WHY WHICH BRAND OF SELF DRIVING CAR YOU BUY MATTERS

You Catholic faith has a lot to do with what self driving car you buy in the future.

Maybe ten years from now you are happily driving (well, riding) along, drinking you coffee and finishing up some last minute things as your car speedily scoots you along to your destination.  All of a sudden and in a way that could not be predicted, three people tumble into the street in your path: an elderly man, a pregnant woman and a well dressed middle aged guy.  There is nothing that can be done!  The car will have to hit one of these people while you drink your coffee or veer off of a cliff killing you, possibly some woodland creatures and possibly cause some pollution to the environment.

The decision is not made in a vacuum.  A computer does not make this decision.  All of the input comes from human beings and somewhere along the line someone programed a decision as to who will be sacrificed in the computer’s brain.  As it turns out the old man is a great senator, the woman would go on to be a terrible mother causing her child to be a terrorist and the well dressed man was on a job interview, that he didn’t get, and will spend the next 30 years living for free in his mother’s basement playing video games.  Does this matter?

Who gets to decide who gets hit?  Are you still morally culpable in any way?  What if you have to decide, before you buy the car, what moral standards you will use.

You new car comes with your choice of:

Traditional Judeo/Christian ethics

Revised Judeo/Christian ethics for the modern person

Atheist

non-denominational

Buddhist

Utilitarianism

AND MANY MORE!  YOU CHOOSE!

Often the Catholic Church is accused of being anti-science (an illusion of which an honest historian will relieve you.)  Often the Church is just saying, “This is new territory and we should think about the moral implications before blindly going forward and ending up someplace we don’t want to be.”  Science, as is its current nature, wants to march on with what it can do (rather than, sometimes, what it should do) and wants to police itself (which we see how well that turned out in the Catholic hierarchy.)  

Go science!  Go faith!  Hand in hand we can do much good together.

WHO ARE YOU WHEN A MACHINE TAKES YOUR JOB?

So . . .

 

Let’s assume that yesterday’s video was mostly on the spot.  For almost 50% of everybody working now there will not be a job in the foreseeable future because there will be a machine and/or computer that will do the job more quickly, more accurately, more abundantly, less expensively, and untiringly.  Where does that leave you Mr. and Mrs. Wrong Side of the 50% line?

 

We gain so much of our self understanding and our self worth by having something to do.  Questions about this usually are at the top of the list when speaking with somebody you just met and you are looking for ways to connect. 

 

“So, what do you do for a living?”

 

We are worthy because we are useful it seems.  Those who’s right to live are most in jeopardy in society are those who can’t “do.”  For example, yesterday’s post of Mr. Dawkins who stated that it is immoral for women who have a Down Syndrome Baby not to abort.  Why?  Because, in his eyes, they are not useful.  And so it is with the elderly, persons with disabilities, with diminished brain capacity, who are yet to be born . . .  These people are in danger of not being useful enough for society. 

 

Now dump into the mix all those who are, through no fault of their own, now unemployable.  (Scary if you were already on this list and now there is a huge group of people dumped on top of you pushing even further down.)  It seems to me that there is going to be crisis of dignity.  Who am I?  How do I find my self worth?  What does it mean to be human?  How do I matter?

 

I think it will be the Catholic Church in particular who will come to the aid of mankind.  Though we do talk about the dignity of work, we are not defined by our work nor do we find our dignity because we can and do work.

 

When are you no longer responsible for loving a person?  Everybody loves a baby.  We say that a baby is adopted into the family of God at baptism.  Is that when they become lovable?  Of course not.  Is it at birth?  Some would argue so.  How about when the baby is still in the womb?  The matter gets murky for some here.  Yet we read in Scripture, “Before you were knit together in your mother’s womb I knew you.”  We were known and loved even before our conception extending our dignity back to creation.  So what about at the other end?  Do we become less the children of God as we become less able bodied?  The rich and poor, the able and the disabled, the young and the old have been given a place to go.  Each retains their dignity as a human being because they are destined for eternal life.  We were loved since the beginning of time and for all time.  The work that you do here will all pass away.  Our thoughts no matter how brilliant will be forgotten.  Some day our solar system will simply cease to be.  What of all that work you did?  “Vanity of vanities says Qoheleth!”  The only redeeming part of work is that it assists you and others into heaven. 

