Morality is stronger than Preference

Marty Klein has started writing some excellent pieces for Humanist Network News, so it's a shame I'm linking to his latest on abortion only because one of his key points doesn't ring true for me:

The pro-choice position is "I'll behave according to my morality, and you behave according to yours." The anti-choice position is "I'll behave according to my morality, and you must behave according to mine, too."

My pro-choice position is, "Of course I expect others to behave according to my morality, but I don't generally see the termination of a pregnancy as immoral."

The word I use for something I don't expect of others (as in, "I'll behave according to my morality, and you behave according to yours") is preference. My moral sentiments are stronger than mere preferences. Morality is those set of principles of right and wrong I demand, not just of myself, but of everybody. Otherwise, I'd have no grounds to be appalled by others' immoral behavior. We're certainly not willing to allow a murderer to behave according to his morality if it condones his behavior! Regardless of his concept of right and wrong, we see his behavior as immoral and therefore intolerable.

Anti-choicers see induced abortion as the murder of another human being. That we don't share this view doesn't make it any less a moral issue from their perspective. So long as they believe personhood begins at conception, they feel morally bound to oppose all abortion just as we feel morally bound to oppose the murder of an actual person. But it's the belief that personhood begins at conception I see as wrong, not the expectation that others behave according to our own morality.

Outrunning my Shadow

I started writing Falterer over a year ago, struggling through an upheaval of my worldview. Posts since slowed to a trickle, and now this drip after months of silence. Meanwhile, my life has been a rushing stream of activity; rapids bubbling too thick to see bloggable reflections on its surface. For wonderful reasons, I have little to say. Or, put less mawkishly: I've been busy. Happy, and busy.

It's hard to resist skimming through the archives to see what I was up to about this time last year. It's also hard not to look on my life since then: how much I've learned and grown, how much happier I am... This is rationalizing experience into achievement.

So much about our lives is ranked and quantified to measure our achievement. Our education is graded and certified; our careers are boiled down to bullet-point resumés; our savings accounts and retirement funds increment (heh) measurably. So we try to treat aspects of character similarly: we talk about our greater happiness, deeper spirituality, truer love, and so on. Not only do we pretend these things are reliably measurable, we use their measurements to wage competition against our memories of past conditions--our past selves.

But it's not hard to outrun my own shadow. Of course I'm more experienced than the 18 year old who baptized himself into a cult, or even than the guy who walked out a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses for the last time a year ago. But the fact of the matter is: the things that led me into my beliefs were mostly out of my control, and their faults were only exposed to me by a series of coincidences. If I forget that and assume I achieved everything by willpower, that it is my achievement, I risk losing my ability to empathize with people still locked into similar situations. Do they have less willpower than me? That's not necessary to assume. Their experiences simply differ.

My beliefs are an unavoidable outcome of my experience. My experience is rare, and I'm grateful for it. I don't see my life as a record of achievement, but as a unique flux of experience, and a bubbling, rushing stream of activity.

Ethical Alchemy

The Charter For Compassion is encouraging. The basic idea is that all religions encompass a core principle of compassion—concern for the welfare of fellow human beings—and if religious people are true to that core, they'll be nice to each other. I'm more impressed by two words from Karen Armstrong's description of religion; she calls it "ethical alchemy." That's been buzzing around my mind for a few weeks.

Religion teaches that the ultimate purpose of moral action is to bring the actor closer to the divine, or at least to prevent his falling further from it. Humanists believe the only goal of moral action is to better the welfare of humanity, and that goal is worthwhile without the dangling carrot of divine reward. Secularists are cautious about ethics attributed to gods because it's an attribution that asks us not to consider the ethic's actual benefit to humanity; and sometimes, god-attributed ethics are pretty awful on that front. Ethics attributed to the Judeo-Christian God have, by various interpretations, condoned and sometimes commanded the stoning, torture, and emancipation of fellow human beings.

