Philosophy

My Prior Philosophy Failed

We all see reality through colored glasses, through the filter of our worldview and philosophy. As long as things are going well, there's little motivation to change. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" We ignore bothersome inconsistencies until there are so many that they crash down on us, forcing a reevaluation. That is what happened to me when I began to suspect that people are not naturally good.

The philosophy I espoused in college, humanism, failed to account for the reality I experienced as I grew older and lost my naive idealism. It was empty and insufficient when tested. It failed to hold up under stress.

The fundamental humanistic beliefs are:

All forms of the supernatural are myth. Nature is everything.
Man is a product of evolution and there is no conscious survival after death.
Humans can solve their own problems through reason and the scientific method.
Humans are masters of their own destiny.
The purpose of life is happiness, freedom, and the progress of mankind.
The individual good life consists of a harmonious combination of personal satisfaction with work contributing to the welfare of the community. Service to one's fellow man is the moral ideal.
Aesthetic experience and the widest possible appreciation of art are of value.
Humans can, with their reason, establish an enduring citadel of peace and beauty on this earth, with peace, democracy, and a high standard of living everywhere.
Basic assumptions and convictions should continually be questioned and reevaluated.

The problem was, this failed to account for the existence of evil. So did other philosophies I investigated. For years I tried to believe that evil per se did not exist. People make mistakes, yes, but those could be minimized with education. Crime was attributable to causes outside the individual, such as an unjust society, low self-esteem or inadequate parenting.

I was reluctant to acknowledge that people, including myself, were doing wrong not because they were ignorant or mentally unbalanced or had someone to blame, but because they were choosing to do wrong. It was much easier to see this flaw in others than in myself, of course. I tried to "be good" and do my best. As I got older, however, my own shortcomings became more and more apparent, as did the shortcomings of humankind. The litany of crime and death in the news is never-ending, and history reveals that living conditions have never been much better than they were in the United States in the late 20th century.

I gradually and reluctantly became convinced that sin and evil are real, an aspect of the human condition that is more than skin deep.