My Side of the Cave - A Look at Our World With a Little Common Sense Thrown In by Robert Strait - HTML preview

Chapter 7

Philosophy and life

Philosophy and the American Experiment.

Philosophy plays a major role in the American Experiment. Philosophy and America fit well together because “ we the people” set the course. Philosophy is defined as an overall vision as to the attitude and purpose of life. It includes our beliefs, our thoughts and our direction.

The common thread in all of this may be that we are here and we respond to truth! The word “respond” indicates that homo sapiens are blessed with the ability to think and do.

This blessing from our Creator leaves with us a role to play, a role that we must take very seriously!

Our particular American experiment is successful because we have had strong and courageous founders and citizens who have given of themselves, their lives and their blood that we shall all be free.We have been blessed with leaders in the studies of the humanities, the sciences, including education, engineering, the arts, philosophy, medicine and invention, Our advances in these fields have enriched America and the world!

Common sense also plays a major role because all of the decisions that we are called on to make, are based on sound and thoughtful judgment. As a nation, we are chuck full of people who have made and continue to make good decisions. May it always be so!

It has been said, that man"s presence on earth is like a speck of sand on the beach and presently we exist in just the first few minutes of time. Though too much of our time is stagnated in destruction and pain, there have been glorious times between, where we find love and creation. Our presence has been, either in rejection or existence of truth! The search continues for life, purpose and truth.

There is a door waiting to be opened. God did not give to us these gifts to be wasted. The natural yearning within us is to learn and explore and push forward. It is ever exciting and all that we have to do is keep on, keeping on! This world, like the cosmos, is infinite, as are the possibilities.

The natural laws.

Their everyday use.

Everyday living is the course of an individual life, the sum of one"s personal choices or simply one"s personal identity. This evolves during the time between birth and death, where one lives, with whom one associates, their education, their upbringing, their government, their environment, their wealth and their religion, as all of these play a role.

The character, strength and common sense of an individual will be, in part, the result of these truths.

It may have been different for those who were of another time. For early man, survival alone was the highest priority. Staying alive, finding food and water, and finding shelter was the stuff of life! Generally, these early lives had little privacy, work was very hard and to survive was an individual"s task. Work may have been assigned if you were connected to a social tribe or nation. To exist was many times the result of being the strongest.

The present day to day life for a good portion of the world, finds humans more complacent, more private and with a place to disengage from work. In the modern day world there is more emphasis on the intellectual rather than the strong. There is more time for thinking, which collectively has benefited our lives. Our toys are now different!

Leadership is now more likely to be based on intelligence or the perception of intelligence. Rhetoric has replaced muscles!

The things that continue to be common with all of mankind are the things that we share.

Our planet, the sun, the sky and the air, what we can see, smell, hear and touch are the truths not changeable with time. Other perpetual truths include our need for food, clothes, fire, shelter, sleep and love. We also share a secondary need for boundaries, less conspicuous, but no less important. We need something civil to keep us civilized! We need laws, freedom, dignity, civility, and faith. We also have the spirit to give back. The world has always revolved around the human spirit of life.

Change agents to our lives.

There have been marked human changes in much of the world in the past few hundred years. These changes have affected the lives of millions. The use of birth control, advances in agriculture, global distribution of goods, world wide communications, better education and great advances in health and medicine, are some that come to mind. There is a greater acceptance of Democracy and Capitalism in the world. Lastly, there is a rebirth of Christianity as a religion of peace and love.

There are also negative change agents, where evil and darkness hang out, geographical places that remain as they were thousands of years ago. They are many times, people who are led by evil regimes and ruthless leaders. They give birth to hate and terrorism. These are the grounds of hunger, thirst, disease and death.

For parts of Africa, rural China, and the Middle East, there are reminders of the harshest possible existences. There are places where children gather dung to be used for fire, latrines may be a hole in the ground, sewage is dumped into the water source and people eat and sleep on the ground. In many places starvation is ever present. Life expectancy is under forty years. Life is cheap and death is always close by.

For these people we must continue our efforts to help them. The next prayer, the next project, the next acts of compassion and kindness may be the new beginning that allows them their freedom.

Our natural laws

Everything there is or ever was

is by plan and designed by our Creator.

