My Philosophy for Life

Philosophy and Psychology cross paths when they attempt to give identity and purpose to one's existence. Our Philosophy can be how we understand and relate to reality externally. Psychology is can be how we understand and relate to reality internally. 

For a contented and satisfying existence we need to understand reality (both external to us, and internal to us) in terms of Natural laws, so that we embrace values and act consistent with the way the universe works.

A very simple but true example involves our relationship to the physical phenomenon known as gravity. 

Philosophically we can accept or reject gravity's existence. If we reject gravity we will ignore the practical laws of living with gravity, and we will walk off a cliff, fall, and kill ourselves. If we accept it, we will be aware of the practical laws of living with gravity and stay away from the edge of cliffs. 

Psychologically we can find gravity assuring or threatening. If we understand gravity as our ally, we will be able to walk, jump, sit, and lie down with confidence and be at peace with gravity's attributes. But if we understand gravity as a threat, we are likely to curl up into a fetal ball and become, literally, useless, and die of inaction.

A "philosophy of life" can embrace both outward and inward perspectives of who we are and what we are to be. In our sophisticated, modern world, there are many different models of how to understand human life. There are religious models: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. There are psychological models: Maslow's hierarch of needs, Freud's theory of the ego and id, Jung's Analytical concepts, and Jordan Peterson's Rules for Life. There is also the work of the Greek physician Hippocrates who describes what we call today as the Four Temperaments: Phlegmatic, Choleric, Sanguine, and Melancholic; an outcome of that ancient work is also famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

All of these are ways of understanding reality and how we might, through our free will, balance our lives to find purpose and satisfaction in our thinking and our actions. And studying about all of these, or some of them at least, can help us understand how to think and discuss ways of looking at the world around us, and understanding ourselves inwardly. For example, as a teenager, I wanted to understand both the world and myself, so I spent several weeks one summer categorizing the premises in the Book of Proverbs: "A wise man will hear, and will increase in learning." "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." etc. 

Philosophically and psychologically, I was raised as an Evangelical Christian. Today I'm a Catholic Christian, and by association I have a lot of respect of Judaism. One concept in Judaism revolves around three actions: Study, Work, and Doing Good for Others. In Catholic Christianity there are the 7 Corporal Works of Mercy, and the 7 Spiritual Works of Mercy. In the Pauline Epistles we find the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit. In the teachings of Jesus, we find the Beatitudes. 

All those things are focused on others, not yourself. The epitome of being others centered is the life and death of Jesus Christ. Psychological research reveals that people who help others are the happiest. People that focus on themselves to the exclusion of others lead unhappy lives at best, or at worse end up killing themselves. There is no transcendence in their lives, they are lost looking for meaning in their very limited sphere.  Thus, knowledge of all these models is helpful. But if you turn it all inward, it is destructive. Life is not about us, but rather about others. If we constantly turn inward, we become selfish and self-centered. 

My advice is to develop a Personal Life Mission Statement that is other's centered. Laurie Beth Jones' THE PATH is the best resource for developing such a statement.  I worked on mine for over a month. It is this:

To discover and promote divine truth to those within my sphere of influence.

It’s short, pity, and applies to everything I do, or it eliminates things I think about doing but shouldn’t if I want my actions to have purpose. If my values and actions do not benefit someone else, then they won’t benefit me and my mission or purpose. 

What is Reality

I've been in discussion with a friend on the essence of reality. Here's my contribution. 

There are many different concepts, embraced by astute men and women, of what “reality” is.

We might all agree that a granite rock is real, as are bananas and sharks. We may eat one while the latter may eat us, but they’re both real. We say they are real, and part of reality, because they are capable of being sensed by our five physical senses: sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. 

But there is another aspect of reality that we cannot see, hear, taste, smell or touch…and yet we sense it and we have a sense organ for this invisible thing. I speak of gravity, and we have a vestibular system in our inner ear that acts as a balance organ. It’s connected to your brain and works in conjunction with your eyes to sense which way is up and where things are located in space, which we also cannot see, hear, taste, smell or touch. We cannot see gravity, but we sense it, we cannot sense space, but we exist in it. So, both gravity and space are part also of reality.

