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To understand morality, a baseline must be established. Humans in their natural state are neither good nor evil, but that doesn’t mean that “regular humans” wouldn’t perceive some of those neutral actions as ‘evil’. For example, a toddler in kindergarten who has not been taught manners will take toys from another child without asking, as this is the way of the wild. People would interpret the action of “stealing” the toy as evil, but that is just because they have already been conditioned by society. The alpha-wolf gets to eat first because it is stronger. It is capable of taking the food from the weaker wolves. Toddlers are, in a way, animals. If left to their own devices without intervention from authority figures, toddlers will eventually form a hierarchy of sorts, the strongest child having all the toys and food it wants. On another hand, primates kept in captivity have shown signs of humanity after being surrounded by “properly conditioned”, normal humans. Wolves are not evil for asserting dominance based on strength, nor can unconditioned humans be considered so. Upbringing is the conditioning humans go through. During the upbringing, basic moral grounds are set. The conscience is brought about, and children are taught fundamental differences between right and wrong. Studies have shown that the conscience and all moral thought is cemented before the age of five. If a child is not taught the fundamental differences between right and wrong during that time, they will be generally considered evil by society.

How, then, can one truly tell what is good and just? Steve Taylor, Ph.D. defines it as “‘a lack of self-centeredness. It means the ability to empathize with other people, to feel compassion for them, and to put their needs before your own. It means, if necessary, sacrificing your own wellbeing for the sake of others’. It means benevolence, altruism and selflessness, and self-sacrifice towards a greater cause – all qualities which stem from a sense of empathy. It means being able to see beyond the superficial difference of race, gender, or nationality and relate to a common human essence beneath them.” (Taylor) Continuing on Dr. Taylor’s train of thought, the character known as the Doctor from the TV series Doctor Who recently said, “hate is always foolish, and love is always wise.” (Moffat)

Taylor, Steve. “The Real Meaning of ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’.” 2013. Psychology Today.

Does God exist? As long as the concept of an omniscient and omnipotent overlord has existed, the human race has asked the question: “Does God exist?” It can be argued that this is the oldest question in the universe. However, I disagree. I think the oldest question in the universe (or at the very least, the first question that any being would ask as soon as they are capable of thinking) is “why?” This question can be found at the root of every science, philosophy, art, and religion. It is the explanation for the modern interpretation of God. In The City of the Shadow Realm – a novella I wrote – an ethereal character states, Religion is a construct of the human mind that was designed to help them cope with their fast-growing intelligence. Thousands of years ago, when humans were beginning their climb in the scale of knowledge, they started to ask too many questions to which they were unable to acquire answers for. They invented religion to explain away phenomenon they couldn’t grasp. (Bajaj, 2016)

As I stated, the “God” many religions have come to accept does not exist. It was and is an explanation to something beyond limited human understanding. The Greeks were one of the first recorded civilizations to practice religion. They believed that Zeus was responsible for thunderstorms, and Poseidon caused tsunamis. They invoked the name of Ares when going to war, and blamed Aphrodite for love. For every phenomenon they did not understand – every time they asked “why?” to an unanswerable question – there was a God to explain it. This, in my opinion, was nothing more than a fallacy they told themselves, because human nature cannot handle a question without an answer. I would not go so far as to say that there is nothing beyond death, and I still believe there is some form of transcendent energy that controls the universe. However, I do not think there is a corporeal, sentient, or even conscious God as depicted in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. I believe God is energy, a primordial spiritual power that exists beyond time and space. God is a law of nature, and is nature itself. God exists to be called upon by the beings of the universe. In The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, the Law of Attraction is elaborated upon, described as energy in the universe. Byrne states that “Your power is in your thoughts, so stay awake. In other words, remember to remember.” (Byrne, 2006)

To paraphrase: our thoughts create reality. We can imagine our lives the way we want them to be, and it will happen. Is this not how God is commonly thought of? People go to places like churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and shrines to pray: asking their God for the things they want and need. In my opinion, there is God in all of us. Every being that has ever lived has had God inside them. This is because God is thought, and thought is God. People do not need to go anywhere or pray to any specific being to ask of the energy we call God. However, one should not ask for anything. If you ask for something, it means two things: you do not have what you are asking for, and you are not showing your gratefulness for what you have.

When you want to attract something into your life, make sure your actions don’t contradict your desires. Think about what you have asked for, and make sure that your actions are mirroring what you expect to receive, and that they’re not contradicting what you‘ve asked for. Act as if you are receiving it. Do exactly what you would do if you were receiving it today, and take actions in your life to reflect that powerful expectation. Make room to receive your desires, and as you do, you are sending out that powerful signal of expectation. (Byrne, 2006)

So, am I an athiest because I don’t believe in a God? Or am I a thiest because I believe in some manner of higher power? It is not as simple as that; I would define myself as an agnostic non-deistic thiest. That is to say, I believe in a God (I am a thiest), I do not believe that God is a deity (non-deistic), but I’m not one hundred percent sure of my beliefs, and I accept that fact I could be wrong (agnostic). To conclude: I believe in a God, but not in the traditional sense.

