Photo: A Nearly Empty Soviet Grocery Store in the 1960s. 

Radical Sharing & Universal Love Don’t Work

(Essay #28, at 1-25-26)

Jesus’ Gospel of Radical Equality (Radical Sharing)

As we discuss in our Essay, Evaluating Jesus’ Teaching, Jesus preached a gospel of Radical Equality and Universal Love. Our main argument in this Essay is that an important aspect of Radical Equality called Radical Sharing simply doesn’t work. Radical Sharing is the second element of Jesus’ four-part message of Radical Equality:

1. Radically Equal Security — Reject all forms of violence, even in self-defense. Security will come through non-violence, by morally disarming the enemy. (“Turn the other cheek.” Matthew 5:39)
2. Radically Equal Consumption — Share all resources equally among all humans on Earth.
3. Radically Equal Status — Level out all social distinctions of rank, so that all humans have equal power. (Jesus breaks bread with tax collectors and prostitutes. Mark 2:13-17)
4. Universally Equal Love — Radically Equal Love of every Human being on Earth being equally. (“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:36-40)

Jesus said that if people would sincerely practice these Four Equalities, the Kingdom of Heaven would grow and flower as a giant mustard tree does from the tiny mustard seed. (Matthew 13:31)

The following two New Testament passages are clear statements of Jesus’ doctrines of Radical Equality and Universal Love:

• “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple… In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.’ ” (Luke 14:25-26 and 33)
• “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” (Matthew 19:21; Luke 18:22; and Mark 10:21)

It is worth noting that the Four Elements of Jesus’ message of Radical Equality roughly correspond to “Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Five Human Needs.” In Maslow’s hierarchy, Need #1 is the most basic Human need. Meeting Need #1 is a prerequisite for realizing Need #2; Meeting Need #2 is a prerequisite for realizing Need #3; and so on. Each successive need depends on having already met the lower-numbered needs.  People can’t reach for “Self-Actualization” unless they first have adequate food and shelter!

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

1. 1. • #5. Need for Self-actualization – Achieving Individual Potential 
      • #4. Need for Esteem, Achievement, Confidence, and Position in a group
      • #3. Need for Belonging and Love
      • #2. Need for Security and Safety
      • #1. Need for Air, Water, Food, Sleep, and Physical Warmth 

The dominant direction of Nature’s Continuing Creation is not toward radically equal sharing, peace, and love, but instead toward creativity, construction, and increased complexity.  As we see in our Essay, “The Processes of Evolution in Biology, Culture, & Technology,” evolution is driven by both competition and cooperation. Competition and cooperation interact to become the processes of Natural Creation. 

Stated another way, there are Three Drives at work in the Processes of Nature’s Continuing Creation:  

1. The Selfish-Aggressive drive (competition),
2. The Selfless-Sharing drive (cooperation).  And, when #1 and #2 are combined…. 
3. The Drive to Create and Build (Continuing Creation).

Travelers on Our Path conclude that the Creative Drive is usually a synthesis of the Selfish and the Selfless drives. Like Continuing Natural Creation itself, human nature encompasses all three Drives, and each of the three can be favored at times by Evolution, whether biological, technological, or cultural. 

Jesus’ doctrine of radical equality attempts to base all human conduct on Cooperation alone, with no weight given to Competition. This choice can never further the progress of Continuing Creation, because evolution (biological, cultural, technological) requires both cooperation and competition to function. 

• However, Radically Equal Security and some types of Equal Esteem and Respect are attainable goals, because all people have (or could have) equal human rights, and all are (or could be) equal before the law.

• Also, the emotion of Love can be both widely shared and yet quite fulsome. But the practical resources needed to bestow love — time, energy, and money — are not inexhaustible. If these resources are radically shared, no one will have gathered and concentrated enough of them to do much good.

What is “Radical Sharing” or “Equal Consumption?”

We will talk about Equal Security, Status, and Love (pacifism, social leveling, and universal love) at the end of this Essay.  For now, we would like to discuss Radical Sharing in more detail.

