Conservative America, we need to understand the horror

Ok conservative America. I did a post on liberal America, and how they need to understand conservatives better. Now it is your turn. I want to talk about why liberal America is so horrified by Donald Trump (even more than you probably are, even if you were #NeverTrump like me). 

Just like my last post, my goal is to promote understanding, not to start another argument. We all need to understand one another better, so we can calm down and work together. You need to understand why Donald Trump is pretty much the opposite of everything liberal America holds sacred. He is the opposite, in fact, of what liberals love about America. This is why there are protests in the streets, calls for "Calexit" and the like. There is no need for a media conspiracy to stir up these protests--to them, the idea of Donald Trump really is that bad.

I grew up in liberal America. The Seattle area is pretty much the bluest of blue spots in the country. It is a relatively diverse, affluent place. It is also a fairly safe and stable place. It is a respectful place. I loved my school experience in liberal America. Teachers and students were very kind and respectful. The one student who ever bullied me was expeditiously expelled. I almost always felt safe at school emotionally and physically, and pretty safe in the community as well, even though as a Mormon I was a bit of an oddball. I never saw a single fight in all of my K-12 years, and I only saw drug abuse once (although I'm sure there was more going on out of my view).

Respect for the "other" holds liberal America together. Look at the map of the blue states, and you will find that the most diverse areas are liberal. Conservative areas, on the other hand, are relatively homogeneous. In conservative areas, you already have so much in common with those around you that it is not quite as critical to create safe spaces for the "other." Common culture holds most conservative areas together. But in liberal areas, respect for the "other" IS the culture. It is the holy grail, and the holy scripture. It is the greatest civic value and the essence of what it means to be American.

What you perceive as excessive political correctness, to liberal America, is the greatest virtue. Words matter in liberal America. Someone who spoke like Donald Trump would have been expelled from high school in liberal America one hundred times over. Liberal America cares about people's emotions, and how words affect them. They value empathy over toughness. They are sensitive to bullying, whether through words or actions, and consider it to be a vile offense.

Because there are so many diverse groups of people trying to fit in in liberal America, sometimes with many challenges, they are very sensitive to anything that even comes close to targeting a group of people. Such ideas, in liberal America, tear at the fabric of society itself. So when Donald Trump calls for things like surveiling Muslim neighborhoods, or seems to imply that most Mexicans who cross the border illegally are criminals, he does something very un-American. When he ignores the support of white supremacists, he pretty much is an accomplice to a hate crime. While you may think Hillary should be jailed over her emails, liberals may think Trump should be jailed for inciting hate crimes. You may think that words don't matter so much, but liberals are very sensitive to the fact that words often lead to perceptions which lead to actions.

Liberal America also values sophistication over "common sense." Liberal America is more urban and complex, and requires more complex solutions to problems. Donald Trump's ideas, such as building a wall on the border, or "bombing the shit out of ISIS," are so simplistic as to be offensive to liberal America. In liberal America, disaster strikes when one pushes through simplistic solutions without considering all the myriad implications. Someone's rights are always violated if the solution isn't sophisticated. 

You may think that Trump will make his ideas more sophisticated before he implements them, but liberal America isn't so sure, because they are used to politicians who acknowledge the need for sophistication. Donald Trump, to them, seems to play on people's jealousy of the educated class by offering them overly simple, anti-intellectual solutions that will seriously damage our country and violate many people's rights.

Now, I know that a good chunk of conservative America didn't like Trump that much either. But for those of you who did end up choosing him over Hillary, please try to understand your friends who feel like they are about to be transported to a different country entirely. Previous Republican presidents, although disliked in liberal America, were much more palatable.

Photo Credit: By Fibonacci Blue [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Liberal America, we need to talk

Liberal America, we need to talk. I hope this doesn't offend you too much. This is about how you, in the future, can help prevent the election of candidates like Donald Trump. I'm not trying to lay all the blame on you; the part that conservatives played in this is obvious. But Donald Trump was no conspiracy of the Republican elite. He was a groundswell from the masses, and the masses respond in some way to how you, the liberal elite, treat them.

Those of us Republicans with an understanding of politics and sociology tried, so hard, to stop this from happening. When you have a respected former president (George H.W) saying he will vote for Clinton, when you have the last Republican nominee Mitt Romney giving a brutal 30 minute speech because he felt like he needed to be able to tell his grandchildren what he did to stop Trump, and when you have the sitting Speaker of the House saying he will no longer actively support the Republican nominee, and yet Trump wins in a landslide, its hard to say this was anything other than a popular movement. Whether or not your realized it, you had a role in this movement.

I'm not arguing with your values--only with how you decided to pursue them. You chose to use centralized federal power to shove your version of morality down conservative America's throat. For the past eight years, you called them bigots, and your nominee called them "deplorable." Racism IS deplorable, but true racists were only a small part of Trump's support.

One example is gay marriage. We now live in a country where it is uncertain if you can even choose what kind of cake you bake. This level of minute control is demeaning and unnecessary, and it invites rebellion. There is a different way you could have approached conservative America. You could have said:

"We know you hold marriage sacred, and have for thousands of years. We know your faith means everything to you, and one-man one-woman marriage is a part of that. We have a different view, and we are also citizens. We would like to be able to see our partners at the hospital, to share our property, and to not be discriminated against in housing and the workplace. We would also like to be able to adopt children. We know you believe that children need a father and a mother, and while we disagree, we are sure that you will agree that some parents are better than no parents. Lets discuss our options. You can keep the word marriage--we will call ours something else."

