I was listening to Denis Prager today for just a few minutes and he asked a quick question that caught my attention and made me think. The answer didn’t just jump out at me. Luckily I came up with the right answer for the right reasons just before Denis agreed with me and vice-versa.
As a parent (or Uncle in my case) what do you wish most for you children to be?
a) Happy
b) Successful
c) Good
d) Smart
Well, I want them to be all of those things… yes, yes… but have to choose ONE. Which will it be? One thing is for sure as you make your choice. When you think about it, no choice in any way guarantees any one of the other three.
a) Happy… Do you know that is a rare thing? Less common than you might think. Think of all the successful people in business and Hollywood. They have gobs of money and admirers and power. What percentage of them do you think are happy? I don’t think very many. And the percentage of people who hate their jobs? And the percentage of people who hate their marriages, or their parents, etc.?
Then… what the *&^(# is happiness? At best there are degrees of happiness. And who can achieve that on a continual basis? Only an idiot, that’s who.
I personally have settled for contentment (be happy for what I have and push back stupid feelings of envy).
I’m also a firm believer in what Solomon said, “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, And with the more knowledge, comes the more grief.” So to choose a) almost certainly excludes d) in my opinion. 😦
b) Successful… Another thing that is very rare. Oh we read about the successful all the time, but on a percentage bases? And as I stated above, successful people often seem to be the most miserable people I know.
d) Smart… (hey you skipped c) There are a lot of smart people out there. More so by percentage, I think, than happy and successful people. Of course education does endow one with smarts. There are also a LOT of educated idiots in the world; many of them currently occupying their mother’s basement or their childhood rooms right now. But even when you look just at “smart” you have no guarantee of the other three.
c) Good… And now I betray my Christian bias. Of course good is the answer. Being a good, honest, moral, person is the best thing you could wish for your posterity.
The other three are like chasing the wind.
Who is happy? The babbling idiot on the street? The dope head TV star with tiger blood?
Who is successful? The guy with the most toys, girls, or power?
Who is smart? The guy who understands or expands on string theory or searches for the “god particle”?
Who is good? Again something we chase… but on those rare occasions we catch it… God smiles. And when we really get it… Heaven rejoices!
If there is no one good but God, what’s the point in trying? (Philosophical question.)
>> If there is no one good but God, what’s the point in trying? (Philosophical question.)
Why does a clock tell you the time? Why does a car transport you from A to B?
It is what our creator created us to do. To glorify him through the good that we do. It’s our purpose. The meaning of life.
If I invent the tools and machines and use them to build a great and beautiful structure; who or what built the structure. I did; not the tools or machines.
So the good that we do is his through us.
From an artistic view; what is the purpose of a painting or sculpture?
To bring glory to it’s creator.
It is what our creator created us to do.
Then why did he curse us when we gained knowledge of good and evil?
Been thinking this over. I would choose “smart.” The term “good,” in your context, assumes loyal following of a morality that was revealed to and written down by special prophets, a submission to authority which does not question that revelation, and a certain pride in refusing to adapt to new evidence and circumstances.
The smart are indeed the most likely to be happy, good, and successful. Of course, the smart can be evil, but that is a minority. I cannot think of a single person of reaching or even personal importance, joy, or goodness who wasn’t smart. But I can think of many dummies who were, at best, glum and useless, and at worst, very dangerous people.
Thanks you. A valid answer, but you’re quick to add the caveat that you think “smart” is most likely to lead to the other three. You seem to be hedging your bet.
Would your answer be the same if you knew that your child will have only the choice you make to the exclusion of the others?
And to show you, I’m not just playing devil’s advocate; I’ll answer the same question.
As long as I believe there is any chance that good and evil exists. Then my answer is always I hope they are “good” whether this excludes the other three or not. This answer goes with the understanding that good and evil cannot exist without God to define them.
Obviously since I do believe this; that is/was my answer.
But as an atheist I would have two different answers. One at the exclusion of the others… then “happy”. One with a chance at the others… then “smart”.
Absolutely! I feel that smarts lead to the other three.
I can’t imagine how one could be smart without being the other three, or at least having a very good chance at them… the exclusion of the others seems an impossibility. Smart people usually figure out how to get along in society, and so aren’t evil; smart people are much more likely (though not guaranteed) to be successful; and smart people are more likely to figure out how to be happy — though again, not guaranteed.
Good and evil most definitely exist. Even if I were an atheist, I would support those concepts. What I reject is the requirement that only a cosmic dictator can define those things. That, to me, is nonsense.
I tend to agree with you on “happy,” in that a drug addict can be happy as long as he’s high — so I guess I’d need to qualify each of these terms. To me, a person cannot be “good” if he isn’t generous, kind, and forgiving, at least to some extent, within human limits. True happiness isn’t from a drug or even a feeling — it has to be a lasting thing, from a life well lived.
