Mrs. JB I'm not a sociologist (although it was my minor) so here goes: I think the examples you show of "good" as opposed to "bad" are more examples of societal conditioning than some sort of internal moral compass. Yes, most of us share would share the belief that what happened on Sept. 11 is a tragedy. However, that comes from the fact that we live here on the same planet at the same time in similar conditions and circumstances. This becomes the nature vs. nurture debate. What I am suggesting is that there is an inherent sense of right and wrong in most people, sociopaths excepted. More on this further down. If we, as good people, are morally opposed to murder, why are we now in Afghanistan killing their soldiers? See, here's where societal conditioning immediately kicks into gear -- we can rationalize it in a whole host of ways "it's not murder if it's a war," "but they're soldiers, not innocent civilians," "they started it." If our internal moral compass was truly set to believe that murder was wrong, it would apply to ALL situations, not just the ones where it was helpful for US foreign policy. You are right. This is where it gets muddy. All societies view murder as wrong, but most have some form of justifiable homicide, and the definitions of justifiable homicide vary significantly. I suggest that the rationalising takes place in that grey area surrounding justifiable homicide, but that pure murder is pure murder, and is inherently understood as wrong by all people. There were numerous societies (ancient Egypt and aancient Greece to name a couple) that practiced incest. They didn't believe it was a sin. Society held that it was an acceptable practice. Murder has been a religious practice (sacrifices to the gods) since organized religion began. Again, these societies felt they were pleasing their god not offending him/her. I believe that in Egypt it was confined to the royal family, and I hadn't heart of the examples in ancient Greece. My understanding is that while it exists, even in our society, it is almost universally not considered good behaviour. My old Ian Robertson, Soc100 text tells me that, "Every known society has had an incest taboo that prohibits sexual relations between specific categories of relatives. The taboo almost always applies to relations between parent and child and between brother and sister, and it always applies to other classes of relatives as well, although different societies have different rules in this regard." There are exceptions, but I believe they are very rare. Buddhism teaches that one of the ways of suffering is our dualistic nature -- our habit of assigning right/wrong, good/bad, happy/sad judgements to every circumstance in our lives. The path out of this suffering is to adopt the non-dualistic stance of simply accepting all that is in a non-judgemental fashion -- to realize that most of the suffering in our lives comes not from the events themselves, but from the value judgements we assign to them. Back to the nature/nurture issues, and we're going to get into the subtleties of "judgmentalism" as well. I don't believe that we "assign" right and wrong in all situations. We do do this, I agree, all the time. Sometimes we do it wilfully and sometimes by reason of our imperfect and fallible perception of what is truly good and bad, and what is truth, but I do believe that good and evil and truth exist, even though none of us, no human being, can see or understand them in their entirety. Because we are all fallible, and none of knows perfectly what is good and what is bad, none of can rightly judge another, or even ourselves. The Bible speaks strongly to this. Luke 6:36-37 "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (It stupefies me that many Christians seem to ignore this very clear passage!) I do believe, however, that we have the ability to discern what is good and bad, (not perfectly), and that we can and should make personal decisions based on this discernment. If you are hurrying down a crowded sidewalk, not paying close attention to where you are going, and you bump into and knock over a small child, do you feel anything? Of course! Is this feeling a conditioned response, an "assigned" response, or is it instinctive? Do you reach down in concern for the well being of the child because you were taught to, or because this is a natural response to be concerned for the well being of a small fragile child that you may have carelessly hurt? I suggest the latter. If it turns out that the child was really a robot that was about to march across the street and rob a bank, then your initial discernment may have been wrong. But your initial response, I contend, will still have been based on an inherent sense of what is right and wrong based on what you thought you saw. People often bristle at the suggestion that they drop exterior notions of right/wrong. I know I did. It is often feared that society would descend into chaos and that man's naturally evil tendencies will be given free reign. Yet those who practice non-dualistic thinking are often the most peaceful people I've ever met. Maybe the soul's natural tendency is simply toward positive evolution. I'm not convinced that this is possible, and I don't believe that all of these "notions" are external. Do you see all situations in this "neutral" way? If you had knocked over the child, would you not feel bad for having done so? Jeff, I'll respond to your post this evening.
I see two problems with this statement: 1. Why do you equate God with justice? That seems to be a rather odd and confining view. 2. Justice, once again, is a limited human idea. Often when people speak of justice they actually mean retribution. Tit for tat. If you hit me I get to hit you back -- a distinctly unspiritual position. But true justice (or karma, if you like) may work on a much larger and broader scale than we are willing to accept. Perhaps there is justice at work in the world, it is just happening at a pace and scale that we are unable to comprehend.
