OUR BELIEFS CAN KILL US

One extreme example of this is ISIS. Many join, and many will not escape alive. However, our beliefs can kill more subtly. What we think about ourselves can kill us.

Many years ago, after taking LSD, I lost the awareness that I was a human who could die. I could easily have jumped out of a window, thinking I could fly.

However, we can lose awareness of who we are, with deadly consequences, without taking LSD. 

In a vain attempt to dismiss the existence of God, many have opted for materialism - the belief that only a physical reality exists. However this belief entails other beliefs - that everything is determined by the laws of science. Consequently, everything is predetermined by these laws. As a result, they are convinced that freewill is only an illusion.

Some even relish this belief. If they do not have freewill, then they couldn't have acted otherwise, and they cannot be held accountable for their behavior.

Although this might serve to mitigate feelings of shame an guilt, it also carries unintended lethal baggage. For one thing, they have also relinquished their right to hold others accountable. Along with this, they have sacrificed vital concepts like justice, retribution, honor, dignity, courage, meaning, and any purpose for their lives.

But do these sacrifices kill? They will definitely kill relationships. What are you going to tell your wife, when she accuses you for pushing her? Are you going to apologize? You cannot honestly apologize, if you believe that you couldn't have done otherwise. But how then can there be reconciliation with your wife?

Nor can you require your children to apologize. After all, they too couldn't have behaved otherwise.

You can instead decide:

• I will apologize and will require my children to apologize even though we couldn't have done otherwise.

However, to apologize contradicts your worldview. It admits that your worldview fails to address the needs of your life. It is therefore dysfunctional and should be exchanged for a worldview that reflects reality and serves as a guide for life.

The denial of freewill and accountability kills in other ways. It tells criminals that they are not responsible for their rapes and murders. It even tells them that they lack the freewill to improve. 

Perhaps, even worse, it teaches them cynicism. It tells them that they do not deserve punishment, because their crimes had been pre-programmed into them.

If so, they will wonder why they are being punished if they couldn't have acted otherwise. They will see that your system of justice is just hypocrisy. Such an awareness will not inspire change and personal responsibility.

Instead, we need to be nourished with a coherent rationale for responsible living. Without this, I fear that our society cannot long endure. And why should we even care if we cannot do otherwise?

Should we deprive such people of the vote, a vote that is no more than a chemical-electrical reaction! And when deprived, should we take their complaint seriously?

This is not a flippant remark but a reality. To deny freewill is to deny that we are responsible and moral agents. It is also to seriously degrade humanity. If this human machine fails to respond in socially acceptable ways, why not simply deposit us in the city dump with the rest of the garbage!

THE NARROWING OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN

Maximizing our humanity requires us to use all of our faculties, integrating sensual awareness and experience with rationality and wisdom. This means that we cannot reject any of our faculties. If we reject our eyes, we will stumble. If we reject our ears, we will not be able to socialize. If we reject our minds, we will not be able to make wise decisions.

However, rejecting rationality and, with it, moral certainty, mindlessness has become acceptable. The evidence of this is all around us. Mindfulness training requires us to close down our minds and only to observe without making moral judgments.

I just read an appealing advertisement for a new meetup group:

·       "From the time we’re just out of diapers we’re charged by our parents, our peers, our lovers, ourselves, with the task of maintaining certainty, and if we don’t feel certainty, of manufacturing it. Tonight’s going to be different—tonight we’ll ask all who come to drop the certainty and gather around a comfortable white sofa with a glass of wine and a sense of curiosity. What brings you joy? What keeps you up at night? How’s your heart? What do you love, and what would you like to be different? What do you want to share, or hear from your brothers?"

Understandably, wisdom and certainty are demanding, while experience and feelings are just what they are (or however we want to interpret them), and, without making judgments about them, they are all acceptable.

Admittedly, this might prove comfortable for the short run. More importantly, this trend reflects a narrowing and a dangerous cultural trend. We feel uncomfortable about judgment, more specifically, about being criticized. Even more, we cannot endure criticism. It attacks the very basis who we are as people - our value and personhood.

In fact, we feel so threatened by criticism, many have gone so far as to deny freewill. After all, if we lack freewill, we couldn't have done otherwise and, therefore, bear no guilt.

