Inspirational Beliefs of a Young Idealist

By Charles Blaise

Inspirational Beliefs of a Young Idealist is a wide-ranging selection of beliefs inspired by the appreciation of this life as we have come to understand it through science, philosophy, and literature. The beliefs constitute one young man’s response to the lives we find ourselves in, where a pervasive amount of human behavior falls far shor

• Language: English
• Publisher: To Reason Publishing
• Release date: Sep 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780981666457

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Preface

Inspirational Beliefs of a Young Idealist is a wide-ranging selection of beliefs inspired by the appreciation of this life as we have come to understand it through science, philosophy, and literature.

When the beliefs started to come to me, I was in my 20s and was initially surprised by them. But the more I considered them, the sounder they seemed. In time, I decided I had entered a new room in the mansion of the mind, and I vowed to light it up and see what was there. The initial draft was completed by my early 30s, but I continued to make edits and additions over the years.

I have found confirmation of the validity and relevance of my beliefs in the writings of leading Enlightenment and humanist authors, past and present. I would especially like to acknowledge Bertrand Russell, who provided my initial informed overview of human thought and continued throughout his life to stand for an intelligent and a fulfilling view of human life. I would like to note a particularly relevant quotation from his book, The Principles of Social Reconstruction: New thought will be required ... the world has need of a philosophy, or a religion, which will promote life.... through the spectacle of death, I acquired a new love for what is living.

I would also like to acknowledge a number of other authors whose works are in the tradition of the Enlightenment and humanism, particularly the contemporary ones dedicated to describing, not only what we cannot believe, while we maintain respect for human knowledge, but also what we can credibly believe. When we have such beliefs, we can conduct our lives with confident appreciation of the gift of life and discover our potential for fulfillment and happiness. Since some of my thoughts may be in disagreement with these authors, I have decided it’s more appropriate not to include their names.

My primary purpose is the hope that people who are seeking beliefs in agreement with modern knowledge will find my beliefs helpful, not to persuade those who hold other beliefs deeply.

I believe the extent and not infrequent daring of my suggestions is what the challenge of our uncertain and precarious times requires. I also believe we have the ability to discover and describe credible answers to our most significant questions or, when an answer is not within the realm of our natural knowledge, to describe a sound point of view as part of our life stance. Otherwise, human life would be illogical, and nature is, if anything, precise to distant decimals.

I recorded the thoughts as they came to me, adding only editorial niceties. They are now as clear and inviting as I can make them. My hope is that the beliefs contribute to the realization of our finest promise and the avoidance of our ever-present perils, so we may flourish with intelligent fulfillment and satisfying happiness. May your life be blessed with as much true comfort and inspiration as I have found and continue to find in my beliefs.

Foundational Beliefs

Humans have had faith in many things, but, with the exception of the Enlightenment and humanism, we have seldom emphasized the primacy of this life. My foundational belief is intelligent faith in life. It’s the expression of my appreciation of life as the natural biological and cosmological miracle we have come to understand it is.

Faith in life inspires me to trust in its greatness, devote myself, with responsible freedom, to the fulfillment of its finest possibilities, and enjoy the natural mental, physical, and spiritual rewards that derive from living so.

I believe having faith in this life can inspire us to live with devotion to it, a devotion that, in fact, gives our lives the same purpose that we see evident in the universe itself, which devotes itself to the evolution, sustenance, fulfillment, and renewal of life – activities that, we assume, express the intent of whatever the Ultimate Source of the universe may be, whether it has a source beyond it or is its own source.

I also believe in faith through life – that through the care and intelligent fulfillment of it we can find satisfying lives while we most credibly express our appreciation and reverence to its Ultimate Source.

If by some chance another life awaits us after the completion of this one, I believe that the best way to merit it is to take good care of this life first.

Ethics

Is there an authority for ethics we can turn to that is more fitting and certain than depending on whatever authority may or may not await us after our lives conclude? How about the ethical authority of life itself? Choosing it is, among other things, consonant with the independent way life has evolved on our planet and, I believe, very likely on a multitude of other planets, as well as the most likely way to offer our appreciation to whatever its Ultimate Source may be.

(2)

When we value life, we have a sound foundation for ethics. They grow out of the question, Since we have life, what should we do with it?

(3)

What does life ask of us? The answers are inherent in the very question.

A complete set of ethics comes with each life. It is made up of our life-respecting thoughts and desires, which we might see as our personal portion of the thoughts and desires of, what I shall call without reference to insubstantial explanations of our origin, Creation.

Our ethic is also by its nature mutual, since life-respecting beliefs must encompass the value of other human beings and, in fact, all the other members of Creation.

