Clearing up choice, rules
I would like to bring some understanding and clarity to two recent articles in the Taipei Times (“Evil not quite so banal, disturbing new probe says,” Sept. 9, page 6, and “China’s struggle with Christianity,” Sept. 8, page 8).
I am going to use the same research from Taiwan that showed we all live to a natural set of rules that are common to all humans. The research showed that people operate on a Universal Principle that uses a few common rules to generate all the diversity and complexity we see around us. We respond to these rules just as atoms respond to other forces of nature, we get to make individual choices within parameters, an uncertainty at the base level that produces more order and certainty higher up.
The four big driving rules of society are Copy and Conform, be Curious and Compete. You can see these at work around you every day. These driving rules compete with your ability to rationalize and overcome them with intelligent choice. If rule-following wins, we are capable of atrocities in order to conform, as the article points out. We can use this information to help us make better choices.
The freedom of individual choice produces stability within society, but that choice is often hijacked by people who know that many will consent to their own repression in the belief they are building a greater good. Your brain is hardwired to get a sense of well-being when it conforms to tradition. All too often we are conforming to nonsense being used to control us.
Good examples of this are Catholic people who believe it is moral to tell people in Africa that they are sinners if they use contraceptives, and in doing so help to spread lethal viruses through the population. Somebody has to clean up the bodies, and there is a long tradition of killing to conform when rule-following becomes addiction.
So when choosing a religion I would advise Doug Bandow not to be seduced by the music proclaiming Jesus Christ to be Lord. Those who claim to know the absolute truth antagonize the others who claim the same thing, and we end up with the wars that continue to this day.
The religion China had before it was taken over by the controllers had at its core a personal freedom to make choices, and consequently does not have the hideous criminal record of the monotheistic faiths. Before you make a choice about anything as important as religion, make sure you check out previous results.
We do need to be reminded to make better choices to stop us just going along with things, like wearing seat belts. If you really want to defend your right to be thrown through a windscreen, think of a good reason, it is still the cause of more than half the fatalities on the highway here.
All the mathematics the research team used had to be done in base e. The natural base of the Universe. We have natural rules like pride and shame which all people feel, and they are much more successful than artificial rules imposed by authority.
If you give people an absolute rule like, “though shall not kill,” [sic] it does not work, look in the history books, how much killing do you want? If somebody is threatening your child’s life, there are few who would turn the other cheek, it is natural to kill to protect what is precious to you. War is just a state when both sides are responding to the emotion produced by killing, so it continues.
Peter Cook
Greater Taichung
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