The “Platinum Rule” of Radical Sharing

We all know about the “Golden Rule“ — The principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. It is sometimes called an “ethics of reciprocity, meaning that you should reciprocate to others how you would like them to treat you (not necessarily how they actually treat you). Various expressions of this principle can be found in the tenets of most religions and creeds throughout history. ¹

In this Essay, we are considering the more expansive, “multi-cultural,” version of the Golden Rule called the “Platinum Rule,” which says, “Do unto others as they would want you to do.”  Since the poor will naturally want the rich to fully share all their property, this Platinum Rule expresses the full meaning of Jesus’ Morality of Radical Sharing. 

The Platinum Rule, however, does not meet the standards of our Nature-and-Science-based Path and Practice. The morality of Radical Sharing doesn’t work as an engine of evolution, discovery, or engineering.  It is impractical and suboptimal.  Few creative individuals and no creative and prosperous nations have successfully adopted this ethic.

If we followed the Christian ethic of Radical Sharing, we would share all our wealth with others, and others would share all their wealth with us. The result would be a radical leveling of wealth throughout the world. The difference between rich and poor would disappear, and everyone in the world would have “one room to live in and one pot to cook in.”

In today’s (2023) world, we can actually approximate what Radical sharing would mean for people across the globe. If we Google “average personal income in the world,” we read that the number is $9,733 (and $12,235 per family). We also read that there are roughly 8.0 billion people in the world. ²

While it is true that the reach of human sharing has generally moved outward over the last few millennia, Earth still hosts many tribal societies and many theocratic and/or dictatorial nation-states that limit sharing to people within their own societies. But in the one-world vision of modern Western-educated liberals, wealth should be extended to all of humanity right now. This modern ethic derives from Christianity’s doctrine of Radical Sharing.

Most scholars believe that Jesus and his Apostles lived a communal lifestyle because, by definition, a commune shares all goods and services equally among its members, according to need. Communes have been tried throughout history, but few have survived for more than a few decades. Many “kibbutz“ collectives begun in Israel in the early 1900s still survive, but their practices have become increasingly free-market oriented. Still, in 2023, the Foundation for Intentional Community reported that there are approximately 1,200 intentional communities worldwide, according to their “Communities Directory, Edition VII.” Some of these are religious institutions such as abbeys and monasteries. Many modern communes are part of the New Age Movement, which we discuss in our Essay, Smaller Religions & Modern Cults.

In the past 100 years, various Communist Governments have tried to undertake larger, nationwide Radical Sharing, including the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Venezuela, and Cambodia under the murderous dictator Pol Pot. All of them have failed, although North Korea does survive by means of brutal police-state repression and total control of all media.

The Problems with Radical Sharing

There are Three Major Problems with Radical Sharing:

> First Problem — Jesus’ Gospel of Radical Sharing is inconsistent with Human Sociobiology.

> Second Problem — Distributing the same amount of wealth to all individuals is not the best thing for Nature’s Continuing Creation as a whole.

> Third Problem — Radical Sharing detracts energy and resources from caring for Earth’s Biosphere (its environment & ecology).

1st Problem:  Radical Sharing is Inconsistent with Human Sociobiology

Humans naturally care more for the members of their immediate family than they do for non-family members. Our level of care naturally decreases as we move outward from the family circle to neighbors, then to tribes and interest groups, then on to citizens, and finally to the outermost circle of non-citizens.

When we try to deny our own family-centered biology, we risk undermining the foundation of our Human culture and our ability to transmit culture and love to the next generation.

We have noted that historical attempts to achieve Radical Sharing through communism have failed.  Why?  Because human beings prefer to work hard for their families, not for the state. This explains why corruption is so rampant in communist societies – people try to get around communism’s “radical sharing rules” so they can provide more for their own families.