There are other aspects of reality, however, that we encounter every day, too, that defy our five senses, and even our sixth sense of balance, but are very much part of human reality. One of those often mentioned is “love.” Another is “hate”. And there is “fear” and “hope.” We sense, in a physical way, the evidence of love and hate by the actions of others. A hand, per se, is not love or hate, but when the hand embraces or hits, we attribute the reality of love or hate to the hand and the person it’s attached to. In our mind, the anticipation of the embrace or hit is describe by “fear” and “hope.” And all of those emotions are part of our reality as humans. And because they are so hard at times to understand we may call them mystical, because they come from and go to places that cannot be, per se, physically identified.

Then there are concepts from our imagination that may or may not be part of what is physically real, but they are concepts that seem real to some people. Here we may speak of   things like “black holes” or “fairies.” Astronomers and astrophysicists believe black holes are part of our physical reality, while poets and storytellers may believe “fairies” are real, even though no one as seen either one outside of a person’s imagination or though the inference of scientific measurements. Whether they are physically real is one thing, although we can still make them part of our reality by drawing or animating them. 

John Lennon once said, “I believe in everything until it is disproved. So, I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?” Lennon makes a good case that “concepts” and “nonphysical” ideas are real and are part of reality, simply because they’re conceivable. 

As a counter argument to that, but it makes the same point, Albert Einstein, who may have believed in blackholes, said “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Now, Einstein may have been trying to be funny and crack a joke. But what’s important is that persistence is much a part of our reality as is our imagination, insight, and those moments of epiphany that explain the interaction and juxtaposition of all these things that fill up what is real to us. 

And one last example. We may ask is a number “real?” Well, when we write it on a piece of paper, and we can see it, and manipulate it with other numbers we might say it is. But even in our mind as a concept, the number is still part of us, and it may motivate us to take one physical action or another. Mathematicians classify numbers as real, rational, integers, whole, natural and irrational numbers. To them, all of these rational, real, and irrational numbers are very real. And their existence has allowed us to explore space, and given physical means to actuaries who calculate the cost of your insurance policies. 

We could go on, but perhaps the point is now made—that reality consists of material things and immaterial concepts. Materialists may not feel emotionally safe by admitting this, but there are many immaterial things that affect and effect our material lives. But this short explanation may suffice that our five physical senses are very much effected by the immaterial. 

Therefore, REALITY IS THE SUM OR WHOLE of all these many material and immaterial things and concepts. All these things are part of the one essence that we call reality. We might say that the sum of all this is one thing. There is one reality, which is the sum of these many diverse parts. 

But how is it possible that all of these diverse things and concepts form a whole, a oneness, that work together and keep our feet on the ground, and for the most part allow humans to interact safety with each other and the universe. What keeps reality from falling apart, imploding, exploding or disintegrating? We might express the answer to that question by saying there are “natural laws” that superintend over reality that keep it together, that make it constantly whole and protect its oneness. 

But how do natural laws work and keep all this together as ONE reality? Where did the laws and rules come from?  Many people answer that question by turning to mysticism, otherwise known as religion. I’m not sure what atheists call it, but theists and Jews and Christians (and may be Muslims) call the source and the power that keeps all this together by the common concept God. Such a God Force must be beyond the material and immaterial things that he controls. The philosophers among us would say that such a “force of nature” (or God) is so far beyond all that we call reality, that REALITY is simply part of God’s imagination. Or, in popular terms, we are part of God’s Matrix.  Somehow, mystically or mysteriously, a Supreme Being holds all of these diverse things together in a working whole. The sum of all reality is one. And while reality may be just the figment of the One’s imagination, it still is.

In Exodus 3 (of the Jewish and Christian Bible) when Moses asks God’s name, God answers, "I Am who I Am.” This is perhaps the most famous passage in the Bible. Linguistic scholars say it is a phrase that defies tense, or time. It is indeed mysterious, as was the story that transpired after Moses and God has this conversation in front of a bush that burned but was not consumed in the flames. The burning bush was part of Moses’ reality, as was the disembodied voice or thoughts that allowed Moses to record the conversation. And surely the 10 plagues that God cast over Egypt in an effort to free the Israelites, should have confirmed in the reality of Pharaoh, Moses and all the people of that time and place, that I AM WHO I AM has power over all reality….and thus demands a relationship of us with Him, as mysterious as that may be. 

It is in this way that reality is one, that we are part of it, and we have a relationship with the Supreme Being that controls it. 

Get over it.

END OF LINE

stan

Church: Teaching Rules vs. Teaching Love

A friend wrote me:

I've been talking to someone who is interested in what the Church teaches but has a BIG problem with the Church hierarchy.

