SerPolUS_IDES on DIIGO - a longer description of the group's focus - 8 views
started by Frederick Smith on 28 Dec 09
started by Frederick Smith on 28 Dec 09
started by Frederick Smith on 28 Dec 09
started by Frederick Smith on 28 Dec 09
SERPOLUSIDES (http://groups.diigo.com/groups/ser_polus_ides)
SerPol: Politics in Service to the greater human community - rather than for self-aggrandizing power or narrowly acquisitive interests - on behalf of our equal fellow citizens/neighbors in the larger human community, rather than to narrow interests or power for its own sake:
* As a chosen human duty - whether as a private citizen participating in local or national advocacy groups or party, or as one actually employed as a public servant in a governmental or in a non-governmental organization that aims to further the public good;
* Aiming at equal justice, opportunity, and essential civil amenities - including (but not limited to]) rights to decent housing, clothing, food, medical care, judicial process, respect, & freedoms of thought/speech/assembly for redress of grievances, etc. - regardless of gender, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, sexual preference, etc.
US: Universal Spirituality: I would hope that political engagement and service look to a set of universal spiritual/ethical values derived (both deductively and empirically) from the world's great religious wisdom traditions and from non-religious ethical thinkers - values that impose a duty to seek the kind of equal treatment for all people that is described above.
* I prefer the term "spiritual" to "ethical" because (based in part on my observation as a palliativist helping patients and families in their grief) I think "spiritual" better describes certain human virtues, like the impulse to ask for and offer forgiveness that so often arises when a loved one is dying: a process that springs not from rational ethics or psychiatric/social-work ministration; but from love, from a new soulful sight resulting from the removal of blinders, and from a humility in the face of death that may best be labeled numinous (the experience of imminent transcendence that Rudolph Otto described in The Idea of the Holy, later so appreciated by the atheist evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley in his book Religion without Revelation). I believe that the impulses to compassion and service arise from the same wellspring of the spirit, the "soul" which best defines our humanity, and identifies even the most anti-religious person as a spiritual being with spiritual concerns.
* In their condemnations of the blatant injustices and inequalities of the society of their day, the Hebrew prophets (beginning with Amos in the 8th century BCE) made clear that social justice is an essential [if not the sole] dimension to the "righteousness" which is a central standard and goal in the entire Hebrew and Christian scripture:
"With what shall I come to the LORD, and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings . . .? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams . . . ? He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8, ASBT)
* For anyone who may think his religion has no need of ideas from outside sources, consider the early Christians' rapid adoption of "the Word" [logos] from contemporary Hellenistic pagan and Jewish thinkers. In the mid-2nd century CE, Justin Martyr referred to the pre-existing philosophical and ethical ideas Christians used for communication as "seeds of the Word" (logoi spermatokoi) already planted in fertile ground by the divine Spirit, so that the Gospel could be better understood. A century before Justin, the apostle Paul told the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers who heard him in Athens:
"God made from one every nation of mankind . . . that they should seek God, . . .grope for him and find him, though he is not far from us - for in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, "For we also are his offspring." Acts 17:26-27, ASBT )
Pope John Paul II confirmed Justin Martyr's view, in his 1979 encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, 11:
"The Fathers of the Church rightly saw in the various religions as it were so many reflections of the one truth, 'seeds of the Word', attesting that, though the routes taken may be different, there is but a single goal to which is directed the deepest aspiration of the human spirit . . ." (see http://www.diigo.com/user/fsfasmith/%22religion+%26+philosophy%22 - item on "Cullan")
ID: Inclusive and Diverse: Hopefully such a "spirituality" will aim to cooperate closely with all non-destructive/non-exploitative human traditions that point to ways of practicing "the good;"
* This doesn't mean trying to homogenize them into one or even declaring them "equal. (Presumably one who is exposed to the multicultural smorgasbord sticks with one's own religious or ethical tradition, not only from comfort but because it seems to "speak" and work better for oneself.) A universal sense of human oneness (described so eloquently above by the apostle Paul) can celebrate human multiplicity and recognize that human cultures draw strength and creativity from diversity (the "melting pot" that is the United States being a prime example),. In the words of another Abrahamic religion's scripture, the Holy Qur'an:
"O people, we have created you from a male and a female and made you into races and tribes SO THAT YOU MAY KNOW EACH OTHER. Surely the most honored of you in the sight of God is the one who is the most righteous of you" (49:13).
ES: Embracing Science: To some, adding this notion may seem a distinct oddity in 2010 CE. Nevertheless, the role of science and support of its endeavors by society are very important issues in the United States today (broad public support being perhaps more seriously threatened than ever before). Conversely, especially since 9/11/01, there have been loud assertions from very articulate scientists and other prominent individuals (including the four "militant atheists" named above) that religion (at least of the Abrahamic-theist variety) is intrinsically and inherently harmful to modern democratic society, and should not be at all coddled or tolerated by intelligent people, even in its more liberal and tolerant forms.
I hope that we can agree to understand that science is a method of observing, experimenting, and knowing that is not inherently opposed to religion, theism or a spiritual ethic. It may inform these more transcendent disciplines, and affect how they formulate their in-the-world ethics over time; but science in itself cannot be disprove their validity, nor is science sufficient in itself to provide guidance for ethical conduct.
Here are a couple of perhaps quirky references to classical thought with mnemonic value for this long acronym:
PolUS recalls for me the Greek polis: the ideal of egalitarian community at its best - this time around without slaves, and now hopefully eliminating bias related to gender, class or place/culture/religion of origin.
IDES brings me (via Google and Wikipedia, after requesting a search on the soothsayer's warning in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to "beware the Ides of March") to the Latin word IDUS or "mid-division" day, occurring on the middle/full-moon-day of certain lunar months (March, May, July & October). So it reminds me of Buddha's "Middle Path" or Aristotle's moderation (no extremes: "don't make [your conception of] the perfect become the enemy of the best"). Or I can imagine the moon's fullest reflection of sunlight into our relative darkness and unknowing, as we ourselves may hope to reflect (from our own being - however feebly through the clouds we ourselves cannot escape) compassionate Christ- or Buddha-consciousness, or humanism, toward others who live in distress. (This was a metaphor my Dad used in describing a 1942 early-morning horseback ride down a treacherous Colombian mountain trail in full-moonlight, relating it to his and Mom's desire to reflect the light of Christ as the source sun/Son of light-and-righteousness. His own words are in the bio on their memorial website [till October, 2010]: http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/Rev-Fred-and-Della-Smith/Homepage.aspx).