I recently came to a realization. I realized that there are many things that humans have the ability to do, that separates us from the animals around us. Nothing special there, but let me delve into that for a moment.
Humans have two things that defines our specific abilities. The first is constructive thought in the form of ‘how’. This is our ability to understand ecosystems, our biological place on the planet, the way that symbiotic relationships between species form a cycle that continues to replenish life on the planet.
The way I break that down is that an eagle in the USA doesn’t know about elephants or wolves, or bacterium. It eats when its hungry, sleeps when its tired, and procreates when it can. If it does happen upon an elephant, it doesn’t try and understand the thing. It doesn’t try and distinguish it from the other things that it knows of. It merely accepts it as something that is either harmful to itself, or not.
Human beings cannot do this. We cannot just look at something and not try and understand it. We have a craving to understand it. This is where Science has come in. It’s the best tool we have made for the ‘How’ question we have about everything around us.
Schools all over the world accept that we must teach our children as much of the ‘How’ that we can. This is seen in English class (in English-speaking countries) because you must know how to use your language. It’s seen in Mathematics and Science, as you must understand how the planet works, as well as the creatures on it. It is also seen in History class as we must understand how things came to be the way they are today.
That covers the ‘How’, and now I get to the ‘Why’.
There is an increasing movement here in the USA to have prayer and creationism taught in our schools. Until recently I dismissed it as religious totalitarianism, but I finally understand it is much more than that.
Religion seems that it would develop naturally from our consciousness. Our consciousness separates us from the animals, however, unlike instinct, we cannot just go through consciousness and just ‘feel it out’. We have to feed the ‘How’ of our consciousness and enrich the ‘Why’. However, in order to make our consciousness seem understandable, and attainable, we have to put limits on it. If we say to ourselves “our consciousness leads us to God. And I have the rules of which to follow to attain great knowledge and understanding of the way the world works. The rules are here in this book, my Bible.” then, it helps us to get a better grasp on the hugely, and infinitely amazing depth of our consciousness. We feel that we have control of it, and understanding of it.
This is the ‘Why’. Why are we here? Why am I lonely? Why did the universe come into existence. The fact is that Religion is the most widely accepted answer to this ‘Why’. You are here because God put you into your body. You are lonely as a test of your faith. The universe came into existence because God wanted to make existence. Religion is the only widely accepted answer to ‘Why’. And that is where the problem comes from.
The fact is that the sceintific people of the ‘How’ answers believe that there is only ‘How’ and that through ‘How’ everything can eventually be attained. The ‘Why’ religious people believe that all answers can be attained through ‘Why’. And neither wants to accept that both questions, How and Why, are necessary for our human consciousness.
The proof that How and Why are necessary are seen everyday. We need religion, but why? Because it answers Why. It is the most widely accepted answer to ‘Why’. If you do not want religion to be around anymore as the New Atheists do, then create a new form of Why. Instead, they fall on their sword and say that How is the only answer and need for answer. So, all the religious who have asked Why, and have gotten answers from their religious leaders, are being told ‘Nope. Not only do you have no answers, but the way you are going about getting answers is all wrong.’ And this negates their feeling that they got/get when their ‘Why’ is answered. This negates their peak experiences that they are told is the Divine Hand. You cannot take a basket of apples from someone and hand them a single orange and try and convince them that they aren’t losing anything.
The same goes for religion. Someone with a basket of oranges, the scientific and New Atheist community, cannot be shown an apple and be told ‘this is all you need. If you have this, you shall never need anything else.’ If you talk eloquently enough, they may be dissuaded from their basket of oranges, and once they try the apple, may end up staying with apples. They eat this apple, and it tastes wholly different from the oranges they have been so used to. The same goes for the religious. However, both side goes too far. What we need is BOTH apples and oranges in our basket. The fact that people can enjoy both apples and oranges, and everyday, thousands of people transition from an apple to an orange, or from an orange to an apple, this fact, shows that there must be something about oranges and apples that we need.
What we must realize is that it isn’t the apple or the orange that we need, but both, as well, we must understand both why and how of each. How can we transition between apples and oranges? Because our tastebuds allow us to taste the various flavors. Why do we transition between apples and oranges? Because there is something about each that you cannot get from the other.
