Heretics Against Fundamentalism

Maybe a bumper sticker?

Maybe on a T-shirt?

One of those thoughts that came up in meditation…  

Been reading John McWhorter’s “Woke Racism:  How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America”  

He is a great writer… 

And, I believe, with great ideas.  

He is a Heretic…  

I’m not here to discuss whether he is right or wrong, read it, then make up your own mind…  

Inequity exists, I agree with him that current DEI efforts do not work, I wrote about inequity before:  

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2020/08/black-lives-matter.html

However, I am more interested in how individuals develop and evolve, and how that reflects into how societies develop and evolve…  

Humans are prone to racism, this is because humans are naturally xenophobic, therefore, have a tendency toward nativism.  Xenophobia is one of the survival instincts of being human. 

Humans tend to band together with those that they think are like them, then they find “the Other,” and then make this “Other” a scapegoat, enslave, or kill, this “Other.”    

Banding together often evolves into a Religion…  

Religions tend to fundamentalism…  

Heretics, those who question the fundamentalistic ideas, also become “The Other.”  

Evolution allows one to see the errors of fundamentalism, allows the development of a larger view, like climbing a mountain and seeing the bigger picture.  

I’ll link back to the 3 Commandments and the “Mistakes of Love Everything.” 

Particularly the mistakes of:

“Idiot Compassion”

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-second-commandment-love-everything_20.html

And, “Unfair Punishment”

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-second-commandment-love-everything_26.html

To quote myself:  “Remember, the higher we are on the evolutionary scale, the greater percentage of persons we consider to be “family.”  Family is defined as those we are willing to care for emotionally, and economically if needed.  

We care for them not with Idiot Compassion, but with Wise Compassion.  We take care of the poor, but we don’t enable sloth and laziness.  Yet, as a society we might err on the side of compassion and generosity.  

We teach people how to care for themselves.  Creating methods and institutions to help people to grow and evolve from the earliest of ages.  We teach people “how to fish.”  We offer them the practices that can help them grow.”  

And we can realize that “Everyone is Doing the Best They Can.”

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2016/10/this-most-precious-gift.html

How Heretical…  

Seems these days both the Right and the Left have tendencies toward disruption and even violence.  It seems that generous listening is passe’.  There seems to be a lack of respect for the other, within conversations, whether in debate, discussions, or dialogue.  

https://depts.washington.edu/fammed/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/3d-HANDOUT.pdf

I would like to see more of this:  “In dialogue, emotions help deepen understanding of personal, group and intergroup relationship issues. Dialogue works to uncover confusion, contradictions and paradoxes with an aim to deepen understanding.”   

I am not seeing a lot of dialogue occurring.  Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places.  That may be a problem of our dependency for information from current media and the internet, we usually do not get the news about the “Goodness of being human,” that is not as sellable as the “Awfulness of being human.”    

What is it about being human that we are more fascinated by Bad News compared to Good News.  

Maybe this is another human survival instinct, you must be aware of the saber-toothed tiger that is hunting you…  

What I see in my clinic is that so much pain and suffering seem to come from unhappy childhoods, so many children grow up either emotionally or physically abused, or grow up with a sense of abandonment…   

Maybe that is just because people come to my clinic due to physical pain, and often chronic pain arises from a history of abuse…  

Then how do we prevent these unhappy childhoods?

Most of those parents who abuse or abandon their children, have been abused or abandoned themselves…   

What allows some parents to deal with their past in a healthy manner and not confer their own history of suffering upon their children?  

How do we construct society so that people can heal, and bring up their children with love and compassion?  

Some people have used religion to get past their childhood traumas, some have used psychotherapy, and some have used psychedelics.    

I think we all wish to be happier individuals…  

There are methods to be happier, these are often methods to help us evolve, I would wish that everyone could practice methods that would lead to greater individual happiness, that would lead to greater societal happiness…  

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-three-emotions.html

However, as one of my insightful psychotherapists once mentioned, for some people happiness is not going to happen “in this lifetime…”  

Maybe a new religion would be helpful?  

I have written, sarcastically, on how we could create a new religion based on the works of Ken Wilber, Integralism…

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2015/05/integralism-how-to-worship.html

However, with additional contemplation, perhaps, any new religion would be a mistake, as they will all tend toward fundamentalism.  

Perhaps even being a Heretic can devolve into fundamentalism…  

Maybe we all must be ever vigilant of our individual tendency toward fundamentalism…  

And, perhaps, “Heretics Against Fundamentalism” is simply redundant.  A product of that part of my mind, “the Department of Redundancy Department.”   

I wish for each of you to find those practices to help you each evolve as far as you can go “in this lifetime.”  

I wish for all of you to find your happiness…  

Namaste