Basic argument:  If we love God we keep His commandments. Keeping His commandments out of love is BETTER than keeping them out of fear. And following God's rules are better than following rules made up by men.

Why doesn't the Church simply teach people to LOVE God - rather than focusing on the rules?"

Stan, do you have any knowledge of books or tapes?   Or, if you have thoughts on the subject they would be warmly welcomed!

My response:

I don't, off hand, have any books I'm aware of on that particular position.

But, I am very familiar with the argument and have a response that fits with my understanding of church history and teaching.

The difference between the motivations of love and fear is insignificant compared to the difference between obeying or not. It's like the decision to run a red light or not. We can NOT run the red light out of love for the government (a stupid concept) or we can NOT run the red light out of fear of being killed if we do. The goal of the red light is to protect us. (It's kind of a glass half-empty vs. half-full argument. In the end it doesn't matter. Are you an optimist or a pessimist by nature? Do you have a choleric or a sanguine personality?)

God's love is unconditional whether you obey him or not. But his reward of blessing and eternal life is very conditional on our obedience. It doesn't matter if we obey out of love of him or fear of him. The fear comes from the dastardly physical consequences. And so we come to love the law, because they keep us (if we obey them) from the consequences.  Thus, it might be a maturity thing. When we're a child we fear touching the stove, but as we grow older we love the fact that we were warned against touching it.

Love and Reward are not the same thing. People confuse the two concepts and wishfully but fatefully believe wrongly that if God loves me he will give me blessing. But that's failed logic. A loving father disciplines his children. Why? Because he knows that love must be consistent with right judgement and coincide with what is good, true and beautiful, -- that is natural law. True love is always cooperative with how nature works. Love is the same thing as truth. You can't separate them. Do I wear sunscreen because I fear getting a sunburn, or do I love sunscreen because it prevents the pain of a sunburn. I don't really see any difference. Use the sunscreen, enjoy being outside.

So, consequently LOVE and FEAR are the SAME THING, or they are on the SAME scale of values and motivation. They are the same coin, but different sides. (Any number of metaphors can come close to describing the relationship between LOVE and FEAR. It is a mistake (in theology) to believe they are different.

Society also has a problem with feelings of "guilt." But guilt is good when it keeps you from doing stupid things in the future. 

So, in the end it really does not matter if you obey out of Love, or obey out of Fear. The fact is that you are obeying. Just like you want to obey the laws of the land (or most of them). Do you love the laws of your state because they bring order, or do you obey the laws because you fear jail? Is there a difference?

One explanation is that different personalities are motivated by different stimuli or emphasis. Each of the four basic types of personalities (c.f. Brain Mapping) has it's own motivations.

Another explanation is that based on what kind of life we live, or what kind of day we're having we're going to be motivated some days by love and others by fear.

Human Beings tend to want to simplify everything and blame all effects on one casue. But nature tells us that physical effects have multiple causes. (c.f. The Butterfly Effect.) And so in this argument of Love vs. Hate, many people will want to say it's one or the other. This is known as the EITHER-OR fallacy. The answer—as is in most things—is not EITHER love OR hate, but AND-BOTH. It's a combination that saves us, and gives us life.

King David said he "loved" God's law. I love that. David is saying, "I love the fact that disobeying the law scares the hell out of me. I love what is right. I hate what is wrong. I love life, so I obey the rules. I hate death so I obey the rules." The rules don't change, but my motivations might. They are built into nature. Gravity cannot be loved or hated. It is a fact. Do you want to love the fact that you can stand up and not fall down (due to gravity and your body's ability to discern it and control your muscles), or do you fear gravity and are therefore careful about where you walk—not too close to the cliff of a canyon? In your day-to-day life, you'll use both of those motivations to stay alive and be happy. Thus, Love and Fear are on the same continuum.

My take on Church praxis (what it does in practice) is that the Church focuses too much on God's love with very little emphasis on the rules. I criticize bishops and priests for not teaching more on the fear of hell and condemnation for sin. (I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd benefit from a little fear preached into me about the consequences of sin.) Thus, we have cafeteria Catholics who ignore the Church's rules, and they will consequently pay God's penalty. Note, it is not the Church's self-imposed penalty. The church is simply telling you about God's penalty. I'd listen.

But many folks, like your friend, don't see that. Why?

