Note: For additional background please watch Bill Moyers' interview of Jonathan Miller from Bill Moyers Journal available as video on the internet and as a podcast from iTunes for 5/4/07.How do I then account for "love"? What is love, for that matter?
Looking it up in dictionary. com, I found 18 entries defining the use of the word, "love". The one that I believe is fundamental to all the others relating to another being, is;
"9. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor."Without this aspect, love is not love ... it is some form of desire for my own gratification.
Then, when I say God is love, I am saying that love is the highest ideal, the highest form of oughtness ... to that which I ought to conform in living my life.
This understanding of love as the central conforming principle of existence comes from my having been raised a Christian. Therefore, religiously, I am a Christian. I generally conform to the evolving moral and ethical values based on the Judaic-Christian heritage of Western civilization.
There is one more facet to my belief structure. That is that I experience my existence as preceding my awareness of my existence. My awareness or consciousness comes out of my existence as a function of my existence. My existence has produced my awareness as a function of my existence. Therefore, philosophically, I am an existentialist.
Putting all this together, I would "label" myself a Christian existentialist atheist.
Back to love.
One doesn't have to be a genius to see the benefit to the primary group—family, tribe—of an "affectionate concern for the well-being of others." Pregnant women and small children require protection, as well as those temporarily incapacitated due to illness or injury. It is obvious that the group—extended family or tribe—that has the strongest support network has the advantage.
And it is equally obvious that the group has to be protected against its opponents and other dangers in the surrounding world.
And it is the codification of an explanation of the obvious that becomes that group's "religion". and successful to the extent the religion allows the group to remain strong in the face of its enemies and adversities.
Human beings noted the benefits of mutual support which evolved through recorded history to the pronouncement ascribed to Jesus:
"This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Behind or underlying my "label" is an attitude of rational skepticism that can be best described by the Jain version of the "Blind Men and the Elephant":
Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body.Rational skepticism requires that we discuss our beliefs honestly with each other in order to discover and learn as much as we can about our reality ... our elephant ... at any given point in our existence. This in turn requires that we allow everyone to have their say.
The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.
A wise man explains to them
All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned.
This resolves the conflict, and is used to illustrate the principle of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems, and that truth can be stated in different ways.
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