Ingenuity and Iniquity

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/how-creativity-connects_n_1450099.html?ref=religion&ir=Religion

Of the things one could connect to dishonesty, the characteristic of being creative is probably the last we’d even consider.  A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that people who require more creativity in their jobs are more likely to engage in underhanded behavior at work. It’s commonly harmless or at least mitigated compared to tax fraud or such things, but the idea is that those with a tendency to be inventive also can find ways to justify their behavior. This is, however, highly correlation based. There are plenty of creative people who most likely don’t behave like this and many who aren’t creative that do. The inverse may be the case: doing immoral things may lead to more creative thinking in the future by virtue of going outside expected norms and laws. This could be a good thing, but the potential abuse still remains. If being creative is a quality of any person, the more they have, there is a higher chance they may have a habit of being unethical, even if it’s simple things like skimping on a tip.  These two relations pose a question of how our ethical behavior is related to creativity and vice versa. Are we ethical because we lack creativity or do we become more creative by breaking ethical norms?

Ethics could conceivably emerge from our ignoring creativity and seeing what is predictable and what is practical, benefitting the whole instead of the parts. This is not to say we can’t appreciate innovation, but it still has to be within boundaries of some sorts. Art schools won’t let a student just go anywhere with their ventures, especially when religion or politics are concerned. If you go too far with them, you’re threatening stability and offending people. While the former might be grounds for genuine ethical concerns, the latter is guaranteed with any endeavor in the arts or just in conversations. Someone will find your opinions unbelievable and strive to change your ways. So ethics, in this theory, serve as a safeguard against people breaking out of the limitations society implicitly places upon the arts, so as not to disrupt order. Of course there is the possibility that this isn’t ethics so much as tradition, norms and mores, all of which are prone to be shattered in one way or another and a common perspective is that these don’t really hurt the common good, since they aren’t automatically galvanizing people to action, but bringing things to the surface that were once hidden. In that sense, creativity and ethics can coexist in this model, which is hopefully what can be accomplished with the other.

Creativity may emerge from ignoring the mundane and seeing things in a new light, breaking down boundaries and limits we put on ourselves. In this context, creativity is more beneficial than ethics, at least in the sense that new things can aid us with time and experimentation. Of course with any such novelty, especially scientific discoveries, one should be careful, which is applying a sort of ethics to the process. But to prohibit new ideas because they threaten a status quo or the like under the guise of ethics or morals is where such things as censorship arise from. This is where creativity is good, but like ethics before, there is the potential for abuse in creativity for its own sake instead of benefitting society with discoveries in medicine, or even mere aesthetic appreciation in the arts. But to have some kind of message behind our creations is important as well even if it is simply observing something already presented by others. To put a new spin on it is where imagination can bring new vigor and awe to life that we became accustomed to. Those that are abnormal can many times have a view on things that is not damaging, but actually edifying and building us up more by bringing together so many myriad vantages and resulting impressions. This is not to say there isn’t a point where we cut off the genius from the insane, of course. But the potential for creativity’s abuse should not make us stifle it entirely for the sake of security either.

Creativity and ethics can coexist, but it remains difficult to focus entirely on one or the other without recognizing a need for both depending on context and circumstance. Being creative might be a way people justify their otherwise unethical actions or it might simply be a consequence of the imagination going wild and people motivated by their ingenuity to go outside the norm, which doesn’t always equal being immoral, but heterodox at best. Creativity has potential for corruption, but is not evil in itself. Ethics benefit us, as well as possessing potential for excess or deficit as with any good thing. And immorality is sometimes only judged as such, but is not necessarily evil at all, but merely pushing boundaries beyond stiff and resistant traditions and normalcy. Fundamentally, equity and moderation are necessary to maintaining a cohesive and dynamic whole person, which includes both being civil to other human beings, but also realizing that you can’t please everyone and someone at sometime is going to be offended by you and there’s nothing that can be done except move forward. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Divine and Human Relationships

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/12/our-take-your-relationship-style-determines-how-you-feel-toward-god/

This article might be shorter, since I was putting it off in hopes of a better story to write on. But in all fairness, this one is still compelling and stabs at the heart of most peoples’ beliefs. The gist of the article goes like so; since we are (allegedly) hardwired to believe in and have a relationship with “God”, the reason why there are people that disbelieve in “God” (such as Christopher Hitchens, his diagnosis with cancer just a way for their authors to sink their teeth into his atheism as relevant) is because their personality style is too negative, either of themselves, of others or both. This already seems too deterministic for my sense, even fatalistic on the part of the authors. If we are inevitably meant to come to “God”, then one has to ask why it is equally defensible to behave ethically towards others because it makes sense as a duty apart from religious convictions, causes the most potential and actual benefit for the greatest number of people or reflects innate virtues we can discern by reason.