Like the divine goals of religious morality, alchemy had its own lofty, contentious goals, and contrived methods of reaching them. It was obsessed, not with finding the natural roles of the elements, but with purifying or transforming them into better forms—a universal transcendence. But if alchemy seems silly, that's only because we have the scientific studies of chemistry and physics to compare and criticize. Alchemy came before scientific chemistry, and in part inspired us toward it. Materialists passed over alchemy's goals of chemical transcendence and instead focused on its discoveries about the true nature of stuff. In other words, alchemy was a stepping stone in our development of science. Similarly, religion has been a series of stepping stones in our social development: religious texts include some of our earliest attempts at articulating ethics, and our social development has included a progressive reinterpretation and analysis and criticism of them. We arrived at truly secular legal systems only after passing through religious ones, passing over religion's more contentious goals and focusing instead on the needs of man.

Karen Armstrong's goal is to emphasize the universal ethical values in religion, most importantly the golden rule, but religion's "alchemical" goal—the dangling carrot of divinity—remains. Were it stripped away, religious compassion would become Humanism.

The First Christmas

When our ancestors determined the winter solstice, they recognized its importance in the calendar of seasons and marked it as a sacred event. Many myths have been told about it, and festivals commemorated it. Over time, they've changed with our cultures. In my culture, lots of these winter solstice traditions have been adopted for a single celebration we call Christmas, traditionally believed to be the birth date of a legendary philosopher worshipped by many, whose attributed sermons had incredible impact and influence on my ancestors, perhaps more than any single Roman emperor or monarch or president.

This is the legacy my ancestors have left me; my culture. It's not something I carry with credulity; however elaborate, my ancestors' fables seem no truer than those that preceded them. Neither do I carry this legacy with any more pride than my own genes; nor with dogmatic intolerance for your own traditions if they differ from mine. But this tradition of peaceful festivity seems to me worth maintaining for its own reasons. Sure, over time, as long as there's intelligent life to support any culture, it and its traditions may evolve. So too may Christmas, but I hope not for the worse. The trees and gifts and figgy puddings and myths are much less important than communion and love—the true spirit of the season.

Listen to me hark on, as though this isn't the first year I've acknowledged Christmas. I'm new to it, and it's new to me, however ancient it is. Happy Birthday; Merry Christmas; these phrases still give me a rush, and still feel awkward on my tongue and stutter through my lips. But I'm coming to love these simple, pagan parts of my culture: the marking of years and seasons, and the celebration and commemoration of their significance. I never felt that I'd been denied them, or that they were missing from my life, but I think I'll enjoy them now that I can.

A workmate, uniquely aware of my separation from Alice and my (let's face it) lonely state in this city, invited me along to his family's Christmas Eve party tonight. And that's not all; they gave me my first true Christmas present! I don't think they're quite aware of the significance of all this to me; they seemed to think it simple hospitality on their part. Later, while we drove around looking at Christmas lights, when I was asked about Christmas traditions back home, I finally tried explaining out loud for the first time to unprepared friends, that I was once one of Jehovah's Witnesses. But my brain stopped up as soon as I began—rebelled at me for revealing a wound so fresh and tender in my ego, even one they'd nursed without knowing. I'm now unused to talking out loud about this subject, and it's become very intimate to me, and a little embarrassing with my new perspective. I didn't get far, but I guess even that much is new and unpracticed to me. So much is new!

I have some positive associations with the word Christmas, but its celebration has previously been taboo to me. For the first time this year, I'm telling people: "Merry Christmas." Merry Christmas to you, too.

Unreasonable

At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens our hearts and enslaves our minds.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation had the opportunity to contribute to a Christmas display at the Washington State Capitol, and squandered that opportunity on this callous, sententious, dogmatic piece of dissent. It's intended as a protesting middle finger to the State for permitting such displays in a public building, but it sounds more like a Christmas speech from the fascist dictator in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta ("England prevails, gentlemen!") It's a bitterly cold message.

The problem here isn't just that atheists come off as killjoys, but that they also come off as arrogant, self-alienating bullies on a merciless mission of cultural cleansing. The nativity scene beside this plaque may represent a superstition believed only by Christians, but it's represented through the universally positive image of a mother nurturing her newborn child; and of an especially humble and vulnerable beginning for a legendary community leader known for parables about compassion and kindness. Beside the manger, the FFRF's plaque reads like a heavy-handed decree from a modern day Herod, bent on ridding culture of any influence it deems unfit. What positive message does it send? What wholesome insight does it have to offer? That there's no god? Oh. Goody. Merry Christmas to you too.

