks, exaggerations, false information, ad hominem, spam, even slanderous statements...

Or consider the ridiculous false charges thrown at President Barrak Obama in the last 10 years--that he is a "radical Muslim," that he is a "communist," etc.

Many of these political claims actually go beyond mere propaganda; they are outright lies, yet millions of Americans believe them.

It would be tragic if it wasn't so absurd. The unethical spam reminds me of Winston's Churchill's infamous statement in support of lying for the government:
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

In war, (besides the slaughter of humans), lying and stealing are always the first unethical actions to be committed repeatedly by all sides.


#10 Prejudice--prejudging other individuals, especially leaders, even though one doesn't have the facts



#11 Plundering--stealing land, material, wealth, water for one's government and country; for instance, see this happening daily in Palestine/Israel, where the Israeli Government and Israeli settlers confiscate Palestinian land, bulldoze or burn orchards, destroy homes and this week even destroyed a school!


#12 Perfidy--infidelity, disloyalty, double-dealing



#13 Philandery--Alan Watts, the famous writer and Buddhist scholar, wrote in his autobiography, In My Own Way, about the joys of adultery that he experienced with various lady friends.

“…Deep down inside, almost everyone has a vague sense of eternity. Few dare admit this because it would amount to believing that you are God…My own sexual mores...I do not believe that I should be passionately in love with my partner...and still less, married."

"For there is a special and humanizing delight in erotic friendships with no strings attached...My life would be much, much poorer were it not for certain particular women with whom I have most happily and congenially committed adultery...”
Alan Watts

One gets a sense of Watt's attitude with his comment about the Christian Eucharist: "Holy Communion?" he was heard to remark. "Why, it's like
fucking a plastic woman!"

A PhD. anthropologist explained that the reason he regularly womanized is that it was his nature to need sex with many women.



#14 Pedophilia--Child Brides in Islam, etc; at 50 years of age, Muhammad "marrying" a child of 6, allegedly consummating the relationship when the child was 9.

Photo by Stephanie Sinclair



Many Roman Catholics priests have illicit sex with older children; then even worse, Roman Catholic Church leaders allow such priests to continue supervising children!

Furthermore, the RC. hierarchy didn't report such evil actions to the criminal justice system. And later the Church covered up the many cases of pedophilia when they were discovered by others.

When families of abused children sued the Church it seemed far more concerned with defending itself from loss of money than in the suffering and abuse it had caused and hidden!


Also, some secular leaders are overly lenient toward mild immoral actions. For instance, the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins reported that he didn't think the "mild pedophilia of his teacher in elementary school was harmful!

"One day — I must have been about 11 — there was a master in the gallery with me. He pulled me onto his knee and put his hand inside my shorts."

"He did no more than have a little feel, but it was extremely disagreeable (the cremasteric reflex is not painful, but in a skin-crawling, creepy way it is almost worse than painful) as well as embarrassing."

"As soon as I could wriggle off his lap, I ran to tell my friends, many of whom had had the same experience with him."

"I don’t think he did any of us any lasting damage, but some years later he killed himself."
An Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins


#15 Perversion—such as sadomasochism

#16 Pollution

#17 Predestination--the foreordination of most human beings to eternal damnation/torture by God in the religions of Islam, Christianity, etc.

#18 Pontification

#19 Pretension

#20 Politics (just kidding;-)

What is most weird about this list is that many of these immoral actions are being promoted and accepted in public, in the media, and on the Internet as good! Pro-articles for such actions as polyamory have appeared in The Atlantic and Scientific-American!

Brilliant individuals, some with PhD's, actually claim that there is nothing immoral or unethical about such behaviors. On the contrary, these thinker claim, it's monogamy and fidelity that are limiting, keeping humans from becoming all that they want to be.

Some spokespersons even go further, stating all ethics are “subjective,” only “personal preferences,” and social constructs, not grounded in reality. Being against prostitution is analogous to disliking the color red! It's only a subjective preference.

What a despairing darkness has overtaken modern culture and society. We need not speak of the horrific actions of the historic past; there are so many violations at present.

In the midst of my positive posts, I will try and tackle some of these devious beliefs and actions in future posts. Wish me luck.

I will need all the help I can get. For the last few years, especially, various thinkers in books and in person and online have been defending most of these evil behaviors as fine for any human to do if he/she chooses to live them.

Live in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Purity of the Mind and Heart

From Purex laundry soap to Pure Silk, ads emphasize the importance and beauty of purity.

But with so much negative emphasis of late on the destructive “purity culture”
of Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims
—especially where girls and women are shamed, persecuted, abused, even executed
simply for what they wear or don’t wear,
how they choose to express themselves, and so forth,
one hesitates to use the word “purity” because it’s
often now misunderstood.

