What will the be decisive point, when humanity has the moral highground to finally overthrow the need to consider itself subject to divinity, and assume divinity?
That sounds a terrifying proposition. The starkness of it will shock most people.
But it's a vital one. So much of human existence is tied up in finding moral frameworks within which to operate.
And if today isn't about the question, he died in vain.
Because moral systems and their development, are as a vital part of human development as technological development, and systematic development.
They are the trinity of our evolutionary progress as a species.
What do I mean, by man assuming divinity?
Very simple, when he has established, by logic and reason, by his technology, by the efficiency of the system, and it's elimination of dangerous flaws, he can guarantee that any decision the operating system of the combined intelligence of the species come up with, will always be morally right.
And the point is, we're getting there. We're developing morally better and better ways of treating eachother and perfecting our society.
One day, direct democracy and the efficiency of human communication, coupled with the perfectly tuned decision making processes of the system, will mean that we make less and less bad decisions, as a species. We will be more clinical about excising flaws.
Evil, all it really is, is a set of flaws. Things in the human psyche, animal instincts that get warped and twisted, because they do not accord with the way of life of our species, they interfere with the smooth running of its efficiency.
Evil. The urge to dominate, the urge to impose, the urge to possess, to the urge to let animal instincts run wild.
And it's taming it. That's our challenge.
The point is, the human species is learning to deal with this huge flaw. Drugs, Eugenics, Virtual Reality, we'll find ways to satisfy unfullfilled desires on this front in a way people don't get hurt.
One day, really, human technology and social arrangements, will actually mean, we're all just instinctively NICE to eachother, without needing God to tell us how to do it.
And yes, that's when all decisions will be the moral ones, and man will have no need to fear playing God.
I don't think, that's such a bad faith to believe in.
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4 comments:
Most people ARE instinctively nice and cooperative or we would be in a whole lot of trouble.
The predatory minority will always be there spoiling things. Alas that is nature and the impetus for continual improvement. We were never meant to stand still.
It's actually hard to imagine this happening. I would think the approach to perfection is like approaching infinity. No matter how much man improves we will never get to perfection, not even one of us, let alone all. Not in the here and now anyway.
when i was growing up...i was actually studying to be a nun (i know hard to believe if you knew me now)...i was so into the WORD..and believed it with all of my heart...truly...however, i got into real life...found that people who protested to be christians, actually weren't very nice people in my life...significant things were done to change my inner being...and i have gotten to the place where i don't believe much of what is said "in the name of god"...any god...odd part of this is the reason i wanted to be a nun was to help others...to give all of myself to make others lives better because i believed (and still do) that it is the reason we are here...currently i work in child welfare, with families who still have their children at home...helping them to get through their issues and move on to be better to each other...may sound a bit alturistic but it is the way i go into my work...i have some people tell me what a good christian i am (which to be honest i take offensively)...i am just doing what i feel is my calling...everything else doesn't really matter, anymore...
E-K- :) We are in a lot of trouble.
It's not the minority, it's the majority. The Good people motivated vy evil from time to time.
Yes, the minority who are just wired up wrong, in the future, they'll be less of them around.
I think, for example, we will have identified which genes are wholly negative, and prevented their replication, but furthermore, we'll have broken cycles of abuse. I actually think, we will eliminate sex offenders and the like, in the future.
It's the evil drives of the rest of us. We need to harness those. The school bully, the jilted lover, the teenage vandal, Party politicians :)
The evil that is committed due to anger, hurt, resentment, ambition, frustration.
Now Jesus started to guide us here in terms of a moral system, and in fact, I think we HAVE taken his values further then even he could have appreciated. As I said in a post a while back, Gandalf is our updated Jesus.
And the reason moral values are right, is not just because they're 'nice', but because they make life better. That's the point.
So when we have a system that ALWAYS guarantees human happiness, it's also a moral one.
jmb- In a sense, and each technological challenge will bring on moral issues of its own.
But here's a point, and one that does occupy my mind.
I would not under any circumstances, eat Primate flesh. It would seem borderline cannibalism to me. Now you could say, it's knowledge of a modern biological classification system, that gives me that qualm. And of course, it is.
But in a wider sense, my line of work has from time to time made me fact the realities of slaughterhouses, and they are not a nice thought.
There is a hugetemptation in my mind to see the slaughter of any placental mammal, and the dismembermemt of their carcass for human consumption as being not a nice concept.
You have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise we wouldn't eat, and since the distinction between animals and plants is arbritary place to put it, I can't really sympathise with the vegetarian argument.
But the biggest gap, you can go in, in terms of plotting the evolionary family tree, is that all mammals share a common ancester 150 million years ago. The next closest relatives we eat, Poultry, that's going back to the Carboniferous.
Now I couldn't not eat red meat. I love Sausages and Bacon. I love Black Pudding.
But I'd love it, if we could just grow pork. Grow the flesh on a carcass in a lab, devoid of any neural networks, not alive, not in fact a living creature. But the flesh was chemically identical.
And it's technically possible- or will be.
That's what I mean about ethics developing.
Same with the death penalty. I can understand why it was needed once, in fact there's no evidence Christ opposed it (though Gandalf does :)), but it can't be justified today. In fact a justice system based largely on the concept of punishment can't be. Not now.
I can visualise a future where the species as a whole does make what we could call moral decisions as a whole. In the future I envisage, I can see the UN (in the future I see, where it is effectively the federal body of the earth's states), setting up commission's composed of leading scientists, historians, philosophers, etc, to make moral recommendations, subject of course to democratic agreement.
It sounds far fetched that this could work.
But it isn't.
Imagine if all democratic decisions, were as simple as 'Publish your comment'
We're not far away, are we?
Daisy- I wanted to be a priest for years, or at least, the ideal stuck in spite of my actual lifestyle.
A lot of 'Christians' aren't nice people, no. This is my gripe with them. Pharasaical, is how I see them. They don't preach love, they preach judgement, which is to completely miss the point of what Christ did.
I object to being referred to as a Christian, because of the association that it brings up for me. Mrs Proudie, Televangelists, Happy clappies, preaching, holier than though hypocrisy, people using God as a crutch, just like a Junkie.
I'm Catholic, but I prefer to see that as more an ideology, than a faith. I believe that Christ was a great philosopher, one of the greatest, but to ignore all the other greats, would be wrong.
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