Thoughts on who we are.

Thoughts on who we are.

28 May 2007 Louis L. Brossard

I can’t help but wonder why so many of the world’s people find a compelling need to believe in a super human omnipotent entity. In the contemporary Western World that entity is usually a deity that oversees our actions and rewards good behavior. Rarely do we blame it for catastrophes of the world. In the ancient world the gods were all powerful but essentially capricious and very vengeful. Their power was super human but their wisdom was not. Observable evidence to the contrary, most people still believe that the laws of nature can be suppressed or superseded. Every single person in the world can establish the truth of such a belief by examining the available facts. Few do so preferring to accept whatever myths their culture embraces or even worse, preferring to maintain a self-righteous assumption of superiority.

I have a theory why this is so but have no idea how it can be tested scientifically. It is therefore just as suspect as the myths I wish to supersede. So while I agree that the following is nothing but conjecture it is at least an attempt to use reason rather than fantasy as a founding basis.

The newborn human child is one of the most helpless creatures on earth. Without direct and extensive intervention and support all children would die. So from the very beginning of our existence we depend on a superior being, a parent usually, to sustain our life and give us comfort; our first experience with a god like being. This guardian not only supplies for our needs but also represents an absolute authority.

As we progress on our life’s voyage other authorities are introduced. We begin to realize that our parents have intellectual and provider limits. Then there are teachers, preachers and other erudite creatures that take their exalted place. Once at university the parent often sinks to a lowly status as a glorified professor becomes the paradigm of knowledge. While the superior being changes identity the quality of superiority remains. We are all too aware of our own deficiencies and want something more perfect.

Instead of accepting our misconception of a perfect being we chose not to relinquish our wish for an all knowing, all powerful super entity. Thus is born our concept of God. We ignore all the abundant evidence and chose the most ridiculous nonsense to satisfy our longing for someone or something that will accommodate our wishes and allay our fears. We invent our God to replace the parent of our early dependent existence.

While the perfection we desire is not a part of our world we do have a remarkably developed intelligence. Through the process of competition, death and renewal we have developed the capacity to manipulate and organize our environment. Working as a group we are able to achieve very remarkable feats. In fact, we now have the power to destroy all of human life. We have enormous power. We also have the intellectual capacity to use this power to change the condition of human life. Unfortunately we do not have the wisdom to do so wisely. The knowledge exists but is not the choice of mankind. Philosophers prize their wisdom but are insufficiently wise to even agree among themselves much less lead the human horde to the utopia they can conceive. We are all lead by our wants, not by our wills.

Even as our brains learn a mother tongue accent free as a child but lose the ability to speak accent free when learning a language as an adult, so do we learn a culture of belief as a child and never completely lose its influence. The harm done to a child by inculcating religion, nationalism, racism or any other self righteous superiority can never be totally extricated. We can change. We can learn the rational way but there will always be that emotional hook embedded in our psyche. Alas, most of us will never even make the effort to investigate the origin of our convictions. Thus, a learned professor of physics can accept irreconcilable contradictions in his religion that he would never consider in his academic achievement. I knew such a professor at BYU.

Science and reason can give us many answers but can never give us a final Truth. They can help us search. They can also correct a wrong path. But they can only lead toward the goal not get us there. Perhaps it is the longing for reaching the goal of certainty that is so beguiling that we are willing to forsake reason for myth. Having been taught from early childhood that there is an authority that has the answer we are reluctant or unable to accept the idea that there is only the truth, not the Truth. Reason has allowed us to make our physical life quite easy. Even if we have failed to make a life free of hunger and fear universal we do know how to make it so. Much of the Western world enjoys adequate shelter and food. Many of us are supremely self indulgent. We actually get bored with a surfeit of entertainment and luxury.

Our utter dependence as children engenders a longing for a supreme comforter. Our frailty and ignorance engenders fear. Our sloth engenders uncritical acceptance. Our awareness of death engenders a dream of immortality. But our use of reason has given us the ability to manipulate our environment to fit our wants and improve our lives. I will continue to exhort my fellow man to embrace reason and observable fact to guide their way even as I try to ever do so for myself. Don’t ask for divine guidance. Learn to rely on your own reason and arm yourself with facts.