 

There is a man that I met about whom I wrote once before who owns a car lot.  “You know what I do for a living?” he once asked.  Sell cars was not the answer.  “I provide an opportunity for people to work so that they can raise their families in security.  That is what I do for a living.”  My chiropractor sees his job as helping others (particularly priests) minister and do their jobs better.  It is not simply about making money or being famous both birds with wings.

 

At the end of time, you as a human being will still exists and in fact, be fulfilling the role for which you were designed which shall bring you fulfillment and joy.  “Not so machines, not so.  For they like winnowed chaff shall be driven away by the wind.”  No matter how clever a machine will be, it has no purpose in life but to serve man.  When it becomes useless it is not immoral to shut it down because it has not dignity other than how it can serve us.  Or when the universe come to an end, all machines will simply cease to exist.  All of its labor pointless.  There will be no one to remember, appreciate, record, or welcome it into a new existence.

 

That is not the case for you.  Your dignity is in that you were designed to be loved, you are loved, and you will be welcomed lovingly into that place where being human makes most sense – even more so than here whether you were considered worthy or not on earth.  Mr. Dawkins would have you believe you are not worth more than a how good a machine you are.  One universe is livable even if we can’t work, the other unbearable, violent, brutish, and short.

 

It is this belief we have as Catholics that makes us stand virtually alone as a body in fighting for the rights of the unborn.  In the future, it may be this belief that tells people who are no longer able to work that they are still lovable, worthwhile human beings because they were made so by a Father who loves them and is preparing place for them.

WITH THIS LUGNUT

Okay, I did NOT see this one coming.

 

Though I should have.

 

I remember having the discussion that if the definition of marriage was changed from its ancient understanding that was attached to procreation and family (or even sex for that matter) and base it solely on strong emotional bonds that it would lead to other forms of marriage other than just between two people and being told, “Oh no, that would NEVER happen.”  Well since then we have had the mother who wanted to marry her daughter in order to assist her in raising her daughter.  More recently we have had the case of the three women who married out west and one of them being inseminated in order for triumvirate to raise a family.

 

BUT I WASN’T IMAGINING CREATIVELY ENOUGH!

 

Yesterday (Wednesday) on NPR there was a story about the development of robots.  As they become more complicated and self-sufficient the question was asked at what point will they become “persons.”  The prediction was that their rights would develop over time.  Robots will slowing gain “rights” and eventually be able to sue.  Law suits could be filed not because the owner of a robot was seeking damages to his property but that the robot would be able to sue for violation of (his?) person.  The prediction was that 20 years following the first successful suing by a robot (against a human or another robot was not specified) there will be the first wedding.  (Again, they did not specify if it was between a robot and a person or two robots – but now we see almost anything can go.)

Here is another article on the topic.

 

Which all leads back to the sticking point: Once marriage can mean anything, it ceases to mean anything.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: I TOLD YOU SO

Paragraph 3 of Dei Verbum

 

Do you remember Mike, the young man from Monday diary?  No matter where he looked, he did not see God.  He knew there was not such “thing” as God.  How odd it is then that for the attentive believer, it is difficult to look and not see God.  He reveals a bit of Himself in all of creation just like the artists reveals a bit of himself in his artwork.  He not only reveals Himself in His works, but through His deeds. 

 

Mike will buy anything scientific that such people tell him.  He does not have to see it, taste it, hear it, feel it, or smell it personally, but because scientists tell him that it is so and he trusts them and he “believes” it.  (Thus is he a man of faith and dogma.)  I understand that in theory he could do all the experiments to prove it to himself, though it would take a great many lifetimes. 

 

In a similar way, the Testaments are chuck full of people telling us that God does exist because they (heard Him, touched Him, saw Him . . .).  For some reason, these persons are easy to discount.  Whereas scientists may less likely be discounted, people of faith, in Mike’s world, almost always are.  Anyone before the modern era is considered inferior intellectually and could never recount phenomena accurately.  (What will future generations say of us?  How primitive and barbaric we may seem those in the future!  But are there not truths we can know now?  Can we not know there is more to life than what we can touch, feel, see, taste, and hear?  Is not the universe so much bigger than what we can put at the end of a telescope?)

