Sunday morning thots on northern & southern women, gays & straights, & God--truncated version:
Is there a God? Does It have rules? What are those rules?
If there is a God, did It choose human beings as the endpoint of the entire meaning and existence of the universe? Or rather, universes--physicists now tend to think there many be multiple universes. If so, it seems It put a lot of extra effort for no reason--all we really needed was our own solar system.
Whatever "power" "created" something as vast, inexplicable and powerful as the universe--or whatever "power" is inherent in this creation, which perhaps we call God--it is doubtful whether human beings are the endpoint. We are one aspect of creation, which is various and amazing, and sometimes brutal. And it seems unlikely this "God" is watching over us with a list of moral checkpoints--if so--why does this God allow nature red in tooth and claw--animals killing and eating other animals while they're still alive (that must be kind of painful)(or just being run over by a car, as a cat was on my street a few years ago, and died a most agonizing convulsive death), the destruction of whole species by things like comets and ice ages, let alone war. If anybody wants to look clear and straight and true on this "earthly vale"--it's clear the thing is way too big and incomprehensible and too full of immense beauty and terrible destruction for there to be any pretty moral narrative set out for human beings alone, some simple elegant set of rules by the sweet paternal avuncular guy in the sky. These are wishes created by humans, and for humans.
That doesn't mean there might be something akin to God--or Voltaire's angels--who knows. There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. I have a friend whose prayer every morning is simply: "Thy will be done." In other words, he injects no ego into his wishes, no judgment. It's not what he wants. It's what's best in the overall inexplicable workings of the grand thing itself.
What's more important: to be honest, trustworthy, loving, to bring joy to others--or to choose which hole you put it in? (Sorry but this is the porch so I'm allowed). We have a couple choices here, and two genders for those choices. The gender of the orifice matters? (I'll leave off the rest here to imagination). The vastness of the universe really cares? I don't think so. Healthy reproduction, with a nice mixing of genes, is the basic imperative of complex life on this planet (while many microbes, and birch trees among others, reproduce asexually--they clone themselves--something that God doesn't mind, since God invented it...although apparently to some humans, God minds if humans do it. Hey, he's got one set of moral rules for birch trees, and another for humans.). It is mostly achieved. However, there are lots of errors and mistakes--genetic diseases handed down, for instance. And lots of suffering in that. But in general it works pretty well.
Some species are monogamous, most are polygmous. It helps maximize the gene pool. Both females and males tend to sneak off. I'm not saying we should or do--just pointing out what happens in most of nature. And we've got lots of moral rules about that, don't we? But how many people follow them 100%? How many people have stayed monogamous their entire reproductive life? (Again, I am not trying to be cynical here. My personal belief is to look at things JUST AS THEY ARE WITHOUT ANY ILLUSIONS and then try your best to achieve the highest, most generous life you can).
We may all have our own little moral checklists, I'm sure we do. I personally would rather see a loving gay couple together than watch a man pay for a lap dance or a prostitute and consider that "moral" because it's the right gender. That probably sounds like I'm judging lap dancers and prostitutes, and I don't mean to. I just mean that if love is present between two people, that's always a better deal than a paid-for transaction. And to my mind, a more "moral" deal.
Rather than worry about what gender someone chooses to love, and whether that is hormonally or psychologically induced, and what society thinks of it, and how that impacts the psyche (what "difference" DOESN'T impact the psyche? We are a species that judges everything--judges anything different--witness all the discussions about myths of southern and northern women--they speak not of honest cultural differences, but of some kind of innate mythological difference, as if there were a gene somewhere on the DNA marked, "southern woman", "northern woman" which apparently codes for a certain type of behavior!), why not focus on what human beings can CHOOSE to do, which is help others, be loving, and try to evolve in their own lives.
Volty for instance, in his posts this weekend, which I've printed out but haven't read yet, is trying to help us all. Or what you did for Salini when she asked for help this weekend. That's why we're here porchin'
Your separated-at-birth-options-twin :-) |