What I’d argue is that we learn good and evil from our parents and our peers, much more strongly that we learn it from a relationship with God or lessons from scripture. In the Jewish and Christian context, God is usually presented as extended, invisible parent, a social parent, a tribal parent who gives rules, tells people how to behave, and offers rewards and punishments. That God is one I don’t really believe in. That God, to me, is clearly a fiction, a human projection of male authority on a chaotic world.
What I find compelling about the Bible are the stories where the prophet defies God’s rules in order to be kind, or is asked by God to do something much more generous than he would otherwise — such as Jonah being forced to go to Nineveh to save them. The stories where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, or kills children who mock Ezekiel, or tells the Hebrews that they should execute gays, I find abhorrent. And yeah… that’s my human judgment. The same judgment you (and all intelligent people) use to criticize the Koran, which likewise includes some lovely and some horrible instructions for living God’s way.
Smart people usually have better judgment than dummies. So I’m sticking with “smart.” 🙂
And thanks. I’m enjoying this conversation.
>> I tend to agree with you on “happy,” in that a drug addict can be happy as long as he’s high
You and I know a drug addict with an unlimited supply of drugs, alcoholic with unlimited booze, or porn addict with unlimited girlie mags; aren’t really happy.
As with most things :), you’re overthinking this. The question was not intended to be an exercise in thinking through the qualifications. This is not some genie or dungeon master looking for a way to screw you (or your kids) over.
When I say happy, assume a nice healthy happy. A mom of two with a loving husband with modest means. A man content with a little cabin in the woods.
When I say successful, I mean successful, not super rich and paranoid wasting away under urine soaked sheets in a hotel suite.
When I say good, I mean an honest, man or woman.
When I say smart, I mean intelligent, not Rain-man or Unabomber smart.
I think we’ve found a key difference in our philosophies (and we’ve explored this before). You think God (I assume you mean creator/deity as opposed to someone who conquered and now dictates to the cosmos) defining good/evil as absurd (you said nonsense).
And I think He is the only one that can. I think without a divine creator, good and evil don’t even exist. And the thought that man could create such a thing reaches a pinnacle of absurdity to me.
I would even go so far as to follow the logic of C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity in which he argues:
1. Man has an intrinsic knowledge of a universal right and wrong.
2. And this actually proves God exists for it would not exist without him.
>> What I’d argue is that we learn good and evil from our parents and our peers, much more strongly that we learn it from a relationship with God or lessons from scripture.
I would agree in a limited way. We learn it from our parents and peers in the same way they teach us 2+2=4. They don’t create or define what it is. Assuming God exists; they may teach us the moral equivalent of 2+2=5. That doesn’t make this a new or evolved good/evil. It makes them wrong.
Assuming God doesn’t exist then the moral teachings of 2+2 equals 4,5,or 22 are all equally valid. It’s all subjective. Oh sure we can hold a vote or something but that would only be valid if the strongest agree to abide. Yes, the majority may be stronger than the bullies, but then the bullies may team up… All this proves is man debating or defining good and evil in the big scheme of things is … absurd.
1. Man has an intrinsic knowledge of a universal right and wrong.
2. And this actually proves God exists for it would not exist without him.
Like you, I love, love, love Lewis. Unlike you, I also think he’s wrong. 🙂
Man has an intrinsic knowledge of good and evil because he is a social creature. “Good” is self-sacrifice for the tribe, and “evil” is selfishness which harms the tribe. If you do good, the tribe rewards you with honor and love and support. If you do evil, the tribe kills you or expels you (a death sentence, unless you can join another tribe).
Modern conservatives like Margaret Thatcher don’t believe in that. In fact, they don’t really believe in society at all — loyalty is only owed to family, and everyone else can go suck it.
Consider the Ten Commandments (which parallel the laws of Babylonia, where the Hebrews lived before Moses’ time). Half are for support for God, half are for the tribe. Adding God to it was a *new* thing. The Babylonian code was purely civil. The only difference is the Hebrews added to the definition of “evil” anything disrespectful to YHWH. Everything else is the same — don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t lie in court, etc.
Likewise, we changed our own Pledge of Allegiance — “under God” added in the 1954 — and our money — “in God we trust” added in 1956. The right claims we’re straying from some fundamental American ideal where evangelical Christianity permeates everything, and this is flatly wrong. Today’s conservative Christians are *more* religious than the founders were, by a long shot.
I have no problem with people who have a zeal for Christ, and want to live that in very concrete ways. I have a huge problem with people who want to deny everyone else the freedom to choose whether or not they want to live that way.
I do not want a religious government. I want a government of civil laws. No religious government in human history has been “good.” The medieval Roman Catholics and the modern Iranians both suck in exactly the same ways.
Frankly, what may happen, if America actually pursues this new conservatism, is that the more liberally-minded will leave and go to a country with more freedom — exactly as our ancestors did when they left Europe. I know, I know, that’d be fine with you. 🙂
What I think is more likely is that today’s conservatives are about to find out that they are truly a minority of the country, and when they go too far to the right, they motivate enough of the lazy middle and lefties to get off their butts and vote.