Theos-Talk Archives (May 2002 Message tt00060)

At 10:30 PM 5/6/02 -0400, you wrote:
> 2 questions -- for thinkers
>
> >*Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already,
> >three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she
> >had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?
> >
> >*Question 2: It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts.
> >Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:
> >
> > * Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with
> >astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8
> >to 10 martinis a day.
> >
> > * Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used
> >opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.
> >
> > * Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't
> >smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.
> >
> >Which of these candidates would be your choice?
The questions provide an opening to several different
topics of discussion.

We could consider the different perspectives of
looking at what is happening at life. At the macro or
group level, statistics apply best. You could say that
ten percent of this particular population are smokers
that will die of cancer. At the micro or individual
level, statistics mean little. You're either dead or
alive, a zero-or-one possibility; statistics don't mean
too much. Or taking another statistic, if you're in a
group with 1.7 children on an average, there's no
7/10 child in your household.

When you consider factors that lead to being a good
person or a productive life, you could make predictions
with some accuracy at the group level, when dealing in
percentages. The examples provided in the two questions
above, though, show that group-level statistics don't
always apply at the individual level. Someone could
smoke all their lives and never get lung cancer. That
doesn't disprove, though, that smoking causes cancer.
It only shows that a particular individual might be
lucky (e.g. have sufficient merit or good personal
karma to override external natural tendencies).

As responsible individuals, we would teach people
what's best. We would pick political candidates that
were competent and of good character, if it were possible
to discriminate between those running for office. We
would emphasize the good, the positive, and the healthy.

We'd be glad for individuals that survive the odds
and aren't destroyed by their destructive tendencies
or negative circumstances. But we'd also educate and
encourage people to lead better lives.

A second aspect to the questions deals with how deeply
we know others. Do we judge them on superficial external
characteristics, or do we use our intuition, establishing
an rapport with them and seeing their hearts and souls?

How someone dresses, the polish of their language,
the money they have and spend, the car they drive,
the places and things they tell us they've seen -- all
this is but the dust jacket of a book the pages of which
we haven't yet opened.

To know someone is to see the world through their
eyes. That is, we become them, to a degree, and make
their world ours. Without doing that, they remain an
external object, a playing piece in our game of life.
Doing so, they become people as real and important to
the world as we know ourselves to be.

-- Eldon