So, as I point out from time to time, I am an atheist. No, I don’t want to kill your babies, or declare a war on Christmas, or let people marry animals. I simply do not believe that there is an anthropomorphic being of limitless power that is concerned about whether or not we masturbate. I wrote a piece not too long ago about the dangers of fanaticism, and I have no intention to bring up that point again, for fear of being labeled a “militant atheist” and having a war declared on me. I would, however, like to address the misconception that one needs a preferred holy book in order that he might live a good and decent life. I believe that it is possible to be a good and honest person without worrying about supernatural ramifications if one fails. Actually, to me, it seems similar to getting off of drugs, and the reason that so many people relapse when they get out of treatment. They are told that what they are doing is wrong, and that if they slip up again, they are failures. Addiction has to do with biochemistry, and if you’ve been using long enough, you’re not going to change that in just a couple weeks just because you really want to. I’m sure there are people who have given everything up cold turkey, and never looked back, but the reality is that addicts will face constant temptations to use again, and more often than not, they will give in, at least once. And here is where I’ll tie it back into ethics and morality:

What the addict does after he has used again is more important than anything else he might have done to face down his addiction. Society has told him that if he uses even once more, he is just a junkie fuck-up, and there isn’t any point in wasting any more time or money on him. But it’s hard to give up something which has completely rewired your brain, scrambling up the order of your motivations to put “Substance A” at the very top. What you have to keep in mind is that you probably will fail. That’s not an excuse to throw your arms up in the air, and just do a line of blow, as giving up an addiction requires a desire to change (that’s why I don’t put much stock in interventions, or treatment programs that are not entered into completely voluntarily: if you don’t want to quit, you won’t). When you slip up, just realize that you are a human being, and remind yourself of all the reasons why you gave up “Substance A.” You don’t need to submit to a higher power, who will be disappointed when you cannot live up to a standard of perfection, and the last thing that you need is to beat yourself up every waking moment because you are destined to be imperfect as long as you are living. Get the notion of perfection out of your head entirely.

Perfection doesn’t exist in nature. It is a concept, an ideal, an unattainable standard to drive ourselves forward. We are bags of ambulatory meat that have been lucky (…) enough to develop sentience. We are not the destination to which evolution has been driving, merely a rest stop along the way. As long we imagine ourselves to be a mere shadow of our potential, we will never fully realize what we are capable of.

Tex, I can hear you asking, what does this have to do with ethics? I also thought you said you weren’t going to be indicting religion today.

Okay, fair enough. I’ve gotten a little bit off track and gone down the rabbit hole. Sorry.

I don’t need a set of rules dating back thousands of years to know that I probably shouldn’t kill or steal. I’m not exactly the biggest, or the strongest, and a society based upon murderous larceny would most likely not be the one for me. It’s pretty simple, even from the most selfish point of view: Do you want people to do good things or bad things to you? Don’t do things to people that they may not like, as you probably wouldn’t like it if they spent their time doing those things to you. Do unto others, and so forth… And just because you have been slighted, don’t go out and punish the world. That isn’t going to go back and erase what was done to you; it will only make other people suffer. We are a reactionary people, seeking to even the scales of amount of pain endured. It is most obvious in toddlers, but we never truly grow out of it, we just become more adept at hiding it behind pretense.

There is a reason that we have a rule of law, especially when it comes to capital offenses: the loved ones of the victim are never seeking justice. There can be no justice: the victim is dead, and we haven’t got a Lazarus Pit. What the survivors want is vengeance. They hurt so badly that they feel a physical need to give that pain to someone, anyone else. They want the accused to suffer and to die. The criminal hurt not only his victim, but everyone who knew and loved the deceased. There is no punishment we can mete out that will undo this act of unspeakable violence. And in the drive to make someone pay, things like “evidence” are often overlooked.

So what’s the point? Why bother? If there are people like that in the world, what use is there in being good? There will always be those among us who seek to do us harm, but you don’t have to be one of them. There are so many problems in the world, what can I possibly do? Go forth with the knowledge that you will try to make the world a better place. You don’t have to stamp out war or disease, or even give every single homeless person somewhere warm to sleep; just be nicer to the people that you know and come to meet. The little things never seem like much, but they make all the difference. Grandiose gestures are great against the Hitlers of the world, but do nothing against the banality of evil (and are often easily thwarted by it). If you can’t spare a dollar to the man camped out on the corner, just tell him so, don’t feel like you have to ignore him. Try talking to him, viewing him as an actual person whose life just zigged when it should have zagged.

We all make terrible choices on a daily basis, as anyone who’s ever eaten at McDonald’s can easily attest. Usually our errors don’t add up to much, but it really doesn’t take that much to knock you off the tracks. No one grows up thinking that they’d like to shoot up heroin and live in a cardboard box. No one wants to suffer from a mental illness that most people will attribute to some sort of divine retribution. We are all just doing the very best that we can hope to do. Instead of trying to bring everyone down to wallow in our pain, let’s try and make sure that no one else has to suffer it like we did.

That, I think, is the hardest lesson that I’ve learned from my two decades living with Bi-Polar. Unless you’ve truly felt the irresistible tug of the manic depressive pendulum, it’s really hard to understand. Most people feel sad, on occasion, or have been really, really excited about something. But until you’ve lain in bed for three days because you just couldn’t find a reason to get up, it’s hard to empathize. And it is completely invisible. Most people can just power through whatever’s got them down, and they love to tell you how to do it. For so long, I wanted to whole world to feel the pain like I did, just so they could understand. Not a lifetime, just a day. Let everybody suffer just a bit so that they might leave me in peace. But who would that truly help? All I wanted to do was to share the pain so that I wouldn’t hurt alone. But again, that’s not justice- it’s vengeance.

We need to rise above our childish need to lash out at the world, and act together to make it someplace that we’d like to live. It is my belief that this is the only life we’ve got, and maybe we should try to make the most of it. Let’s make a world where everyone has got a place to live, and enough to eat, and nourishment for the mind as well. Let’s make a world our children and grandchildren can be ecstatic to inherit. Let’s get to know each other so that we might not be afraid. Let’s hold hands and face the darkness, and chant in unison, “No more!” We are capable of amazing feats of genius, and yet we still band together in a tribal mentality predating agriculture. Our differences are not so great, when you strip away the dogma. Most of us just want to live a quiet life and not be hurt today.

So which future will you choose? One where we can come together as a species, spreading slowly outward through the galaxy, finding more wonders and beauty than we ever had dreamed possible, or one where we continue fighting over who gets to be one to drag us toward extinction?

I don’t have all the answers, despite what I tell my wife and son. But maybe if enough of us can come together, we can figure it out together.

-Tex

Also, you may have noticed that I included references to the bible, and biblical mythology. I am not in favor of the banning of that book, just a reclassification, as mythologies have been wonderful tools to sugar coat whatever message one is trying to impart. And there is incredible imagery within the pages of the bible. My point is that mythology is just that. Most religious people are polyatheists: there are countless gods in which they do not believe. I just disbelieve one more.