But no other word really suffices.

Purity in its denotative meaning is essential for humanity. Think of purity in water.
Even the slightest infestation of bacteria or dangerous chemicals in drinking water can cause severe illness, even death quickly.

That’s why when backpacking in the Sierras
and the Grand Canyon, we always used water purification tablets.

Nobody wants pollution in water, air, or food, except the crazy or the greedy. Think of the many cases
of food poisoning in the news in the last 3 months including 80 students in New England.
That's why there are high standards in food preparation and store products.

Also, ever hear of pure gold?
Who wants gold if it’s mostly scattered in amidst other minerals which will make it hard to extract?

So what is Purity of the Mind?

Purity of the Heart?

Probably, first, it’s easiest and quickest to show what it ‘ain’t’ (to quote Huck).

#1 Think of the illusions and delusions of the mind.

Many Americans are convinced that the earth is only
a few thousand years old and that evolution is false!

Yet there is plenty of hard evidence and scientific
conclusions which show that evolution
is a fact and that the earth is billions of years old.

When we humans stop seeking what is true, but stay only
with what we learned in the past, and with what is
accepted by our culture and society, we will harm others
and ourselves eventually.


#2 Consider many of the salacious ads that appear on the Internet
(and on TV, Cable, etc.) every time we search for an article, product,
movie, idea, or to look up an old friend.
Ironically, even when I was looking for images of purity,
a few morally sick graphics came up on Google.

Even when anyone stops at a philosophical or ethical site
to read about goodness and justice,
there will be ads not only for food, health, and travel, but often also--

“20 Stars Who Clearly Aren’t Wearing Underwear”

“See What Short Skirt Kim Wore”

--ad nauseum...

#3 Who the hell cares?
(Sorry for that unpure expletive; it's intentional to emphasize the spiritual sheol
so many humans obsess in.)

#4 Unethical advertisers do. They create these clearly salacious, prurient, lewd
(whatever term you want to call it) ads to hook young adults (or not so young)
into clicking and viewing each ad which may give them a voyeuristic jolt,
and then get them to buy some product.


That is NOT purity of the heart or mind—
not for the immoral advertiser,
the idiotic sponsor,
or the morally foolish individuals who click on them.

Yet millions of humans do all the time.

#5 And the Internet--which was supposed to help bring people together,
to enrich their intellectual and emotional lives--
is instead used to make billions of dollars through pornography.

Why have we as a human species so twisted our sexuality, gotten so licentious and prurient
that we use brilliant technology to con humans into descending into a subhuman level.

Well, no, not "subhuman"; as Mark Twain wrote, that's besmirching animals.
Rather salacious ads and pornography and immoral media are anti-humanistic.

Whew...

#6 Another example could be given of impurity of the mind by studying the speeches and statements of the presidential debates
and related comments.

Contrary to what all we literature teachers taught students about the danger and destruction of propaganda
(via Animal Farm by George Orwell), the current media focus has been one endless bag of informal fallacies and ad hominem.

--ad hominem,

you uneducated blob;-)



To be continued

Got rid of a little of the muck...

next the good--

In the Pure Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Romancing Fidelity

Loving is action. Love is choosing. Love is friendship caught fire.

But with exceptionally high divorce rates, high numbers of humans sexually active without commitment, many writers actively negating the ethic of monogamy,
the media emphasis on promiscuity,
polyamory, pornography, prostitution,
etc., it would seem
that romance and fidelity,
commitment and monogamy are in serious trouble.

“…about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.”
American Psychological Association

“A 2011 study at the University of Iowa found that a woman's loss of virginity before age 18 was correlated with a greater number of occurrences of divorce within the first 10 years of marriage.”

“A 2012 study cited by Pew Research center found that an estimated 78% of women with bachelor's degrees, and 65% of men with bachelor's degrees who marred between 2006-2010 can expect their marriages to last at least two decades. Women with a high school degree or less, on the other hand, face a meager 40% probability of their marriages surviving the same period.”
Wikipedia

That’s the very negative news of the recent past.

In this New Year of 2016, let's move toward Romancing Fidelity. Aim for the true goal.

Fidelity: Becoming loyal, reliable, consistent.

Love: Choosing commitment.

Romancing love is “friendship that has caught fire.”

Consider the fiery words of Sherman Alexie from one of his famous short stories. Roman and Grace are a married Spokane Indian couple. He is standing close to her with his basketball between them, as if the ball represents the expectant infant they will soon create...

“Michael Jordan is coming back again,” he said.

“You can’t fool me,” said Grace. “I heard it. That was just a replay.”

“Yeah, but I wish he was coming back again. He should always come back.”