 

And through this relationship with God, we have been told to expect Savior right from the first moment we needed one beginning with the proto-Gospel of Genesis 3:15 and continually throughout the Old Testament making Christ the only founder of a major religion that was foretold by prophets.

 

As St. Thomas said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

EVERYONE "BELEIVES" IN SOMETHING

I was set to write something completely different and then someone sent me a link to a website that had this statement on it:

 

“Proud, vocal, unapologetic atheist, freethinker and secular humanist. Science teacher. President of northeast Ohio branch of Center for Inquiry. Member of Freedom From Religion Foundation, Cleveland Freethinkers and Cleveland Skeptics.”

 

He is calling for like minded people to get together and talk.  The sessions would be pretty open to, “Anything that is intellectually stimulating and interesting.”  Would that Christians would be so bold. 

 

As a side note, I do find it interesting how similar what they want to do is to Church.  They want community and a gathering.  They will have a set of beliefs with its own set of presuppositions that are as utterly improvable as the faiths they disdain.  There will also be dogma.  Consider the acceptable areas of inquiry being, “intellectually stimulating and interesting.”  Who gets to decide this?  The president?  (a pope – every Church has its version of a pope) or a committee (a curia)?  I am pretty sure that things that I find stimulating and interesting would probably off limits.  But I could be wrong on that.

 

But what are the main differences between this gathering and Church?  Well, yes, of course whether there is a God (or gods) or not.  Though both are seeking community, both are seeking truth, but one is seeking the “how” of the universe, and the other is seeking the “Who.”  One hopes to understand causality (this happened because this happened because this happened), the other on relationship between persons of this world and the Persons of another place.

 

Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about this in his book, “A Philosophy of Judaism” (h/t Adam).  He is describing what each of these groups are looking for when they look at something such as the book of Genesis:

 

“There is, for example, a basic difference in meaning, intention, and them between a scientific theory of the origin of the universe and what the first chapters of the Book of Genesis are trying to convey.  The Book of Genesis does not intend to explain anything; the mystery of the world’s coming into being is in no way made more intelligible by a statement such as, ‘At the beginning God created heaven and earth.’  The Bible and science do not deal with the same problem.  Scientific theory inquires: What is the cause of the universe?  It thinks in the category of causality, and causality conceives of the relationship between a cause and effect. . .  The Bible, on the other hand, conceives of the relationship of the Creator and the universe as a relationship between two essentially different and incomparable entities, and regards creation itself as an event rather than as a process.  Creation, then, is an idea that transcends causality; it tell us how it comes that there is causality at all.  Rather than explaining the world in categories borrowed from nature, it alludes to what made nature possible, namely, an act of the freedom of God.”

 

(There’s a lot there.  Spend some time with that if you have the time.)

 

It takes just as much faith to say that creation just always was than to say that it was created.  But to say that there is an infinite Creator (or at least a Creator Who is outside of time) begins to give an answer.  It also allows for a bigger universe both in terms of the size of existence and the realm of knowing for belief (at least Catholicism) allows for (and developed much of) scientific “belief,” but the discussion group proposed at the beginning of this post does not allow for the opposite.  (I can talk to him, but he cannot countenance me.)  And that creates an incredibly limited universe. 

 

It is also sad.  For taken to its logical conclusion, the type of belief system proposed by the gentleman above leads to the belief that human beings are utterly pointless.  The group, in turn, becomes pointless.  Even the pursuit of knowledge is a chase after the wind.  We are an accident of the universe.  We only exist for ourselves, and when we are dead we cease to exist, when we are extinct there will be no one even to know it, or care, or remember . . . we are entirely without purpose or meaning.  And this leads to a horrible form of morality.  A culture of death.  It becomes about what is best for me because that is all that really matters.

 

And that, to me, sounds neither honest, hopeful, complete, intellectually stimulating, or interesting.

RANT - COUNTER RANT: SOME (WHAT I HOPE IS) MEDIEVAL THINKING

Joe Cullen of Alliance wrote a letter to the editor of the Akron Beacon Journal about guns and the NRA and PUCO, which might be good, but he so incredible annoyed me with his first sentence that I could not read on any further.  It was an unwarranted and ignorant attack on the Church.

 

Here is the sentence in part:  “. . .[it] makes me wonder if we are revisiting the times of Galileo and Pope Urban VIII.  That subject is a fear or hatred of science.”

