Tony Blair (yes, him again) was asked if his faith guided him in difficult decisions. He answered that his faith in god in the values He stood for was always in his mind but he didn't ask God in prayer what the minimum wage should be. In interesting contrast to those leaders who ask God for answer to specific problems and claim that He tells them what to do...
It got me thinking if I had this kind of faith. And I realized that I have (or had) two: one was in the usefulness and importance of data and reason in advancing knowledge; the other was in the inherent goodness in human nature, that at some level everyone wants to do the right thing. Oddly the realization that I had always had this kind of faith in human beings' acting (broadly) in line with Judeo-Christian values, the kind of faith that Tony Blair talked about, came at exactly the same time that I understood that my faith was misplaced. I no longer believe that people are inherently good.
I do believe Gerry Cory's notion that we as a species have evolved with two competing sets of impulses; ego and empathy. But I'm less convinced than Gerry that the we are driven to maintain a balance between the two. My fear is that under threat, society, supported as it is by empathy, might collapse as the world degenerates into Hobbsian ego-dominated chaos.
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