There is nothing new and all that we know or will ever know is by design. This world, human life, this universe and all infinity is truth and exists only to the pleasure of our Creator.

Natural laws are fundamental truth, common to all, knowable and binding by nature and printed in the makeup of all human beings. Natural laws give us certain inalienable rights of life and unlike positive laws designed by man, the natural laws are not changeable by man"s opinion. Natural laws also give us responsibilities as printed in the Ten Commandments. They allow us to know right from wrong and good versus evil.

Natural laws exist in our universe in physics, the planets, the suns, attraction, growth and movement. Everything is perfect and organized. The air we breath, the flowers we smell, the water we drink, life, birth and death are all part of the grand experiment.

Our natural rights

These are rights given to man from our Creator. They are not to be confused with man"s laws that may be created or taken away. Some examples are:

• The right to bear arms for protection

• The right to own property

• The right of free conscience and personal choice

• The right of free association and assembly

• The right to speak freely

• The right to privacy

• The right to enjoy the fruits of your labor

The “framers” of our United States Constitution envisioned these natural rights when they spoke of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The things of life

There are factors that are involved in our lives that either give us satisfaction and contentment on one side or unhappiness and sadness on the other.

We may never know happiness or it may be with us always. Most people will have both happiness and sadness in their lives. The factors that give us satisfaction or unhappiness may be within our control, or not.

• The fear factor. This may be a passing thing, like a child"s nightly “bogeyman” dreams, or it may be more real and lasting such as a physical fear from another person. There is also fear of the unknown including disease, aging and death. Real or imagined, these fears can rob one of any happiness.

• Pain. It also can be real or imagined, but that matters not to those who are experiencing the pain. Doctors rate pain on a scale from 1-10 or from the mild to the severe. The bottom line is that we can not know what another person is experiencing. We must however, always show compassion.

• Love. Love is the attraction or affection to others. This feeling of love is universal and perennial. There are different forms of love such as a child"s love for their mom and dad, or the love of a friend, brother or sister, and of course, the love of a husband and wife.

Love indeed makes the world go around!

• Music. Silence, peace and music are akin to one another in that they can produce a personal and euphoric condition. George Gershwin"s “Rhapsody in Blue,” comes to mind!

• The security factor. This usually means contentment and happiness. There is no worry knowing that you are safe. This extends from your personal feelings to reality. Like love, security is a strong happiness factor.

These common factors are the things of life that may remain part of our lives from beginning to end. Our happiness or lack of happiness may be due to these factors. They say, “life isn"t easy” and they would be right. Maybe this is a test to see if we can handle it. If one can pass this test with good on one side and evil on the other, and remain reasonably sane, then we could be content and at peace.

Only one day left

Forget about the past, because it is wasted energy and after all it is the past. All of our individual sins and wrongs that we have done in the past, will only matter on judgment day. In the mean time, what time we have in this life is of importance. God did not place us here to do nothing. He expects us to perform good things.

If each of us knew that we only had one day left on earth, it is our responsibilty to leave a mark of good on this temparary world that we have been allowed to share. We can not leave without somehow giving back.

Ask yourself what you would do with only 24 hours. You might visit someone sick, or visit an old friend, or give your time to someone who needs help. You might offer kind words to no one in particular, you might write to someone offering praise, you might write to an old adversary, asking for forgiveness. The list of possibilities is endless. Do not think yourself as being insufficient or meaningless! Think again because we all have gifts and talents. We are all equal and can offer so much more than we think possible.

Happiness can be controlled.

Or not.

We can not overestimate the power of one individual over another. We all respond to our environment and those persons immediately surrounding us. Our actions, our thoughts, our memories and our future are all too often, closely aligned within our micro-environment. There is little escape to this reality, but to whom are the most strong.

For example, if you have happy and loving parents and friends, chances are you will also be of a happy nature. If on the other hand, you are a product of a dysfunctional family, you may likely be less than happy in your life.

Examples of the extremes are Evangelical Christians who promote love and happiness and are seemingly overjoyed with their mission, versus those people who are raised in extremely negative and sometimes violent cultures, who may carry those scars and this baggage with them all of their lives.

Most of us fall somewhere between these two spheres of the negative and the positive.

