Ronald J. Glossop

1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois, 6 May 2001

I. Introduction

A. It is evident to everyone that much in our lives is outside of

our control. We do not choose what gender we will be, what race we will

be, what inherited characteristics we will have, what beliefs and customs

our parents will have, in what nation we will be born, when in human

history we will be born and live.

B. Even after we have become more mature, we cannot control what

accidents may befall us, what choices we will be required to make, and to

some extent which of our intended actions reach fruition.

C. One could even become a fatalist, a person who believes that

nothing is in one's own control, but not many people go to that extreme.

Those who do so usually go to that extreme because of some particular

belief about everything being under the control of God or of a purely

mechanistic world where each event follows by the laws of nature from what

existed before. In both these cases, exercising thought about one's

situation in hopes of controlling what happens later may be discouraged.

II. Recognizing our limitations

A. Even those most oposed to fatalism must at least admit that the

past cannot be changed. What has happened has happened, and it is not very

fruitful to deny the reality of the past or to expect that somehow the past

might be changed.

2. There are many events and occurrences and actions in

the world which we cannot control, but one of the things we can control is

our attitudes and reactions to what happens. Therefore, say the Stoic

philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, it is our attitudes and

reactions which we should focus on mastering rather than being consumed by

the events, especially of the past, over which we have no control. There

is no use in becoming furious about having spilt some milk or dropped

something which broke or having an accident with your car. Don't focus on

what the world would be like if that event had not occurred. It did occur

and it can't be undone. Focus on what attitude and reaction you want to

have, because that is within your power. If you focus on what is not

within your power, you will lose the chance to control that which is

wihthin your power, your own attitudes and reactions.

C. The less we know about why things happen, the less control we

have over what happens to us. Knowledge gives power and ignorance makes us

powerless.

1. Think of the pre-scientific world. People didn't know

why sickness occurred, why some children were intelligent and others

mentally handicapped, why there were draughts and floods and tornados and

earthquakes and eruptions of volcanoes, etc.

2. Any wild magical procedure or ritual had to be

considered as a possible course of action because it just might be

effective. Charlatans of every kind had a field day.

3. The famous Jewish philosopher Spinoza noted "how potent

is the wise man, and how much he surpasses the ignorant man, who is driven

only by his lusts. For the ignorant man is not only distracted in various

ways by external causes [and the love of what is perishable] without ever

gaining the true acquiescence of his spirit, but moreover lives, as it were

unwitting of himself" and the true nature of the reality of which he is a

part.

D. Whenever we are just passive with regard to the events around

us and just entertained and manipulated and titilated by them, we will

simply be subjected to forces outside of us and controlled by others. One

possible redeeming value for these activities might be that we are gaining

knowledge that will help us to know how to act in the future. More and

more of modern life is consumed in entertainment, however, and very little

of it produces much very useful knowledge.

1. Think of how much present human activity falls into

this category of just being passive, from watching sporting events to soap

operas to entertainment games.

2. To what extent do people consciously think about what

they are going to do with their lives versus just doing what others are

doing or what someone else wants them to do or what someone else will pay

them to do.

E. All of us are limited with regard to the amount of time we have

and the amount of resources we control. Yet these are the two things which

limit us. The point is that we must constantly review our lives in

examining how we spend our time and how we spend our money. Our use of

those two things show what we really value in our lives regardless of what

we say is important to us.

F. We can make judgments based to some extent on past experience

about what is in our power and what is not, but of course we can be wrong.

Ultimately, we must try to do what we think should be done, either on our

own or in concert with others. Only then will we find out to what extent

it is in our power.

III. Changing the perspective to what we can do collectively as an

organized group versus thinking only individually about what we have the

power to do.

A. One of the great transitions in the way humans live, the

beginnings of civilization about 10,000 years, raised the issue of what

humans can do when they are organized to accomplish something as a group

rather than just acting as unconnected individuals.

B. Listen to this perceptive comment about the coming of

civilization by Gwynne Dyer in his epic work War. (This long quotation is

from p. 11.)

The essence of the Neolithic Revolution was not the discovery, between 9000

and 7000 BC in various parts of the Fertile Cresecent, that food could be

obtained more reliably and in greater abundance by planting and harvesting

crops and taming and breeding animals, nor even the huge increase in

population density that these discoveries made possible. It was the

insight that human will and organization could exercise control over the

natural world--and over large numbers of human beings.

"To exert power in every form was the essence of civilization; the

city found a score of ways of expressing struggle, aggression, domination,

conquest--and servitude," wrote Lewis Mumford about the first civilizations

of mankind. . . . Civiliization, first and foremost, was the discovery of

how to achieve power over both nature and people, and it cannot be denied

that it went to our heads: on the one hand, pyramids and irrigation

canals; on the other hand, wars of extermination.

C. So the coming of civilization marked an early stage in the

shift from thinking about what power do I as an individual have to the

issue of what power we as a group could have both over nature and over

other humans.

D. At first the contest between civilizations was basically a

contest of force and how many and how well soldiers could be organized in

an army to fight the soldiers of the enemy. The bigger city-states

conquered the smaller ones and maintained their empires until they were

conquered by another empire or until the leader died or was assassinated.

E. But gradually, even in battle, the role of ingenuity became

more important. New weapons and strategies could make just as much of a

difference as the number of soldiers.

IV. The power of what humans could accomplish collectively was greaty

increased by the growth of the physical sciences in the 16th, 17th, 18th,

19th, and 20th centuries. We went from machine guns to tanks to jet planes

to nuclear weapons in war. In relations between persons wanting to

communicate with each other we went from horses and overland mail on

horseback to trains and telegraphs and radios and television and the

Internet.

V. In the 21st century human knowledge is exploding in biology and

genetics and artificial intelligence. Thus humanity is gaining more

knowledge and more power over nature and over other people.

A. When we ask now what is in our power collectively, it is wise

not to be too cautious. Won't we soon be able to clone humans? Won't we

soon be able to replace more complex organs and even nerve cells? Won't we

be able to design our offspring to conform to our ideals? Won't we be able

to use our knowledge to prevent many common diseases? Might we even

eventually overcome death for individuals?

B. Certainly, someone will say that humans with their power over

nature and other humans are now playing God. But in a way isn't this just

the continuation of a process that we began back at the beginnings of

civilization, even before we got a great big boost from the growth of

science? We learned that by collective power based on collective knowledge

we could "improve" nature to yield more of what we want and less of what we

don't want. By collective power, the state can control the noxious actions

of individuals in its own society and gradually even those in other

societies. As you've hear me say in the past, the government of the United

States of America is largely controlling almost all the people in the

world. Only a few "rogue states" remain to some extent outside the control

of our national government (even though William Blum in his recent book

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower) argues that it is the

United States which is the rogue state that doesn't follow the rules

adopted by almost everyone else.

C. So what role does God play in reality? Let us say that God is

the force working for good? Can't that force work though humans too, and

can we perhaps work for good even better than an unconscious God? If we

look at our situation collectively rather than individually, is there

anything which is not within our power? Has humanity become the

omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God we once wanted to worship?