We go through life with certain truths about which we have no doubt. 

Faith in God is, for many people, unshakeable. 

The idea that hard work makes one virtuous is beyond question.  It is a priori true that laziness is a vice, and lazy people deserve nothing. 

We know, in the same way we know the sun will rise in the morning, that all people are either male or female.  Sex and marriage are to be between one man and one woman, and any variation from this idea is unacceptable. 

Money is essential to the operation of the world. 

Changes in these ideas are not to be tolerated.  This is the way the world, perhaps the entire universe, works, and if someone has a problem with it, they are a troublemaker who is to be shunned, ignored, dismissed, and, if need be, arrested.  Sometimes they are even killed.

It is for us to decide what help, if any, is warranted and what punishments are appropriate for those who are different.  Prisons should be places of unspeakable horrors to ensure they provide maximal deterrent to crime. 

There are two political parties in our country, and no others will be taken seriously. 

And what have all these Undeniable Truths produced for us?

At least half of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.  Some studies place it as high as 70% of us.  These are two links I found quickly on Google.  There are plenty of others that will give you similar numbers. 

https://www.adeccogroup.com/future-of-work/latest-insights/70-percent/

You’re Not Alone: 52% of Americans are Fighting to Make Ends Meet

Our economy is usually measured by how well Wall Street is doing.  The problem is that many of us own no stock at all.  It’s out of the question for most of us because we’re trying to pay rent and eat.  Investing in the Stock Market is, at best, risky.  It can be disastrous.  When the Stock Market crashed in 1929, the myth is that investors were leaping off tall buildings.  That isn’t, evidently, true.  On the other hand…

Behind 1929’s building-jumping myth, however, may be the larger truth that the onset of the Great Depression did correlate to an increase in suicides.  Based on statistics reported by Galbraith in The Great Crash 1929, the suicide rate in the United States increased from 17.0 per 100,000 people in 1929 to 21.3 in 1932 during the worst of the financial calamity.  The pattern was much the same in New York… 

People may not have been leaping off buildings by the dozens, but during the final months of 1929, American newspapers reported terrible incidents involving those who lost nearly everything in the Crash.  The day after Black Thursday, Chicago real estate investor C. Fred Stewart asphyxiated himself with gas in his kitchen.  When the market took an even further dive on Black Tuesday, John Schwitzgebel shot himself to death inside a Kansas City club.  The stock pages of the newspaper were found covering his body.

https://www.history.com/news/stock-market-crash-suicides-wall-street-1929-great-depression#:~:text=Based%20on%20statistics%20reported%20by,the%20same%20in%20New%20York.

While investing in the Stock Market can be profitable if one is both smart enough and lucky enough to make it work, most of us aren’t, and even those who are good at it can be destroyed by it. 

A better measurement of how well the economy is doing might be found in how many people are struggling.  Those statistics are above.  The economy consists of more than the wealthy.  Most of us are not wealthy.

So, our Eternal Truths haven’t done much for simply surviving.  Money is a blessing for those who have it, a curse for those who don’t, and it can turn from blessing to curse in a single day.  This, however, is the way the world must operate, isn’t it?  No other ideas are allowed.

Our faith in whatever God (or lack thereof) we have chosen is supreme.  We learn what is right and what is wrong from that faith, and there can be no doubt we are right because we’ve been taught that to doubt our beliefs is a sin.  And, without doubt, ours is the correct faith, regardless of how many others there may be.

Anthropologists estimate that at least 18,000 different gods, goddesses, and various animals or objects have been worshipped by humans since our species first appeared.  Today, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of the global population considers themselves religious or spiritual in some form.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-food/202107/why-do-humans-keep-inventing-gods-worship#:~:text=Anthropologists%20estimate%20that%20at%20least,or%20spiritual%20in%20some%20form.

It’s extraordinary that we’ve beaten the odds so completely.  There are roughly 50 people listening to this podcast.  I’m willing to bet here on The Front Porch we have at least 5 different forms of Gods.  For me, it isn’t a problem that someone has beliefs that differ from mine.  The problem comes when those beliefs cause them to hate someone else.  Jesus was pretty clear about hatred, and since his is the most prominent view among those who are not me, let’s see what he says in Luke: 27 – 36

²⁷ But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

²⁸ Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

²⁹ And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

³⁰ Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

³¹ And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

³² For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

³³ And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

³⁴ And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

³⁵ But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

³⁶ Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

One of The People on The Porch, who I believe considers himself a Christian said, “You don’t have to work.  If you choose not to work, I choose not to support you.”  That doesn’t seem to fit well with what the leader of that religion preaches.  To review, Luke 30 says to give to anyone who asks.  It says not to ask for anything in return. 

