Why is it that we need others to see things the way we see things?
Why is it that people do not see things the way we see things?
Is it true that some people have a corner on the truth?
Or is it that some people simply think they have a corner on the truth?What does it mean to be a nonbeliever?
What does it mean to be a true believer?
Did you know that if you are a Christian, then you are a nonbeliever to Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Atheists, etc?
Keep this in mind: Every person on this earth is a nonbeliever to someone. It just depends on their perspective.
“Where you stand
depends on where you sit.”
"We see the world, not as it isbut rather as we are."
Our perspective determines our world and life view. Our perspective is determined by our life experiences mixed with our cultural conditioning; which is why we all see things differently. If there is a crash on the corner and we were to ask 10 people what happened, we will get 10 different stories. As human beings, we are each unique and different from each other. That’s who we are as humans. That’s who we are.
So rather than beating on each other and trying to make “them” or the “other” like ourselves, why can we not create a new way of seeing things, a new way of understanding each other?
Why can’t we learn to do to others what we want done to us?
Why can’t we embrace freedom of belief?
Why can't we embrace freedom of religion?
Why can't we embrace freedom from religion?
Why can’t we start with understanding?
Is there a new and fresh meta-narrative; an all-encompassing story that inclusively allows for all of us and our differences without exclusion? … that allows for us to be human together?
All cultures are made up of meta-narratives; individual and collective. This is how we learn to live together and find commonality.
We must learn to honor and respect the deepest values and beliefs of all people. These are sacred and of great importance for each person as long as those values and beliefs honor and respect each and every person on earth. Each of us must continually vet our values and beliefs to see the source from which they come; love or fear, acceptance or hate, freedom or control?
We must learn to see that each person’s values and beliefs, if well vetted and tested in the crucible of life, are deeply embedded and integral to our humanity. It is not a matter of picking and choosing whose values and beliefs have value or truth. It is a matter of realizing that all human values and beliefs are critical to each person’s survival. This is how we make sense and make meaning out of the chaos. This is how we find hope and the drive to keep going.
First we must understand ourselves and realize that I am the only person I am responsible for; the only person I can change.Then we must learn to seek understanding with others. Can we learn to seek understanding rather than elevating our voice to dominate others and to be understood? What another person believes is not my responsibility. My only responsibility is to make sure my values and beliefs are clear-minded and authentic to me; that I have deeply examined my inner landscape. And then to realize that the values and beliefs of others are authentic and integral to them. Their perspective is just as important to them as mine is to me. My values and beliefs are only as good as the way I treat other people.
We must learn to honor and respect others. Their values and beliefs are deeply embedded within. We must not dishonor or disrespect others. And we must remember that “violence is any time we violate the identity and integrity of another person.” (Parker Palmer)
Based on this definition of violence, then every time we make the pronouncement that I AM RIGHT, making the “other” wrong, then this is a form of violence. I am exercising dominance over another while demanding that they conform to my will; thus entering into a vicious cycle of power and oppression.
If I dominate and demand that I AM RIGHT, then what am I afraid of?
If I put down others and hate them, then what is the source of my actions?
“It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
“I have discovered that in discussions it never helps to take a morally superior tone to one’s opponent.” (Nelson Mandela from Long Walk to Freedom, 1994)
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
"I shall never allow myself to stoop so low as to hate any man." – Booker T. Washington
So why do we allow ourselves to be so radicalized? So extreme? So egotistical? So “righteous”? So intolerant?
Why is it that we have to use violence to dominate others? What are we afraid of?
Do we have to become Christian or Islam Supremacists? White or Black Supremacists? Republican or Democrat Supremacists? Atheist or Agnostic Supremacists?
In order to have strong values and beliefs, do we have to become militant radicalized extremists?
In order to be right, do we have to make others wrong, condemning them to hell, declaring war, declaring myself a god?
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” (Martin Luther King Jr)
If we are to live in peace, then we must learn to honor and respect all people.
We must actively seek to understand others.
Many of us have been raised in a society, a culture, that is intolerant of difference. Intolerance comes from fear. And our greatest fear is of that which we do not understand, that which is different.
