February 19, 2018

Phil Beaver seeks to collaborate on the-objective-truth, which can only be discovered. The comment box below invites readers to write.

"Civic" refers to citizens who collaborate for responsible freedom more than for the city.

A personal paraphrase of the June 21, 1788 preamble:  We the civic citizens of nine of the thirteen United States commit-to and trust-in the purpose and goals stated herein --- integrity, justice, collaboration, defense, prosperity, liberty, and perpetuity --- and to cultivate limited services to us by the USA. I am willing to collaborate with other citizens on this paraphrase, yet may settle on and would always preserve the original text.   

Our Views (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_fef0462c-0a0e-11e8-b9e3-9b4017e9101e.html)

I understand neither The Advocate’s business plan nor its civic morality.

 

The employees could consider themselves first civic citizens with the paid responsibility to report the news without either imposing or tolerating coercion/force. That’s my view of the essence of the First Amendment regarding a free press: First do no harm. Statutory justice would fulfill the civic agreement that is stated in the preamble to the constitution for the USA.

 

In this case, civic interest (more for the individual than for the state) might have motivated one of the editors to compare the $2,446 annual cost to Baton Rouge drivers with an estimate of the cost of a 20 cents/gal increase in gasoline tax. At 12,000 miles/year and 16 mpg, that’s $150/year. (The 16:1 ratio can’t be cited, because the $150 would not solve all traffic costs.)

 

Second, The Advocate blindly regurgitates parochial terms in a cosmopolitan city. The inhabitants of metropolitan Baton Rouge have the religious distribution, 39% none, 35% factional Protestant, 23% Catholic, and 3% other religion. See bestplaces.net/religion/city/louisiana/baton_rouge. No religious faction has a monopoly on either empathy for individuals or the desire for justice.

The majority faction is non-religious. They make no claim to mystic morality but may be the leading faction for mutual, comprehensive safety and security; civic morality; statutory justice; the American agreement. The American republic offers each individual the agreement in the preamble to the constitution for the USA. After 229 years bemusement by congressional "deity" the people may stop neglecting the American agreement.

 

Is The Advocate a civic citizen or a dissident? I have my opinion on that and urge concrete reform. The Advocate could win a Pulitzer Prize by leading Baton Rouge to a civic culture. They could collaborate on ideas originated in four years’ EBRP library meetings by sixty people and more communications.

 

Establishing a civic culture can happen fast, with collaboration by most people, because there is no monopoly on human, personal authority to behave: each individual has that human authority for life. Each person is in charge of their energy during their lifetime. The daily commitment, in thought, word, and action---first do no harm---is each person’s opportunity. Neither government nor God usurps the personal freedom to choose either civic justice or dissidence. Statutory justice developed by a civic people keeps dissidents in check when harm is discovered.

 

The agreement that is stated in the preamble divides the people into two groups, each factional: civic citizens and dissidents, depending upon either commitment or negligence/opposition to justice. The Advocate is a person comprised of individuals.

JT McQuitty Thank you for the prompt. I think “majority,” respecting civic morality. I work to increase the faction that collaborates for civic morality, keeping religious morality private. The collaboration includes civically moral Christians and other civic believers.

For example, Congressional town meetings that are conducted by Christian gestapo (must be lower case gestapo) are un-American and I think unconstitutional. (No, David Vitter of 2008, I will not sue to try to make my point.)
 
The non-religious citizens perceive explicitly that a person’s God or none is not a topic for civic collaboration---the believer does not offer to collaborate about his or her God. However, many believers consider it a personal challenge worthy of violence if someone suggests that discovering justice according to the-objective-truth is grounded whereas theism is a temporal matter of personal opinion. For example, the Church once modelled the earth as flat and the center of the universe.