 

This fallacy is kicked around so often it is thought of in the collective memory as true.  It is like Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” the story of the hunch-backed diabolical king of England that is such a good story that if it isn’t true, it should be.  Yet it is not.  In fact, Richard might have been one of the finest kings ever to sit on the thrown.  But who really cares in the light of such a good and well believed story?

 

So it is with Galileo and the Church.  To begin with, is it not odd that this is practically the only story that pops into anybody’s mind demonstrating a rocky relationship between the Church and science?  How many other monumental stories can you sight from history?  This is not an example of a war between science and faith, this is an example of the exception to the rule. 

 

Further, Galileo did not invent the idea that the sun was the center of our solar system.  It had been well known as a theory for centuries.  Further, a tiny bit of research would have revealed to Mr. Cullum that Galileo did not prove anything.  It was a theory that he put forth as fact that could not be proven by the scientific method.  Yet, despite warnings from his fellow scientists he put the theory forth as fact.  Further, he was wrong in stating that it was fact that the sun was the center of the universe. 

 

Yet still he might have been fine had he remained in the area of science.  Yet he pushed into areas of theology making bold statements using his (only partially correct, un-provable theory) as a means to dictate to Scripture scholars how they must interpret Scripture.  Then after many cautions and (perhaps inadvertently) publically humiliating the pope and alienating the scientific community, he was placed under house arrest under the most generous of circumstances. 

 

Could the whole thing been handled better?  Yes on both sides.  Was it the hatred of science that it is always carted out as demonstrating?  Not even remotely.

 

Far from being hostile to the science, the Church embraces science, has produced great scientists, has supported great science.  From the microscope to the telescope to the Big Band theory (as “invented” by a Jesuit priest) the Church helped invent, fund, support, and teach great science.  It is all there in history, methodically ignored by “historians” and misinformed writers of letters to the editor who try to make a point using false “truths”.

 

One thing that I don’t blame Mr. Cullun for is the title of his letter which was undoubtedly chosen by an equally misinformed editor.  “Medieval Thinking”  Not to say that the Medieval period was all a piece of cake, it had some serious problems.  But it was not all the vacuous black hole of human intellegence that light weight historians like to believe (and teach) that it was.  From this period we have the birth of universities, hospitals, modern forms of government, unparalleled opportunities for women to be educated and placed in positions of power (through the Church).  Architecture flourished.  Mathematics and philosophy and the intellectual life in general made great strides.  Countries were brought under leadership making crime and violence in a unified Christendom less of a threat.  Art takes on new importance. 

 

It is easy to look back on an age and point out all the bad aspects of it.  One can only guess how we will be viewed: the bloodiest centuries ever, wars, mass shootings, abortion, pollution, the highest ever incarceration rate, the suppression of religion, one third of the world starving and one third of the world eating itself to death, the baseness of modern entertainment . . . the list could go on and on.  So to use the term “Medieval” as a derogatory word is both pointless and misleading.  One could come up with a very plausible argument that the editor disagrees with the writer of the article sighting that he believes the Galilean controversy was enlightened.

 

(Can you tell I’ve been brooding about this for two days?)

 

The irony here is that Mr. Cullun and the paper did exactly what Galileo did (and I fulfilled the role of the pope.)  They state things as fact, based on faulty information, when they could have done so much good.  And I felt I had to set the record straight.  I would not, however place them under house arrest, I would take their pens away until they attended a middle school history course.

 Maybe they could start here.

TWO SIDES OF A COIN?

 Religion starts wars.

Science feeds people.

Actually I understand the mindset. If someone inside or outside the belief system is not well educated this can seem, sadly, very true. But since this is a blog for happy Catholics, let us take the opposite in order to understand why someone would believe the statements above.

There is no proof that smoking is bad for you. Margarine is much better for you than butter. You need 8 glasses of water, two glasses of milk, and glass each of orange juice, coffee, and wine each day. Leaches are good for what ails you. The world will run out of food by the year 2000. Y2K.

People who eschew faith for science because it is fact based and provable (unlike religion) have to face such little scandals. (I am positive we are blindly in the middle of any number of them at this current moment only to be revealed at a later, more enlightened – or less enlightened – date.) Many excuses may be made – very legitimate excuses. Faulty science may be at fault. People manipulating data in order to promote some agenda may be at fault. Societal prejudice may be at fault. Any number of things may mar the glory of true science.

