To begin: I must note, there are people whose lives are a ceaseless misery. They are in constant pain, from disease or injury. Other people live in horror. They suffer daily abuse: physical, emotional...(fill in the blank. They all apply.) If your Mom ever told you, "There's always someone worse off than you." They ARE the person worse off than you!
Having said that, most of us enjoy a life that is not ALL bad. This got me thinking about a quantitative measure of how good or bad life is. I did a survey on the percentage difference between good & bad things in the world, polling, mostly, SG members. (only 3 participants were not) If you didn't answer, or said you can't answer, I put you at 50/50, because you didn't express a preference, either way. Essentially, this is an SG consensus on the state of the universe!
I started the survey at about, the same time as the tragic Belgian incident. I thought, that would skew the results to the negative side, but not so! The SG consensus is, that 57.3 percent of things in the world are GOOD, & only 42.7 percent bad. I could see the numbers running to the positive side, but even I was surprised at the optimistic results. It helped me see that most people see a lot of good around them, despite the fact that the bad gets, practically all the press. And I needed to adjust my own attitude needed to be adjusted, upwards.
I was a 40 good, 60 bad man A lot of this is rooted in my issues with the Christian religion I practiced, most of my life. Long story,short - the biggest problem, of the many, is Christianity's view of human beings. I found that, in order to love god, I first had to hate myself! To borrow a word from AMAZING GRACE, I had to see myself as a wretch, as totally depraved, in need of a Savior! Not all churches use language like "total depravity", but, if you're a Christian, you have to confront the fact that your religion isn't about making a good thing better! Jesus didn't die on the cross to improve a world god is happy with. old Yahweh is pissed as hell at us, for our sins - & only blood will satisfy him! Thus, I have come to see that pure, random chance is far more compassionate than the Christian god.
Using numbers helped me get a handle on some philosophical questions. For instance, anything below 50/50, we're screwed anyway. if the deity really doesn't like us, nothing really matters. 5 points to either side, atheism is the only thing that makes sense. 56 to 66 - you've got a deity that may be able to cover the point spread, but can't win enough to justify the exorbitant contract he's got. 66 to 80 - you've got Christianity's "gym teacher on high". He loves us, but lets a lot of bad things happen because of our free will. "Of course, I want you to climb that rope, like all the other kids did. & you could, if you weren't such a Wuss!" from 80 on, we start to hope that he may love us, whether we fall down & worship him or not.
One participant advanced the theory that 80% percent of us don't really push the needle one way or the other. We're too absorbed in our own lives to make the world better or worse. This leaves 10 % who really are depraved wretches, the Stalins & Hitlers of the world, who practice heinous evil. The last 10% percent practice heroic goodness - the Ghandis, & Mother Theresas, who make the world safe for the rest of us to live in.
It seems to me, if a lot of us got together & decided to be good to others in simple ways, to give a little more than we take, we could move the needle, a little bit, for those who suffer, & face the ups & downs of our lives with equanimity.
