“A religion without a creed? That’s like tennis without a net.”

I resist doctrine. No-ifs-or-buts creeds lead to the absurdities of theology. I’d have flunked St. Thomas Aquinas’ course big-time.

But a faith, if it’s to stand for anything, needs a spine. So I gave it a try.

Warning: this runs triple missive length. Thoughts welcome.

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What I believe and why

Table of discontents

Preamble

Humans make being harder than it needs to be. For other creatures, best we know, life’s not a puzzle.

Our advantage over other creatures is our disadvantage: we think more.

Thinking makes us powerful. Thinking engenders beauty. Thinking improves our physical well-being. Thinking drives progress. Other creatures dwell in an eternal present. Humans live in the present, past, future, and in times that never were.

Humans compare time periods. How does the present compare to the past, the future, times that never were? Are we headed in the right direction? Are we making the right choices? What happens in times beyond those we discern?

These are human questions and they unsettle us. Are we glad or sad to be where we are? What is our duty to ourselves, fellow humans, forbears, successors? That the answers to such questions aren’t obvious makes us anxious, sometimes belligerent. We do things we oughtn’t because what the hell. The smartest species known, we behave most stupidly.

I was raised according to strict principles I came to see were wrong. My parents received these principles from their parents who received them for theirs. This is typically how values are transmitted – reverently and without thought.

Dissatisfied with the rules I received I went looking for different rules to replace them. I sampled some of the many on offer and found none sufficient, so got to work shaping my own. I do not claim these answers are right, only that they suit me. I share them in case they may prove useful to others.

Being human is hard because we think. Thinking transforms actuality into possibility, here and now into a waystation. Thinking may make yesterday, tomorrow, and imaginary times more tempting or terrible than the present. Thinking makes us impatient for better and more. We eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge though we’ve been told not to and there is hell to pay.

Thinking makes us masters and monsters. Like married motorists, we may disagree where we are and where we’re going. Individually and collectively, we are tricky to manage.

Thinking is so difficult we think up ways not to. Religious systems spare us thought, we need only obey. Patriotism and other tribal affiliations are secular religions, from which we may derive our identity. We debate what it means to be a good team member. Teams win or lose to the delight or disappointment of their members.

Only humans must decide who they are, to whom they pledge their allegiance and what that allegiance entails. Only humans evaluate their performance against imaginary goals. The shape of these goals may shift like the shape of clouds. This is confusing, disturbing. What is true may not be true. What we thought right may be wrong. How are we to know!

We deputize others to do our thinking for us. All of us do this sometimes. I decide what it means to be a good American but not what medicine to take when I’m sick. I decide to trust doctors and mistrust politicians. But how am I know if a doctor’s trustworthy? I turn on the lights by flicking a switch but do I know how that light works? If the light fails to go on, I call an electrician.

Deciding how to be is hard, wearisome work. I’d have preferred to join a team if I could find one that suited me. I enjoy the camaraderie of team sports, the reassurance of a congregational amen. I’m happier a part than apart.

But it was not to be. Leaving my boyhood faith, I was on my own, feeling my way in the dark. Who did I want to be and why? How might I make the most of my chance?

Humans exist for one another. We share a home. What we do or don’t do affects others. Doing well means doing well for others.

I want to do well. I want to benefit at least a few others and deserve their regard. I want those who know me to think, “He made the world better by being here.”

This conclusion is practical, not laudable. No other conclusion makes sense. Those who want to win at any cost are evil. They have lost their way. Of any action we must ask not “What’s in it for me?” but “What’s in it for us?” Each defines “us” differently. For some it’s a few – loved ones, perhaps; for others, it’s everyone, living and to come. To make sense, us must be more than me.

Having decided whom we’re living for, we consider their well-being. Are they fed, clothed, sheltered adequately? Are they finding their way to security and a quiet heart? What might I do to assist?

Humans, I believe, have woefully neglected their inheritance, so our habitation may become uninhabitable. Selfishness blinds us to this threat. All who realize this should, at least, raise their voices to alert their neighbors, yes, there’s a fire, and it’s headed this way.

At present the nations of earth and the people of my nation are at loggerheads, the worst I can recall. Such antagonism leads to violence. How should we organize ourselves to secure peace? This question, albeit complex, merits our attention.

Most humans, I’m convinced, know right from wrong – in general, if not in all particulars. We know to prefer kindness to cruelty, peace to war, civility to scurrility, beauty to ugliness, truth to lies. We know to care for children and the enfeebled. We sense that the Golden Rule is the best basis for managing our behavior: yes, we should treat others as we would like to be treated.

This faith sustains my identity like an I-beam. Others see humans as essentially vile: cruel, violent, selfish. Evidence abounds for either interpretation. If humans are bad, they must be controlled, not encouraged, locked up “for our own good.” My optimism about human nature may be delusive, but I prefer its guidance.

How did humans come to know right from wrong? From love, I suspect. Infants soon learn it feels good being loved. Love teaches us the Golden Rule. Some see Love as a power separate from ourselves, as God who guides, oversees, congratulates, chides. I believe in such a God. Others, who have not encountered God, may see goodness no less clearly.

Humans’ brains have been our great advantage, how in a brief few thousand years we came to dominate the creatures of earth.

Humans’ brains are also our disadvantage. We think our way into poisoning our planet, killing one another, overcrowding our cities. Our ingenuity has made us the least happy species.

So how should we spend our time? How best deploy ourselves for the greater good?

We should do what we feel like. This is sense, not selfishness. We do better what we enjoy doing.

We should treat every action as a gift and observe its recipient’s response. Cleaning dishes – a gift. Earning an income – a gift. Maintaining one’s health – a gift. And so on. Trade places with the recipient: would you be glad to receive this gift? If not, why not? The Golden Rule measures instantly and almost infallibly.

I write because I like to. Is my writing a gift? I observe my readers: do I sweeten their lives? If not, why not? Many contemporary makers make what they want without consulting what their audience wants.

Only occasionally are these calculations complicated. Sometimes we must be “cruel… to be kind.” Sometimes we must shoot or be shot. Sometimes only pain persuades. But whatever we do, it is for our recipients, not ourselves. Our every act means to be a gift.

Who adjudicates hard cases? You do. Gauguin abandoned his family when he decamped to Tahiti to paint. What monstrous selfishness! His loyalty ran to his eventual audiences, whom he envisioned vividly, not to his family. Thoreau’s isolation in his cabin may have seemed selfish to his neighbors – or nuts – only he wrote Walden, bless him.

Only you can judge the rightness of your choice. Did they burn you as a heretic for deeds you deemed right? Well then, be glad.

What about Evil? Should we answer it with kindness? Should we turn the other cheek, as Jesus suggests?

Confusion is often mistaken for Evil. Wisdom justly blames bad dogs on bad masters.

Some badness, though, whatever its source, is too obdurate to reclaim. It can only be crushed – and must be, for the good of most.

How do you distinguish Evil from Confusion?

With care – and you may get it wrong.

Being human is hard. Sometimes it hurts. It hurts to remember loves we lost or to think what might have been. We gasp at the chasm between aspiration and actuality – and at the brevity of our opportunity.

It is not wrong to weep – but it is wrong to keep weeping. Sorrow is seldom a gift. We must find our way to hallelujah. Our courage will encourage others. Heroes smile when they don’t feel like it.