Christmas is part of our Western culture. It's one of the most delightfully pagan celebrations to have survived those years of history when Christendom ruled with an iron fist. I don't think the FFRF truly wants to obliterate its celebration, but since its pagan roots are religious ones (and therefore heart-hardening and mind-endlsaving according to FFRF dogma), the plaque suggests that Christmas should be uprooted along with whatever other seeds religion has sown into our culture. If I didn't know better, I'd think atheists believe the whole year should be one long mirthless schedule, unbroken by imagination or resource-wasting celebration. This is the untrue message the FFRF is unwittingly sending to readers of their plaque.

A call was made for reason to prevail. But what of compassion? Hearts are hardened when this quality is denied, and minds are enslaved when any enemy is pursued dogmatically. Whatever the FFRF claims, the wording of its sign isn't combative against State sponsorship of the Christian churches, or even against the churches themselves. The FFRF's sign is combative against belief; against religion as an entire genre of thought. I submit that it is not religion that hardens hearts and enslaves minds, it is dogmatism, of which this sign is an example.

Call it Christmas

Another year another argument about whether or not "Christmas" is a controversial word. Few complain that Easter is named after an Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess. Few complain that Halloween is an old term meaning "eve of All Saints' Day". Apparently this is all quite politically correct, but Christ is still popular and therefore his title risks bullying other delusions that share his supposed birthday. Things that are popular, we all know, aren't Politically Correct.

Let me at least make this clear: relabeling Christmas is not secularization. The proposed alternatives are generally etymologically religious: "holiday" is an ancient amalgamation of the words that became "holy" and "day"; "x-mas" retains both the cross for Christ and his mass; "solstice" has a subtly geocentric etymology but is associated with pagan religions in the vernacular. I have no problem with any of these words or their etymologies or their associations, they are all part of our English-speaking culture, as is the offending word Christmas. The only potential benefit in any of these alternatives over "Christmas" itself is that most are sort-of vaguer in their non-secularity; "holiday" could technically apply to any other religious holiday—Hanukkah, for example. If anyone benefits from widespread use of these alternatives, it's a handful of easily-offended practicers of minority religions, not secular folk. They may be slightly less sectarian words, but they aren't secular.

For me, the word "Christmas" uniquely evokes greeting card pictures of plump snowmen and red-breasted robins seen through frosty sash windows; rich mincemeat pies and plum puddings; Wallace & Gromit repeats on BBC 2; cosy company around an open fire with the bitter cold left to rage outdoors. These aren't remotely religious experiences. I came to associate them with the word Christmas just like I came to associate the word Spring with blossom and Winter with snow. I could replace the word for the sake of posterity, but that inheritance would alienate my children from their own culture: Dickens didn't write "A Happy Holidays Carol", no one in their right mind has decorated a "season's greetings tree", and "Father Winter Solstice" is unknown outside of his parish and doesn't climb down chimneys and is a terrible thing to ask your three-year-old to pronounce anyway. I don't want to alienate future generations from any of these very Christmasy traditions.

Call it what you will. Christmas is good enough for me.

Processing

I've been living alone for about four months now, but I'm only just beginning to feel heartbreak or regret, or mourn for Alice. I mourned for God while I lost him; it was a private, sacred mourning I tried to hide until I was ready to admit what it meant. I mourned for my friends when they shunned me; I sent some of them a simple email explaining what happened, that I'll miss them, and a request that they give sympathy and support to Alice. I do miss them a lot, but it's only now that I'm removed from that influence that I've started to return to who I was when I fell in love with Alice, and maybe the person she fell in love with. The guy who crossed the Atlantic to be with her.

In a way, I'm relieved I can feel this way. It hurts a lot—a potent mixture of lovesickness and regret—but it's been a long time since I felt anything so strongly. Finally, my heart is blooming again.

On the other hand, I miss her very sorely. And it's overwhelming.