Ironically, to defend ourselves against criticism and guilt, we demean who we are as humans. Consequently, we see ourselves as wet machines – not very edifying.

Well, if we are merely machines that cannot do otherwise, why then should we try to oppose our desires to steal and cheat? The only rationale that then remains to oppose our selfish instincts is the fear of getting caught, but fear alone is often not enough. Consequently, lying, stealing, and cheating have become so prevalent that no one trusts our institutions. Can we survive such cynicism?

What is the answer? How are we to bear our moral failures and accept criticism? Simply through confidence that when we confess our sins and failures to our Savior, He forgives and cleanses us completely! And when we come to live according to His opinions, we gradually lose our fear of the opinions and criticisms of others. Instead of people-pleasers, we are liberated to become God-pleaser. It's beats being a wet machine.

OPRAH, INTERFAITH CONNECTEDNESS, AND ONE WORLD RELIGION

There is a great push to unite the people of the world through a shared spirituality. Barbranda Lumpkins Walls interviewed Oprah Winfrey who narrates the Belief film series:

• …which she said is an effort to “connect the dots of every heart’s yearning for something greater than ourselves.” (AARP Bulletin, Oct.2015)

However, Oprah doesn’t simply want to connect dots but also to connect people:

• “I set out to really build this universe of interfaith connectedness, where people could see that other people in different parts of the world are very much like them. Although they might have a different word for the yearning of the heart and the yearning of the spirit that is looking for what I call “God,” it still is the same thing. It is the heart’s yearning to know the origin of its mystery. It’s a heart’s yearning to know the power of the divine in each of our lives. It’s a heart’s yearning to be connected to that.” (“condensed” by AARP)

While Oprah’s idealism is admirable, it requires some examination. We humans already have many things that we share and that should provide common ground. We are born; we die. We have families, and we sacrifice for them. We suffer and find solace in others. We respond to caring concern. We share the same needs for love, appreciation, and significance. Why then must we find a way to meld our religious beliefs or experiences together in light of all the other things we share?

Writing for the Washington Post, author Diana Butler Bass argues that Oprah’s Belief series is a breath of fresh air:

• At a time when many people in Western countries criticize religion as hypocritical, divisive or dangerous, and while large numbers are rejecting religion altogether, Winfrey’s project is a worthy reminder to viewers that religion can heal, restore and transform — and not only fracture. For this reason alone, the show “Belief” deserves respectful attention as it provides a much-needed alternative narrative to the increasing public disdain of faith.

The show delves “into spiritual experience by telling the stories of people within various religious communities.” Notice, it is not about beliefs but experiences. Why only this perspective? It is argued that our differing beliefs have created an impassable chasm, which only bullets can bridge. Instead, both Bass and Oprah hope that our common experiences can bridge the chasm and provide the needed road to inclusiveness:

• In all the world’s religions, older forms of remote and hierarchical authority — not to mention the very idea of a distant and monarch-like God — are being challenged by ordinary people as they pray, worship, walk pilgrimages and seek the divine in nature and neighborhoods…The age of top-down religion is over. That age is being replaced by an age in which even people who faithfully maintain distinctive religious identities are engaging in do-it-yourself spiritual journeys that often lead in remarkably similar directions of love, healing and justice toward a God (or gods) close at hand.

However, “top-down religion” has created community. What makes Bass suppose that this move towards the New Age of the subjective and experiential will provide a better glue? For one thing, Bass thinks that with the move away from doctrine and religious authorities, a “spiritual democracy” will arise, based on everyone’s private experiences.

• As people remake religion for themselves today, they are replacing adherence to fixed doctrine with the personal power of spiritual experience to transform their lives.

But how does this move transform their lives in a positive way? How does it bring world harmony and inclusion?

• The shift amounts to a storming of heaven and dragging the holy here, to earth. All around the world, people are discovering that God — or the gods, or the Goddess, or the spirit of awe — is nearer than has often been taught and that the divine can be accessed by anyone anywhere. Indeed, every person has a responsibility for his or her own spiritual life.

How do we know that we can connect with God through these experiences alone? Perhaps instead, this “storming of heaven,” is actually a storming of the demonic. Sadly, New Age thinking seems to be unwilling to consider this possibility.

