Way off the reservation

A conversation with a friend sparked a thought that lead way, way off the reservation...

I think human kinds main problem is dealing with and ultimately outgrowing the evil that came along with our evolution. That we are a species branched from a tribal, hunting carnivore with a ferocious drive to breed while competing for limited resources, pretty much covers where most of what (some of us anyway) now call evil. Toss in a small (but not infinitesimal) percentage of the population exhibiting various symptoms of serious mental illness and there is no need to evoke a sinister, nearly all powerful and malevolent spirit, to explain where evil comes from. It is tangled up in both our evolution and our DNA.

Religion was an attempt by an infant intelligent species just starting to struggle with understanding the conflict born of instincts that worked for survival in the past now threatening massive destruction. Given that we have just recently discovered that we are evolved from a tribal, hunting carnivore, various religious stories where actually pretty good attempts. But they still turned out to be a wrong and thus offer little help in overcoming the evil in our world. The best they seem to do is promise that those who make it to one of the heaven's will find evil has magically disappeared. Not a bad deal if it could be true, but if we want to survive as a species, it looks like we will have to overcome evil right here in this world.

Some bits of religion are a good start if it is true that most of them have some teachings similar to "love your neighbor" and "treat everyone as you would want to be treated". As an ex-Christian I can say that there are some such teachings in Christianity. They were the last ones I clung to as my faith faded away and still form the basis of my take on true morality. Unfortunately such teachings were a minor part of Christianity even back then, and have since been completely abandoned by the American Christian Church, most of Christendom, and apparently by much of every major religion in the world.

If the various religions of the world worshiped the "love your neighbor", "do unto others...," "greed is bad", "compassion is good" versions of their gods and not the "those that are different from you are not the chosen and are going to hell" versions, life on this little planet might be much improved. The god(s) still would not exist but shit, at that point, who would care? There are followers of religion who claim that only a belief in god - and a fear of hell - are keeping them from being complete homicidal maniacs. It doesn't matter at all that the god they worship doesn't exist. In fact all that really matters is they keep believing that it does!  (On the other hand the rest of us would be much better off if those whose belief in a god gives free reign to their homicidal delusions would abandon their faith.)

Believing in a god that actually required one to practice love would be something similar to believing to a god who is going to send you to hell if you rape your pretty neighbor. Imagine what would happen if believers thought they were going to hell if they didn't love their neighbor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and treat others as they want to be treated. (I think there is actually a place in the Christian bible that says just exactly that. Curiously, I never hear Christians talking of taking that part literally.) I'm not sure that fear is actually a very good motivator over the long haul, but I guess it is better than nothing. Regardless of what motivates them I have no problem with believers who seek social justice, work to reign in the warmongers, via against the abuses of prison systems, are critical of an economic system based on greed, or support anything else that falls under the "love your neighbor" and "do unto others..." banner. If I could find any I would consider them allies. Unfortunately every morning's news headlines tells a different tale of what religion brings to our world.

So we are still faced with the task of overcoming evil in the world but so far, as a species, have not taken many steps in that direction. How does one overcome evil without resorting to the tools of evil? How does one counter force without force, coercion without incarceration, abuse without abuse? Non-violence is an ethos I would love to hold, but it can't survive those who resort to violence. To be honest, in our world today, the bad guys usually win and the rest of us know it.

Here is the thing ... in a cosmos as vast and as old as we suspect this one to be, knowing that evolution and constant creativity are woven into the very fabric of space and time, and thinking of a multi-verse filled with a barely imaginable diversity of life and intelligence ... it must be that some species somewhere has figured out how to outgrow the impulses bred by its evolutionary past. Or maybe there is an evolutionary branch to intelligence that doesn't grow through homicidal tribal apes? If the universe is as it appears to be, it is almost certain that there are forms of intelligence, species, collective minds, something, out there, that is "good" to its very core.

The very structure of the universe may well be bent to making that happen. After all we seem to be the local poster children for what happens to a world where intelligence can't find its way to good. The indications are that such a species doesn't actually survive very long.

I am an atheist, yet it seems to me that there is a moral imperative built into the very structure of being. Once there is intelligence, and as soon as that intelligence starts building tools, morality, goodness, love, compassion, all become requirements for survival. As the tools of mass destruction become ever more accessible and powerful, greed, hate, arrogance, violence, even neglected mental illness, all are open invitations to the death of all. To me the recent pandemic of gun violence is a preview of what happens to a society that can't even define "good", let alone work toward it.

Politics, religion, economics, corporations, all social structures for that matter, must eventually be infused with the imperative of being non-violent, compassionate, tolerant, and loving, or the human species will excise itself from a universe that demands goodness.

And that brothers and sisters, is, sadly, about as far off the reservation as one can go.