“Don’t let it give you any crazy ideas.”

Roman pulled the basketball away and leaned even closer to Grace. He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day.

Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love—it just happens!—but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit...

Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that...that was what was missing in most marriages: politeness, courtesy…thank-you notes to his wife for the smallest favors, did the dishes…vacuumed...

...year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.

Then he lifted the ball over his head...and pushed it toward the rim...it caught fire.
From “Saint Junior” by Sherman Alexie, Grove Press, pages 176-178, 188
--

Yes, LOVE is friendship that has caught fire.
Love grows like a glowing vineyard in the sunrise,
takes root and develops one day at a time. Love
in maturity is like fine wine, improves with age.

Love is quiet understanding and mature acceptance
of imperfection. Love gives strength and creatively
opens in new ways
to your beloved.


You are warmed by your beloved’s presence,
even when your lover is away. Miles do not separate.
You want your beloved nearer. But near or far, you
know your lover is yours, and you are your beloved's.

Love means patience and trust. Love springs up;
you and your beloved feel more whole. Love fill
the empty spaces in your hearts, leads you both
to look up, and to give out to others.

Love is
creative, compassionate, gentle, and kind,
coming from deep in the heart, essential.

Love is choosing again and again, daily to love
your beloved even in the hard times.

Love is wider
than the widest, deeper than the deepest,
closer than the closest--
a fire of chosen passion.

Anon and adapted


Howard Zinn, who was married for 64 years to Roslyn Shechter, until her death in 2008, has a short pithy comment about individual choice despite the negative world around:

TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives…

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
― Howard Zinn

In the Love,

Daniel Wilcox

To Act Truly Human

Part #1: To Act Truly Human, Be Generous—Freely Give to Those in Need

Part #2: To Act Truly Human, Treat All Others as Equal—View All Humans as Inherently of Worth and Value

Part #3: To Act Truly Human, Focus on the Transcendent—Live for the Good, Beyond the Temporal and Transient and Any Action that Is Wrong

Part #4: To Act Truly Human, Do LovingKind Acts—Live with Empathy, Compassion, and Caring for All; Cherish Others

Part #5: To Act Truly Human, Seek Justice—Work for Human Rights, Fairness, Impartiality

Part #6: To Act Truly Human, Live in Fidelity--If Possible Commit to One Other Person in a Covenanted Relationship;
Reject and Resist the Wiles of Adultery, Promiscuity, Polyamory, Polygamy, Pornography

Part #7: To Act Truly Human, Speak the Truth in Love to Everyone--Be Honest; Oppose Lies, Deceptions, Manipulations,
Obscene Cursings, and All Forms of Propaganda

Part #8: To Act Truly Human, Cultivate and cherish community. Commune with Ultimate Reality (whatever you want to term it--God, the Divine, the Good, etc.) and commune with other humans. Share deeply

Part #9: To Act Truly Human, Live in wonder; take joy in beauty and the mysteries of the universe
(For instance, Albert Einstein
explained that he wasn't an Atheist
because, unlike them, he was enthralled
with the beautiful structure of the cosmos.)

Part #10: To Act Truly Human, "Live simply and in harmony with all of creation."* Care for nature and all of its creatures
(This ethical goal is a good alternative against
the wrong extremes--
that of Paganism and Hinduism which claim that
natural evils such as malaria are somehow "holy"
and okay!
versus
that of Secularism which too often sees
the natural world as only a thing to use,
even exploit.)




I'm working on the central concept of what it means to be truly human, not in the basic evolutionary sense, but in the ethical one, toward the transcendent goal for which we seek.

(Most of us know that we are homo sapiens, one branch of primates resulting from over 3 billion years of evolutionary history.
For a biological explanation of our species, check out my last post.)


"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Martin Luther King Jr.


What ethical truths should I add to the beginning list of 10?

[* Thanks to Bill for 3 more suggestions. William C. Guerrant Jr.
is a Virginia farmer and author of a book and video series,
Organic Wesley, based on his master's thesis "about
environmental ethics in the writing and teaching of John Wesley"
and on Wesley's "subject of food and ethical eating."
https://practicingresurrection.wordpress.com/]

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Good, the Bad, and the Baleful

Starting in reverse with the baleful and the bad, saving the best, the Good until after: We’ve already discussed how humans (men are the focus since I am a man) use their Brains, Beliefs, Brawn, and Boasting to enlarge their own ethnocentric lives, destroy other nation’s men, women, and children, and how they see women as booty either in the sense of possession or sexual conquest and subservience.

“Equal but subservient” isn’t equal, as we learned during the past era of Segregation and the Civil Right Movement in the United States.