These are not little matters. They sway national and international policies. They dictate how we treat our bodies and the bodies of those in our care. They determine how we interact with the environment and so forth. When science is wrong it does an incredible amount of damage. This causes many to read the latest breakthroughs in science in the newspaper with a role of the eyes and wait and see mentality. There is a reason that there is a global warming debate. If science was always correct (as it gets to the masses anyway) everybody would have just gone, “O dear! Let’s do something about this!”

The counter is that science is often manipulated or performed by poorly trained or influenced persons claiming to be scientists. This is true. Science at its best is a great gift to man. When done properly it does magnificent things for us. But the persons reading about the latest breakthrough over his breakfast cereal has no way of determining if coffee is actually good for you now.

Now imagine what a science minded person has to face when confronted with Christianity. How do I know what constitutes true faith and what is practiced by poorly educated preachers? How can I put my faith in Christianity when hear one moment that homosexual activity can either cast you into hell or make you a bishop? You worry about that stuff I am going to go try to find ways to feed more people.

It is good to be aware of this conundrum. It is difficult to overcome. We believe that it is not science versus religion – an and/or proposition. They need to be united as two pillars. When they go their separate ways something is wrong either in one of the camps. They should work together to inform us how to be better human beings, how to live in our world, how to understand our creator.

HATFIELDS AND THE MACOYS

Our secretary had an egg for lunch the other day.

“Did you hear the good news?” she asked, “Science now says that we can have an egg a day!”

What you are about to read may sound like a rip on science but it is not. It is just brought up in order to make a point.

Because of science my Mother started buying oleo because science said it was better for you. Later they said it was not. In fact, it was one of the worst dietary things you could put in your body.

The eleven glasses of water we were supposed to drink a day? It could potentially kill you.

The various predictions of the end of the world in our time due to over population and lack of food – well, I’m still here. And my computer is still working after Y2K to boot.

Diet pop may now harm you BUT we should start drinking wine and eating dark chocolate now.

The food pyramid that we learned in grade school is gone replaced by something else.

Now if you were to present these ideas (and many more) to a scientist and say, “This is why I am having difficulties giving myself over completely to science,” he might reply, “You have to understand what is going on. Sometimes there is just bad science going on by scientists who are not so good. Sometimes companies manipulate science in order to sell things such as the tobacco industry hiring scientists to say that there was no scientific evidence that smoking was bad for your health. There are fads in science also that just need to work through and get out such “quality time” with your kids being even better than just wasting time with your kids. It does not diminish true science however. True science brings us to truth and benefits all of humankind. It was faulty science that said we would all be well into starving by now but it was also science that prevented us from starving.”

I would agree.

But now reverse it. Imagine a scientist pointing out all of the damage that people have done in the name of religion. It would be just as easy if not easier to come up with a list. We might say to him, “You have to understand what is going on. Sometimes there are just bad Christians preaching religion that is not so good. Sometimes pastors will manipulate people with religion to get you to donate money to expand their ministry. There are fads in religion that just need to work through and get out such as felt banners. It does not diminish religion however. True faith brings us to truth and benefits all of humankind. It was faulty religion that predicted the end of the world at various times but it was also religion that helped see people through those times.

Science and religion both have their public tasks cut out for them though science seems to have an upper hand in public relations at the moment. But it should always be that: Science AND religion working at their best to bring us to truth – and this is one of the things that I love about the Catholic Church that it does respect science as much as it does.

RAMBLINGS AND THOUGHTS

It is fully realized that this post might easily be misinterpreted. What will be stated here is so contradictory to “common knowledge” as to label me anti-science. Yet I am quite the opposite. I have a great appreciation, gratitude, and respect for science. But like the Church, the scientific world is run by humans and so had its foibles and limitations both in leadership and in its following. And when taken to the extreme it is in every way like a religion.

It is interesting to look at what was taken as historical scientific fact in the past which has in more recent times been declared bunk. Yet those who held the position were militant and those who did not follow the absolute rule of science were considered kooks at best. We will find that today too. Some of our practices will seem to future generations barbaric and our beliefs in some scientific principles silly. In the current blind spot of the moment we will find it difficult to see what those positions are. Perhaps it will be embryonic stem cell experimentation. Yet are not the lines drawn between true believers and non-believers? That is part of the fun of being human. That is why should be careful not to take ourselves too seriously.

