Let's say there are two tribes in my over-simplified example. Tribe Alfa and Tribe Bravo live next door to each other, and a member of Tribe Alfa has killed a stray member of Tribe Bravo because he's a stranger, and, well, that's what you did back then. After a lot of killing and pillaging back and forth, people call for peace, and the leaders of the tribes gather.
“I would really like to be able to walk around without fear of getting killed for nothing, you know?” a person says.
Both leaders agree: “Yeah, I get that. And, you know, I'd like to keep what I make and I work for.”
“Okay … no stealing or pillaging …”
“And, really, I like to know my family's going to be okay, so – Joe the Rapist – can you find another occupation?”
These are all agreements. Once these agreements are made, there has to a mortal authority – a sort of police and judicial force to prove and prosecute. But humans are crafty, and many believe they can do something so long as they don't get caught. This lack of justice, especially desperate for those who are victims, breeds desires for self-comfort, and so we incorporate into the explanation for all inexplicable things a sense of ultimate justice – or a moral authority which makes law and punishment larger than what can be proven on the mortal plane.
This is the invention of gods, or a singular god. Obviously this goes through some periods of development, and where humans are involved, there are subtle, deceptive power grabs (downgrading members of certain groups, racial superiority, broad, sweeping regulation without regard to individual situation, incorporation of superstitions into morality based on anecdote), but time works these out through alteration of agreement.
We, today, are unique in that we have the opportunity to be educated and look back on all the evidence over recorded history. We can clearly see the process of ethos elevated to law, law metamorphosed into religion. Given a scientific process, where a thing must match reproducible criteria, we can seek to prove ideas into hypotheses, hypotheses into fact, with little dispute once these facts are proven. Still, the filtration of knowledge through emotion can distort fact.
Once we strip away the emotion, once we look at the provable facts – even today how people of similar values keep company – we realize that our codes of law, our religions, all share roots in the most powerfully accepted agreements throughout history, which in turn shares their roots in the very basic notion of well-reasoned agreement.
So we've come to this level of international communication, where we know something directly when it happens, but most importantly: we get the full range of information which creates massive empathy. This empathy is important is determining fairness. We see a lot of people disagree with something by stomping their feet and saying, “It's not fair!” but we have to remember what fairness really is: equal treatment of all. Some time in this great age, we can achieve true Universal Fairness with the wealth of knowledge and knowledge sharing we now have. It can be done within our lifetimes.
In an examination of human belief over the ages – and we must think on these things if we are to clean out the irrational closet – there are qualities to which all have agreed over the ages. These are, simply put: Self-Discipline, Transcendence, Love/Compassion, Faith/Trust/Honor, and Seeking Knowledge. This is very easy. Five very essential guidelines are very easy to remember. And these, in all honesty and staying true to the essential code, are subject to interpretation and alteration so long as they aren't used to denigrate a being or group of beings or run counter to essential truth.
The following articles will cover these elements, followed by ideas for personal incorporation of values and massive personal development.
Thank you, my friend, for reading and at least considering.
Copyright (c) 2009, 2010 by Ilya Kralinsky (Michael Schaffer). All rights reserved.