Jesus’ Twelve Apostles, most of whom were married men, were called away from their families. (Matthew 8:14, 1 Corinthians 9:5-6, Acts 21:9).  But is it really moral to leave your family in the lurch and go off with some guru to seek spiritual or political revolution?  Most of us would say no.  It is likely that Jesus believed the Kingdom of God – God’s overthrow of the Roman Empire and the Messiah’s “Thousand-Year Reign of God’s Rule on Earth”- was at hand.  If the Kingdom of God were just around the corner, Jesus would have thought that families and child-rearing would not be needed.

In any case, there is little about family values anywhere in Jesus’ preaching. Whatever “family values” there are in the New Testament were added decades after Jesus’ death, mainly in the Apostle Paul’s Letters to various new Christian Congregations in the Mediterranean world.

Little wonder then, why practically minded fathers and mothers, sitting in the Christian pews over the centuries, have not seen fit to abandon all their goods just because Jesus said, “It is easier for wealthy people to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to enter the “Kingdom of God.” Today, millions of people profess to be Christians, but they practice “family values” instead.

The Way of Continuing Natural Creation says: Giving away all our wealth to the poor would leave Earth’s assets so diffused that capital could not be gathered for investments, and there would be no technological progress. Civilization would not have the concentration of wealth necessary to advance science, invent new technology, explore space or the oceans, maintain institutions of safety and law, or create great art. In short, the essential creative processes of NCC in the realm of Human culture would be stunted or even halted.

2nd Problem: Equal distribution to all people is not the best thing for Nature’s Creation as a whole.

There are Three Aspects of this Truth:

A. When Wealth is concentrated, it can be invested to Greater effect.

When wealth is concentrated, it can be invested, and when invested, it will create new and larger wealth in the future. This is true of both wealth in goods and services and of wealth in knowledge. This natural, evolved process — capitalism — has been the most effective engine for creating overall long-term prosperity and reducing poverty.

Is economic evolution (which is part competition and part cooperation) immoral because the concentration of wealth for investment leaves some of the population poor?  No, because the concentration of wealth for investment is needed to create more wealth, more knowledge, and more progress. 

However, not even capitalism may be able to keep pace with the rapidly growing human population and its increasing demand for all the resources needed to achieve an “American” lifestyle.  (On the other hand, robotics and Artificial Intelligence could possibly make an American lifestyle available worldwide.)

Still, we must point out that unregulated capitalism can lead to the over-concentration of wealth and power in politics and the military. Directed, regulated capitalism is the best system for providing goods and services because it harnesses the profit motive, which is already harnessed to the most insistent human urge – the urge to provide for one’s own immediate family.
— J.X. Mason

B. “Feed a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”

This well-known saying (above) is a folksy description of the power of investing today’s time and money into tools for the future.  It says that Radical Sharing only solves the problem in the short term, never in the long term.

Robert D. Lupton, in his 2011 book, Toxic Charity: How Churches & Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It), tells of a village in Africa that received a water pump from a charitable agency:

“This [pump] was great because it saved the women from having to walk miles to a neighboring village with empty plastic water jugs, fill them, and walk all the way back.  However, after about a year, the pump broke. The villagers had no spare parts, no skills, and no contacts to call to bring those things in. After a second year, the agency replaced the pump with a new one. Which also broke.  After several years, a different agency reformed the entire pump system, including training, tools, parts, and a list of part suppliers to contact. Now the village has a pump that operates all the time.” ³

Writing in his New York Times column of 7-31-2014, social and political commentator David Brooks agreed, and wrote that social research over the last decade or so has reinforced the point that… “If you can’t help people become more resilient, conscientious, or prudent, then all the cash transfers in the world will not produce permanent benefits.” ⁴ 

C. Resources Should Go to Their “Highest and Best Use”

The Greek Philosopher Aristotle’s definition of justice was, “When people get what they deserve.” He explained what he meant by asking the question, “Who should get the best flutes in the city [of Athens]?”  But we’ll make this question more about modern economics by asking, “Who should get the latest and best lasers for cutting sheets of tungsten?”