People that dislike the Church's rules and claim the church focuses on the rules too much are doing one, if not all, of these things:

 A. They want to do what they want to do and not have anyone tell them what to do. (You probably know someone like that. Perhaps  you see them every morning when you brush your hair. I know I do.) It's easier to attack the Church and claim the rules are the rules of men when in fact this is God's Boat we're in, not the church's. People can't argue with God, so they pick something fallible and pretend the Boat belongs to man. Sorry folks. Man did not invent, create, nor does he control nature.

 B. They are listening more to social commentary that biasly reports what the Church teaches, rather than directly studying what the Church teaches. So much of what is in the news is interrupted by news writers based on their negative bias against the Church rather than on an accurate understanding of the Church. The recent flap about the Vatican correcting the women religious in the U.S. is a perfect example. Or the news media's interpretation of the bishops' condemnation of Obama's health care rules is another. In general, the news is wrong about what the Church believes and does.

C. Their pride does not allow them to accept that God has rules of natural law that require things of them. God loves us so much that he gave us gravity, and a whole bunch of other mechanisms that give us life. But if you whine about it and ignore it, you'll kill yourself.  You are free to make any choice you want, but you can't choose the consequence, God does that. Pride goes before a fall. Shakespeare intoned, "He who runs stumbles." The edge of the cliff is always there waiting, just waiting for the fool who says either (a) there is no God, or (b) there is a God and he's just like me.  Right. Hey, Jacko, can you fly?

D. They are not listening to the church's message of God's love that came through Jesus Christ, but only remember the rules (that God establishes, not man) and  they mistakenly claim the rules are made by man. Not so. (more on this below)

E. They generally do not believe that rules of any kind, really matter. Of course, they may be the first to point out that your grammar in a sentence is wrong, because the rules are not followed. Do you follow the rules of grammar because you love being understood, or do you follow the rules of grammar because you fear being misunderstood? I say, there's no difference. But having the rules are absolutely necessary to communicate and live in an ordered community.

The Church's job is to discern the immutable laws of the universe and compile a guide for living that can lead to happiness. That is where the Catechism and the rules it contains come from. They are anything but arbitrary, but they are arrived at BY USING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, which by the way the Church originally came up with. For over 6,000 years of human history Church leaders (if you go back to the Jewish fathers) observed nature, tried to figure it out and write down rules for behavior that would lead to happiness. (Have you read Proverbs or Sirach lately?)

Centuries ago the study of philosophy and physics WERE THE SAME thing. Then as we gained more understanding we saw the differences between metaphysics and physics. Then, mankind tried to answer the question WHY... which introduced the realm of religion. They all overlap—religion, philosophy and physics. Physics describes how something works mechanically (the body), philosophy tries to explain how the intellect intersects with all disciplines (the mind), and religion tries to explain WHY in terms of morality (the spirit).   All of these disciplines try to describe how to LOVE life and HATE death. Physics deals with atoms, Philosophy deals with thoughts, and Religion deals with origins, purposes and final disposition. ALL THREE, interestingly enough, deal with the dimensions of space and time we cannot perceive (there are more than ten all total). 

So, today, the Church (being historically involved heavily in all three disciplines) tries to focus on the religious and moral side by asking: What kind of rules do we need to follow IN ORDER TO LOVE GOD?   And in this case LOVING God, FEARING God, and LIVING HAPPILY are all the SAME THING.

BTW: Proverbs 9;10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Again, ALL THE RULES existed before the Church came around just like gravity existed before Newton came on the scene.  The Church just wrote them down like Isaac Newton wrote down the laws of Gravity. And by the way, when Isaac did that, he did it as part of the Church's system.  None of the rules are arbitrary by any measure. Only people that like to spit into the wind will think so.

So, in the end...if you want to find your way to the end of the maze successfully follow the rules. And rememer...

-- A person with no faith in God but who obeys God's rules of order will be blessed here on Earth and may or may not be blessed eternally based on God's omniscient judgment of how well that person followed their conscience (an individual's understanding of the rules).

-- A person with faith in God who does not obey God's rules of order will NOT find blessing on earth and may spend a lot of time in purgatory before getting to heaven. (Again the Church's job is to help maximize temporal blessing and speed our entry to heaven.)

The church's job, therefore, is to discover what is true and promote it for mankind's temporal and eternal benefit.  End of story.  Nothing is arbitrary. All is natural.