Hooboy !!
August 3, 2005, 11:02 AM
I was born and raised a Jehovah's Witness. My dad is an elder, so is my brother. I dutifully studied the bible at least once a week and sometimes twice. I attended every meeting, faithfully. I went out in field service. By my early teens I was giving talks and just before the time I finally went my separate way, I was on the verge of being asked to give longer more important talks. My brother, who is 2 years older was already giving the 1 hour talk on Sundays. So, I was well on the way to becoming an elder myself. It was what was expected of me.
In exchange for achieving this "success", I had to give up...
- Sports, because I was not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities.
- Friends, because I was not allowed to associated with "The World" and because there were no kids my age at the Kingdom Hall.
- Girl friends, because fornicating would get me dead.
- Education, because since the world was going to end anyway, there was no need for a career.
Basically anything anyone would ever want to care about. Am I bitter about it? Not really. In that perspective, their belief places virtually no value on this existence. It is a temporary thing that will eventually give way to something extraordinarily wonderful. As I thought about how I was raised and studied other religions, it becamse clear to me that it was really not all that unusual. When compared to Buddhism or some other forms of asceticism.
The Buddhists teach that all suffering comes from want.
In other words, suffering is the result of the disappointments that from wanting. Nothing in this world is permanent, including happiness. Therefore we are constantly running from one pursuit of happiness to another, only to be disappointed (suffer) again and again, until we leave this life. I don't necessarily agree with this, though I do understand the concept. It got me thinking...
For some people that become obsessive about pursuing their superficial pleasures, this kind of philosophy can work wonders to improve the over all quality of their life.
I have discovered over the years that there are aspects of every religion that I find useful. I like Catholicism for its rituals. I like Buddhism for its self-reflection. I like Hinduism for its sense of "oneness". I like paganism for its respect of nature.
When I think back to my younger days and all of the things that shaped how my mind works today, there is one thing that I have never given up and that is my moral compass. I do not believe that I would have ever developed a moral compass without the benefit of religion.
I do not consider myself a moral absolutist, nor do I consider myself a moral relativist or a moral subjectivist. I have my beliefs in what is "right" and what is "wrong" and no amount of debate on relativism or subjectivism will alter that. Magnetic north is always magnetic north, and like a compass, morality for it to be useful must have a baseline that does not move. Right, wrong or indifferent, absolute morality has its value because it is absolute.
The key for me was realizing that absolute morality does not make it "right". It is foolish to think that there is some formula that we can look to, to calculate what is "right" and what is "wrong". Sometimes, you have to do shit that makes you feel like an asshole... and that is just the way of things. Anyway... I digress.
My point is that, my moral compass is the one thing from my religious days that I have never given up. I have discarded the overwhelming feelings of guilt that used to plague me, but kept the standard as a way of measuring my thoughts and actions.
An interesting way of describing the difference between ethics and morality is: Being moral is doing the right thing when people are watching. Being ethical is doing the right thing when no one is watching you. So, I have used my moral compass to condition my thoughts so that the very idea of doing something "wrong" seems foreign to me. Impossible. The result? I never feel guilt or regret. Because I know that what I do is based upon an ideal standard and when I do fail to live up to it, I also know that I did the best I could. And that is good enough. Some people call me sociopathic. I think I do exhibit some similar traits, but my moral compass is not sociopathic.
That is the trick. My moral compass was designed to live within a social context and that moral compass comes from Christianity, though I have tweaked it over the years to be a little more realistic.
I believe that religion offers a a number of benefits to society, this is just one example that has worked for me.
In exchange for achieving this "success", I had to give up...
- Sports, because I was not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities.
- Friends, because I was not allowed to associated with "The World" and because there were no kids my age at the Kingdom Hall.
- Girl friends, because fornicating would get me dead.
- Education, because since the world was going to end anyway, there was no need for a career.
Basically anything anyone would ever want to care about. Am I bitter about it? Not really. In that perspective, their belief places virtually no value on this existence. It is a temporary thing that will eventually give way to something extraordinarily wonderful. As I thought about how I was raised and studied other religions, it becamse clear to me that it was really not all that unusual. When compared to Buddhism or some other forms of asceticism.
The Buddhists teach that all suffering comes from want.
In other words, suffering is the result of the disappointments that from wanting. Nothing in this world is permanent, including happiness. Therefore we are constantly running from one pursuit of happiness to another, only to be disappointed (suffer) again and again, until we leave this life. I don't necessarily agree with this, though I do understand the concept. It got me thinking...
For some people that become obsessive about pursuing their superficial pleasures, this kind of philosophy can work wonders to improve the over all quality of their life.
I have discovered over the years that there are aspects of every religion that I find useful. I like Catholicism for its rituals. I like Buddhism for its self-reflection. I like Hinduism for its sense of "oneness". I like paganism for its respect of nature.
When I think back to my younger days and all of the things that shaped how my mind works today, there is one thing that I have never given up and that is my moral compass. I do not believe that I would have ever developed a moral compass without the benefit of religion.
I do not consider myself a moral absolutist, nor do I consider myself a moral relativist or a moral subjectivist. I have my beliefs in what is "right" and what is "wrong" and no amount of debate on relativism or subjectivism will alter that. Magnetic north is always magnetic north, and like a compass, morality for it to be useful must have a baseline that does not move. Right, wrong or indifferent, absolute morality has its value because it is absolute.
The key for me was realizing that absolute morality does not make it "right". It is foolish to think that there is some formula that we can look to, to calculate what is "right" and what is "wrong". Sometimes, you have to do shit that makes you feel like an asshole... and that is just the way of things. Anyway... I digress.
My point is that, my moral compass is the one thing from my religious days that I have never given up. I have discarded the overwhelming feelings of guilt that used to plague me, but kept the standard as a way of measuring my thoughts and actions.
An interesting way of describing the difference between ethics and morality is: Being moral is doing the right thing when people are watching. Being ethical is doing the right thing when no one is watching you. So, I have used my moral compass to condition my thoughts so that the very idea of doing something "wrong" seems foreign to me. Impossible. The result? I never feel guilt or regret. Because I know that what I do is based upon an ideal standard and when I do fail to live up to it, I also know that I did the best I could. And that is good enough. Some people call me sociopathic. I think I do exhibit some similar traits, but my moral compass is not sociopathic.
That is the trick. My moral compass was designed to live within a social context and that moral compass comes from Christianity, though I have tweaked it over the years to be a little more realistic.
I believe that religion offers a a number of benefits to society, this is just one example that has worked for me.