GEORGE TEMPLETON: Christmas reminds us of difference between what we are and wish to be

 GEORGE TEMPLETON  

       COMMENTARY       

By George Templeton
Gazette Columnist

Seasons Thinking

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”  Soren Kierkegaard

The New Normal

Thank goodness, Trump has at long last given us permission to say “Merry Christmas”.  Exactly what does he mean?  Do you suppose it would even the score if we said “Islamic Terrorism” and “Happy Holidays”?  We should remember that vagueness is a tool that can be used by politicians to build unjustified charisma.

Is Trump trying to divide us and demonize people that don’t say it?  Is he trying to suggest that his tribe is compassionate and that if you don’t say Merry Christmas you belong to a ruthless and agnostic clan?

Is he trying to justify and promote his ethic of “telling it like it is” by arguing against political correctness?  Humility is not as powerful a motivator as fear and greed.

Are we worried that we might offend someone? Are we trying to force our beliefs on others?  Will loyal followers be obliged to say Merry Christmas because it has particular religious connotations?  Do we want a separation of church and state?  Does our religious freedom require official proselytization?

Trump apologists explain that he is really no different than Obama and Clinton.  Obama deported illegal aliens and Clinton would have a fence.  It is a utilitarian view of morality, John Stuart Mill’s “greatest good for the greatest number”.  But “Good” is qualitative.  It cannot be easily measured or counted.

It is in the instruction that people should vote Republican in the December Alabama election.  The argument is that a Democrat can’t be good for Alabama.  That is the justification for electing a possible pedophile whose moral character and respect for our Constitution is not beyond reproach.

Numbers don’t characterize our feelings about these things.

Scientific

The science section is at the end of Google news.  What it discusses is not science.  Real science requires an understanding of math, experimental design, and the role of evidence.  It is about numbers, equations, and statistics.  Sometimes things just happen by chance.  Sometimes there is a cause.  We need to be taught how to tell the difference.  Studies don’t show and things are not linked.  What seems different isn’t.  What seems important is not.  Are the results lasting?  Only time will tell.  We need to learn how to distinguish between science, business, religion, and politics.

Most people do not live in a scientific world.  Their world is aesthetic and emotional.  The scientific method is poorly suited to understanding human nature.  Individuals are not universal like the laws of physics.

Meaning is incomplete until a thing is finished.  Old folks give us perspective to see how seemingly slow changes add up to create a very different image.  Like a work of art, it is concrete only when it is finished.  Then it becomes eternal and transcendent.  New things can be discovered in antiquity and old things in the new.  There are few discoveries that are completely original.  Personal and social circumstances change.

It is a mistake to read the bible thinking that our perspective has not changed.  We know that the universe is more than lights in the sky.  To cast demons into a herd of swine, causing them to commit suicide in the sea, was a stunt worthy of the God of thousands of years ago.  Today we might expect a more impressive demonstration.

Convictions

Freshman college students used to be required to read Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855).   He was serious, melancholy, and solitary.  To him, it seemed that rationality got in the way of choosing, deciding, and making demanding individual commitments.

Trying to figure out where Kierkegaard was coming from was difficult.  He wrote, “… without understanding spirit it is impossible to understand despair… the dearest and most attractive dwelling-place of despair is in the very heart of immediate happiness.”   It meant being honest about self-contradiction.  We experience this when we are simultaneously happy that a loved one’s suffering has ended but sad about our own loss.  More universal and fundamental are our subconscious “monsters from the Id” that were portrayed in the 1956 science fiction film, Forbidden Planet.  According to Sigmund Freud, (1856-1939) they are part of our split personality, one that divides between conscience, rationality, and a primitive brute that says, “I want it all and I demand it now”.

Young students need to be challenged!  At their age, Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death is not interesting.  Are they suffering from despair when they check their smart phones every four minutes?  Someone or something might be trying to get in touch with them!  They are anxious, but don’t realize it.  Their smart phone can help self-realization or it can be an escape from that.  Solitude helps one to find truth.

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling concerned the Biblical story of Abraham.  He admired Abraham’s faith because it made no excuse and was free from rationalization.  In contrast to the culture he lived in, Kierkegaard found God to be mysterious and hard to understand.  Abraham, who was the only one hearing God’s command to sacrifice his beloved son, was curiously the supreme example of faith.  How did his son feel after he discovered his dad intended to kill him?

The Hebrew Bible’s Book of Job describes the problem of pain and suffering.  Surprisingly, Job does not become disappointed or unfaithful even though he suffers in despair.  In the end, Job receives the reply from God that he had wished for, but it consists of questions that he cannot answer.  If we are not careful, we will get both what we want and what we fear.  

Students could conclude that Kierkegaard was a Christian.  He thought that faith was too superficial, too easy, and too universally accepted in the culture of his time.  Faith was only an opinion.  There was no need for real faith.  He wanted to make it authentic and that meant more difficult, but he believed in life’s subjective truth and in facts that could not be confirmed.  Kierkegaard needed to accept the absurd to traverse the chasm separating man from God.  For many, that is no longer a requirement.  Passionate faith is their intent, but a belief in everything is faith in nothing. 

They could conjecture that Kierkegaard was trying to become a Christian and having difficulty in making the “leap of faith”.   God created man because he needed one smaller, weaker, and dumber than himself.  When God became less easily knowable mankind was isolated and alone.  The consequence was that man became responsible for making his life what it would be. 

Hard core American religion cannot countenance this, because they “just believe”.  They have their Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis 1927 novel and 1960 film).   Roy Moore hears God’s word so clearly that he took it upon himself to write his Legal Theory of God’s Supremacy.  He has a religion of his law, instead of a celebration of life.

David Hume explained, “A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence.”  The objective truth is that Moore, twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court, is an unyielding extremist who does not compromise.  For only one to be right, everybody else has to be wrong.  

It’s Biblical!  Adlai Stevenson, the 1952 Democratic Presidential nominee, would not be elected because of his divorce.  But the Bible also claims that disrespectful children should be stoned to death or mauled by bears.  Elmer’s religion says that only Christians are allowed to engage in the prayers that he wants before public and government meetings.  But it’s prayer first, and then effort to make it happen.  There is a risk of planning the answer and not being open to developments.

The Season

The season used to start after thanksgiving.  Does it need a three month binge?  Commercialism has made Christmas materialistic.  Poverty does not exist without need, but what is necessary?    The poorest man is not the one who owns the least.

Christmas has been a secular holiday since the time of Queen Victoria and the rise of the commercial age.  It needed an excuse.  That was provided by Christianity.  Now, aggressive marketing sees no need for excuses.  Computers that used to be mind amplifiers have become entertainment devices.  They have the same advertisements that interrupt television programs.  You are not taking the initiative.  That has been left to programmers and big data about you.  They have a deal for you.

God Said

Christmas can be criticized because of its pagan roots, but today it is in literature, folklore, poetry, and the Santa Claus myth.  It is in charity, peace, good will, and gifts for children.  It is in drunken parties, time off, the celebration of life’s meaning, and the birth of Christ.

There are many religions in America.  All of them are explanations for the meaning of life deserving of respect.  Like Santa Claus, none of them are accurate in every detail, but they have continued through the millennia because of the truth of their message.

America will continue to grow less white, Anglo-Saxon, and protestant.  Other cultures will continue to have festivals.  Many are already assimilated into America, one that we have all created.  They make our lives interesting.  However, life is not just something to be studied.  It is to be lived.  Christmas reminds us about the tension between what we are and what we wish to be.  That is important.