We have our good days and our bad days. These people may be called the uppers and the downers, as they reflect individually on everyday life. We get in a happy mood, seeing a newborn baby or attending a wedding. We, in turn, get blue when things don"t go the way we would like them to. These everyday happenings and your mood, be it up or down, can be greatly influenced by those who are closely around you. Their influence may either drag you down or lift up your spirits. Therefore, if possible, choose wisely your friends!

Life and death.

The path unknown.

The birth of a child is a miracle. New life is given us to replace those for whom life has ended. It is the time in between that intrigues me. This period of time that is allotted to individuals from every corner of the world with environments so diverse and directions so different and yet we are all basically the same. The opposite truth is that there are no two people in this world exactly alike.This is quite an amazing phenonomen!

Why is this so? Why are we here? What is the purpose? Is this an accident or is this all by design? It is certainly something beyond our understanding. We can ask, but likely there will be no answers. No one may ever know the answers.

Many believe that our Creator gave us life. He gave each of us a gift and a specific amount of time on this earth.What we do with this time and our gift is of our own choosing. That"s a big load to carry around.

It is a terrible waste that some humans spend their lives in hate or sloth or cruelty, instead of being productive and doing good things. Again it is our choice. God will have the results from these millions of souls and their choices. There will be a small percentage of people from all of time, who will have passed the test. All others will have failed or will fail in the future. This is a rather depressing thought, unless we accept the possibility that we are all loved and can be forgiven!

While we are here, and that gift thing again may be an elusive and an intriguing hidden mystery, but it is there. No matter how small or big that we think this gift thing is, find it, realize it, and begin to find a way to use it for the considerations of others. Time may be short!

The life cycle.

The infant is born into this world, nearly helpless, and needing someone to feed them and care for their every need.

The aged are those who have lost status, fitness and assertiveness. They experience a loss of physical and mental abilities. Like the infant they need someone to help and care for their every need. At the beginning and at the end, we are humbled!

Passions ala carte.

Life"s first passion probably involves the milk from a mother"s breast. Though most likely not remembered, the earliest passions would also involve the taste of food, the touch and warmth and security of being held.

Childhood passions may be a first friend or contact of someone like you. A friendly glance from someone is valued and we naturally yearn for the interaction with others.

First touches of warm hands from someone always bigger than you, a mom or dad, grandparents, an aunt or uncle usually fits the bill. Other first encounters of passion may be a soft voice, your own dog-friend, a gift, hearing your name spoken, the good feeling of a warm blanket and lastly, the art of playing. The latter may be the single most exciting part of growing up. Kids playing and having fun and laughing with one another may last a lifetime in our memories.

Early adult passions. The teenage years become more diverse and things aren"t as simple as they once were. For example, making a friendship can be a blessing that will last a lifetime, but it also can be a hollow short lived experience. Sporting activities can be a passion. Learning can be a passion. The first encounters with the opposite sex may be the most awakening passion. This usually begins in the teenage years when an almost magical look or smile and perhaps a touch, sets off the fires within you, that prior to that point in time, were completely unknown. These feelings may be a passing thing or they may last a lifetime.

Adult passions. As adults, our passions become as diverse as we are and include everything imaginable. Work, play, religion, invention, sports, sex, money, marriage, children and a zillion more driving forces will be your life. The last two, marriage children, are the best. Nothing beats this great and fulfilling experience!

Passion and the aged. This is usually a sadly diminishing factor in life as we age. All passions must be cultivated and cared for. They are a special gift not to be taken lightly.

Passion gives us a reason for living!

From passion to envy

A short cut to hate.

Passion can be a bad thing if it is misdirected. The passion of wanting what someone else has, is a receipt for hate. What seemingly starts out as an innocent envy can lead to radical demands. These negative feeling and responses may be coming from someone who lacks self acceptance and most certainly feels jealousy. These daily events are widespread throughout the world. We must learn to deal with the reality and minimize its effects. Envy, lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, pride and sloth are the seven deadly sins.

Hatred and war is a result of these sins. The words even sound evil. Ugh!

The opposite of these sins are; chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. Now these words sound a lot better, don"t they? These seven virtues are wonderful traits that we should all strive for. It"s not so easy, because the bad guys (above) are always hanging out close by waiting for you to join their ranks.

