The hydrogen and helium in our bodies were formed at the origin of the Universe in the Big Bang. The heavier elements, which include the carbon in our muscles, the calcium in our bones, and the iron in our blood, were formed in the heart of multiple exploding stars over unimaginable billions of years.
After all that, each of us exists as a unique confluence of events, a brief flicker of light in an unending darkness. A tragic view perhaps, but facing it gives us a kind of nobility and maturity.
When we were children we thought childish things.
The sad thing is not dying. The sad thing is not living.
Judith, no one could hope more than I do that some “essence” of who we are survives physical death. Like everyone else I grieve over lost loved ones. But I can’t count on that being true, or assume that it is true. I’m certainly not willing to squander the only life I know I have in the hope that it is true. What I do see is our fragile and fleeting lives. Surely the modern scientific view of reality is more awe inspiring than Steefen’s 1970s New Age TV-Movie-of-the-Week version of the Afterlife.
Judith, a life spent loving is not squandered. But I have seen people defer or crush their present living dreams in favor of some future paradise that will never come.
We will become something else. A billion years from now the atoms in my right hand might become part of the wings of a bird-like creature flying in the emerald skies of a planet on the other side of our galaxy. The atoms in my left might be part of the stardust making up a nebula glowing in the darkness, itself engendering the birth of other suns, each with planets and civilizations unimaginable. It is enough for me to be part of the flow.
“Squandering our lives? Is what we are doing when loving others as we love ourselves?”
I can’t speak for Stephen, but here is my own response:
No, loving others as yourself isn’t a waste of your life.
But most organized religions, explicitly or implicitly, teach that there is more than just loving your neighbor as yourself that is helpful, at a minimum, in getting to heaven. Regardless of what they say, it remains that if just loving your neighbor as yourself really is all that matters there isn’t much point to having a church or keeping any sort of religious observance.
Attending services. Going to bible study. Singing in the choir. Going on pilgrimages. Saying some sort of evening prayers. Participating in the Lord’s supper.
Observant Christians usually do these sorts of things; I suspect that if you ask them you will find most of them think there is some connection between doing these sorts of things and being good Christians, and I suspect you will also find there is, in their thinking, some connection between doing these things and getting to heaven (not that they think you have to do these things to get to heaven, but I would hazard a good number of them think that doing such things somehow gives them an edge in getting to heaven–if they didn’t then why are they doing them? But these things have little to do with loving their neighbor.
If the pews are empty on Sunday morning because everyone is out feeding and clothing the poor, you don’t have a congregation any longer and the religion–as an organized religion–dies. If an organized religion is to survive, it has to convince its adherents that doing the things that keep the organized religion going as an organized religion are worthwhile.
If you are certain that there is a heaven, then everything else pales. The only things that really matter are the things that will get you to heaven. It all depends on what specifically you think will get you to heaven (and whether you are really consistent in this thinking) but it can easily severely skew your priorities. I’m envisioning a Catholic (because the character is most familiar to me as an ex-Catholic) whose life is a complete an utter shambles, but he is comforted in the thought that he is doing all the things he needs to be right with God and get to heaven: he goes to confession every Saturday, attends mass even when it is a serious strain on his family, never eats meat on Friday, says his rosary every day, teaches his kids the catechism, and avoids mortal sins (especially the more common sexual one, like using contraception with his wife or masturbating in the shower). He is in a bizarre state of complacence and he is expending his limited energy on things that don’t actually matter to anyone.
It’s not hoping for heaven I find a problem, it is the peculiar beliefs about what will get you there leading to skewed personal values and unreasonable life choices.
Belief in heaven, by itself, isn’t a problem. But once one believes in heaven, heaven naturally trumps all other motives so it can easily justify spending energy on things that don’t matter while neglecting things that do.
Porphyry, loving ourselves and others as we love ourselves is beyond a human being’s capability, I think. I’ve never been able to do it. Even so, there is something about the striving to become someone able to love oneself and others as oneself that creates a consciousness of
recognizing those occasions when we can try. A church will bring together all kinds of people there for various reasons but maybe among them are those who are living lives for that same impossibly difficult ideal. We recognize such efforts and it’s glorious.
maybe among them [attending church] are those who are living lives for that same impossibly difficult ideal [of living the golden rule]. We recognize such efforts and it’s glorious.
Simply enjoying the friendship and support of other people who are trying to live lives of selfless love is clearly unobjectionable, but it also doesn’t hinge on belief in heaven.
If anything, belief in heaven is an obstacle to truly selfless love. If one is ultimately motivated to lead a life of selfless love because one expects to enjoy eternal bliss, one’s love isn’t ultimately selfless at all. To the degree one acts selflessly because one believes in heaven, one isn’t really acting selflessly at all. The one who doesn’t believe in heaven is actually better positioned to love in a genuinely selfless way than the one who does believe in heaven, because he is able to make a sacrifice while truly believing he will never be rewarded for the sacrifice, and thus the sacrifice really is a net sacrifice and not just a temporary cost sustained on the way to a long-term payout. In a real sense the Christian who believes in heaven literally can’t give expecting nothing in return, but the one who does not believe in heaven can.
Anyway, my point wasn’t that belief in heaven is objectively and always bad or that organized religion is objectively and always harmful. I simply mean to point out that there is a strong tendency–often but not always realized–for belief in heaven (especially in the context of organized religion) to skew people’s decision making in ways that are–assuming heaven isn’t real–unreasonable. I still think that’s clearly true: A lot of people make the decisions they do only because they believe in heaven, and they spend considerable time and energy and resources on things they think will get them to heaven but that they would never waste their time on if heaven isn’t real. I am not saying everything a Christian who believes in heaven does is a waste of time.
Very very good points!
What I’m trying to say is that living our lives loving ourselves and others as ourselves (regardless of heaven) can seem for some the ultimate way to live regardless of whether or not we think of ourselves as Christians. Many of the good things we do are advantageous to us personally and we know it. It is when it costs us dearly and we do it anyway that it counts in the way I’m trying to explain.
Also, after doing what the good Samaritan could, he did not hang around making sure all would be okay. He got on with his life.
I’m using that to justify how all of us are entitled to live the lives we’ve been given. We do what we can but do not have to leave all
behind to “follow Christ”.
Your point–if I’ve understood it–is well taken.
I think you are saying that loving others as oneself needn’t imply that one always places the other’s needs above one’s own (that would be loving the other more than oneself, not as oneself). And I do very much like using the language of respecting the other in rephrasing the meaning of the golden rule.
Still, I think that respecting the other as oneself–give the other’s needs and legitimate desires the same regard and concern one gives one’s own needs and legitimate desires–will require us to be always ready to make genuine sacrifices (even if not complete sacrifice of self) at least when the other’s needs are acute.
There is a whole host of really interesting questions tied up in all that. One interesting question is which standard is the Jesus of the gospels advocating? The lower standard (merely equal regard) fits with the story of the Good Samaritan; but what about Jn 13:34 and Jn 15:13; they seems to suggest that we go beyond the golden rule and love others more than ourselves, no?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert