Deep Questions

Candy Bosworth 13 days ago

Beautifully said Brad, and then you made me laugh very hard at the end! I love the way you think too!

Brad Miyake 13 days ago

Oh man this is not a simple question hahaha I feel like this could be a conversation for hours (maybe it was with you guys) As a gross simplification of the question, I think generally there are things that almost all people across cultures would fundamentally agree are right and wrong. But I think societal norms can muddy the waters between different cultures and are more taught viewpoints than innate beliefs. As Christians, we recognize that we are not perfect and we sin, but despite this our identify is redeemed in Christ. I think the slippery slope with this is the trap of rationalizing sinful decisions you make as justifiable under the guise that “we all sin, but it’s okay because I’m a Christian and Jesus forgives me of my sin.” To me this really lacks personal responsibility for actions and is a huge reason why many people find Christian faith to come off as hypocritical. In the eyes of God, sin always matters, regardless of how “big or small” so to speak. To the point of your question, when it comes to things you know are wrong, but do anyway, I think is a deep dive into a discussion on things like personal desires/motivations (whether selfish or altruistic). There’s a whole branch of psychology of motivation that lays a framework on theory of what motivates people. Things like basic needs (food, water, shelter) to more complex factors such as love, family, community, autonomy, competence, recognition, etc. As a thought experiment, I think most people would agree that stealing something from someone else is wrong. But what about a mother stealing a loaf of bread from a busy market to provide food for her starving child. Is it less wrong? She probably knows stealing is wrong, but she does it anyway out of love/survival. Does this feel different than someone who steals someone else’s laptop from their bag at a coffeeshop? You can argue intention matters to some degree, but then where do you draw the line? There’s also a world of behavioral genetics and behavioral psychology which kind of dumbed down is the idea of Nature vs Nurture and what factors influence the behaviors of people later in life, whether its innate or learned. It’s probably not worth getting into right now since I’ve already written a short thesis of a response, but if the psychology component of things interests you, feel free to read more about it. The short version is human behavior is exceedingly complex and multifactorial and to try to simplify it to a single component is impossible. But the flip side of that is in part the beauty of being human. So much of who we are and how we’re perceived by others is the outward projection of a lifetime of experiences. And I don’t think that is ever a set thing. Self-reflection and awareness offers us the opportunity to make cognitive decisions rather than respond with impulse. And to some degree, I think that means we can choose to overcome decisions of right vs wrong (just some people are better at it than others). (I was not expecting to have to use so much brain today. Show me more dolphins.)