Envy moves in with you through the back door. Seemingly small expressions such as diets, facelifts, tattoos and tummy tucks are examples of people who are not happy with themselves. Envy can be painful and destructive. We seem to be a society of followers who want more than we were given. Hollywood sets the ugly pace with all those plastic elite phony bolognas making us wish we were they.

With envy it is so easy to vilify the guy who has what you want. Politicians with the goal of power will use this human weakness to create hate and division among people or groups of people. The rich guy has more, so we should gang up on him and take away his wealth.

Envy taken to the extremes can be a national movement to redistribute wealth called Socialism. This was the practice in the Communist Soviet Union and it failed to hold the people down to the lowest level. This proving for the zillionth time that this harmful philosophy can not succeed.

It"s weird! On one hand, we are jealous of the other person and would like for them to be down on our level. Then on the other hand, we have a desire to empower ourselves and be better than others.

Self acceptance is our control path. The virtue and humility thing can not be stressed enough. If learned and practiced each day of our life, we may overcome this unnecessary pain.

War, peace and can"t we just get along.

America, since World War II and with only a few exceptions, has maintained a defensive posture. Our leaders and our people have used good judgment in saying to the world, we will remain strong. This signal has been loud and clear to those who might do us harm.

We may never know the full extent of this policy, however we believe there has been a strangling effect on evil and those who perpetuate it. We would hope over the years that this policy would promote freedom around the world. We know that the USSR was defeated in the cold war by our commitment to strength. In the end, they simply ran out of money and the desire to control.

Time and time again, it has been found that appeasement against an agressive enemy does not work. The bully in school continues his menacing behavior, only until someone strikes back (Newton"s action and opposite reaction theory).

Why do leaders insist on ignoring history? If there is a differing answer to solving the problem, certainly mankind would have found it in these thousands of years past. Logic and wisdom tells us to refrain from a show of weakness. War is madness, but slavery is worse.

The causes of war

Some say that man"s violent tendency is the result of our fall from grace. That Biblically, there will always be wars and talk of wars. The usual reasons for wars are many, and include Riches, ethnic rivalries, domination, freedom, language, expansion of territories, discontent, slavery, food, land, water, sea access, resources, religion, dictators and racial purity.

Then there are the “ism"s.” Fascism, Islamic fascism, Zionism, despotism, imperialism, secularism, liberalism, nationalism, communism, elitism, socialism and paganism.

One “ism” hating another “ism.” There seems to be always a reason for hatred and war!

The root of most hatred begins with envy, greed and evil.

First) One group of people dehumanizing another.

Second) The decline of civility, and

Third) The formation of mass hysteria and atrocities.

This madness has been repeated thousand of times throughout the centuries and shows no signs of stopping.

The causes of peace

Now this is a lot harder to explain because it goes against man"s nature. We are not naturally endowed with the common sense to be happy with our stuff. It may well be as simple as, there is always someone who does not play well with others.

Wisdom, along with common sense plays an important role in keeping us at peace.

Wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgment. People who kill, rob, rape, and steal are the results of people without wisdom.

Now let"s ask ourselves, how many leaders from the past can you name who had wisdom? We could say George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for sure. We would also think of Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. There are many others, but throughout history, it could be said that common sense and wisdom were too many times absent.

If every citizen of the world were taught world history, would the world be without war?

If the world were governed by women, would there be peace? Would we be at peace if all the world were Christians? Would the world be at peace with children running things?

Suppose our Creator had made all of mankind exactly alike and all beings with love in their heart and full of wisdom and truth. We would look the same, act the same and have the same thinking. There would be no need for envy and jealousy. Alas, no need for war.

This would be boring yes, but indeed peaceful!

Enter your solutions here.

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To mass believe

To follow a belief as an individual is commonplace and would be considered normal behavior. Joining together with others sharing similar ideologies would also be considered normal. Large and small organizations and groups meet routinely with no threat to others.

But there is darker side. There are those who will blindly follow a trend or a faddism.

Many of these people, it could be said, are outside the normal. Their ideas may be considered radical, not thought out, with seemingly little common sense involved.

This usually begins with a few influential and/or powerful people joining together with a contrived goal or ideology. Their success may hinge on finding strong and dynamic leadership. When these points come together, destructive events are imminent!

An example, perhaps overused, is the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933. Here was a common man, little known and with seemingly no great future in any particular field.

