The Questionable

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As with every other time ideology meets reality, any constitution is inevitably rife with syncretism and compromise. It seems unlikely that true separation of church and state is possible. Both church and state are composed of, influencers of, and operated by people. One’s political beliefs will be influenced by their philosophical beliefs and vice versa. It is tempting, then to advocate that potential political leaders should be completely transparent with their beliefs: that they should not be allowed to say things like “God bless America” until they clarify what they mean by God. As much as we like to pretend otherwise, government and religion have always been bedfellows. More often than not in history, powerful political leaders have called themselves gods. Even today, times of war are almost always also times of great religious fervor. When people believe Kings have a divine right to rule, they do not question authority. When people believe colonizing is their manifest destiny, they do not question the destruction of indigenous people. When people believe their nation is “God blessed,” they do not question what is done in the name of their nation.

Yes. Cultures should be preserved, and cultural differences cause strife. Homogeneity does lend a certain degree of stability to a society. When a culture with largely similar values and history, food and language faces a challenge on one front, they are able to use those commonalities in other areas to face that challenge with more resilience than a group more recently cobbled together from disparate clans. Cultures with more diverse populations have tended to create scapegoats of minority populations in times of hardship, which often leads to atrocities against those minorities. It is also true that every culture has some attributes in which it excels, and other characteristics that are less positive because of where that culture has placed its value. Overall though, the fabric of humanity is strengthened by diversity of culture. In technological history, the most profound periods of advancement always correspond with increased travel and trade. The larger the pool of potential innovators, the more likely it is that someone will come across what they need to innovate. The more perspectives coexist, the less likely that one culture’s blind spot will continue to lie in atrophy. There is no denying that there is a lot to work past in this pursuit of peaceful diversity. Because a huge part of our identity is wrapped up in our cultural heritage, we fear our culture will be diluted when others participate. Additionally, the first steps the members of one culture take to participate in or pay tribute to another are usually awkward and mildly offensive at best. Interacting with other cultures requires the same kind of sensitivity with which we should approach every interaction that involves beliefs that individuals hold very personally: approach with an open hand, not a closed fist. Hold your own beliefs loosely enough that you don’t feel attacked when others don’t understand them, and approach the beliefs of others from a position of openness rather than aggression. In other words, so long as a culture or nation has multiculturalism as one of its core values, it will be able to accept members of any other culture that shares multiculturalism as a value. Acceptance of those who believe differently from us feels like a vulnerable act. However, growth only comes through vulnerability, and anyone who is willing to leave behind their nation and live in another has already gone a long way towards showing that they value the ideals of their new culture.

Conflict almost always arises from lack. There are any number of justifications those engaging in conflict will offer to rationalize their behavior, but during times of plenty these same beliefs are far less likely to result in violence. Xenophobia, religious tension, old grudges, these things don’t go away when the economy is good, but when everyone has enough to get by, these differences don’t seem as important. It is ironic that dearth is a contributing factor in conflict, because conflict is so often the cause of economic instability. This is part of why conflict in poor parts of the world can often seem so intractable. Economic instability feeds old resentment, and the two spiral out of control in a vicious cycle until those who want to offer solutions have difficulty even knowing where to begin. Very often, the solution to conflict comes down to two dirty and difficult activities: communication and compromise. The opposing sides in a conflict have to be able to talk with each other and not just at each other. They also have to be willing to give up the details of their vision of perfection so that the fundamentals of their agenda can survive. In other words, there has to be a willingness to coexist for the greater good of the general population rather than trying to enforce one group’s rigid ideals on everyone. Unfortunately, this willingness to compromise often only comes after both sides have had enough of violence. We must always try to offer an olive branch, but sometimes those addicted to conflict must hit rock bottom before they can consider working towards recovery.

The greatest existential threats to humanity all stem from our own curiosity. Of course, there is always the possibility an asteroid or solar flare or super-volcano could knock out a significant portion of the population, but it would take something on a pretty significant scale to wipe out all humans or ensure that what few remained could not bounce back. The truly existential threats are nuclear war, climate change, and disease. Nuclear war, because it’s devastation would be so immediate and absolute. Climate change, because it is subtle enough to ignore until it is too late, and disease because our modern travel infrastructure is the perfect vector for transmitting our oldest and most deadly microbial enemies. These threats being stated, however, it should be noted that we are in a position to address all of them if we so choose. The beginnings of a plan are in place on each of these fronts. If we are capable of being the survivors we have been up to this point, the only thing standing in our way is the decision to act.