Should we give the lasers to:

1. The winners of a lottery, because that’s the ‘fairest’? Or…
2. The poorest or least-skilled workers, because we want them to prosper? Or…
3. The highest-skilled workers, because they will be able to use them in the most creative and productive way.

Aristotle would say that only the last alternative achieves justice.  Not only because the best workers will use the best lasers to make the best products, but also because the best workers deserve to get the best tools. Providing them with the best tools honors the best workers for their exceptional skills. (From the 2010 TED talk by Michael Sandel, “The Lost Art of Democratic Debate”)

Aristotle’s view (#3 above) is the preferred point of view because the new lasers will best advance the progress of Nature’s Continuing Creation if they are used by the best laser workers.

Clearly, Aristotle’s view is also what many would call the politically conservative point of view, and what many would call an “elitist” view. However, if all children receive equal educational and training opportunities, the system is not elitist… it is perfectly fair: the lasers will not go to the socially elite workers but to the most skilled (best-trained) workers. ⁵

Graduated Distribution of Wealth May Be Natural 

In the natural world, many things are not distributed equally. There are some individuals who are much brighter than others, and individuals who are much stronger or more creative than others. Intelligence, strength, and creativity are distributed according to the well-known “Bell-shaped Curve,” also known as a “Normal Probability Distribution,” where most people are clustered around the average.

Bell-shaped curve of test scores in an American school

Inverse Power Laws, Including “Zipf’s Law“

Other things in nature are distributed more severely, according to the so-called inverse power laws, which include Zipf’s Law. 

> For example, the second-most frequent word in any large book always appears approximately half as many times as the most frequent word. The third-most frequent word appears one-third as often as the most frequent, and so on.

> Similarly, the tenth-smallest lake in a land with many lakes (say, the state of Minnesota) will be nearly one-tenth as big as the largest lake.

> Another clear example is “income earned in a free market system.” In a free-market society, income is distributed according to Zipf’s Law. “Thus, the second wealthiest person in a society might own half as much as the richest, with the tenth richest possessing only a tenth as much.” So, while a CEO might earn $4,000,000 a year, the 100th-ranked worker will only earn about 1/100 of $4,000,000 = $40,000 per year. ⁶

According to the American mathematician Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (known as Rudy Rucker), “Inverse-Power Distributions Law is a fundamental law about the behavior of systems. These laws are as inevitable as turbulence, entropy, or the law of gravity.” ⁷ Since Zipf’s Law is so ubiquitous, it can be called a “law of Nature.” ⁸

Why is it that the top item in a Zipf’s Law distribution so very much outranks the items near the bottom?  No one knows!  

Unfortunately, in the U.S. in 2016, it is not uncommon for a CEO to earn as much as $10,000,000 a year, while their 100th-salaried worker earns only $30,000 a year.  In these cases, the tenth-lowest pay is not one one-hundredth of the COE’s pay, but only three one-thousandths of the CEO’s compensation. Clearly, income is so concentrated in America today that it is out of whack even with the laws of nature.

With the world’s richest 10% owning over 70% of all human wealth (as reported by the Congressional Budget Office), a great deal more sharing could be done than we do now. ⁹

Followers of Nature’s Continuing Creation argue that if human overpopulation could be reduced, the Earth would be much better equipped to provide everyone with a good standard of living. — JXM

Social Safety Nets

Despite these natural statistical distribution laws, societies may collectively (governmentally) decide to move toward having minimum standards — a “social safety net” — for the entire human population of that society.  However, Social Safety Nets are not as extreme as “Radical Sharing,” which is a fulsome leveling out of all wealth. Co-Creators in Our Practice generally support Social Safety Nets.

Some People Choose Radical Sharing

Of course, a significant minority of people around the world choose to dedicate nearly all their time, effort, and resources to charity.  For example, some crusading lawyers dedicate their entire careers to working for legal aid organizations at very low pay. Some orders of monks and nuns care for the sick and take a vow of poverty.  Buddhist monks, Christian monks, and Hindu sadhus also take a vow of poverty, devoting their lives to prayer and meditation.

