TruthBook Religious News Blog

Please click on "external source" to access a website called "The Elders," an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.

Labels: humanity, peace, peacemaking, suffering, The Elders

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

A matter of character

Who stacks up in 'speaking truth to power'
BY DAVID WELLS

According to a national Associated Press/Ipsos poll, 55 percent of Americans think "character" is more important than "issues" when picking a president. But what exactly is meant by "character"?

According to Neal Mayerson, a psychologist and president of the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation, here in Cincinnati, everybody, including every candidate, has character; they just have it in different measures.

• How do you define character?

CHARACTER TRAITS

Character is common in the famous and the unknown. It is a personal measure by which we judge others. But clearly, there is no one standard.

Ten years ago the Mayerson Foundation organized a study group of social scientists called Values in Action, and began to categorize and evaluate the traits of what people call "character." Studying a wide range of religions, cultures and philosophies, the group eventually came up with six categories of consistently valued positive human characteristics, each with a subgroup of character strengths:

Wisdom (creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective).

Courage (bravery, honesty, perseverance, zest).

Humanity (kindness, love, social intelligence).

Justice (fairness, leadership, teamwork).

Temperance (forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-regulation).

Transcendence (appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality).

We all judge character, and how we define it and balance its various characteristics is largely a matter of personal choice - perhaps an indication of our own "character."

LOOK FOR BALANCE

Mayerson suggests that a truer picture of a person's character emerges when we balance the various character traits. "I would use the legal term of preponderance of evidence when trying to assess someone's character," he said. When discussing character, we also should remember that our own preferences are subject to change. We look for different character strengths for different roles. "If you are looking for a spiritual leader, you may be inclined to look for a different set of traits than you would want in the CEO of the company that is managing all of your retirement stock," Mayerson said.

So what would you want in a president?

Mayerson's group has been conducting an online survey asking people just that. Full data is not yet available, but some trends seem to be emerging, he said. One is a decision maker, but not one so single-minded that he/she is unwilling to hear opposing views. People seem to want someone with humanity strengths, but are not primarily interested in "a nice guy," he said.

Putting character ahead of issues is a way for people to deal with candidates in terms they can more easily relate to, Mayerson suggested. We may not all understand the nuance of economic policy, but we all understand honesty, courage and generosity. The important thing to remember about character, however, is that it is a package, not a single issue.

Labels: character, courage, David Wells, humanity, justice, Mayerson Foundation, politics, temperance, transcendence, Values in Action, wisdom

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Why are we religious?

After studying apes, anthropologist Barbara King wrote a book about man's need for spiritual belonging

By DAVID NICHOLSON
November 24, 2007

As an anthropologist, Barbara King studies human ancestors who lived thousands, even millions, of years ago. But her writings on the origins of religion strike a modern chord with an unlikely pairing, scientists and theologians.

Earlier this year, the College of William and Mary professor published "Evolving God," her thoughts on how early man developed his religious imagination. Though it's the first time she's tackled the topic of religion in her research, the book has been named one of the top 10 religion books for 2007 by the American Library Association/Booklist. It's garnered far more attention than any of her previous publications, and the response suggests to her that people continue to struggle with the relationship between religion and science.

Evolutionists do not believe that man descended from the apes, she says, but rather that man and the apes share a common ancestor and exhibit similar behaviors. Much of her research has involved studying the behavior of gorillas and other apes in Africa and places closer to home such as the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. From her observations, she's developed the theory that one of the most powerful precursors to religion is a concept she calls belongingness, which is "mattering to someone who matters to you."

Belongingness is the need to relate to one another, as members of a family or a society. Humans have it, and apes have it, too.

"I got to thinking about how important social groups are," King says. "We've evolved to really seek connections with each other. People matter to us."

Her theory is that this need to relate to one another evolved into a need to relate to a higher power.

King says she is writing against the gene-determinant theory, which says that things like language and religion are coded in our genes. Before she tackled the topic of religion, she came to believe that social and emotional interaction between humans, and between apes, had a major role in how language developed. An editor at Doubleday Religion urged her to examine religion in the same way she looked at language.

"People are wanting to understand where the yearning to connect to God comes from," she says. "Many people are personally grappling with science and religion. I'm saying there are all kinds of ways to bring these things together."

King isn't out to prove whether or not God exists. In that same closing chapter, she writes, "I do not believe that science can 'explain' religion ... I do believe that science can explain something meaningful about the evolution of the religious imagination."

Labels: anthropology, apes, Barbara King, belongingness, David Nicholson, God, humanity, religion

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Friday, July 06, 2007

Reason, sympathy and human relations

Posted Jul 6, 2007
By Ishtiaq Ahmed

Can one agree on a principle that can serve as the basis for the establishment of genuine peace and harmony in the world? Some people think that if the whole world became good Muslims or good Christians it would create true brotherhood and sisterhood.