Throughout history of life on earth, there have been a dozen or so occasions where some kind of catastrophic event eliminated a majority of the species on the planet. When some microbes developed the ability to digest sunlight, the increased oxygen in the atmosphere killed trillions of bacteria. The impact of a giant asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs. But it was these very extinction events which wiped the ecological slate clean for explosive periods of evolution which eventually led to us. Species come and go, but life itself has proven to be quite resilient. There will come a time when the sun swallows the earth, when the the expansion of the universe causes distant stars to wink out of view one by one, when the energy and matter of the cosmos are simply too diffused to sustain life. The universe began with a bang, but it will end with a whimper. Until then however, even an apocalypse doesn't have to mean the end of the world. If you were living in the midst of the black death, you would surely have believed these were the end times. Many who lived through the cold war took it for granted that nuclear holocaust on a global scale was an inevitability. There is no limit to the number of things that could end life as we know it, but the list of things that could end life itself is far shorter. Admittedly, addressing global threats is one of the most challenging propositions in international politics because of the variety of needs and perspectives involved. However, this kind of diplomacy and innovation has been accomplished in the past. Anxiety is unproductive, but realistic urgency is crucial when a threat is recognized. As humans, our primary evolutionary advantage has been the ability to adapt our behavior without needing to go through the grisly process of natural selection. We have a strong track record of self-preservation. More than any one threat, we have our own shortsightedness and stubborn, fear-based denial to overcome.

For some, the ways their minds vary from the norm are acceptable, and merely another way of experiencing reality. For others, they feel their ability to participate in life is impaired and they want a solution. It is a continuum. Who is to say that the way most people’s minds work is better than the way unusual minds work? A majority of people in the world claim they can sense the presence of some kind of All-Powerful Spirit, and a minority of people in the world claim they can sense hundreds of somewhat powerful spirits. Society need only intervene if either the person feels their mental condition is interfering with their quality of life or if their condition results in an increase of damaging behavior. That language is intentionally vague, because it is important that there be room for interpretation in matters of mental health. Psychology is one of the youngest fields of medicine, and it is not always clear where the lines should be drawn. Everyone has voices in their head to some extent, and one of the struggles for anybody in creating a meaningful life is working to keep the loudest voice our own.

Unlike many of the questions we have tackled here, some of the claims of so-called psychics actually contain concepts that are measurable and testable. Furthermore, the fact that some who claim to have psychic abilities have positioned themselves as celebrities means that we have a record of things they claim and the ability to break down and analyze what they say and do. From both the communities of skeptics and those who want to believe, there are individuals who have pooled together massive quantities of prize money for anyone who can demonstrate psychic abilities beyond a reasonable doubt. So far, no one has claimed these prizes. Of course, there have been occasions where someone has made a prediction and it has proven true, but none of these people even have a 50% accuracy rate. If you make lots of predictions, eventually something will stick. Furthermore, there have been enough of these alleged psychics that have ended up being frauds that it is tempting to write off the whole enterprise. If someone were to come along and make repeated, consistent, accurate predictions, that would be worthy of note. So far, the only people capable of these kind of predictions are called scientists. Even so, in science all predictions are worthy of skepticism, in case new evidence disproves old paradigms.

The universe is boundless, but so far as we know, the same rules apply no matter which star a planet happens to orbit: the same gravity, the same chemistry. With so many planets orbiting so many stars, it seems inevitable that what happened here on earth must have happened elsewhere in the cosmos. That being said, it is not particularly surprising that the discovery of extraterrestrial life has thus far been elusive. It took four billion years from the origin of life to the first telescope on our planet, and it is only in the past few centuries that we have gone from believing the earth was flat and the center of the universe to knowing all we know today. If life exists on a nearby world, it is likely either several billion years away from being able to send out signals, or so far beyond our technology level as to see our puny attempts at space travel the same way humans admire the shape of ant colonies. We can hope that it is humanity’s eventual destiny to become extraterrestrial. No matter what we do to preserve it, our planet has an expiration date. The only hope for our descendants is for them to find new worlds that they can shape into habitability. In the process, we will have changed. The years will have caused our genes to mutate into something new. We may have made alterations to our DNA intentionally in order to survive our changing planet or journeys through space. Whatever the case, whether aliens exist today or only in our future, It is to be hoped that humanity can learn from our mistakes in interpersonal and inter-species relations on this world, and recognize the value of alien life instead of exploiting it. If we cannot adapt, it is possible extraterrestrials could not adapt either. Of course, it is also possible that it is the destiny of all life to reach a technological level where it can destroy itself before it reaches a level of evolutionary maturity to resist that temptation.

A supernatural belief is a belief in something that cannot be understood as complying with natural laws. Frankly, it is difficult to see belief in the supernatural as anything other than nonsense. It is certainly possible that things previously believed impossible are real, and it is definitely the case that there are things that can be observed for which we do not yet have an adequate explanation.  However, if something exists in nature, it is by definition natural. If we suddenly discovered an island full of vampires and unicorns, then believing in vampires or unicorns would no longer be an example of a supernatural belief. In that case, belief in vampires would merely be belief in a rare species, no more supernatural than red pandas. This kind of logic holds even for something so complicated as the concept God. If God exists and is capable of doing things that we cannot explain, those activities would not be supernatural, merely expressions of a different natural order than what science currently understands. As such, “Supernatural” seems to be a way of saying “Untrue” that is less likely to hurt the feelings of people who hold such beliefs. If people who believe in unicorns could put forward legitimate evidence of their existence, they would no longer be believers, they would be investigators or scientists or something of that sort. For those who do not believe, using the word supernatural is a way to both insult those who believe and rob them of the opportunity to defend their beliefs. For those who stand by the label of believing in the supernatural, they are really just balancing between the worlds of faith and evidence without the comfort or effort of either.