Bass seems to assume that, if the old dogma set put aside, we will share common spiritual experiences and will be able to achieve world peace based upon this. However, it is questionable that, as we assume “responsibility for his or her own spiritual life,” we will be drawn together rather than drift apart in our own subjective, idiosyncratic worlds, linked only by the lotus position.

• Ultimately, “Belief” is about the relocation of religious authority and the return to an experiential definition of “belief.” It reveals that ours is an age of spiritual uprising: In every faith tradition, in every corner of the globe, men and women are discovering that faith is an encounter of love and that human beings can trust themselves to find God and grace wherever the sacred might be discerned. 

When experience reigns, the pursuit truth has to be set aside. How do we know when we are discerning the sacred? Well, we are just supposed to focus on the experience itself. However, Bass is giving her own interpretation of the experience as “sacred” but without any rationale. She is imposing her own theology but without any attempt to justify it.

Although there are many common elements in our experiences, is there any reason to believe that this will contribute to human connectedness? It reminds me of the various communist attempts to create a paradise. They built towns where everyone lived in the same apartments and performed the same work. The apartments were purposely constructed with thin walls to bring people together and remove the inevitable barriers. However, this unsustainable system bred alienation, suspicion, and distrust and, of course, the extermination of 100,000,000 in a very short time.

Idealism can have a high price tag. In this case, Oprah’s Belief series is not merely at attempt to find more commonalities but to eliminate the differences. This can be costly. It is also intolerant.

But some destructive differences should be exposed and not tolerated. Some religions promote peace through their shared beliefs, while others teach murder and conquest to achieve their goal of world domination. Wisdom requires us to discriminate among these vastly different religions and not to indiscriminately lump them together under the category of “religion.” Such an unwillingness to appreciate their differences is an unwillingness to understand and to exercise the very justice that will lead to peace.

Why are Bass and Oprah unwilling to make these critical distinctions? It seems instead that they would rather re-invent the wheel and to radically create a new religion characterized by the “relocation of religious authority and the return to an experiential definition of ‘belief’.”

Wouldn’t it instead be better to merely tolerate those religions that seek peace and the well-being of others? Why must they demonize these religions as Bass does:

• “Belief” narrates this often-ignored but startling story: The age of top-down religion is over. That age is being replaced by an age in which even people who faithfully maintain distinctive religious identities are engaging in do-it-yourself spiritual journeys that often lead in remarkably similar directions of love, healing and justice toward a God (or gods) close at hand. 

Are all of these religions “top-down?” Do some also promote “love, healing and justice?” Bass implies that they don’t, throwing them together into the same coffin.

Instead, New Age thought would have us believe that if everyone finds their own corner to meditate to seek their own subjective experiences, the barriers that separate us will suddenly come crashing down. For them, our common experience represents the ultimate model of tolerance and acceptance. Ironically, they too are unwilling to accept those religions that make definite truth claims. However, a close reading of Bass or any New Age thinker reflects the fact that they have their own set of truth claims.

Eckhart Tolle, Oprah Winfrey’s New Age spiritual advisor, degrades ideology (theology), but uses his own ideology to do so:

• If you go deep enough in your religion, then you all get to the same place It’s a question of going deeper, so there’s no conflict here. The important thing is that religion doesn’t become an ideology…the moment you say 'only my belief' or 'our belief' is true, and you deny other people’s beliefs, then you’ve adopted an ideology. And then religion becomes a closed door.

This entire statement is ideological. It is a statement truth, albeit Tolle’s own brand of truth. Tolle complains that ideology creates a “closed door,” but he has just closed the door on many who believe differently.

Do these proponents offer any historical analysis to prove the superiority of experience-based religions? Is there any reason to believe that experiences will promote harmony while believes and certitude about the pursuit of love and justice will not? No!

Instead, in the vacuum created by a religion that demeans objective and universal truth, other ideas and beliefs will inevitably fill this vacuum. We have minds, and they will be thinking thoughts. We can either be proactive, self-reflective, and systematic about our thinking and believing or we can passively and uncritically absorb our thoughts.

Where will these thoughts come from? From society and also from our selfish, self-centered, and arrogant impulses! However, maturity requires that we exercise some degree of self-control over our impulses. Where would this self-control come from after our beliefs about objective love and justice have been disparaged? Well, if experience is the ultimate goal, let’s just act out what we feel!