The retort, of course, comes from Thessalonians.  To be clear that’s not Jesus.  “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Those are the people handing out advice in this book of the Bible.  And what do they say?

 ¹⁰For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. 

The Bible can contradict itself.  Jesus says to avoid hating, and Paul and his friends are up for letting people starve. 

Take what is useful to you in your religious beliefs, and allow yourself a few other possibilities.  Let’s recognize there are any number of reasons people aren’t doing what you call work.  Or shall we continue to say, “This, however, is the way the world must operate, isn’t it?  No other ideas are allowed.”

Religious faith is often cited as the reason for intolerance.  A Facebook friend of mine posted the other day, ““I identify as” is synonymous with “I pretend to be.””  I’m told by another friend that pretending doesn’t change the facts.  In both cases, this is said with contempt for people who are trying to understand themselves in a different way.

Who comes out ahead when we limit people’s abilities to find their own identities?  Socrates and several other Ancient Greeks told you to “know thyself.”  That was at least 2,400 years ago.  It’s not a new thing.  Again, however, we’ve decided people may do that, so long as they stay within tightly defined parameters.  I’m heterosexual and quite comfortable being male.  That’s nice for me.  I know people to whom this doesn’t apply.  You probably do, too.  Why can’t they try to become whatever it is they feel they need to be?  How does it hurt me that someone I love very much was declared to be a female at birth, but sometime afterward discovered they were more comfortable being male?  Why do I care what they have in their pants unless I’m in a sexual relationship with them?  How does their quest for meaning in their lives hurt me?  Why should I feel the need to ridicule them for trying to find that meaning? 

If your answer is that God made them a particular gender, my response is that God also made them a person who was not comfortable as that gender.  God made them someone who wanted something different.  If one is true, the other is, too. 

My feeling is that the universe is unimaginably diverse.  It is filled with wonders and terrors beyond our most startling and beautiful dreams.  Humanity is the Universe’s Effort to understand itself.  To gain the most complete understanding, it must see itself from the greatest possible number of perspectives.  To my knowledge, humans are the only form of life in the universe capable of understanding at all.  There is a mathematical likelihood of there being other intelligent life in the universe, but we haven’t met them yet.  Douglas Adams would tell you that dolphins have a unique perspective that may be of some use to the Universe.  I suspect that dogs, cats, snakes, spiders, and maybe even bacteria all have their own ideas about the nature of the universe, but I can’t prove that.  I’m in favor of encouraging as many perspectives as possible.  I’m mostly in favor of allowing people to live their lives in the ways they choose so long as they’re not hurting anyone else.  I’ve only said that about a billion times over the course of this show. 

Or do we need to decide, again, that this is the way the world must operate and no other ideas are to be allowed?  That’s an incredibly limiting way of seeing things, don’t you think?

We’ve taken it upon ourselves to decide who deserves what.  I find that frighteningly arrogant.  I think everyone – and that means all human beings, whether you or I like them or not – everyone deserves to live as well as possible.  I don’t believe only some people deserve a place to sleep tonight.  I don’t believe only some people deserve to eat.  I don’t believe there are people who deserve the horrible atrocities they are forced to endure.  I’m more interested in rehabilitation than I am in punishment.  The worst people in the world became who they are because of the experiences they had.  I don’t have to like them, or what they did, to recognize it’s better for them, and it’s better for the rest of us, to help them become people who find meaningful lives in which they can live in the way they choose, without hurting anyone else. 

Let’s stop despising differences.  Let’s learn to celebrate them.  Your way of viewing the world is different from mine, and I respect that.  I would like us all to respect that others think differently than we do, and that they’re allowed to think that way.  You’re allowed to despise diversity, and I will accept that.  I only ask that you not ridicule others who are different.  I ask that you allow them to live their lives and find their own meanings, as I do for you.  Yes, we disagree.  No, I don’t want you to have less because of that.  I don’t want you to be punished in any conceivable way for that.  I will hope to get you to unlock the treasure chest of your mind to see the world just a little bit differently than you did before we started.  If I can do that, you’re in a better place, and you’re a kinder person than you were before.  That kindness benefits all the world.  How can you object to that? The universe is filled with endless variation.  My favorite Vulcan once commented on that: “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.”  The Vulcans even have a lovely emblem for that.  The idea is the basis of their philosophy. 

Infinite Diversity exists whether we like it or not.  Look at the pictures we saw a few weeks ago that show us a portion of the Universe the size of a grain of sand.  They illustrate how vast the Cosmos is.  The Diversity is mind boggling. 

Let’s embrace the fact that more than one way of life is possible.  Let’s celebrate the differences in ourselves and in each other that add so many more hues to the palette we are all using together to paint our Intergalactic Self Portrait.   

And, yes, like Billy Joel, “I love you just the way you are.”