Kevin sent this to me. If you had a pulse during middle school, I know you bought Everclear's "So Much for the Afterglow" album (still great), and this is the PSA that they borrowed from...like Kevin says, pretty funny, but mostly pretty scary...
This post is taken mostly from a conversation we had, prompted by this video and the many discussions/revelations we've inspired in each other in the past, so it may seem a little disjointed. I've always had trouble thinking linearly anyway. Feel free to point out any points that seem a little sketch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TlXW4pA-HcThe fact that this obviously appealed, or at least was thought to potentially appeal to a specific audience begs questions about the ways in which we view life, especially in America. Is this attitude limited to the middle class suburban culture of the 1950's? We say this is scary, but why? Wouldn't life be easier if we were zoned out all the time, disabling all of the mind's mechanisms that make it capable of worry, and thus dissolving the need for compassion?
Take this scenario: Suppose someone invented a machine that allowed a man to plug in and have any experience he wanted. The limits of pleasure are limited only to what the mind can conceive. Literally, there is no god but your mind and it's bountiful creative energy. Would you plug in? If you would, would you ever plug back out? In your mind's eye, you would never age, and would die only when your physical body could not longer sustain itself. Of course, your experiences would not be "real" and there would be no interaction with others, and none of the pain and the worry that results. Still, this idea is appalling to me and to most others (I hope).
Why?
I think the natural distaste for this idea stems from the implacable responsibility we feel to something greater than ourselves. This proves once and for all that we as humans have a natural tendency to gratify ourselves only (thus the initial attractiveness of the notion of an experience machine, or an ataraxic medicine) but all except the most vile and worthless of men will ultimately reject such an offer upon examination of their selves and the discovery of their souls. If you reject God, ask yourself, why? Is it because you truly do not believe? Because if you don't, and there is nothing to live for beyond the here and now, life becomes nothing more than a collection of pleasurable experiences, and that machine becomes much more attractive, irresistible even. Listen to the promptings of your inner self, and ask why they persist.
Some people find the idea of revealed religion to be distasteful because it seems too easy. Out of the seemingly infinite explanations for existence, how can we decide on one in specific? I am quite sure there is a God, and for me it only seems logical that this God would not create an entire species of man only to watch it destroy itself. He wants Himself to be sought after and discovered, and so follows a (relatively) brief summation of what faith is to me.
Why do we assume that because there are an inifinite number of possibilities for something that none of them can be true?
That's a logical fallacy. Something must be true. Sure, every reality is just as unlikely, so why NOT this one? There is an undeniable Truth about our existence that is. Somewhere. Maybe this will be answered in death, maybe it won't. Life, for me, is a process of having experiences, and trying to find answers by drawing the most logical conclusions that I can from those experiences. It's imperfect, as I am imperfect, but I want to be as sure as possible about the life that I lead and why I make the choices that I do. But at the same time, it is important to discuss things of this nature with those whose opinions I respect, to try to correct inherent biases and imbalances in my judgment.
I think life, true life, begins and ends with one seminal decision. Do we exist for a higher purpose? If we think of life, or at least the quest for meaning, as a highway (lame metaphor, I know, but useful) then we can consider this initial choice akin to entering the on-ramp. If you say, yes, I find the notion that we are alive for no further purpose than to eat, sleep, laugh, and fuck to be the most horrifying thing we can conceive of, then you get on and start your quest. If you say, I'm perfectly happy thinking of myself as nothing more than a corpse-to-be at varying stages of decay, then fine. You never get on, and all life's questions are answered.
Here's the problem: most people go through life without even realizing that they must, at some point, make this choice. Or worse yet, they make this choice without thinking about it or because someone else told them to make it. This is the source of a half-life, a life filled with compromise. This is the sort of life that 99% of Americans lead, and it's sad, man. Many say they do not beleive in God. Fine, I can respect that, but only as long as you realize the implication of the choice you made by not getting on that on-ramp. You are now, in your own worldview, nothing more than a hyperintelligent animal. Your life is worth no more than the pig you grilled up for breakfast, or the tree you chopped down in the forest to fuel the fire to cook that pig. You have no right to idealistic moralism, because you have forfeited the notion of a soul. If you believe you have a soul, you believe there is a god of some sort. The soul is immaterial and therefore could not have simply "evolved".
People are unsettled by the reality of life alone in the universe. They want to be freed from religious constraints, or simply dismiss the concept of a higher being that they can't see as "silly and unprovable". So they do the unthinkable: they reject the spiritual realm yet use spiritual justifications for their actions. How many people do you come across today who say, "Well gee, how can you believe in God? That's ignorant. I don't believe in God, I only beleive in being a good person."
Um...what?
Who defines your concept of good? What is "good" in a universe without consequence? What does a "good" person do? What reason is there to do "good" to your fellow man except for some uncertain hope of reciprocation? From a survivalist standpoint, which is what you are embracing if you reject God completely, right and wrong are no longer definable, there are simply those things that promote your own welfare and those things that hinder it. Those who then bring moral values into the argument are making themselves slaves to the very traditions and religious institutions which they openly mock, without any of the joys and rewards of opening seeking and knowing God. The closest example of a truly "devout atheist" that I can think of are the great "communist" leaders of the 20th century, like Stalin and Mao, or maybe Hobbes, who paints a bleak picture of men in their natural state in "Leviathan". If hell is a world that exists apart from God, I think men like these give us a fair glimpse into what that might look like, moreso than the classical Christian view of a red goat poking you with a trident.
This, then is my dilemma. I refuse to live a life of compromise, tasting neither victory nor defeat in exchange for an ataraxic existence. This isn't to say that I have never compromised myself (those of you who knew me in high school knows that I did this shamelessly and often) or that I will never do so in the future, but my goal is to purge myself of as many inconsistencies in character as possible. Since a life lived without God is certainly not worth living, I hope to live a life for Him. I don't know exactly what He looks like, or what a life lived in pursuit of Him looks like, but I'm trying.
To go back to the highway metaphor, there are many questions along the way at which point I can choose to struggle for an answer and keep going or give up and get off. Is the worship of God an individual or collective effort? Is he omnipresent and consistently involved or the clockmaker setting the world in motion? I've answered these questions in my own way and have support for all of these beliefs, and I will continue to run into questions that I haven't even thought of yet that will cause me to stumble on my path, but that's the most wonderful part of life, the eternal struggle between the forces behind that commercial and all that is signifies and the Truth that floats just out of reach in the chasm between myself and the Almighty.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not religious. Religion is man's struggle to put God on a leash in a zoo to gape and gawk at, until He bores them and they can go about their day. But I do believe without a doubt that God is out there, and if He is, I cannot conceive of a reason why He would allow His creation to run amok, and would allow Himself to go unheard and unseen. There must be something to bridge the gap between our egotistical natures apart from God, and the harmony that he desires between us and Him, and ourselves and each other. The joy that we get from compassion, from seeing others exalted, is God's way of speaking to each of us, and the solution that solves this problem best for me lies in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived a pure life and died a blameless death.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" - Hebrews 11:1
"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind." - James 1:5-6
