Nature vs. Nurture

Biases, prejudice, intolerance – these human characteristics, which are so entwined in so much of human struggle, seem not to be qualities we are born with. So for the “nature vs. nurture” aficionados, listen up – feeling that you are better or superior to another group of humans is plainly “nurture” – that is it is something you learn from your early environment growing up – this is not rocket science.

I leave it to the psychologists and sociologists to help explain this phenomena – but my uneducated guess is that there is some feeling of security and esteem achieved by various activities that makes one feel to be “better” or “superior” to someone else. Or for your “group” to be seen as better or superior to another.

Being a WASP myself (only by definition – not by pride), I was in for a shock when I first lived outside the United States in Saudi Arabia. There American white men were not at the top of the pecking order. In Saudi it was the Saudi men and this also varied by tribe, age, and wealth. Baboons and other apes have long been studied and shown to have a very structured and constantly tested hierarchical order – so possibly there are advantages in nature to this “I’m better than you” mentality.

But at birth and at death - those crucial intersections with eternity – it seems that human pride and vanity are for naught – and perhaps we might examine how more humility might afford individuals and societies a better quality of life. After all – isn’t that a core Jesus idea?

R U "Born-Again"?

Each year, Lake Superior State University releases its List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness. Such words as “get-er-done” and “breaking news” made the 2006 list.

So I’ve submitted a phrase for consideration for their 2007 list – “born-again”. I spent the first 50 years of my life as a Southern Baptist without ever hearing this phrase, which seems to have just sprung onto the fundamentalist Christian scene. And it is increasingly nauseating in its hypocrisy and ambiguity.

I submit it is an invention of man and not God and I am confused and befuddled, as the baptism I received as a child, and in my childlike faith, seems not to have the lifetime warranty I was led to believe.

What is it to be “born-again? Is this hitting bottom and coming to some realization? Is it a religious experience that transcends normal experience? It is merely a renewal of one’s vows? Who knows – but it has become part of the scene, especially for the evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in America.

Personally, I am constantly reborn, each morning and each moment – so to state it would be a bit redundant wouldn’t it?

But with the bully pulpit becoming just that for our born-again President, it just becomes increasingly blurry where government stops and religion starts.