Weavers in Nature’s Continuing Creation say: Monks and Nuns who care for the sick are certainly living moral and honorable lives.  However, it is wrong when the Old Religions hold such people up as paragons of virtue, which all of us should emulate.  History teaches us that people such as Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur, and Frank Lloyd Wright are just as important, perhaps more important, to Nature’s Continuing Creation than the nuns who care for the sick.  In the long run, Creating is more important than sharing. Only Creating brings forth the new; only Creating furthers the Patterns of Nature’s Continuing Creation. (As for monks and nuns who only meditate, pray, sing, and never teach those skills – they are leading, at best, morally neutral lives, since they contribute little to the furtherance of Nature’s Continuing Creation.) – JXM

3rd. Problem with Radical Sharing:  It Shortchanges the Biosphere

The third major problem with Radical Sharing is that it diverts resources from caring for Earth’s environment and ecology.  In human hunter-gatherer societies, sharing seldom extended beyond family, clan, and tribe. Today, we must dedicate more of our time, energy, and resources not only to encompass all of humanity, but also to encompass plants, creatures, and the intricate systems of our biosphere.  Without healthy ecosystems, the planet will not sustain human life.

Since resources are limited, we must reduce the resources now devoted to humanity as a whole, principally by limiting the growth of the human population through birth control.  But sharing resources with the biosphere can likely never be as strong as sharing with our immediate families.

We have finished our discussion of Radical Sharing.  Before closing this Essay, we want to talk briefly about three of the remaining elements of Radical Equality – Equal Security, Equal Status, and Equal Love.

Equal Security (Protection & Safety) vs. Radical Pacifism

Jesus advocated achieving Equal Protection in an unusual way.  He taught that we all should have no protection whatsoever against enemies and evil. Jesus instructs his followers to be radically pacifist in Matthew 5:38-40 (also Luke 6:29): “You have heard that it was said [in the Old Testament], ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.”

But in real life, what should we do when confronted with violence?  With life-threatening violence?  In the modern world, most of us would call for the agents of safety – police and the military – to come to our aid. But suppose those agencies are not nearby, and the threat is immediate?

We Co-Creators in Nature’s Continuing Creation say:  While a minority of us may elect to adopt non-violence (as do members of the Amish and Quaker faiths), the great majority of us recognize that this is not consistent with our fundamental biological drive to protect ourselves and our families. Still, Jesus’ doctrine did help us establish our very practical idea of “Equality Before the Law.”  For most of us, the ideal Moral Precepts take practical shape in our evolved pattern of common law, which divides violence into categories that include Moral classifications such as “self-defense” and “just warfare.”  Like most practical things, the morality of our evolved, case-based law requires a great deal of thought and work. The Path of Continuing Natural Creation has no easy answers.– JXM

Security & safety, like goods & services, cost time and effort. Therefore, it is biologically natural and moral that we should devote the greatest portion of our security and safety to the people we love the most – our immediate families. From there, we extend security outward by means of law and administration. Today, however, the tragedy of climate change teaches us that, once again, the survival of our species requires us to provide as much protection to the biosphere as we do to humanity as an abstract whole.

Radical Extension of Love to All Humanity

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gospel of Mark 12:31). This commandment is clearly unrealistic.  If a person has an immediate family, that family has first claim on a full measure of that person’s energy, and resources… and on a full measure of that person’s love.

Nevertheless, “agape,” the Greek word for non-sexual love of one’s fellow humans, can be extended far beyond the boundary of one’s immediate family.  Agape — Brotherly love — is not a scarce commodity as are goods and services.  It is freely flowing and renewable.  However, the practical extension of brotherly love is limited.  It is limited by one’s resources of time, energy, and wealth.

