Mr Taft Wrote:
1. I've never sacrificed my happiness. Never.
That is because you’ve been taught that sacrificing your time and energy in the service of others is the source of all human happiness on Earth. You believe you’re doing God’s work when you give up your weekend to serve up grub at the local shelter. You think you know what God wants. Of course you’re happy. God approves.
There’s nothing wrong with serving up grub at the local shelter. Relieving human suffering is a nice thing to do; but it is only a moral thing to do if you are doing it because you choose to, not because you’re told you have some moral duty to do it. And it is absolutely immoral to be serving up grub to strangers at the shelter while neglecting your responsibilities to your own children.
That having been said, I hope you are happy Mr. Taft, always. Could your happiness be the result of you rightly turning your back on the essence of the message you call gospel truth? For Christians and Muslims alike, life on Earth is characterized in most miserable terms: it’s all about sacrifice and suffering, it’s about denying the evil, corrupting flesh that is the human body, it is about serving something not of this earth. Scan your four gospels, Mr. Taft. Quote Jesus once telling people to be happy living their lives on this wonderful planet of ours. I doubt you will be successful in your search. For Christians and Muslims, the reward for doing what you’re told comes after you’re dead in some eternal paradise; if you don’t do what you’re told, then you burn for all eternity in hell and hell fire. And this Earth, the greatest place in existence, the birthplace of humanity, is invariably described as a cesspool made evil by evil humans.
Ayn Rand describes the altruist code precisely: It is a morality of death. It’s not about achieving happiness on Earth. It’s not about celebrating the human condition. It’s not about celebrating the human body, the best product of three billion years of evolution on Earth. Even the Christian symbol, the crucifix, is about death...a bloody, brutal death to be sure. It represents the wholesale denial of the importance of the flesh, the earth, the material...in favor of your non-material, unidentifiable soul or spirit. The mind/body dichotomy accepted by Christians and Muslims is baseless. There is no evidence to suggest that a separate, non-material soul exists. None of our 21st Century tricoders can pick up energy of any kind leaving the body of a newly deceased individual. If your soul hypothesis is a correct one, a whole new physics would have to be discovered [a proposition not outside the realm of possibilities] to prove it. Good luck discovering these entirely new laws of nature.
Your soul is your conscious and subconscious mind. It is every thought, every memory, every experience you have while you live. It is the sum total of everything that you are. Your soul is most important; and it is all located in a very real way between your ears. Here’s something the ancient holy book writers didn’t know: When your heart muscle stops pumping and oxygenated blood ceases to be delivered to your brain, your neural net begins to unravel and everything that you are ceases to exist. You die. They also didn’t know: The function of the human brain...Why people get sick? What a planet is? What the sun is? DNA? Atoms?
How do you imagine these ancient people who knew so little about the true nature of existence came up with a moral code suitable to living, breathing men on Earth? They didn’t. The powerful, literate minority came up with a code that enabled them to control the masses, doling out baseless promises of eternal rewards and punishments.
Ever experience a ping of guilt because you haven’t done enough good deeds today? Or, god forbid, you did something for yourself for a change? Or because you really don’t like somebody [much less love them]? Ping! There went a bit of your happiness.
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4 comments:
Mr. Sierra, I'm glad I've kept in such good contact with you this summer. You really can be lots of fun. I've had a good day today. This morning, I had a healthy bowl of cereal. I went to church, and we studied out of Colossians chapter 2. It has a lot to do with what we're discussing. It helped me out quite a bit. I had a great conversation with my good friend Breon Guarino about a book I'm reading (Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (great book!)), then I caught up with Mr. Clarence. I volunteered in the nursery during service today. Sweet kids. It's hard to teach them not to hit at that age. They learn violence early. I worked pretty much all afternoon making decorations for my Vacation Bible School (I write one every year. Songs, music, curriculum, skits). Then I went to my Sunday Night Bible study. I had a wonderful time worshiping my Father, then I enjoyed an hour of studying what the Bible has to say about marriage. Me and my parents had a wonderful meal at OCharley's to top the day off, and now I get to talk to my good friend Donn. It's been a good day. Summer's been fun. I hope it's been treating you the same.
Sometimes I think you forget how to lay back and have a little fun. I'm sure you and your family are taking some steps to get ready for your son to go off to college. My mom's having a lot of trouble with that. I hope that's a pleasant experience for all of you. Have a great week, Donn. I'm sure I'll hear from you next week (unless you find another conversation to dissect). Talk to you then!
I don't believe the part about having a wonderful meal at OCharley's. I've been there before. Once.
Hahaha! You are a funny guy. To be honest, it was cramped, service was slow, and the rolls were difficult to cut. But I've been studying Phillipians 4 a lot, and I'm learning to be content in ALL situations. To be honest, I just remember that I'm sitting in OCharley's being served anything I ask instead of being raped over and over again by the guy that just bought me from my village. That would suck, huh?
Would you two like some fairy-dust and some lollipops, maybe a couple scoops of ice cream, it sounds like to me you share some many things together, you know value for value.
Only kidding, however I was expecting some type of rebuttal from you Mr. Taft, I mean, Donn, brought up many hard-nose points, that you neglected to address. A fist-fight is not what I seek, what I seek is the debate, between the egoist and the altruist. Cheers, gentlemen.
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