I absolutely do not see all situations in a neutral way. Just because I understand it intellectually doesn't make it an easy thing to practice. I am a very emotional person -- it isn't easy for me to step back and simply watch things unfold without judging them. If I happened to knock a child over I would feel bad, but not because what I did was inherently evil. I would feel bad because I, personally, don't like to hurt anything -- humans, animals, insects, etc... But that is my personal opinion -- not a universal truth.
Just a quick response. I'm not suggesting that knocking down the child is evil. I'm saying it's careless, and in that way bad, not evil. Evil is too strong and too loaded a term. I would feel the same way you have described, and I'm suggesting that that feeling is a universal instinct.
Jeff, I know what you mean as well. I WAS a Christian (at one point, a born again, right wing, Bible thumper in every sense of the word) and that changed for me once I began to explore other possibilities. Does this mean that you were raised in born again Christian family? I was born in non-spiritual family. We were nominally Christian, but only my mother attended and that was only semi-regularly and we never discussed God or spiritual issues at home. It was only later, when I began exploring that I came to Christianity. I think how you approach Christianity with non-judgemental beliefs is a great thing. I'm sure there are very judgemental Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and the like. I don't think that good/bad behavior can be assigned to a religion necessarily. We all do what we do more for personal reasons rather than spiritual. Thanks. I'm not sure I agree with your last sentence though. I can say that, for myself, I have always had a fascination with spiritual things which is why, I suppose, I was as strongly entrenched in Christianity when I was a Christian. Much of what changed in me was not my inherent beliefs in how we should live but my approach to how I, personally, should find a connection to God. Changed when you became a Buddhist, you mean? How did you connect with God when you were a Christian? I still believe a lot of what Christianity teaches. There are many Buddhists who are still practicing Christians and Jews, for example. Religion, for them, is a way of expressing themselves and they want grounding in a variety of languages. Buddism is not my primary practice anyway. I have an interest in most Eastern religions and I am still a bit earthy so Christianity and even pagan practices are of interest as well. I think that there are elements of all religions that resonate with me. Interesting that you mention resonance. That's how I describe how I knew that Christianity was what my newfound spiritual awareness was. That's how I came to believe that the Bible is what it claims to be. It resonated with me very strongly.
Does this mean that you were raised in born again Christian family? I was born in non-spiritual family. We were nominally Christian, but only my mother attended and that was only semi-regularly and we never discussed God or spiritual issues at home. It was only later, when I began exploring that I came to Christianity. Not exactly. My mother and father both went to church but it wasn't exactly a spiritual household. My grandparents are conservative Christians and I went to Lutheran school from kindegarten through my senior year in high school. The irony was that most of the "Christians" I knew really just paid their religion lip service. They were far from spiritual. It wasn't until I was in high school that I began to more seriously look at Christianity. At that point, I became much more conservative and a born again Christian. Changed when you became a Buddhist, you mean? How did you connect with God when you were a Christian? Well, I never became a Buddhist, but I think the main difference for me was that, with Christianity, I felt a connection to Jesus because of who he was and how he treated people. One of the gifts that I have because my mom and my father's mom have it is the ability to read people and feel a connection based even on the smallest things and even if that connection spans centuries of time. What happened for me was I began to lose my connection with the church and with the dogmatic practices because I found many of my own personal beliefs to be in conflict with that of Christianity. I have a book that parallels the teachings of Jesus and Buddha and they are remarkably similar. There are even a couple of parables that Jesus told that are Buddhist parables (Buddha lived 500 years before Jesus). The teachings of Buddhism and other eastern religions (like Taoism and Hinduism) just resonated with me more than that of Christianity. Interesting that you mention resonance. That's how I describe how I knew that Christianity was what my newfound spiritual awareness was. That's how I came to believe that the Bible is what it claims to be. It resonated with me very strongly. I understand. I think that I just began to find resonance with elements of other religions, many of which were similar to the Bible. Some pre-dated Biblical teaching and others came after, but I began to see that many of those beliefs came closer to how I felt about what God is for me. For example, the idea of one all-powerful being sitting and making decisions never felt right for me. My beliefs about God are much more closely aligned with Taoism which believes that God isn't an external entity but that we are all pieces of God. We are no more separate from God than water is from the ocean. We are just pieces of the whole. By that very definition, it would be difficult for me to find resonance in a mono-theistic religion like Christianity. However, I still find the teachings fascinating and of great use spiritually and practically.
Looks like we scared everybody off Jeff. Perhaps we should continue this off line. I sent you an email. Good discussion!
