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By Jake Doelling ⋅ April 11, 2009 ⋅

At the prompting of Andy D., I decided to post my piece from our What Inspires You? meeting. Andy did a great job editing all of the wonderful presentations we had that night. The video of this meeting is currently available as our newest Enlightenment Show episode———————>

This was a challenge and a pleasure to write, and I look forward to trying to expand my sentiments in greater detail in the future:

I wanted to thank Mike for coming up with the great idea of “What inspires you?” for tonight’s meeting. I don’t remember anyone ever asking me this question before. It’s refreshing, and I plan to dedicate much of my future efforts to codifying and expanding upon my personal positive beliefs.

Way too often, I find myself in a defensive posture and dug deep into the proverbial atheist foxhole, taking religious bombardment from all sides. I’ve come to realize over the past several years that all of the counter-apologetics, bible-debunking, and debating ever done does little good if we do not take more time to talk about the things we do stand for and believe in. The more I become convinced that God is a blunder of man, the more I feel the need to move on with my life and find my place in it and to understand it to the best of my abilities; and, to contribute where I can, to the best of my abilities. It’s easy to lose sight of all of the positive reasons for being non-religious when I dwell on all of the problems and frustrations of life and of religions. My wife once asked me “Why do you think so much and care so much about problems you can’t fix?” I said “It’s because, although I know I can’t solve all of life’s problems, I think I can make a difference, no matter how trivial. Others do it all the time. Why not me?” I feel an obligation to at least try. I feel I have found a great resource in this local freethink-tank, known as Freethought Fort Wayne, that is helping me make many of my aspirations a reality; and for that, I thank all of you for your help and support. There is no greater comfort than a community of like-minded people.

So, what inspires me the most? I see inspiration everywhere and in most every endeavor, but if I had to choose what moves me and drives me the most, it would be all of humanity’s capacity for compassion and care in the face of constant strife and suffering. What inspires me the most is our nearly unlimited potential and the people who have the foresight and courage to try to help us realize this potential and to affect positive change where it is so sorely needed: in the field of morality and the common good. When I was a child I was puzzled as to why people treated each other so badly, why we had wars, and to why so many people had problems that seemed so superficial and correctable on the surface, and yet so ingrained in their psyches and entrenched in their lives. It has taken the rest of my life since just to put this seemingly simple puzzle into context. Of course, now I know the world is not straight-forward. We are always at odds with competing ideologies and agendas, many of which are more for self-propagation and control, than for the benefit of anyone. In all other spheres of our lives, we have or are sorting out what is true and works from what is misleading and a failure. We have a concrete foundation of understanding in most all of the natural and applied sciences. We are obliterating ignorance almost as fast as it spreads. The only realm of human discourse where we have failed to apply Occam’s razor is in ethics and morality; until recently, the supposed domain of god. This is not to say we don’t know what is good for us, with or without god. The problem is the sanctity afforded to absurd religious beliefs and our inability to teach more than we preach. So, how do we change this? This question is from where I draw my inspiration.

I think Einstein summarized my feelings best when he said “Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.” I am overwhelmed when I think of the multitude of people responsible for helping better humanity in every facet of our lives. For all of humanity’s ills, this is the one fact that I cling to when I wonder if we are too selfish and self-centered in a hostile world, surrounded by a universe hostile to life, and yet, somehow, no less amazing. This is hope and inspiration. We must not merely exist, we must live. We must live in the present with an appreciation for past contributions to making our quality of life better, and contribute towards bettering the quality of life for the future. This is not the meaning of life. This is guidance and direction and inspiration for the progress of humanity. Our collective potential is where I find much of my inspiration. For, to live and to love leads to a love of living. There is enough beauty and unconditional love in this world to justify living, even while surrounded by all of the bad. In short, if you can’t find inspiration in this world, then you’re awfully close to expiration.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” We need to lead by example. What’s more, we need to make available our explanations for how and why we should live the way we do; otherwise, it can be taken for granted that intellectuals and freethinkers have no concern for morality or any positive values. It is of the utmost importance that as religions world-wide become less and less relevant over the coming centuries (because that is the time-line we’re talking about here, not decades), that we all help develop and maintain a universal system of social, ethical and moral precepts that help benefit the most people possible. It is extremely frustrating to envision the most beneficial society possible, only to be brought back down to earth again by drowning in a sea of billions of voices going in millions of directions. It is doubly upsetting to see so many intelligent and caring people who all dream of similar utopias argue over every little dot, iota, and tittle of how to get there, just as fervently as many religious fundamentalists do over their sacred texts.

We need to put humanity ahead of god and government. Morality can be tailored to suit humanity on a global scale. People like Sam Harris, with his Reason Project, are on the right track when they imagine putting the bigger picture into perspective, and then putting it back under the microscope again. The more people devote all of their imagination, empathy, compassion, courage, and (perhaps most of all) reason to making our lives better here and now, the less these precious resources will be spent on empty and selfish pursuits like god and gold. I get the feeling that since these problems won’t be solved in our lifetimes, many find this goal unreasonable or even unattainable. One only need look at the last few millennia to see how dramatically far we have come even with so many impediments along the way.

I’ve seen enough in humanity to remain not only hopeful, but optimistic. We want everything to be better, and better now. If only the changes we desire would happen as quickly as we live our lives. Patience is a virtue, but hindsight is more beneficial in this case. Another cursory glance at human history shows how we have become more “civilized” over time by slowly omitting what hinders and hurts us. More importantly, we have never omitted any moral principles that are truly beneficial. This isn’t because good moral principles are the unchanging words of any god, it is because good moral principles are what make us human.

I also wish to include Sam Harris’ you-tube video “Can we ever be right about right and wrong?”, as he’s already talking about many of the ideas I had in mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoSVJat4kT0&feature=related

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