Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

More Good Than Harm

my dear juliet post caused a little stir here at the ranch. the irony is that i anticipated it could, but not for the reasons it actually did. the timing of my post was quite coincidental; however, i can see how it could be seen as my expression of resentment for a renewed interest in religion. ok, interest isn't really the right word because i know that has always been there, but i nothing comes to mind to express a change in one's outward level of participation and alike.

none of that is the point really. in fact, to me the point had little to do with believing from a religious perspective as it did with believing in anything. the author simply used religion as an easily recognized example of where belief is the driving force. i think his advice to juliet is equally applicable when it comes to other areas. consider racism. there are groups that believe white anglo-saxon protestants are better than everyone else, especially non-whites. it is scary, but some of these people believe that to be true and act on it accordingly.

before anybody gets their panties in a bunch, i am not saying that racism is equivalent to believing in g*d. not in the least. i am saying that both require to some extent unquestioned belief and that dawkins missive equally applies. and with that said, my appreciation of his writing and advise is from the big picture rather than latching on to the example he used to make his point.

in fact, consider these two short paragraphs in the same letter.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise, you' d never be confident of things like "My wife loves me." But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little titbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn't a purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.

Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn't even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can't trust them.

call me ill in my mind if you must. we have all found things we believed in and sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong. sometimes there was evidence we didn't take into account and sometimes the evidence we see is simply our mind's way of making us simply believe.

i really have no problem with people that choose to believe in g*d and lead good lives in his name. if that is what it takes or that makes it easier, i say go for it. at the same time, if one can live a good life without this belief, i see nothing wrong with that either. one is clearly no better than the other and i prefer to leave the battle to those that believe otherwise.

while i haven't adopted it as a personal motto or anything, my thought of a "good life" is ... do more good than harm.

Posted by ac at December 8, 2005 05:37 PM