DeSantis Is Defunct But Not Defused & Newsom Rejects Ban on Tackle Football for Children
Florida Wants to Ban Gay Pride Flags in Schools, Elderly at Risk in Care Facilities, Most Touching Video Ever, Santo & Johnny Play Dreamy “Sleep Walk”
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Abraham Lincoln simplifies the basis for moral behavior.
Ron DeSantis ends presidential campaign, endorses Trump: He lost, but not before leaving a scorched-earth swath worse than Sherman’s March.
Florida state congressman introduces bill to ban Pride flags from campuses: He’s advocating a political agenda to stop the advocating of political agenda. Apparently, this congressperson’s time in school was not spent learning logic.
Senate to examine walkaway deaths in assisted-living facilities: How we care for our elderly defines our morals more than the books we ban or rights we restrict.
California governor vows to block proposed ban on tackle football for kids: Where should we draw the line at letting our children risk their long-term health for the sake of a sport?
Kareem’s Video Break: Prepare to tear up with joy as we experience the kind of love we could all learn from.
Santo & Johnny Play: “Sleep Walk” is one of the most hypnotic songs I’ve ever heard. Whatever keeps you attached to this world, this song cuts that tether, and off you float.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Abraham Lincoln quoting “an old man named Glenn, in Indiana.”
It ain’t easy trying to be Good.
What I like about religion is that, at its original core, it’s about people motivated to get together to figure out how to best behave toward each other in ways that promote a greater good. I also like that people join together to help support each other in the difficult challenge of staying true to whatever code of ethics they adopt.
But there’s religion—and then there’s Religion.
Religion as an impulse to Do Good and Be Good is a sweet and powerful aspect of humanity to be admired and nurtured. A formal, official religion isn’t necessary to do good or be good, but it can be immensely helpful to many people. Others can do these things without a structured religion, relying more on friends and family who share their morals. Atheist or monk—neither is spiritually superior.
But Religion as an organization can sometimes be more of a business that, like any business, has a main goal, not of spiritual guidance, but of survival. It needs money to keep the lights on, the ministers paid, and the buildings kept up. It’s competing for that money with other religions, charities, political parties, golf clubs, and more. Like any business competing for consumers’ dollars, a major strategy is to either denigrate the competition (“Your beliefs are inferior to mine.) or overwhelm the competition with numbers (“Go forth and multiply—until we have the controlling majority.”).
When I was young, I read that every living organism is defined by three compulsions: (1) the struggle to not be overcome by other organisms, (2) the struggle to overcome other organisms, and (3) the struggle to change to better achieve the first two. I have found this to be a handy guide in observing how organizations like countries, religions, political parties, and Big Businesses will do almost anything to meet this criteria. They may form with the best of intentions (like Google’s motto: “Don’t be evil.”), but when faced with the harsh realities of competition, they often jettison those good intentions to survive. Like desperate and starving castaways, it’s only a matter of time before they turn to cannibalism.
Whenever an organization abandons its morals for financial stability, it finds a grandiose way of justifying it. “God’s will” is often invoked. This reminds me of Voltaire’s warning: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Religion for many is less about doing good than it is a cultural comfort food. They were raised in it, and their family and friends belong, so it feels warm and loving to all share the same beliefs. For some, it is nothing more than wearing clothes from a fashionable store: J Crew, Target, or Nordstrom. They don’t struggle with the complex questions of doing good concerning others, they follow a script provided to them: donate money, volunteer at the shelter, and pick up gold stars.
Lincoln’s quote has a good side and a bad side. People can feel good or bad about an action simply because they are programmed that way by pressure from family, society, peers, and friends. Sometimes that can be a good thing (compassion, charity, etc.) and sometimes a bad thing (cults, racists, etc). That’s when we use reason and critical thinking to sift through our impulses to better understand what is logically best for us. For the most part, those tuned into the airwaves of society’s best impulses, rather than huddled in their delusional bunkers of fear and hate, will generally know what is good and bad.
Being selfish animals, we will try to justify behavior that we know is bad, but being aspirational beings trying to be more than animal instincts, we will wrestle with those base impulses. That’s when we are our best selves trying to create our best community.