Courtesy, Synpathy, Empathy, Kindness & Compassion

Courtesy, sympathy, empathy, kindness, and compassion can and should transcend the boundaries of family, tribe, and nation. However, the intense familial love one has for family members and close friends almost never extends that far. Human socio-biology tells us that love within the family is more potent than our love for humanity in general. The Practice of Nature’s Continuing Creation reveals that there are Concentric Circles of concern surrounding each individual human.

We observe a gradation of decreasing care as we move from the inner ring to the outer ring: from love, to friendship, agape, concern, helpfulness, friendliness, empathy, sympathy, courtesy, doing no harm, and obeying the law.  While it is well and good to extend universal brotherly and sisterly love, for the vast majority of us, it cannot and should not be all-consuming.

Despite the problems with trying to extend Love equally to all humans, Jesus’ Christian concept does prepare the way for the more workable legal concept of equal rights – Human Rights — for all people.

Weavers of Nature’s Continuing Creation say:  While charity of time, effort, and money are limited and must be prioritized, the extension of kindness and empathy can be, and should be, free and flowing, especially toward people who are ill, people who are oppressed, the poor, and toward children.  We can all be philanthropists of kindness and empathy.  It requires no more resources, but simply a different attitude. Kindness and Empathy are part of a Virtuous Life, which we take up in our Essay, “Leading a Virtuous & Honorable Life.” 

Does this mean we set human Love aside? No, not at all.  As we say in our Essay, “Is God Love? Is Creating Love?“ We hold that Love is a vital type of Creating – it creates relationships. Very strong relationships.  In certain mammals, including elephants, humans, and perhaps dogs, love can be an emotional bond so strong that it is transcendent:  the whole of the relationship is greater than the sum of its parts.”  In such cases, one person may willingly give up his or her life to achieve the safety of another person(s) who is (are) loved.  It is also true that a human can love an entire group, tribe, nation, or even all humanity.  Cited religious examples include Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Francis of Assisi, and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

However, we are currently extending insufficient love to the Earth and its biosphere! Some of the love (and resources) we extend to our fellow humans need to be redirected to our Natural World and its creatures. 

Our Essay, “Leading a Fulfilled and Happy Life,” presents a path through life that is highly satisfying for most people. However, our way of life is not Jesus’ path of universal love, yielding before enemies, radical sharing, and communal living. The problem is that Jesus’ way is too often held up as the ideal, as the perfect life that all people should aspire to and try to follow.  Our Human evolution, our biology, tells us that Jesus’ path is a side stream, not the main course of the human river.

Humans are part of the evolutionary interplay of competition and cooperation.  We know in our DNA that family comes first; universal sharing is a false dream.  Participants in Our Way yearn to build, not redistribute.  We seek to find new knowledge, not drift off in a perpetual spiritual reverie, and not spend all our energies splitting up knowledge and wealth that already exists. Of course, a small minority of people do choose to follow Jesus’ Way – e.g., Christian and Buddhist nuns and monks.  Those volunteers are worthy of respect.

As we said earlier, technological and economic evolution is not immoral. Capitalism is the most effective engine for creating long-term prosperity and reducing poverty (although even capitalism cannot keep pace with the rapid growth of the human population). However, capitalism must be closely regulated, for two reasons: (a) to keep the rich from cheating the poor and (b) to keep the rich from accumulating a disproportionate share of total wealth even if they use only honest means.

Morality, Human Progress, & Team Sports

If “regulated competition,” i.e., the interplay of competition and cooperation, is the primary current of Continuing Natural Creation’s evolution, why haven’t humans established a spiritual practice centered around it?  We have achieved this through our organized team sports.

Soccer, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, and many others are a deliberate mix of cooperation and competition.  We work closely with our teammates and compete against the opposing team.

Competition in team sports is constrained and governed by established rules. The rules are clear and closely enforced. The rules embody an underlying spiritual ethic – the ethos of Fair Play and Good Sportsmanship. The philosophy of Fair Play says that only by confining and controlling both competition and cooperation (you are not allowed to cooperate with the opposing team) can the best outcome evolve.

