Round Pegs and Square Holes

On a long motorcycle ride today I found myself wondering about the true nature of man versus the puritanical notions of most religions.   So much of what our societies are conditioned with is based on largely unquestioned beliefs of what is right and wrong that have been instilled through religious teachings in one form or another.

It seems to me that it would be much more productive to establish moral codes that align with how people actually function so that we aren’t constantly trying to fit round pegs into square holes.   You see the results of these misfitting pegs all the time with sexual misconduct and other criminal behavior.  You can see some of the extremes of this amongst the clergy.   Using fear and shame to suppress natural human functioning will most always damage the recipient and often results in those needs manifesting in down right scary ways.

But what is the answer then?  When we observe a rattlesnake we can have a decent understanding of it’s behaviors.  Being predominantly instinct driven, it’s motivations are simpler to understand.   One can set up an environment (context) that the snake exists within where it can be the best snake possible without undue stress.   So what are the conditions, the “code of conduct” that humans can live within where they would largely thrive without having that context break their psyche as so much of the religious and social conditioning does today?  I’m not talking about some utopia.  But rather a more real reality for us.  Instead of attempting to live up to unrealistic notions of the ultimate human existence, what are the boundaries that people really could live within?

To put it another way.  Let’s say that we are alien zoo keepers and we want to establish a huge exhibit of humans that don’t know that they are being observed.  How would we set things up so that the humans live basically well and normally don’t hurt or kill one another? How would we define their behaviors and instincts so that we best know how to manage them?  It is from this premise that an actually workable set of commandments or guidelines or whatever you wanna call them could possibly be made.  Hell, we could have the basis of a whole new world order.

Or perhaps what we have with religion and politics as they are, is the best way we currently have to manage the great mass of people who have no capability to make rational choices for themselves. Having had their minds formed on a steady diet of superstition, fear and shame – what else is there for them really?   Even though there is plenty of killing, raping and pillaging, the percentage of perpetrators out of the global population is miniscule.  Maybe the gods who can’t (yet) be proven to not exist are just what lower functioning people need to keep them from running amok and killing each other?  Existing with more questions than answers requires an inner fortitude that the vast majority just don’t have access to.   Maybe right now gods are necessary and the resulting corruption, irritating self righteousness and boundless ignorance are but a small price to pay compared to the alternative?

Well Brothers and Sisters, I don’t have the answers.. yet.  But perhaps we can build a new way of viewing the nature of man in the same way we can view the nature of dogs.  Underneath all of the different sizes and shapes and personalities – that dog nature exists the same as that human nature exists.   To develop a better understanding without it becoming overly idealized or cynical could be an incredible opportunity to begin moving us out of the dark ages of religion and into a new age of reason.

Anyway, this is just a random musing from the mind of a madman.

–Rev. Duncan