Incidentally, the ethic is also in accord with Kant’s Categorical Imperative, since behaving according to an ethic based on the ethical authority of life itself could become a universal standard of behavior; in fact, if a world of people don’t behave in such a way with relative haste, we can expect repeated and worsening catastrophes, among them, the potential for nuclear war and environmental collapse.

(4)

We must finally, with the help of all the good guides we can find, become the principal ethical authorities of our own lives, as individuals, acting, hopefully, with life as our revered natural authority – not as the will to power, propounded by Nietzche, which is not a mutual value and therefore inadequate to ethics, but as the will to live in agreement with life’s natural and mutually considerate promptings. We seem to have been given the ability to try, and we should trust what we’ve been given.

(5)

Let’s say, with appreciation to Albert Schweitzer for his contribution to ethics of the concept of Reverence for Life, that behavior in agreement with Reverence for Life is right and behavior in disagreement with it is wrong, or an expression of irreverence for life.

(6)

There seem to be two degrees of offenses against life: active ones, which we’re aware of, and passive ones, which we’re not yet aware of. While we may wait for our increasing sensitivity to bring us closer to perfection, just getting rid of the active ones that currently afflict our lives would make, if you will allow an apocalyptic invocation, the difference between heaven and hell on earth.

(7)

Ethics that are derived with reference to death often allow people to kill life, while ethics that are derived with reference to life prompt people to help life live.

(8)

Doesn’t living by our natures, or natural promptings, guided by our intelligence and consideration for others, align us better than an arbitrary code with whatever creative power to which we may ascribe our evolution? And might complete naturalness, so envisioned, be the gate to our earthly paradise?

(9)

While we may talk about what is natural and unnatural, anything that we create is, in a sense, natural, because the possibility of it has always been in nature. What we choose to create and what we do with it is best left to our life-devoted wisdom, so that, guided by it, we may live in lovely harmony with the natural world.

(10)

When we conduct ourselves in a life-caring way, we take into account every invocation that should instruct our behavior, as well as every hope we may have for the welfare of life and our worthiness for admission into any life that may await us after this one.

(11)

What should be the causes of guilt? What about not fulfilling our best potential, with a somewhat merciful provision for enjoyable self-indulgence and outright lazy days? Most importantly, what about behavior that diminishes life or kills it, rather than enhances and helps it along?

If guilt is to have a voice within us, let us choose the one to which any Creator of life would wish us to hearken.

(12)

The universe contains within it the potential to evolve and sustain life. It seems, in fact, to be its highest achievement. We should align our behavior with it.

(13)

Should we be haunted by our thoughts? Do they constitute the promptings of angels and the temptations of devils? In our natural world, quite the contrary. We should never feel guilty about them, because the endearing and sometimes frightening fact that our minds can imagine every possibility is the very dynamic that lets us decide to choose what is right for life and therefore good. Sometimes, the border between our thoughts and our actions can seem troublingly fine, but when we are clear as to how we wish to define ourselves, it becomes a secure wall.

(14)

What are we to make of temptation? First, it is actually part of the foundation of ethical behavior. If we can’t conceive of the best and the worst that we might do, how can we make the choice to be good? Second, in our ethical universe, the only egregious temptation is one that invites us to do something deleterious to life. Third, in an ethical construct that sees living for another world as the greatest good, many of the most attractive attributes of this life would be considered bad.

(15)

While generalities are generally suspect, I have one I’m very comfortable with: Every life-oriented thought is good and, by definition, contains within itself consideration for the lives of others.

(16)

Of course, it’s right to tell the truth and being honest is the usual way to live. But is it ever right to lie? I think it can be, when one judges that doing so will let more life live.

(17)

When people kill and then kill themselves, I wonder why they don’t start with themselves. The result would quickly be the same for them, while others would not have to be victims along the perpetrator’s way to self-completion.

(18)

Life is not something we have to earn. It’s a gift, a free gift, that comes only with the implication that we should do our best with it, as the natural miracle it is. To do so is moral goodness, and moral badness is to harm it.

(19)

Oh, for a world in which we felt effectually guilty about such life detractions as dirty air and water.

(20)

Hurting is really partly killing; even a slap kills millions of cells.

(21)

I prefer not even to kill bad ideas but to dismiss them.

(22)

We must, I think, repress our natures even to hurt; the process is known as making ourselves hard. We also attempt to distance ourselves from people or other lives we intend to hurt, often by referring to them in impersonal or denigrating ways.

(23)

The most basic right of every person is the freedom to live but with consideration for the lives of