Download 19 Sep 2010

MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
NWA Times, 19 September 2010
[email protected]
A personal philosophy
People don't often ask me to preach, but I had the good fortune to be asked to
preach to Fayetteville's Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on a recent Sunday
morning. This article is based on my sermon.
I was raised in a liberal Protestant home. As a physics student in college, I
was attracted to Unitarianism. I came to Fayetteville at age 29, soon found myself
divorced with full custody of my two children, joined the UU Fellowship for
several years, and eventually drifted away from organized religion. Today, I'd
describe myself as a secular humanist: non-religious, and supportive of people's
well-being.
What's the meaning of life? Religions are supposed to answer this, but
maybe it's the wrong question. Life seems to me to be an experience, rather than
something that necessarily has an overarching purpose. Asking the meaning of life
is like asking the meaning of a roller coaster. It's something you do, not something
that means. We're so lucky to be here! You could have been a rock, or a tree, or
your molecules could have been strewn in the air, but you were privileged to be an
aware human being. What a gift this is. What more could you want? Life has the
meaning that you bring to it by the quality of your living. It's perhaps selfish to
expect anything more, to expect a universal Meaning, or life after death. I can
imagine God, if there were a God, saying "What? I've given you all this and
you've got your hand out for more? Get outta' here."
If you want a grander meaning, consider extraterrestrial life. Most scientists
guess life exists on other planets around other stars, and that some of it evolved
intelligence. If so, the entire universe is becoming aware of itself, human
intelligence is part of that expanding awareness, and we are part of something
much bigger than ourselves.
I recently read several books by the "new atheists," including Richard
Dawkins' The God Delusion. One of his points that has stuck with me is that
"universe" and "God" mean two different things. I'm certainly awed by the
universe, and I'll bet you are too. This awe has something in common with
religious experience, but it's misleading to claim that it amounts to a belief in
God. It's important to use words properly. "God" normally means a personal God
who can grant prayers, an extraphysical being with supernatural powers. It's best if
those of us who don't believe in such a God but are awed by the universe don't
confuse things by saying we believe in God.
But, you may ask, where do ethics come from if not from religion? My first
answer is that, even if I were religious, I would not want to derive my ethics from
my religion or any other broad ideology. The reason is that, in accepting
Christianity, or Marxism, or political liberalism, etcetera, I'm accepting a huge
laundry list of beliefs. The Bible, for example, makes an enormous number of
claims. Nobody could rationally agree with all of them. I prefer not to have such a
laundry list of unexamined beliefs.
In fact, I'd prefer to have no "beliefs" but to have only "conclusions" based on
experience and reason. However, logicians know that no system of ideas can start
from nothing. There must be a foundation, a postulate, a "belief." I considered
this matter many decades ago and came down in favor of the "greatest happiness
principle" as my foundation. It says that one's behavior should promote people's
happiness. I don't claim that everybody should follow this principle, but I do claim
it's a good idea to have some such general principle, rather than an entire ideology,
behind your ethics.
I've got high level backing for this notion. The Dalai Lama wrote an
excellent non-religious book ten years ago titled "Ethics for the New
Millenium." The greatest happiness principle is the basis for the entire book. Of
course, "happiness" means long-term satisfaction, well-being, and achievement of
one's potential, not just short-term fun.
Once you've got a starting point for ethics, the thing to do is apply evidence-your own knowledge gained through living, reading, discussing, and so forth--and
your own reasoning ability to any situation that requires it.
A non-religious foundation of this sort for ethics is simple, flexible, and not
so likely to lead to trouble as the dogmatic ideologies which religion and politics
foist on us today. Maybe it's what the world needs now.