In contrast to the New Age, it is the teachings of the Bible that have led so many to say “no” to drugs, adultery, hatred, cheating, lying, stealing, and hurting others. These teachings continue to encourage us to overcome our selfish impulses and to put the needs of others before our own.

The Tyranny of Praise

We are social creatures, and the opinions of others mold us. We derive our self-definition or self-regard by how others regard us. If others treat us like garbage, we will begin to feel and smell like garbage. If they treat us with dignity, we will begin to feel that we have some worth.

However, this is also an inescapable tyranny. Jesus said,

·       "I do not accept praise from men… How can you [Pharisees] believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” (John 5:41-44)

We will never be free from the need for feedback, praise, or self-definition. Instead, it is a question of, “From where do I derive this necessary commodity.” We tend to derive it from friends, family, and even from foes – especially our boss, who exercises a tyrannical power over us.

How do we free ourselves from these opinions? By becoming more concerned about God’s opinion – where we find great comfort and confidence - than man’s! Here is what He says:

·       “I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, 'You are my servant'; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish.” (Isaiah 41:9-11)

Humanity: Knowing who we are is Knowing how to Live

It should be obvious that if we are to live the good and maximally beneficial life, we have to know who we are and what we need. Without this knowledge, we do not know how to take care of ourselves. 

However, others deny such a thing as “human nature.” Eric Fromm wrote this about Karl Marx:

•  Marx did not believe, as do many contemporary sociologists and psychologists, that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm 

According to Marx and his followers, humanity is nothing more than a byproduct of the economic system. Historian Robert Royal wrote:

• The materialist view of the person – combined with the notion that humans, as material beings, can be reshaped into the New Man of the Communist dream merely by a change of their social conditions, a view still widespread today – is a falsehood that inevitably leads to awful consequences… By most credible estimates, Communist countries killed about a hundred million people in the twentieth century. (The God that did not Fail, 247)

In contrast with the materialistic view of humanity, the better we understand humanity, the better we can serve them. It’s like taking care of anything. If we don’t understand our car, we will destroy it. We have to know that the gas goes in the gas tank, and the water goes into the radiator and not into the gas tank. We also need to know where to find the gas pedal and where to find the brakes.

If we don’t understand our car, we will destroy it. We have to know that the gas goes in the gas tank, and the water goes into the radiator and not into the gas tank. We also need to know where to find the gas pedal and where to find the brakes.

Knowledge is necessary for the care of anything, even our clothing and the kitchen stove. This is uncontroversial! However, when it comes to understanding humanity and human nature, this understanding is often overlooked, as if there is no human nature at all.

Strangely, we do not forget that our cat, parakeet, and goldfish have their own nature and therefore require care in accordance with their nature. We do not throw our parakeet in the fish's bow; nor do we place our fish in a bird cage. Each creature has its own optimal environment.

However, we show even less attention to our human nature, assuming that our individual differences represent the totality of who we are.

We encounter one example of this disregard for human nature in the last place that we should expect it – in the study of clinical psychology. This study has been dominated by a preoccupation with the pathological, the human differences, not the commonalities.

Myopically, to determine what is pathological, clinical psych has adopted a medical model. According to this model, the pathological is what causes pain or symptomology like sores or swelling. However, when we apply this model to psychology, whatever causes long-term pain, discomfort, or interferes with personal fulfillment is considered pathological. Consequently, the optimal human state is to be pain-free, without unpleasant symptoms, and to be maximally fulfilled or happy. For most psychotherapists, the goal is to reduce unwanted symptomology. (Just look at how they advertise their services!)

However, there is much the matter with this analysis. Pain is also a good thing. It tells us when we have to remove our hand from a hot stove. Likewise, guilt tells us that we might be doing something wrong. To be without pain-receptors is to be a leper. To be without a conscience and guilt feelings is to be a sociopath. Pain is often necessary!

This raises the questions, “What is our common human nature? What is normalcy (if there is such a thing)? And how do we live in accordance with our human nature?” Failing to answer these questions makes it impossible to talk about pathology. Is it pathological to have a sensitive conscience? To not feel bad in the context of injustice? To be concerned about what others think of us? To live our lives for our family at the expense of our own fulfillment?

In comparison, medical issues are relatively simple. Sickness is something that interferes with our maximal physical functioning. But what does it mean to be mentally sick? In order to answer this question, we need to understand what it means to be mentally healthy – something psychology knows little about.

At a secular discussion group, one participant stated that our purpose is to “glorify humanity.” Central to this glorification is our freedom of thought to question everything without any limitations, moral or otherwise.

While I agree with many aspects of this assertion, I think that we need to further explore what it means to be “free.” Is freedom the absence of limitations or rules, as many are prone to believe today? Just try to play chess with complete freedom to move our pieces any way so want and at any time. Complete freedom represents chaos and a meaningless, unsatisfying game of chess.

Complete freedom can also represent supreme bondage. Take the goldfish in his very limiting fishbowl. He eyeballs the great world outside of his bowl and concludes, “I need to be free of the limitations of this bowl.” With a great effort, he jumps out of his bowl, flapping helplessly on the floor below. 

The goldfish had maximized his freedom within the limitations of water. Perhaps we too need to learn about our human limitations and to live in accordance with them. Perhaps, as with any other creature, we were created for a specific environment or set of lifestyles that maximize our freedom and well-being.

Let me suggest two sets of limitations within which we should live – what we believe/think and how we act.

WHAT WE BELIEVE/THINK

Thinking accurately is essential. Our thinking must be limited by the truth or wisdom. Our thought processes largely determine if we are going to navigate successfully through life. If we are not accessing and responding to accurate data, we will cash our car. As we drive, we need to know precisely where the other cars are. Anything less will produce catastrophe.

Does this insight also pertain to the gushier aspects of our lives? Definitely! If I think that my mailman is canvassing my house in order to find the right occasion to kill me, this will adversely affect my feelings towards him and my behavior.

More to the point, I used to think that others didn’t like me and was convinced that, in order for them to like me, I had to become a different person. Such a belief was not only inaccurate, it was also costly, alienating me from myself and from others.

Everyone has their areas of blindness. One dear friend believed that most women were terribly attracted to him, even those who told him “no!” His blindness in this area proved costly, including several arrests.

Blindness is always associated with crashes, costs, and even arrests. This means that maturity and growth must entail growth in understanding the truth – seeing reality as it is. This realization suggests that we are constrained by the truth of reality. While we are free to create our own reality, to can only be done at the price of a costly collision with reality.

This same principle applies to human nature. We might decide that we are free to recreate ourselves – and to a certain extent, we can do so – but there are human constraints to which we must adhere.

HOW WE BEHAVE MORALLY

In another way, we are constrained by our human nature. It seems apparent that our human nature is also a moral nature. If we live contrary to our moral nature, we will  crash. Of course, we can choose to live in conflict with our moral nature, but only at great cost to ourselves.

A friend had recently confided that, as a young man, he had become the “mascot” of some mafia-type guys. My friend now calls them “monsters.” They had everything – power, money, respect, women – but they were miserable. There was no joy in their lives. Why not? They were living in opposition to their moral nature. They knew better, but they rejected this knowledge.

Meanwhile, many studies have shown that the most satisfied people are those who live according to what they know within themselves. They know that being other-centered is right, and they live that way.

When I live selfishly, I feel most uncomfortable. However, when I center myself on the needs of others, I experience the greatest joy and peace.

What then does it mean to be free, and how do we maximize our freedom? When we live in accordance with the truth, whether external or internal! This means living in accordance with the limitations of our human nature.

CAN A PILL BE INVENTED THAT WILL ALLOW US TO LIVE FREE FROM OUR CONSTRAINING NATURE?

A pill will not enable us to circumvent reality, no more than an anti-anxiety drug will enable us to drive blindfolded.

Even more to the point, why would anyone want to circumvent reality? Only a superficial view of reality would cause us to ask such a question. Some believe that reality is nothing but change. In this case, human nature and moral reality is nothing to be reckoned with. Better to be a trend-setter!

However, if human nature is such by the design of a superior Intelligence who has created us with a moral nature to understand Him and to enter into a loving and eternal relationship with Him, our nature is to be cherished and not changed.

Yes, we are glorious, but how so? As we walk in sync with Reality – our Creator - first in belief and then in action!