Warp Baya

Harry Baya October 6, 2024.
[ I would probably benefit from watching Cellia Young’s talk today, Oct6, 2024,
again. I zoned out on parts of it.-also I need to know if, and how, I could view
older talks ]
However, I do have a few comments.
The first is that when I, and I think most people, think about an issue that has
aspects of the role of government in relation to region – including the extent to
which government choices are influenced by religions ( beliefs, traditions, leaders
with particular religious views) -my point of view is more from a kind
conglomeration of all aspects of my life – including what we call culture – the
movies, books, classes, discussions, values, experience and all of having grown up
and been part of the mainstream culture of most U.S. citizens. This inner source
of values and weighted logic does not lend itself easily to distinguishing one
thread, such as the influence of the state, or the influence of various aspect of my
religious experience, learning, and bias. It’s all just a giant cloud like ecology of
many sources out of which come my thoughts views and decisions.
The second thing I want to comment on is that part of the discussions of these
areas try to come up with precedents, choices made in the past, many of which
were at various points attempted to be codified in precise language. I think of
things like the ten commandments, the U.S. Constitution, the bill of rights. More
broadly this includes things like all the legal rulings made by our courts system,
and religions texts (The bible, the koran, etc. ).
These statements were created in hope of capturing a particular set of rules or
guidelines that seemed most appropriate when they were created. We act as if
those words should continue to be honored today. We act as if to disagree with
them is heretical, or traitorous, or somehow doing something that will harm the
well being of the human race. Our speeches look back to transition points when
new views, such democracy vs autocracy, came into being and try to justify our
individual current views by saying that are coherent with past highly honored
statements.
However it seems to me that I, and perhaps we, are missing the point that people
can want what they want without having to have some sort of historical
precedent.
If a U.S. citizen does not like a point of view clearly stated by our constitution,
then they are entitled to hold that view without being imprisoned for just stating
it. Individual citizens with diverse views must deal with the culture they are in.
They should be allowed to have, and state, preferences – but what actions they
take may be restricted by their culture.
The extreme example is something like “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater”.
Individuals must deal with the laws that could be applied to them. Sometimes
those laws are unfair. Then individuals must work to change those laws they think
are unfair.
What if the “unfair” laws say that it is criminal to work to have those laws
changed. Well that’s an area I have nothing wise to say about at the moment. In
other cases the the laws/guidelines/rules permit working to change them, but the
task may be difficult and may even take generations, as was the case with
abolishing slavery.
I read a quote today from a movie, A League of their own, (Tom Hanks, Gena
Davis). “It’s supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it”
I just finished reading “Death by Black Hole”. The last few chapters dealt with
some issues related to religion vs science. The author stated that because science
is based on verifiable facts, repeatable experiences, while religion is based on
faith, whether or not that which if believed is verifiable. The result is that though
science may make large blunders, incorrect assumptions and theories, over the
long run they are self correcting by the ongoing use of the scientific approach
(experiements, facts, checking ). In contrast religion has no such self correcting
process – it can change – but only to different things to be take on faith.
I suggest that, ideally, the evolution of the cultures of the human race are more
like science than religion. However I see little evidence of progress in my lifetime,
nor in history as I understand it. I see “progress” in growing human populations,
complexities in many ares (psychological, scientific, technology, religion etc. ) but I
do not see progress toward a more stable world, a world that is more satisfying
humans, a world where humans are likely to survive.
What triggered all this was the awareness that all our values and preferences are
in some sense valid – even if they are not acceptable in a particular context. If
some people want the U.S. government to be modified to have more of Chritianity
in it – that’s a valid goal – even if it’s not what the founding fathers wanted.
People can want something different from what their tradition says was right.
So be it.
Harry Baya October 6, 2024