People aren’t good.
Or if they are good, the goodness isn’t innate.
Rather, goodness comes to people from some outside source. The most that people are able to do is seek out this source and be receptive to it.
This is a conservative view of human nature which I am considering adopting. Not because I view myself as conservative. Quite the contrary.
It’s just that I’ve learned from painful experience that if I put my faith in human goodness, I will be routinely and repeatedly disappointed. So I don’t put my faith in human goodness anymore.
But I still have faith. The question I’m asking myself is, where am I going to put it?
In truth, I’ve already made up my mind. I’m going to put it in the source. But is there actually a source? And if so, what is it?
I won’t do theology. The age of theism has passed for many of us, and I don’t believe we can go back, even if we wanted to. But I am interested in what we might be able to salvage from the centuries-long practice of believing in a god.
Because I do feel that over the past few centuries, as we have become secular and progressive, we’ve simply relocated our faith from an imagined god to an imagined source of goodness within humans. And I don’t think it’s working.
Any ideas? Please leave a comment.
I don't agree that we have become secular and progressive as a whole. In some ways we have, mostly when it comes to using science to enforce our religious ideas and then to justify annihilating others for power and wealth; and, because most people like refrigeration and other comforts of life that religious faith cannot provide. That said, people are a fucked up and self-destructive species as a whole, history seems to show. Placing faith in humans means constant struggle and frequent heartache, with some nice but temporary rewards here and there; it is the worst system of all, but it's all we got. Only Nature totally rules and you can always have faith in that. We can adapt to Nature somewhat, but can never defeat it. If humans don't adapt to that reality, we are pretty much doomed, and the self-fulfilling apocalyptic fantasy of Christian fanatics will become a reality minus Jesus, his white horse, and eternal life in paradise for true believers.
Perhaps population density saps the goodness out. I find more goodness in rural folk who have space to be themselves and enjoy the godliness of nature.