Gainsaying Guidance—Part 2

So what is the value of a list of negative instructions? To begin with, it leaves one with room for varying interpretations of a situation, so the guidelines can be adaptable to different situations. The lack of explicitness provides for a flexibility that can change with time and circumstances.

As another way to look at it, at any moment there are a wide variety of actions I could take. Which of these actions would cause me problems in the future and which would be beneficial for me and others? It's often not obvious. If some kind of inner negative guidance helps me avoid doing something stupid, I can dodge a lot of problem behaviors. That's good. Then I can put attention toward the many other (better) alternatives, trusting my daemon to steer me clear of the grief of poor choices. I thus have much more freedom and autonomy.

The numerous (positive) alternative choices can open up a whole new world of possibilities that I might otherwise have never explored. Which are the “right” choices to select? There may be no right choice, but instead a host of good choices, each one resulting in something new and wonderful. With help from my daemon, I've been granted the freedom to pursue any number of creative avenues and avoid dead ends. New worlds open up to me that I could never have imagined—especially if I had been pushed toward just one choice. If I can trust the voice of the daemon to steer me away from stupid choices, I'm free to find alternatives that I might otherwise never have discovered.

Another way to consider this is that the inner daemon can alternatively be considered to be a voice of conscience or prudence. Thus, it can become a voice of moral authority, because it can stop me from doing unethical things. That's exactly how Socrates saw it. As he pondered a certain action, and if the voice was silent, he assumed that the action was moral, was appropriate, or good.

In fact, during his trial before his fellow Athenians, Socrates had several opportunities to acquit himself, but because his daemon remained silent, he did not play it safe, but stuck his neck out, to find it under attack. In the end, he concluded that death was OK, because it is not evil—otherwise his daemon would have advised him to use his considerable persuasive oratorical talents to save himself.

I find inspiration in Socrates' description of how his negative daemon guided him through life. There is no audible inner voice of mine that I have been able to discern, but the concept of some kind of conscience that steers me away from immoral behavior, while leaving me free to choose the many ethical behaviors available, is inspiring. Socrates is a good guide for heading in an ethical direction.

Gainsaying Guidance—Part 1

Socrates has been regarded for some 2500 years as one of the first and foremost Western philosophers. His influence continues to be felt in modern society. He had many lessons about knowledge and reality to teach us. Many of his fellow Athenians flocked to listen to his teachings. Certainly, there were (and still are) detractors who like to point out that some of what he taught was wrong. After all, any philosopher is bound to have other philosophers find fault with their ideas—it's the nature of the profession. And, after all, wasn't Socrates sentenced to death for his teachings? There obviously were some Athenians who had problems with his message.

I don't wish to dive here into the controversy about the validity of Socrates' worthiness or rightness of his teachings. I don't feel qualified to do so, but I do feel that he had some excellent ideas to inspire us moderns. In particular, he had two ideas about his personal life that I have found very useful.

For one, he maintained that, although he had acquired a reputation for having a large amount of knowledge (making him a wise dude in others' eyes), he was keenly aware of how much he didn't know. He was regarded by many of his fellow Athenians as wise, and he repeatedly demonstrated his wisdom, but he never posed as being a sage; he never claimed to be wise. He repeatedly talked about how little he understood, despite having devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge. I find this attitude far more appealing than those who act foolishly, while insisting that they have all the answers. (This was the source of his conflict with many powerful Athenians.) But this post is about Socrates' second idea... maybe I'll pursue this first one another time.

The second idea or practice of Socrates that speaks to me is his description of an inner voice that spoke to him, as he was about to do something. He called this voice his “daemon,” which he saw as sort of an interior moral teacher; he even saw it as a form of divinity. His daemon always warned him what not to do in a given situation. And here's the crucial point: it was a negative voice, delivering sort of a gainsaying guidance to him. His daemon (in modern times the word has interestingly evolved into the word “demon”) never indicated what he should do, it never gave him advice or direction—it just warned him away from certain problematic activities.

Again, this experience places Socrates at odds with most people—who would prefer to have their inner guidance be positive. They'd like to have their interior voice tell them what to do. It's easier. In fact, many people—when they lack that inner positive (or negative) voice—turn to external advice for their proper behavior. That's what the dogma of political, social, and religious institutions is pretty much about. “Do what I tell you to do, and all will be well.”

Socrates is not the sole proponent of negative guidance, however. Other wisdom traditions have offered similar gainsaying guidance. For example, the Ten Commandments are a prime example of negative mandates: “Thou shalt not...,” and the list goes on.

More on Socrates' negative daemon next time...