And anyone can understand this--except orthodox Muslims--by observing Sharia Law and how it is implemented in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

Whenever men, whether for secular or religious reasons subjugate women, no matter how much they claim they are honoring women, we know otherwise and can see the discrimination and the harm and the cruelty.

A very bad example is 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Think of the millions of women over 2,000 years who have suffered from the infliction of these verses.


Here's one horrific example from conservative Christianity:
"Alford draws our attention to the fact that in Genesis 3:16, after the Fall, when God was appointing the devil and woman and man to their distinctive experiences of the curse, “bearing children” was the very point where God’s curse lands on the woman. “To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.’”

"Pause and feel the weight of this for women in the centuries before modern medicine. No hygiene, no spinal blocks, no episiotomies, no sutures, no caesarians, no antibiotics, no pain killers, and often, no recovery. Untold numbers of women died in childbirth and countless more suffered the rest of their lives from wounds that prevented childbirth, or any kind of normal sexual life."
from Christian Theologian John Piper

So according to such conservative Christian leaders, millions of women through the ages had to suffer and die excruciating deaths because of a curse by God against one woman, Eve, in the Garden!

Again, one can see why so many humans rightly reject this abusive version of Christianity which follows the literal and worst verses in Scripture. Very baleful!

Next on the bad list comes Betting.

But since this is an unethical action I’ve not been tempted with, my comments will be short and to the point. Only once, many years ago when I was about 10, was I ever attracted to the “quick money” grasping of betting. And that occasion was more likely peer pressure, since I don’t remember really wanting to take marbles from my friends. It was they who wanted me to bet my own marbles. Somehow my parent found out and showed me betting wasn’t the way to follow Jesus.

As an adult, I've stopped a number of times in Las Vegas and other gambling towns. Once for about an hour I watched men and women gambling.

What's strange is that they didn't look happy at all, not like the advertisements showing young people laughing and rejoicing--not at all. These were older individuals, smoking constantly, and drinking, were hunched over with worry or tension or depression etched in their faces.

So here’s it plain and simple: Betting is wrong because if one wins one takes money or valuables from others—those who ought to be using their funds for their family or the lost and hurting and malnourished of the world.

If one loses, there is the temptation to keep gambling to win, but everyone else in your family loses.

If one simply can’t really enjoy gaming without the costly risk of valuables being exchanged, maybe, consider some form of charity gambling where no one loses except to benefit the needy and the lost and the suffering.

All bets are on, on that kind of betting. It’s like taking all of your money to buy the field where the buried treasure (the Realm of God) is.

Bet-gambling's the bad of it.

--


Now for the baleful—the Boozing: “Wine is a mocker and strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”
Proverbs 20:1 ESV

Scripture doesn’t say you can’t have a glass of wine with supper or a beer with your buddies. Jesus even made gallons of wine for a wedding celebration at Cana, after many at the festival had already had plenty to drink!

What is unwise, what leads one astray is when wine is a mocker and strong drink is a brawler—i.e. when one’s drinking leads to wrong-doing, to fighting, to abusing, to carousing, to immoral actions. And we know when that happens, unless our conscience has been seared.

In my time I have seen in my own extended family, and in some friends, and in the families of students much destruction come from the use and abuse of alcohol.
How tragic and destructive alcohol, nicotine, and other drugs are.

Besides, think of all the men who have harmed their bodies and been caught in the endless cycle of alcoholism. Of famous humans, the list seems very long--Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, etc.

Better is the way of praise in the Spirit of holiness, not the spirit of intoxication. “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”
Ephesians 5:18 ESV

I am of the opinion (though more devout followers of Jesus than me disagree) that followers of the Good, disciples of the Way, seekers of the Truth should not use controlled substances.

Instead live filled up in the Ocean of Light.

Consider this true narrative in a poem from an actual experience:

The Last Libation

JimTown, across the county line
Where many a poor Cheyenne
Emptied his dim future
In the short, sotted glass;

Nothing new of this watery fire,
The forked-tongue libation
Passed from the pallid men
Down to generations of the lost,

To those hunched at the rail--
Descendants of red men who
Counted coup with shining valor--
But these instead pour out their ‘souled’

Lives to Chief Bacchus of the bottle;
Restricted to behind the dark bars,
They shuffle the time worn cards,
Then slump, no longer ruling the plains.

But the Rez's young girl, his cousin,
Only 12, copper-templed and kind,
With glorious raven hair, now
In the gathering Montana dusk

Tips on the dirt walk, sour breathed,
Staggers on the 'warn' path
Through Lame Deer town,
And passes down, then gone.

Says another tribe's brave,
A leader in translation,
My heart is sick…

I will drink no more forever.


In the Light of Divine Love,

Daniel Wilcox