In organized sports, what is the best outcome?  It is the most exciting, the most well-played, the most beautiful game.  For the participants, it is thrilling, rewarding, and character-building.

Interestingly, all of the major team sports are, by design, non-violent.  Soccer, baseball, basketball, and even ice hockey are all designed to be non-violent. Only rugby and American football involve violence, and even in these cases, the violence is largely controlled. Some violence has crept into ice hockey and basketball, but it is clearly not inherent in the design of those two games.

 Controlled (rule-based & refereed) competition in Women’s Basketball  

Team sports teach cooperation and competition.  Both are required for a “well-rounded” child because humanity has a split nature – we are a mix of cooperation and competition.  The Taoists represented this mix with Taoism’s Yin-Yang symbol.

This is why millions of parents in the United States care more about enrolling their children in team sports than in Sunday school.  Team sports teach a real-life ethic; Sunday school teaches an impractical, otherworldly ethic.  Adults also participate in team sports as spectators – millions watch the games in stadiums and on television worldwide.  True, they only participate mentally, but attending church is also a largely passive activity.

Indeed, for most people who attend church in the U.S., Christianity is a small part of their belief system. They love people outside their close family and friends, but only a little bit. They share with others, but only a little bit. They don’t live in communes. They don’t forgive all their enemies.

Could we not have a spiritual activity that has a good interplay of cooperation and competition, but which also actually creates things?  We do – Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire, science fairs, robotics team competitions, and others. They compete and/or cooperate to earn merit badges; they participate in community service, and they create things, such as ham radios, nature trails, and robots, as well as doing home repairs for those in need.

Business enterprises operating in a free enterprise or free market economic system are another form of melded cooperation and competition.  And here, of course, products and services are clearly created. There is, however, more hierarchy than there is in a sports team (although coaches can wield power that rivals that of a business owner or CEO).

In a free enterprise economy, the best outcome is the furtherance of Continuing Natural Creation’s progress, as long as that has been defined to include the welfare of the Earth and Earth’s biosphere. In a free enterprise, the “rules” are the evolved principles of commercial law, as developed over the centuries through trial decisions and government regulation.

The Purpose of Life, for the vast majority of people in modern societies, is not to dedicate one’s life to meditation and contemplation, but to contribute to the progress of Nature’s Continuing Creation: The Growing Organizing, Direction of the Cosmos, while finding periods of meditation and contemplation within what President Theodore Roosevelt called “The Strenuous Life.” ¹⁰

__________________________________________

    — J.X. Mason   ContinuingCreation.org

Footnotes to this Essay, #28:

1. Antony Flew, ed. (1979). “Golden Rule,” A Dictionary of Philosophy, 1979, Pan Books with The MacMillan Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-330-48730-6.
2. See https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/. See also, https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.
3. Robert D. Lupton, Toxic Charity: How the Church Hurts Those They Help and How to Reverse It, 2011, Harper Collins.
4. Quote from “The Character Factory, New York Times, 7-31-02014u article in NYT, Friday, August 1, 2014.
5. Michael Sandel, “The Lost Art of Democratic Debate,” 2010, TED Talk, seen on YouTube, July 2023. 
6. Paraphrased from Rudy Rucker, “Inverse Power Laws,” in John Brockman, Ed., This Explains Everything, 2013, Harper Perennial, 367-369.
7. Dr. Rudy Rucker, “Inverse Power Laws, in John Brockman, Ed., This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works, 2013, pp. 367-369.
8. Stephen Fagan and Ramazan Gencay, “An Introduction to Textual Econometrics, 2010, in Aman Ullah and E.A. David, Eds., Handbook of Empirical Economics and Finance, CRC Press, pp. 133–153, ISBN 9781420070361.
9. Jeanne Sahadi, “The Richest 10% hold 76% of the Wealth,” CNN Money, 8-18-16. http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/18/pf/wealth-inequality/index.html.
10. “The Strenuous Life,” a speech given by New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt on 4-10-1899.