  
Using data from the citation, I divided inhabitants according to the topic: religion. I used a mathematical plurality to sum the factional Protestants. Adding the Catholic percentage, I subtracted from 100% to get the "other religious" plurality of 3%. That 3% includes small yet important civic groups, for example, Jews and Episcopalians. The religious plurality sums to 61%, which I regard as a combative collective rather than a factional majority.

  
The religious collective has bemused the USA in religious wars during the past 229 years---since Congress, in May, 1789, granted itself legislative deity under American factional Protestantism. Perhaps their 1789 motive was to compete with the English Parliament's "deity" under the Anglican Church. However, there is no moral excuse for the USA continuing the charade of legislative deity in Greece v Galloway (2014).

In 1789, America had about 18% black slaves, and free persons were 99% factional Protestant with 5% able to vote. Today, 100% of qualified Americans (citizen of age and non-felon) may vote, and traditional factional Protestants comprise 14% of the population. I don’t know how large black liberation theology is, but it seems to redefine Christianity:  God is black. Indigenous people in this country think God is red. (I own the book of that title, 30^th anniversary edition.) Today, more than ever more, the Catholic Church is factional, with different ethnic bishops in opposition to the pope.

Nationwide, about 70% of citizens are Christian. However, there are 4000 Christianities, and some Christian institutions are mutual opponents. Throughout the history of America’s religious struggles, the non-religious have been the objects of derision even while they paid the bills for the religious wars. In 1789, the non-religious was a small number. Today, they represent the majority, in Baton Rouge, a majority of 39% among the 61% religious plurality.

The Advocate publishes to a 39% non-religious majority, and their writers use language that appeals to the minority 23% Catholics and may be opposed by the other minority, the 38% other-religion collective.

    

Today’s thought, G.E. Dean (Leviticus 19:32-34 CJB), The Advocate, February 19, 2018, 5B.

"Stand up in the presence of a person with gray hair, show respect for the old; you are to fear your God; I am Adonai. ‘If a foreigner stays with you in your land, do not do him wrong.  Rather, treat the foreigner staying with you like the native-born among you — you are to love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt; I am Adonai your God.”

Dean, addressing V. 32, says, “We need to honor our elders. This is God’s way.”

  

The gray hair connotes chronological age, but psychological maturity comes with steady development of fidelity to the-objective-truth rather than constructed or adopted opinion: doctrine.

Physical and cultural evolutions have informed us that the way things are, humankind is maturing during some 3 million years of evolution, mysticism primitively addressed the unknowns, appreciation of actual reality led to discovery, and discovery disclosed the immensity of the-objective-truth that leads civic morality.

Similarly, the human individual requires two to three decades to build a complete brain (age 25) and acquire the understanding and intent to live a full life of some 90 years. If so, he or she uses three to four decades serving humankind, building wealth for retirement, and discovering his or her person. Thus in the 7^th or 8^th decade, a human may have the psychological maturity that could help anyone who would collaborate at the leading edge of discovery which the young is also experiencing.

The-objective-truth does not respond to reason, but reason rather than religion is necessary if the people will benefit from the-objective-truth. So far, the existence of God has not been disproved. Reliance on endurance is no substitute for fidelity to the-objective-truth.

At the leading edge of 2018 discovery, it seems unwise to teach children myths the parents neither believe nor practice. Children have the authority to develop judgment by which they reject the false examples adults present. However, some children are slow to recognize their own human authority and take early responsibility. They need coaching, and a civic culture would coach and demonstrate fidelity.

In a civic culture, a child is treated as a person from birth. He or she never imagined developing less discipline than mom and dad.

Other forums

quora.com/In-what-way-do-you-break-social-norms

The question: In what way do you break social norms?

I will be 75 in June and just in the past few weeks began to articulate my status: I am a civic person and expect to live in a future civic culture.

I work to establish a civic culture that transcends all no-harm societies, associations, and human pursuits. In that culture, civic people appreciate each other because their connections and transactions leave both parties with justice. Each one may then either return to responsible, private pursuits or meet again. Dissidents, those who oppose civic justice, either 1) observe the better way of living and join, perhaps reforming or 2) suffer statutory justice when harm they caused becomes known. I don’t think any society has a monopoly on the desire for comprehensive safety and security.