He began speaking to small groups of people with only a few followers, but he was persistent with speech directed at others who would “feel better” from his words. Many of these followers would be considered losers. There were many people, post World War I, who felt defeated, down and despondent. These people were searching for someone to voice their anger.

The interest grew within the masses and when Hitler realized that to be more effective he had to find a villain for all of this anger. He finger pointed the Jews as being the cause of all German problems. This hatred for the Jews won over the masses. The German people rallied behind this new messiah and before the end came, the country was in rubble and millions of people lay dead. After the Second World War, there was the blame game and the thousands of questions of why and how things could have gone so wrong. How could there have been so many people who choose to follow this madness?

The larger question might be, why do people follow others at all? There is no need to follow other individuals in any serious way. Humans have the mental and physical ability to lead their own lives. They have the intellect and the power to seek their own destiny.

So why this backward mentality to follow others? Are we mere animals like the cattle in the field who follow the lead cows every footstep?

I contend for mankind to follow at all, is abnormal. It shows a weakness in our makeup that surely need not exist. We have all of the tools we need to find food, water, shelter and the componets that hold our life together. There is simply no need to follow anyone else. In the extreme, this is not a normal reaction. This weakness has caused great pain and suffering in our world and none of it was or is necessary!

At this moment in America, our own government is becoming larger and more powerful.

Our founders warned of this. We seem to be following headlong behind a leader and a philosophy that has failed in the past.

Can we not learn from history? If we cannot reverse this direction, we will certainly not survive as a nation! We were given a set of rules. We need to listen up to the game plan that got us here. We have been riding the winning horse. I don"t see any need for change!

Those would be followers, listen up, The Ten Commandments commands that we have no other Gods and you shall not make for yourself an idol.

Newton"s law and common sense.

A search for understanding.

Why do we do what we do? Why does mankind seem to be locked into answering the same questions with the same answers? Why do we repeat the same mistakes throughout the millenniums? Perhaps these are destined results. Perhaps the answers are that we all have the same programmed gene. Learning seems to be temporary at best. History is repeated again and again.

Presently our federal government spends more dollars than they take in. They are ending the space program that has allowed us to lead the world in technology. They are reducing our oil, coal and gas exploration which allows us to be self sufficient. They are working against the free market and business. They are buying up large tracts of land. They are over regulating and over taxing. These are actions that will not stand.

It was Sir Isaac Newton, an English scientist, astronomer and philosopher, whose Third Law of Motion states, “ For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

The results of our government"s present actions will have negative ramifications (reaction). It is time for leadership and ordinary citizens to bone up on history, economics and common sense.

A renewed spirit

Perhaps all of the world"s history, both bad and good, is indeed just an experiment and has been planned by our Creator. Perhaps we make too big a deal of today"s problems.

Perhaps everything is going along just as planned.

Perhaps with all of our problems, real or imagined, we could be given a fresh new spirit, a spirit of goodness, giving and happiness. We would only see the light and truth. We would think of others before ourselves. We would have wisdom and common sense. We would laugh and be happy. Let"s start this cycle with you, right now and hope that it catches on!

The ramblings of the old.

The natural dying stage of life is a time of sadness. We watch as a loved one slips further away from us. The last moments and days are very painful for family and friends. But it can also be a time of celebration. The ending of a natural life is the last piece of a puzzle that we humans see. Biblically, there is more, but we are not privileged to see beyond the death.

The last days are difficult to watch and, of course, we have no inkling of what this human person is going through. We think that it must be terrible because of what we witness.

The ramblings, the groaning, the outbursts, perhaps crying and many other seeming painful and sorrowful things that we hear from someone who is near death.

This is difficult to watch because we are relating to what we perceive as being painful. In our pasts, we have watched a child as he or she cries from a hard fall. We feel their pain because we have ourselves felt that pain. Been there, done that! Therefore we naturally react to that remembrance. But we have never been in the shoes of the dying so we can only assume that this must be painful for them. However, the natural order of this world and a loving God who created it would not allow for this degree of pain that we assume is there in front of our eyes.

Let"s just, for the sake of experiment, imagine that this last step is a fast backward look at one"s own life. After all we hear them ramble on about their car or some other possession. They will yell out names or events that may mean nothing to us. We, upon hearing this, think that these are just the ramblings of the delusional, but, what if these ramblings are the re-enactm