On Character and Faith -- Reliigion, Atheism, and Humanistic-Existentialism

It is not a man's faith or religion that determines the quality of his or her character -- although in the best of circumstances it can certainly help; rather, it a man's character that determines the quality of his or her faith, religion, non-faith, and/or non-religion.

There are humanistic Protestants, Catholics, Anglicans, Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Hindus, Budhists, Pantheists, Deists, Agnostics, Atheists...And there are narcissistic, nasty, evil people in the world who call themselves by any of the same names...

The key is not their God, their Faith, their religion -- or their lack of it.

Rather, the key is a combination of self-assertiveness, self-responsibility, self-accountability which included honesty and integrity -- and a certain element of narcissism, hedonism, sensuality, excitement, egotism, and self-confidence...held in check and balanced by the other side of the 'self-social equation' which includes: social compassion, caring, sensitivity, empathy, love, generosity, altruism...

The last part of the self-social equation I refer to as: 'humanism' (social compassion); the first part of the self-social equation I refer to as 'existentialism' (self-assertiveness, self-responsibilitiy, self-accountability...).

In short form, I call the self-social equation -- 'humanistic-existentialism'.


So re-worded, my self-social formula can be presented in this manner:


It is not a person's God, Faith, Religion, or non-Religion that determines his or her character; but rather, the extent of his or her 'humanistic-existentilism' -- whether that be 'religious humnistic-existentialism' on the one end of the religious bi-polarity spectrum, 'pantheism' and 'deism' somewhere in the middle of the religious bi-polarity spectrum, or 'atheist humanistic-existentialism' on the other far end of the religious-non-religious bi-polarity spectrum.


Simplied, the extent of a person's humanistic-existentialism is more important to the make-up of his or her character than the religion or non-religion, Faith or non-Faith, that he or she follows -- or professes to follow.

That is why freedom of religion/non-religion remains so importnat to the constitutinal rights of any citizen -- and to his or her rights in the military, govenrment, and/or any other social and/or business organization.

And that is why I give my vote of support for the rights of 'The Atheist Soldier'. (See the CNN article on this most important constitutional issue.)

dgb, July 12th, 2008.