One can have a positive regard for oneself and others in relationship style, but also find it less than compelling to extend that sense of relationship to a being that transcends humanity. This is especially so since “God” seems to be little more than an almighty will that either behaves indeterminately by caprice, or as it’s commonly called, grace; or by its own nature, is bound to choose things the most as the First Cause of all things that have free will and volition more than God would ever be able to. The real difficulty with this is that the conclusion of the article is already presuming that everyone already misunderstands God through institutional religion of sorts, supposedly why fewer people self identify as Christian or if they do, they stay clear of association with any church. They advocate seeing God as different from human relationships, resulting in you becoming more comfortable and willing to engage with God. This is all well and good except that it still brings up my objection of fatalism. No matter what relationship type a person might have: ranging from secure in oneself and others, overly secure in oneself and disregarding others, insecure in oneself and overly secure in others or insecure in both self and others, the authors claim that everyone can find a path to God.

This leads to what is ironically a point of contention between those that advocate religious tolerance and pluralism and those that insist that only their path has the fullest truth. This notion which is as old as Hinduism, manifests in the phrase “Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names,” Many contend that this is strong relativism, saying that every religion is equally valid. But just because I accept that Christianity has validity and compelling teachings to some people is not to say that I think that they are equally true in every aspect, especially in my personal convictions. There are no doubt personality types that are more disposed to believe in Dharmic religions that are focused on the here and now and those that are more liable to believe in what I term a teleocentric worldview.

However much Christians value creation (environment and animals) as befits being given dominion over animals and the earth with an obligation not to abuse what God gave them out of its love, their worldview still seems overly future based from my years as a religion major. I would study some form of theology in virtually any class, even in my philosophy minor, encountering Kierkegaard’s fideism alongside Aquinas’ more balanced method of rationality and revelation as complements. The prospect of a heavenly reward has never struck me as especially appealing, even assuming I had never heard of Nietzsche noting “in heaven all the interesting people are missing,” I had already thought many times about my future in the metaphysical sense. Would I want to live forever, would I want to never “suffer” in my corporeality, never need to practice and discipline myself in training in the martial arts, a pastime I enjoyed for many years and am compelled to begin anew? My answer to all these questions was a resounding no.

So maybe it is personality and relationship type that affects how one relates to God. And by association, the authors may have some tweaking to do in the relationship styles. Or at the very least, they may have to accept that those people with the Anxious or Fearful styles may not ever come to believe that they need a relationship with God to feel content and fulfilled. The “tweaking” I suggest is actually allowing for other combinations of regard towards both oneself and others. There is indeed the excessive or deficient regard for oneself as combined with similar overflow or lack of empathy towards others. That already gives us four types right there.

What about those who have something of a moderated sense towards themselves and others? What if, instead, these are improved relationship types and not the types that are the initial template for how we interact with people as we mature from youth? In this case, perhaps there is some merit to this idea, but one would have to extend it to one’s disposition towards particular forms of religiosity; Dharmic, Abrahamic, eclectic, syncretic, Right Hand, Left Hand, or any number of other possibilities. So while in one sense I can find common ground with these Christians that a magnanimous pity for Hitchens as he claims that he will most likely not convert at his deathbed, I would ask them to broaden their scope beyond just what makes their faith seem appealing to others. At the very least, they should concentrate on making religiosity in relationship seem appealing. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Prayer For Politicians, Meditation For The Mind

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/christine-odonnell-says-prayer-impacts-her-polls/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/26/can-meditation-change-your-brain-contemplative-neuroscientists-believe-it-can/
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/meditation-focus-on-now/