At the end of this post is a draft model, A Spectrum of Needs, that I’ve been creating for myself to help me remember and visualize that our deepest values and beliefs are rooted in our deepest needs. This is what we construct to make sense of our world; our world and life view. Our belief system is necessary for us to maintain our sanity and our survival. Each person on earth has been drawn to a mythology* (see footnote) or a meta-narrative of meaning. We create stories in our heads or download stories from society that help us to cope with the chaos and mystery that we fear; the greatest of which is death. Our stories (myths) help us make sense, create meaning, and keep going. Whether or not they are true is not the point. We hold to them because they work for us, they are useful.
The irony and the terror of being human: "... to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die. ... 'It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours.” (Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death)
Of all living beings on earth, we are the only ones that we know of that are self-aware. This consciousness of life and living also contains a consciousness that life ends. One of the greatest needs we have is to adopt stories and beliefs that ease the fear and pain of the loss of life, as well as create meaning in life.
For a person in a coma, death is as natural and painless as slipping from conscious life into a coma. Once awareness and fear is dulled, then death becomes a part of the circle of life.
So just as we have this glaring need to appease the gods of death with a mythology of meaning, we also have the need to create gods of life so that we can appease them and ease our fears and the panic that death creates without our beloved stories.
I propose that if we are not directly wrestling with reality head on without our stories as buffers, then we are creating our own mythology of meaning, world and life view, systems of belief, theological systems; all of which are human constructs so that we can ease our minds, comfort our souls, secure our futures, and create certainty where there is none.
But can we live with uncertainty?
Can we live with mystery?
Can we live with the wonder of learning as we go,
as we experience life?
Can we live with life simply unfolding before us
as we take one step at a time?
Or do we HAVE to think we know?
Conjuring up beliefs that we can then cling to?
The Science Behind Us versus Them
Our stories and mythologies of meaning seem to have developed themes that have arisen from culture and ritual. The themes fill the air we breath to the extent that we do not even realize these themes have become our gods; powerful memes** (see footnote) that take root and grow as a virus of the mind. I have boiled them down to three main ones that have driven my life for far too long;
a sort of All-American Trinity:
The god of Comfort
The god of Security,
The god of Certainty.
These are what drive us and determine our thinking and our actions, our decisions, our relationships, our associations, etc.
The god of Comfort allows us to live safe and secure in our cocoon, our bubble, where everyone thinks the same, believes the same, and lives the same. It is our way of justifying us minimizing risk and isolating ourselves from difference, from “the other”. We end up living out our lives in an echo chamber with our own ideas, opinions, and beliefs bouncing back at us.
The god of Security requires that we plan out everything so that we can retire with a big house in a safe and risk-free neighborhood with lots of money. Anything that undermines our own security is anathema including reality or the truth, compassion and love.
The god of Certainty gives us all the answers we need to be right, feel good, answer life's biggest questions, and make sure we “know” whatever it is that we need to know. It protects us from the unknown mystery and wonder of life unfolding before us.
These mythologies of meaning that we create seem to cover a few main questions that are disconcerting without our stories in our heads to minimize our fears. All over the world, in every culture, societies have created stories and beliefs to give answers to those that need them to maintain their sanity and survive the complexities of this world.
Questions that our mythologies of meaning attempt to answer | ||
The origin of the universe
The origin of the world
The origin of life
Life and Death
Good and Evil
Heaven and Hell
|
Who are our heroes
What are our heroes’ journeys
Becoming a hero
Being brave
Who are our enemies
Why are they our enemies
|
What do our enemies want
What is the nature of mankind
Fixing mankind with a story
Fixing fear with a story
Fixing evil with a story
Stuffing life into a story |
The draft model below is not bias free at all. Actually, it is quite biased toward the misfits and outliers. I'm trying to envision ways of reduce the bias. But this is simply my perspective, being cognizant of my own biases and conditioning and recent spiritual growth; along with providing a paradigm that helps me be more tolerant and understanding of the values and beliefs of others. I hope this draft is a simple starting point for dialogue.
*Mythology. A myth is a myth because of the meaning it gives to people and to societies. Whether it is true or not is not the point. The point is that myths are the stories, beliefs, values that are important to us. Myths are the enduring stories that give us direction and drive us forward toward that which is important to us. We all have myths that we live by. The question is whether we have recognized and examined those myths prior to adopting them.
“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
**Meme. 1 : an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. Memes (discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on) are to culture what genes are to life. The DNA of a society. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme
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