Science also has its collection of stories many of which are simply not true but are so firmly a part of our folklore as to seem obviously true to everyone. Finally some fairness in the Galileo case is surfacing in that it had less to do with science and religion butting heads than it did politics and wounded prides. Alfred Whitehead said of him, “He suffered an honorable detention and mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed.” Not to mention the Church paid him a pension all the while.

According to David Lindberg, former professor of the history of science writes, “One obvious myth is that before Columbus, Europeans believed nearly unanimously in a flat Earth – a belief . . . enforced by a medieval Church. . . The truth is that it’s almost impossible to find an educated person after Aristotle who doubts that the Earth is a sphere. In the Middle Ages, you couldn’t emerge from any kind of education, cathedral school or university, without being perfectly clear about the Earth’s sphericity and even its approximate circumference.”

Let us not forget to mention that it was the Church that began universities and that would have been the institution teaching these very things they are accused of suppressing.

So, in reading the book, “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel I had to laugh when I came to the part saying how it was a myth that the Church suppressed all knowledge that the earth was not the center of the universe. Ptolemy, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Dante, it was a very common thought that the earth was not the center of the universe. Why did I laugh? Because I already knew this. Well, I didn’t know it, I had all of the information and never put it together myself. The ancient writings – even opening my Bible to see early man’s image of what the universe was – none of these showed a universe circling around an all important earth. It was an insistence of the Enlightenment that the Church taught this scientific heresy.

Interesting.

But what have I to go on this? Other people’s writings and word. What do people have to go on science? Other people’s writings and word. We will never be able to reproduce a stem cell experiment in our kitchens nor prove the Resurrection though I am more willing to put my unqualified belief in the Church’s hat.

I trust science and scientists to do science – to make life better and help us understand more – not to design morals and ethics, not to give meaning and purpose to life, not to save my soul or give me everlasting hope.

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER (AND OF THE SPIRITUAL)

Perhaps the reason some people find more solace in science over religion is because science is understood in some circles to deal with fact or the finding of truth while faith and religion is largely about conjecture and opinion.

Popular science has its ups and downs of course. Oleo, the once touted miracle replacement for the dangers of butter is now considered one of the worst things you can put in your body. Wine and dark chocolate are now good for you. And being skinny is no longer healthy nor a preventative from certain diseases and in fact may not allow you to recover as quickly from certain conditions well. (*sigh*) But at its best, science is a search for truth: to show us how to best live in this world.

In contrast to this the Catholic faith is often seen by many as much more theoretical and that the conclusions drawn from the teachings of the faith nice, but perhaps not facts of living. Those guys in Rome make up some rules for one ideal way of life, but they are not the only way to live.

So a person comes to my office and wants to discuss marriage or their relationships, or what have you and I present the Church’s teaching (I think well and interestingly – but then again, I don’t have to sit through it) and I can see the message in their eyes, “I hear you, I know this, it is nice, but I don’t buy it – at least for me. My kids will darn it! But not me.”

But in fact all the rules and laws and regulations (one of the worst ways to teach the faith by the way – more on that another day) are not ideals thought up by Vatican. They are not the teaching of the Vatican. They are rather mined from Revelation of Jesus Christ. They are discovered and taught, not invented and legislated. They are not the Vatican’s laws but our faith. And it is not taught simply to point a person to an ideal or nice direction, but to provide for them a way to live that is most authentic to their being, that will provide the best way of living in order to bring a person a most satisfying and/or fulfilling life as well as glory in the life to come.

When something in the Catholic Church is taught de fide, it is a discovery of truth, not of largely agreeable conjecture. To live by it is to bring about the greatest good just like living the truths of science (when truth and science are correctly informing each other) to find the right way of living in this world. When one ignores the laws of physics, they do so to their own peril. When one ignores the revelations of Jesus Christ, they do so not only to the detriment in their life on earth, but also in the life to come.

In the end it is not about making God happier (He can’t be happier) or winning people over to our side (it’s not about winning), but helping everyone live authentic, well-balanced lives. That is what truth is about.