Works Cited
Bajaj, Satraj Singh. The City of the Shadow Realm. 0.4. Vol. 1. Toronto, 2016.
Brietbart, Peter. Atheist, Gnostic, Theist, Agnostic. 2009.
Byrne, Rhonda. The Secret. Ed. Rhonda Byrne. Beyond Words Publishing, 2006.

It’s disappointing when doing the minimum one needs to do to get paid, and reliance on the insurance industry to pick up the slack when one fails to do even that, becomes normal. But it’s worse when, rather than showing the moral courage and owning up to it, one uses lies, rudeness and offences to cover up one’s incompetencies.

Doctors need to have skills greater than the sum of the books they’ve read. Even a simple computer program can look up diagnoses and prescribe medication per established protocol by following a flowchart; and AI can probably do better than most consulting doctors. I came across an elderly person who lost the use of his legs because five doctors all came up with the same wrong diagnosis. It seems that either their need to respect each other’s professional opinions exceeded the need to correctly diagnose the patient’s health or they were all equally incompetent and looking up the same book.

Lawyers take on more and more business while actually doing less and less work, most of which is delegated to law clerks who in turn do the same, due to the safety net of making the client pay for insurance, so if anything goes wrong in a transaction, including due to their incompetency, they are not only safe, but actually get paid by insurance for more of their billable hours for filing the claim for the client to get reimbursed.

Banks are similar. They actually do not check the signatures on cheques under $1,500 due to the volume of cheques. If they do wrongly pay out a cheque, and provided the client notices, they have 30 days to recall the funds they incorrectly paid out (if it was to another bank), failing which there’s insurance to reimburse the client.

Insurance brokers make a killing on fear mongering, like there isn’t enough of it already. First pay premiums to cover the various risks, then not file a claim in the event of a loss, so as not to risk being dropped by the underwriter for filing the claim. Because being dropped by the underwriter would end the recurring revenue stream for doing pretty much nothing after first raking in the client.

“Professional” is a word that gets thrown around a lot in almost every context. Everyone considers themselves a “professional” in the sense that they are highly skilled at their craft and conduct themselves in a commensurate and ethical manner. To me that word simply means a person who charges money (as opposed to amateur) for whatever they have managed to make a go of in their lives.

I could go on and on – from people offering to help (for a fee, of course) to so-called “professionals” and businesses, everyone seems to be in a race against time to amass as much money as possible while doing the bare minimum possible.

When people ask the question “can knowledge be detrimental”, I always think about how ironic that is. If knowledge really is detrimental, then even the knowledge of that is detrimental. It isn’t as simple as that, however. There is a saying: “ignorance is bliss”, and to an extent, that is true. For example, if someone is bad at keeping secrets, then they shouldn’t know something of a sensitive nature. The secret-keeper will feel burdened by the secret, and the secret-giver will be hurt if the secret is revealed. The secret might be for the benefit of a third party, who will also be hurt if the secret is revealed.

In the popular anime/manga series Attack on Titan, humanity lives within a walled city surrounded by man-eating giants known as Titans. The residents of the wall have been living there for a mere century, but believe that they have been there for much longer. Furthermore, they believe themselves to be the last of humanity and completely isolated. They don’t know, however, that they are merely on an island off the coast of Marley, a country who they (the island of Eldia) lost a war to 100 years ago. The king of Eldia modified the memories of the Eldians and marooned them on the island, completely isolating them from those who would seek to harm them. The king obviously thought that the knowledge of a world beyond the walls would be detrimental to the people of Eldia, so he shrouded his citizens in blissful ignorance.

Another example would be the series of novels written by Jeanne DuPrau; specifically, The City of Ember. Ember is a city located deep underground the Earth, hidden away and populated by people who were raised not knowing there is a world beyond the cave in which they dwell. The City of Ember was created by the Government as a contingency plan for human survival, in the event that the impending nuclear war would wipe out the rest of the population. The first generation of Emberites were instructed to raise their children to know nothing of the world above, so that they would not try to surface from their safe underground dwelling prematurely. Once again, the government officers in charge of the Ember project decided that knowledge would indeed be detrimental.

However, in both of these examples, there was a flaw in the plan. In Attack on Titan, the Marleyans sent undercover soldiers to destroy the walls of the city and let in the man-eating Titans. The Eldians were blindsided and massacred, not prepared for an attack and unaware of what to do. If they had known about Marley, they’d have been able to expect an attack and prepared. In The City of Ember, the time capsule (containing instructions on how to exit Ember and knowledge of the world above) set to automatically open well before the Ember supply stores ran out, was misplaced and not found for hundreds of years later. The lack of knowledge put the entire population of Ember at risk. The city was on the brink of electrical failure (which would plunge them into absolute, deadening darkness) and their food supply war running low. It was a fluke that the protagonists found the capsule and led the city out of the long-past-due-to-fail Ember.

In conclusion, knowledge can be detrimental, but one must consider the implications of ignorance too, which can be equally harmful.