Living in a free society, we have the rights and responsibility to think for ourselves, to make choices, and are prepared to take ownership of consequences of our actions. Our personal choices, beliefs and the resulting behaviores will greatly influence the quality of life that we experience. To live authentically, we must be willing to constantly examine and re-examine our beliefs which influence us in the choices we make.
This concept of self actualization is scary and intimidating for many people. The unfortunate truth is that many are content living an “auto-pilot” existence, and never challenge themselves to fulfill the greatness that we are all capable of achieving. The question of “what do you truly want out of life” is often replaced by limiting beliefs, ideas that are implanted by others who gain benefit from your subservience.
Religion and political ideologies have been fashioned to do just this. Religion wants you to believe that your existence on this planet, and then after you die, is related to your relationship with their ideology. Instead of doing the difficult work of thinking, and figuring out who you really are, you are urged by religious groups to adapt to their way of thinking and behaving. They then certify this by telling you amazing stories of gods grace on earth and beyond.
In the past when the harsh realities of humans living in difficult times, where free societies were extremely rare, the idea of replacing a religious ideology for a political subservient reality was not a bad choice. As Moses said to the Pharaoh in Exodus, Let my people go, from the servitude of Egypt, to serve their god Yaweh, in the desert. This was the foundational time for the first big monotheistic religion, Judaism. if you are to believe the story of Exodus, what was developing here was a religious ideology that was designed to replace the harsh political ideology of Egypt.
In todays world free societies exist and are challenging us to think for ourselves. Science and technologies are constantly showing us proof that contradict the ideas and short-comings of religious beliefs. Our personal sense of integrity, deeply ingrained in our very physiology, is guiding us to disgust when we are confronted with the evil being done by religious extremists in the name of their gods. As sciences dealing with the inner workings of our brains are giving us answers as to how we think, we are learning that superstitions, are not responsible for outcomes in our lives.
Big BrotherBurt is confident and optimistic that within a free society, human integrity can continue to emerge as the guiding force in our world. As people we are all imperfect. Yet we all posses the ability to think, and choose the pathway that we all know is aligned with human integrity. Historically we have overcome tremendous obstacles and have time after time defeated the forces of evil that have threatened our survival. The reason we have survived the challenges and continue to evolve is because it is written into our very genetic code to do so.
Free societies exist today as a testament to the who we are as humans. We created free societies so that the next level of human evolution can occur.