The Evolution of Hell—Part 2

When the USA was founded, most Americans leaned towards the Protestant concept of hell. They believed that hell was necessary as a deterrent against serious crime, as a way to keep citizens on the straight and narrow. If there was any doubt about the issue, the US introduced the death penalty as an additional threat to those who might contemplate committing major crimes.

But the trend on the part of some people to defang the threat of hell continued. Newer religions—Mormons and Adventists—brought some shades of gray back in. They advocated for the existence of several layers of hell—allowing one to escape everlasting damnation for the less serious sins.

America's involvement in major wars—the Civil War, two world wars, and Vietnam—convinced some of its citizens that we humans are able to create a kind of hell right here on Earth. In the wake of the two world wars many people around the world were very discouraged at the human propensity to create misery. Some of them even began to maintain that hell was not really a “place” at all that we go to after death, but is more a metaphor for the torment that we create in this life.

Evangelicals, however, have held fast to an eternal, single hell... there are no shades of gray. Yet surveys show that fewer and fewer Americans subscribe to this depiction of hell. In recent polls about three quarters of Americans do believe in God, but only about half of them believe in hell.

So we have a significant divide in America, not only in politics, but also about the nature of hell. Some say it's not real; that we make our own personal hell in this life. Others say that hell does exist and that we need it as a deterrent against human atrocities, or at least to induce people to lead a moral life. Those who believe hell may not be an actual place lean toward an interpretation of God as a loving and forgiving being. Those who take the second position believe that hell is necessary to keep people on the straight and narrow—in fact, some of them do so to literally frighten people into holding to their belief of hell.

I think it is important to remember that no one has died, experienced some kind of afterlife, and returned to tell us about it. Some people believe that they have gotten a glimpse of the afterlife, but we have no real evidence. Thus the very existence of an afterlife—let alone the reality of heaven or hell—remains a belief... pure and simple. And that belief, as I've described, has evolved over time. The truth of the matter is beyond the purview of science, so that discipline cannot help. It is the realm of faith, of religious doctrine. No doubt human views on the existence (or not) of hell will likely continue to evolve and change. Stay tuned.

Rudolph and Friends

After Christmas the weather at the North Pole was so bad that Rudolph decided to spend the rest of the winter here and brought along some of his friends.

The Evolution of Hell—Part 1

I was recently pondering the nature of people's beliefs about the afterlife and its influence on their behavior while still alive. The central doctrine of Christianity (the main religion of America) is that, upon death, one is judged for one's summary behavior in life, and the tally determines one's everlasting assignment: either the bliss of heaven or the torment of hell. You get one or the other.

I came upon a recent article in Aeon Magazine that helped me clarify the issue a little better. It was an evaluation of the historical account of the evolving beliefs about what hell is and its influence on people's lives—sort of the evolution of our concept of hell and what it's meant to us.

Ancient peoples (say, longer ago than 2-3 millennia) viewed the afterlife as a kind of permanent existence—sort of an eternal condition of just being... there was nothing tormented or punishing about it. The Egyptians are an example of this belief. The ancients saw punishment and reward as things that are not awaiting us after death, but happen to us while alive.

As another example, the ancient Jews did not believe in heaven or hell following death. They were convinced that punishment or reward must happen in life. I've long believed that this is the source of much of the angst expressed in the psalms: How can one account for that fact that the guy next door is having a great life, when he's really a wicked dude? I, a good person, have toed the line all my life and my life is not nearly as good. It's just not fair!

In the third century CE Origen (a Christian scholar and theologian) taught that, since God was love, hell was not eternal damnation, it was not endless punishment for one's sins. It was only a temporary place to “reside,” where one might experience some provisional punishment for sins, but everyone would eventually go to heaven; would finally return to God, fully restored and healed.

Origen's teaching did not endure, however, as 100 years or so after him Augustine established the Christian church's foundational doctrine: death led to eternal existence in either heaven or hell. It is, he insisted, a binary situation after all. But Augustine took the edge off this permanent, black-or-white, heaven-or-hell situation by introducing the concept of purgatory—as a kind of temporary hell, from which one could still manage to get to heaven. He introduced a bit of a shade of gray into the black and white heaven or hell debate.

The Protestant Reformation, however, brought back the binary afterlife. It resulted in being a kind of dire warning to people. It even made life a little scary for protestants, since one could become doomed forever for his sins, with no chance of atonement. You get once chance and that's it!

Then the Enlightenment ushered in a time when science and human reason took center stage on the human scene. Many Enlightenment thinkers rebelled against the Protestant dogma—contending that God would not be so cruel and harsh as to condemn people to everlasting torment, especially for sins that are not all that evil. Some of these Enlightenment folks even went so far as to abolish hell altogether.

More on hell next time...