I can’t believe Christine O’Donnell keeps making herself a target for my articles. It hasn’t been weekly, but she can’t seem to stop herself from succumbing to what must be some genetic idiocy that was recessive beforehand. Honestly, is she just addicted to this attention? I guess that would be an excuse to get into politics and have people shower you with praise. She was formerly a witch, so now she can relate to the pagan, but doesn’t know the First Amendment so she can make herself seem teachable (she’s not, it appears). Now she thinks people praying for her campaign actually affect the popularity she’s been gaining. You couldn’t be more narcissistic if you tried; to think that people praying to God would actually have effects on your political run for Senator is incredibly naïve, not to mention selfish. To think God cares about whether you win or the Democrats? This is the same ridiculous tripe that’s been persisting since the 50s when people thought that teaching that the U.S. was a Christian nation would beat the “Godless Communists”. Evidently Christine O’Donnell has bought into this alteration of history and culture that communicates what is to a neutral observer a laughable proposition.

The idea that our country was founded on supposedly unique Biblical principles fails on two levels. The first one I’ve brought up at least once before: why would God care about any nation if its kingdom is not of this earth or if it is, it’s got to be way better than any worldly government could promise. But apparently people, educated or otherwise, can be swayed by patriotism and emotional bondage to feelings of guilt to believe either: God either wants our country to prosper or that the rules of Judeo Christian religion should be given favor in law. This may not be the case with all conservatives, but it leads right to my second point. Even if the majority of the founding fathers were Christian, it follows in no way that they wanted to enforce Christianity as some favored religion or place its laws in a political context. The First Amendment alone gives any sensible person a hint that the writers of the Constitution did not favor Christianity in terms of a government and did not design the country as a “Christian nation”. If anything could be noted as a Christian property of the U.S., it’s demographics. There are more self professed Christians (Protestants, Catholics and Mormons altogether) in the U.S. than any other religion, so that’s the closest you could brag about America being a Christian nation. To say we favor Christianity any more in why we develop our laws is not only mistaken in terms of how jurisprudence should work, impartial to faith, but protecting its practice nonetheless, but selectively observes the monuments and such that exist in government centered buildings, like the Supreme Court and Arlington National Cemetery. Religion and ethics are not dependent on each other; in fact, you could say we develop the latter before we even care about the former.

Most importantly, though, I’m just disappointed that someone would really have any kind of regard for prayer in relation to things that are for all intents and purposes separate from what are genuine religious concerns: famine, disease, natural disasters, adoption, anything but whether a Democrat or a Republican wins an election! The fact that you depend on pleas to some deity, singular or plural, is pitiful when you direct even a fraction of your energy in begging that someone wins an insignificant election for an insignificant country.

On a much more interesting, though still a bit questionable, note is the growing field of contemplative neuroscience. To be brief, it is an area of psychology that specifically studies brain function in the process of varying forms of meditation. I myself haven’t done any persistent meditation beyond some Tai Chi and Wado Ryu breathing exercises, which I admit do have an effect if only by basic physiological observations of how we can calm ourselves without recourse to drugs. The studies are still new from what I’ve read, not to mention the samples are both small and potentially biased so that the brain could very well be tricking the subjects. The tests have shown that different areas of the brain are activated or function at higher levels based on the particular kinds of meditation they do, which range from mindfulness to concentration to empathy. What is of especial relevance is the somewhat agreed upon notion that the brain can be trained in a similar, though distinct, sense that we train our bodies. With the brain, it’s not as if you’re exercising muscles so much as you’re channeling neuron firings in ways that begin to affect the brain’s processing. The best example coming to mind is that of a computer and enhancing it through software that cleans or defragments various areas. Similarly, if you alter various habits that the brain has built over time, you can alter how the brain takes in information, processes it and affects our behavior in general with our environment, people and non people both.