This comes back to the idea that I mentioned earlier. The want for prayers in schools. However, if creationism is taught alongside evolution, it will degrade the scientific value of evolution. And it will degrade and confuse children because how are they supposed to choose which science to follow? The problem is that schools (elementary, middle and high schools) only require knowledge of How, and only teach How. People are to learn the various Why outside of school. But every person needs to answer for themselves Why, and to keep it outside of schools, means that everyone accepts that people do not need to know Why, or at least, they dont need it enough to be taught about it.
So, the problem comes from this because there is no Why in schools. That is, at the core, what those who want Creationism/Intelligent Design in schools want to see. However you cannot teach children a How in the same breath of Why. It confuses and twists things in their head.
So, here is my proposition. A compromise. Prayer cannot be brough back into schools, because you must then ask ‘Which prayers’? If its the Hail Mary, Christians cannot accpet that, as they do not pray to Mary. And if you pick the Lord’s Prayer, you will ostricize the Muslims, non-theists, and all the various other religions. It would cause more problems than it is worth. The solution is not creationism in schools. But Why in schools. The people who are pro-How will be anti-Why. And the pro-Why are becoming increasingly anti-How, taking their children to religious private schools, or homeschooling them.
The compromise is realizing the source and core of why the religious Fundamentalists want creationism in schools. They want their children to understand Why. Unfortunately, they are given an extremely narrow view of Why, as with most religions. The Why needs to accept that, not only are there many various types of Why, but also that their children do need How. And the How need to accept that everyone needs Why.
I propose that we teach our children Why in schools. Not the Christian Why, or the Muslim Why, or the Catholic Why, or the New Age Why. We must teach them all these Why’s, and the Why of Nietzsche, and Krishnamurti, and Daniel Dennett, and the Why of Buddha, and of both eastern and western philosophies.
The fact is that we need our children to understand the Why, and learn critical thinking and understanding of mass consciousness. This is innate with us. If we teach them How and they have a peak experience, and someone with a Bible tells them it was Jesus Christ, they will be Born Again. If we tell our children that Allah and Muhammad are Why, and someone comes along with fossils of evolution, they will doubt and question their Why teachings and may drop them entirely. However, Whyers and Howers never lose their want for the answer to both. A Hower asks “What is our place in this universe, and what happens when we die?” and they are answered by Howers “We came from the things that came before us, and we do not yet know exactly what happens when we die, but we are gonna find out someday”. The Whyer asks “Wat is our place in the universe, and what happens when we die?” and they are answered by the other Whyers of their faith “God put us here. And you go to heaven when you die. Any other question you may ask, the answer is that we do not know, but God will show us someday.”
This shows that we need the How and Why both. I am trying to imagine a world where our children come home from school speaking of Buddha and Christ, and Dennett and Nietzsche in the same breath. A Philosophy class thoroughout our schooling, I believe, is necessary. We must stop denying that all humans ask Why and will search for answers to it. We must stop driving them from school and into their Churches or Mosques for these answers. We must stop denying that all humans ask How and will search for answers to it. We must stop driving them into schools and making them ostricized from those who ask Why.
A child of Christian parents, a child of Muslim parents, a child of Atheist parents, all four years old, are on a playground. None of the children fight or squabble any more than with those of their own parent’s faith. But take a Muslim, a Christian, and an Atheist adult in the same room, and what happens? Each has locked themselves into their own How/Why view. Something happens between the time that those children become adults. We get solidified into a single ideal. The ideal of science, of everlasting life, of heaven, of reincarnation. Now imagine if children were taught Eastern and Western philosophies and religions from an early age. Do you think they would hijack an airplane? Try and convert the poor of Third Worlds to Christianity? Do you think that they would get into a shouting match on Youtube comments section against the Fundamentalists? Or do you think that they would be more critical thinkers? Do you think they would have more respect, and knowledge, of their fellow man?
When it all comes down to it, every single human being with consciousness asks both How and Why. We are all How/Whyers. The problem is when we lose sight of that and make ourselves Hower or we make ourselves Whyers. We are not one group against another, we are people who are trying to grasp our vast consciousness, and live our lives as best as we can.
Thank you for your time.