One of my best friends (since 1966) is about six years older than me, and he refers to me as “a loner.” Yet, about ten years ago he was diagnosed with cancer. He asked me to attend with friends who would tell their special connection with him before a prayer service. One member of his religious circle was shocked—-shaken—to see me there.

When I was about ten years old, I read the first page and the last page of the Holy Bible, KJV, and questioned the last two verses:  How can a being so weak as to threaten me be God? That precious doubt never left me, even though my Southern Baptist mom and dad were such good providers. I tried for four decades to force myself into the beliefs they wanted me to have.

Then, I learned that my family religion opposed my wife’s Louisiana-French Catholicism. I decided to collaborate with her by dropping out of religion, accepting my doubt. It took me another decade to accept my personal commitment: I do not know what I do not know, and that is alright. I did not fear my origins even before I was conceived, and nothing I have discovered justifies fear after my body, mind, and person stop functioning. This acceptance of my condition is for me only, and I do not want anyone to mimic my serenity: Let each person pursue their own happiness.

I estimate I have been in this serenity for the last fifteen years. I often ask my wife, in our 48th year of honeymooning, if she appreciates me more now than before, and she always says yes. I ask her if she wishes I were Catholic, and she says no, as long as I believe in God. I do not think I could articulate the following without her, yet I think every human should be able to understand what I have been writing and speaking for perhaps a couple weeks now.

Most people were reared to respect a higher power: a government, God, civilization, or perhaps other entity, depending on the person. Indeed, the earth cannot be enjoyed without justice. Also, I imagine everyone hopes the afterdeath will be all it can be. Sharing that ultimate-destiny hope, people may focus on civic morality for living: justice.

Each individual has the authority to spend the energy of his or her lifetime—a mere 90 years in humankind’s 2.8 million year path. Neither government nor God will usurp an individual’s human authority. If the individual realizes he or she has the authority to behave, he or she may develop his or her person’s judgment. If so, he or she may discover fidelity to the-objective-truth rather than conflict for a dominant opinion, coercion, or doctrine.

The-objective-truth can only be discovered. It does not respond to reason, but humans must employ reason to benefit from discovery. Some discoveries are only means to a future discovery that may negate the former discovery; also, evolution continues; thus, some of the-objective-truth is tentative. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity added space-time to Newton’s law of gravity. But the fact that the earth is like a globe rather than flat is certain for now. On the soft side of facts, the person who lies isolates himself or herself from civic conversation (Einstein, 1941; see My Friend Einstein? | Sam Harris). A person of integrity constrains a known liar.

The individual who practices fidelity to the-objective-truth may, by staying informed, live at the leading edge of his or her preferences for happiness, never yielding to or subjugating to someone else’s idea of happiness. That happiness may be grounded in civic morality. Religion may or may not be involved in the individual’s hopes and dreams, but his or her fidelity to the-objective-truth is invariant. In thought, word, and action, he or she first does no harm.

The literature shows that medical doctors realize that medical decisions are fallible. Therefore, I considered, with my wife and friend, to change to “first intends no harm.” We agree that in fidelity to the-objective-truth only “first do no harm” expresses integrity. The person faces any failure that emerges.

Each individual has the authority to spend the energy of his or her lifetime, and no one can usurp that authority. Fortunate is the person who discovers fidelity to the-objective-truth.

A person who strives to conform to social norms could not have discovered these ideas and expect to see them in wide use late in his or her lifetime, as I do, wrong as I may be.

Phil Beaver does not “know” the actual-reality. He trusts and is committed to the-objective-truth which can only be discovered. He is agent for A Civic People of the United States, a Louisiana, education non-profit corporation. See online at promotethepreamble.blogspot.com.