Imagine what that kind of respectful dialogue could have done for our country. Conservatives area also to blame, but right now we are talking about the rise of Trump.

Conservatives don't feel respected by you. Instead of showing empathy for their deeply held beliefs, and acknowledging that many of them will likely not change, you have taken their sacred symbol, remade it in your own image, and shoved it down their throat and down their schoolchildren's throat with the force of law--in states where this is wildly unpopular. And then, after all that, you have called them bigots and haters with the loud megaphone of the mainstream media. Can you begin to see why they think YOU are the haters?

Donald Trump was not even close to the best conservatives had to offer. A large proportion didn't even like him. But he was a very, very effective way to show anger towards the liberal, mainstream media establishment. If we respected each other more, perhaps we could have reduced this anger.

I have empathy for liberals and their concerns. I have empathy for gays who are bullied and mistreated. I have empathy for gays who yearn to be parents. But I also see that empathy is a two-way street. You have to give it even when you think your position is morally superior.

I experienced this in the Middle East, where I routinely dealt with Muslims who believed things such as that anyone leaving Islam should be killed. I think that is a terrible belief. But strangely enough, one of my best friends from Jordan, a very kind and decent man, believes just that. We need to open our hearts a little bit, and realize that shame will not bring peace. Liberal America, you can start today. Try to understand conservative America--show them you understand them, and feel for them, even if you disagree--and maybe we can make Donald Trump a one term president.

Photo Credit:
By The Telegraph – http://wealthmodo.com/billionaire-donald-trump-idiot/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52498577

An Argument for the existence of God based on what we know of the universe

So here is a simple argument. An argument is different than a proof. This is not a proof, but more like a thought experiment. Also, not everything in this argument aligns perfectly with my beliefs about God. It is an argument for argument's sake. So here goes. Answer each of these questions to yourself as honestly as possible.

1. There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe, each with an estimated 100 billion stars. What is the likelihood that somewhere out there, there is a being of such an advanced level of understanding and power that he/she/it has powers we would consider "Godlike"? That he/she/it can read our minds? That to he/she/it, distance is irrelevant, and that he/she/it can arrange situations to create a desired outcome? That he/she/it can even speak to our minds? To understand the strength of this argument, check out this. In sum, some artificial intelligence theorists suggest that once we are able to teach computers to improve their own intelligence through re-writing their own programming, artificial intelligence will explode. It will expand so quickly that it won't be long before these computers would be as much above humans in intelligence as we are above ants in intelligence. Their powers could truly be god-like. If such a thing is so easy to conceive and seems possible, why wouldn't it have already happened somewhere in the universe? Isn't it conceivable that we are already under the control of such a being, for whom distance could be irrelevant?

2. What is the likelihood that such a being would want to help us advance to a higher level of being? Based on what we know about ourselves (which is really our only point to extrapolate from), altruism and the desire to "make a difference" might continue up the chain to higher level beings. This is an assumption, but what better assumption could we make? If this being wants to help us improve, he/she/it is starting to sound like a benevolent, all-powerful God who could actually be involved in our lives.

3. What is the likelihood that such a being would want to help us in an "indirect" manner so as to avoid destabilizing our natural growth process as a species and as individuals? To understand this argument, think of the "Prime Directive" in Star Trek. Essentially, a higher level being simply appearing (or descending in a space ship in Star Trek's case) and telling the lower-level species what to do would rob those beings of the chance to have their own civilization, their own development process.  Again, this is an assumption, but I think a reasonable one. This would explain why God doesn't just "prove himself" to everyone in a very physical way. It would also explain why there are so many religions: God may be speaking to chosen messengers (so as to maintain indirect contact), but mankind has a tendency to twist, take advantage of, and create counterfeit versions of any ideological teaching. This is just the reality of our human tendencies.

4. What is the likelihood that such a being would avoid detection by human attempts to prove/disprove he/she/its existence? What I mean by this is simply an extension of the previous point. A God-like being, trying to influence us in a moral, indirect manner would not want to be "proved." Such proof would be essentially the same thing as he/she/it revealing themselves directly. Such a being would be perfectly able to influence events without leaving a signature that would show up on our relatively crude scientific instruments. Such a being would be able to see such puny experiments coming well in advance.

6. What is the likelihood that such a being would only reveal themselves to sincere seekers? Sincerity, which we could define as a real intention to act on truth once it is learned, is by logical necessity an essential condition for real personal growth. If this being could see into our thoughts, why on earth would he/she/it reveal themselves to anyone who was not sincerely looking for that revelation? This would explain why religious seekers report all kinds of miracles and experiences in their lives, while those who are content in their secular lives don't report similar experiences. Many seculars conclude that the religious seekers are making these things up or are unable to see the difference between natural coincidence and divine intervention, but what if the difference is really that God intervenes visibly with some and not with others?

5. What is the likelihood that a God-like being would want to propagate its own kind (its species)? All we know about life indicates that this desire is deeply central to our psyches. Does the idea that God created man "in his own image" sound so strange with this in mind? No we have an even more Biblical sounding being on our hands.

My point is not to prove anything, but rather to show that belief in a God is not irrational, based on what we know of the universe and about life. It actually makes sense rationally, whether it is empirically true or not. The God I have called into possible existence through this post matches with the God that is taught in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which I belong (although there are many important aspects of our belief in God that I couldn't cover here). Essentially, He is a morally perfect being who has gained all of the power and knowledge which it is possible to gain. He is perfectly able to keep any promise He makes, because of his power and knowledge. He was once a man like us, but is now an exalted man. He spends His time and finds His joy populating the universe with more of His children, and helping them to ascend to higher and higher levels of existence.