Now, considering that both groups comprise more than a billion each (Islam in its various sectarian forms is given as 1.3 billion and Christianity 1.9 billion) converting one to the other may take a very long time.

Also, we would still have 650 million Confucians (mainly Chinese), 700 million Hindus (including the upper castes, the other backward castes and the scheduled castes and tribes), 400 million Buddhists, 20 million Sikhs, 13 million Jews and then smaller groups such as the Bahais, Ahmadis, Jains, animists (if any have been allowed to survive) and others who have no specific religious affiliation or who choose to denounce their religious beliefs. To make humanity as a whole adhere to one comprehensive religious faith with its doctrines and dogmas is impossible.

One need not be very clever to realise that we will have to find a principle that does not require total conversion of people to a particular belief or detailed code of conduct in order to establish mutually respectful relations among all groups and individuals within them.

We very often tend to believe that within groups strong emotional bonds and ties of solidarity exist. This is a myth and has always been a myth. Except for very small communities comprising a few households close contact between people does not take place and when it does it is not always friendly and deeply loyal. We therefore need a principle which is simple and practical and one that everyone can accept as fair on the basis of which the foundations of mutual respect and peace can be laid.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed the ‘Categorical Imperative’ as the overarching principle that can serve such a purpose. The categorical imperative says that one should act only on those rules of action that one wants to be made universal laws. It would declare as immoral a rule of conduct that implies that one person may do something but another, in similar circumstances, may not. In other words, it demands consistency. In other words, what’s alright for me is alright for you if our relevant circumstances are similar.

Therefore, one cannot legitimately demand a ban on one religion without demanding the same for other religions, but one is perfectly justified in demanding that human rights violations should not occur in the name of religion and that should apply to all religions. Similarly if I can occupy someone’s home then it is alright for the other bloke to try to do the same. But of course I would not want him to do that, so it would be wrong for me to do the same.

The categorical imperative also states that one should treat humanity or rational beings as an end and never as a means only. Human beings are uniquely capable of reasoning about their choices and therefore are inherently valuable and worthy of respect for this reason. For human beings to realise their inner worth it is important that they enjoy meaningful autonomy vis-à-vis state and society. Autonomy makes it possible for us to make rationally and morally correct choices, which according to Kant is all about protection of our basic interests.

If such a principle were to be made not only on the basis of conduct between human beings but also states then the occupation of Iraq by President Bush and his allies would not take place. On the other hand, it would be perfectly correct to wage war on those who are responsible for 9/11.

But others argue against rationality alone as the basis for claiming and enjoying rights on grounds that there are human beings who are not able to reason in accordance with a conventional understanding of rationality. These include children and those suffering from impairment of their reasoning abilities. Also, not very long ago women, working people, and some ethnic and racial groups were also considered incapable of acting like rational human beings.

The emphasis on rationality is, therefore, not the true basis of rights. It can confine the right to enjoy rights arbitrarily to some groups or class of people. Therefore, it is asserted, that the true basis of peace among human beings has to be human sympathy and solidarity, or in other words, the human conscience.

Proceeding along such lines some argue that the right to rights should not be confined to the Homo sapiens: animals and nature should also be embraced because specie-ism (that is privileging one’s own species) is irrational and immoral. Moreover, it is argued, from a practical point of view that humankind’s supremacy over other forms of nature is untenable in the long run. We have to learn to live as part of nature and in communion with it.

Some people go further and urge that we have to start working on this principle now. Global warming is the wakeup call we must heed and change our lifestyles to recognise that human beings, animals and nature in general have to live in communion and harmony with each other.

Thus, the age of rights has to be re-defined in the light of the objective reality around us.
The philosophers are extending the theoretical horizons and frontiers of discussion on rights in directions which are as yet unclear, but I would argue that concern for the rights of human beings and the organisations and institutions that represent their interests should remain of paramount concern because even if a paradigmatic shift from the rights of human beings to the all-inclusive idea of the rights of different forms of nature may be on the way, it need not be seen as a mutually exclusive arrangement.

Whatever we think about who should and who should not have rights is after all dependent on the human conscience because neither animals nor other forms of nature are burdened with the problem of being at ease with one’s conscience. It is a human predicament and not a predicament of all living things or for that matter of nature.

The writer is professor of political science at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. Email: Ishtiaq.Ahmed-@statsvet.su.se

Labels: categorical imperative, Christian, harmony, human rights, humanity, Immanuel Kant, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Islamic, peace, principles, religion