If Christine O’Donnell wants to improve anything with her campaign, maybe she could advocate people combining meditation with their faith journey with God, Jesus and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Not that she would eschew prayer, but suggest that people also look inwardly as well as outwardly. Maybe she could even try it herself and figure out how to save herself from such a grand disappointment that may be around the corner. One can only imagine the future of these polls already starting a week or so ago. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Asperger's and Atheism

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=people-with-aspergers-less-likely-t-2010-05-29

I don’t usually bring up my being diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in conversation. It’s distinct from autism by the lack of language development problems as well as the patient being able to function better in society, thus why it is also sometimes called high functioning autism. But I imagine you’re wondering why I’m talking about something as personal as being diagnosed with mental disorder. My blog followers may have initially thought I was just an especially clever/bright/smart/intelligent young adult who had a passion for various philosophical issues that come about through current events. But my revealing that I am an Aspie (a term used by fellow people with Asperger’s) discloses many things I was otherwise unwilling to. My difficulties with understanding the nuances of social situations, like body language and non-literal verbal language as well as my preoccupation with routine and predictability and the potentially myopic perspective I possess with my fixation on a limited subject area are all things that could negatively affect relationships with people, even with the aid of medication that I take for the latter two symptoms.

But I’m not worried about that so much as the potential misunderstandings that could occur with the findings from this link I found through a Facebook friend from Scientific American. The article’s findings suggest that Aspies are less likely to see purpose in events like finding a significant other or suffering the loss of loved ones. I fear people would think at first glance that because of this, Aspies are more likely to be nihilistic about life since they can’t find purpose in life. The problem with this initial assessment is that the person is confusing finding purpose in events with finding purpose in life. I honestly don’t see the hand of God or any conscious planner in events like finding my girlfriend or losing both my grandfathers. These events happen and I was as prepared for them as I could be. If I eventually discovered I had cancer and was dying in a year without treatment, would I see God’s plan in my life and convert from my present “atheism”? Probably not; in fact, I would see it as an inevitable occurrence such as other unpleasant happenings in my life, such as breaking my left arm twice on the same couch (Not learning from the first mistake) and losing two of our cats. Even if I don’t see some plan for the various things that happen in my life, I can still find purpose in living: acquiring knowledge and wisdom, experiencing joy and anguish and leaving an impression on the world that will persist on in some way. All of these things can be believed without thinking God has a hand in the world in any way.

And just because I don’t see a conscious plan in the events that occur in my life and view them as somewhat conditioned by forces outside my control doesn’t suggest that I disbelieve in free will either. Just because there are things outside my control in terms of the world around me doesn’t suggest that even the chemical processes in my brain bind me to a limited array of choices or thoughts. And similarly, the title for my blog post today reflects a similar misunderstanding that might occur. Just because Aspies don’t commonly see conscious purpose in the events that occur in everyday life doesn’t suggest that all Aspies are predisposed to be atheists, or even if they are, they can be quite neutral atheists, not like what many people see as a stereotype of atheism from Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and the like (who I still respect as atheist thinkers). I think it is possible for Aspies to be Deists as well, viewing life as contingent and on some level designed, though not in the sense of following “God’s plan” and frankly I don’t see it as intellectually dishonest to believe as such, especially since I was once a Deist in some fashion as well and the Deist creator/first mover can be viewed as more pantheistic than transcendent; that is, within the universe and not separate from it.

The article makes a distinction between non-teleological thinking and anti-teleological thinking and it works at least in the context of the psychological analysis. Atheists that are “neurotypical” (non Aspies and non autistics) can be said to understand better how people see things in a teleological sense, with an end purpose in mind and a conscious plan behind it, but then they reject that teleological explanation. In the basic use of the prefix, they are anti-teleological, though the term contra-teleological might be a nuanced expression of the term. Anti-teleological seems too strong an expression, though perhaps contra is too strong instead. On the other hand with Aspies, the idea of viewing things in a teleological sense doesn’t necessarily occur at all in their mind, so instead of rejecting the explanation, they don’t posit it to begin with; therefore Aspies are classified as non-teleological in their thinking. As a child, I cannot remember ever genuinely thinking that God had a plan for me and I never posited anything like an imaginary friend; in fact with regards to the latter, I even tried to do it, but it didn’t come naturally to me. One could suggest by association that my mind is not disposed to believing in God or gods and therefore it is less likely that I will ever believe in or use them as explanations for why events occur. This is not to say that I can’t understand people’s use of that explanation, so in a sense, maybe I am anti-teleological in the basic sense, though this is after years of study, since it didn’t come naturally to me. I hope overall that this has aided in making my perspective clearer on belief in God in particular and my form of atheism. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.