The degree to which any one of us affects the lives of those who follow us certainly seems to follow a bell shaped curve. The great majority of us muddle through our lives, somehow managing to get along until the time of our demise. We make it through our marriages with a reasonable amount of cooperation and trust with our spouses. We don’t do all that we should for our children, but at least manage to nurture them sufficiently for them to reach adulthood. We hold a steady job for at least short periods of time. We are on occasion singled out for some accomplishment, making us believe that we have done something worthwhile, at least on a temporary basis. Apparently the majority of us have some influence on our societies, because those societies keep changing and evolving. We hope that is for the better, leading to more nurturing and more democratic societies, where every citizen has the opportunity to reach his or her potential, although there are moments when our societies seem to be getting more restrictive, rather than better. None the less, all of us ride on the backs and shoulders of those who have preceded us, given us knowledge, or taught us valuable lessons.
At the end of the spectrum, on both sides, there are those in our societies who have been either been rather dismal failures at accomplishing anything worthwhile, or those who have had a monumental influence on the lives of all humans who have followed them for millennia. A few years ago, a poll of educators, asking them to name the most influential persons in the history of the human race, announced their result; Muhammad was believed to be the most important, followed by Jesus, and then the Buddha. Personally, I have to wonder if this listing is correct. Both Muhammad and Jesus got much of their central God concepts, and therefore their religious philosophy, from another prominent gentleman. The concepts of this man deeply influenced what everyone who lived after him believed and did, especially Muhammad and Jesus. That person was Socrates. It is a great misfortune that his immense influence led his followers and us astray, more than leading us to sane and stable lives.
Socrates (470-399 BC) was a remarkable man. He is described as having little to no interest in material possessions. He often did not eat, did not possess anything other than a few items of clothing, did not request anything from anyone, and was largely supported by the gifts of those who were his students and disciples. In this sense, he lived a Gandhiesque existence, greatly admired by those who followed him, marveling at the profundity of his mind. But he certainly was not Gandhi. If there was a party going on, he was the life of it. He often went into periods of intense contemplation, not doing anything else for days other than thinking about a certain question or problem. Only when he had solved that dilemma did he come out of that trance to resume normal conversation and activity. After these periods of intense problem solving, he sought responses to his thoughts from young, actively working men and students. He found them more receptive to new ideas, more in tune with what most people needed in their lives, and more willing to debate those issues with him in a friendly give and take atmosphere. Once his opinions were fixed, after these discussions with the young and active members of Grecian society, however, they were unbending. That determination to follow his own ideals, no matter what the consequences, led to his early demise, and also cemented those teachings in the minds of those who lived after him, for millennia.
The events that led to his death were political. The democrats had assumed power, and did not want any further negative criticism of their government. Socrates, at the kindest description, believed in a moderate oligarchy, wherein only the elite ruled, in an atmosphere of education and enlightenment. He was the teacher of those who were most critical of this new government; the ruling democrats wanted no more such criticism, and knew that much of it was coming originally from Socrates. The charges brought against him were extremely vague; “corruption of the young,” and “neglect of the gods whom the city worships and the practice of religious novelties.” The death penalty was added to the charges against him in order to ensure that he would recant his philosophies and support their government. Socrates treated their charges against him with disdain, claiming he deserved acquittal because he was a public benefactor. Incensed that he would not recant, the politicos voted for his death by a great majority. For the next month, Socrates was given ample opportunities to escape his imprisonment, but refused to take any of them. He drank the hemlock and died in defense of his beliefs.
This willingness of Socrates to die rather than change any of his beliefs must have made a very deep impression on all those who believed they had learned from him. They not only completely accepted his political philosophies, but also fully encompassed his religious beliefs. And there is the scam. Socrates believed that there was a God who was ruler of the entire universe, and that this God was total Virtue, or total Goodness. He believed that the human soul was immortal, and spent its entire existence trying to become a part of the Divine, or totally Good. Those concepts of a totally good God, and of human immortality, became fully imbued in the religions of Abraham, much to the great sorrow of all human society to follow. These concepts then demanded the theologic creation of a devil God of great power, in order to explain all the evil in the world in human terms. That led to the immense religious wars which have ensued, in which each side believes that only its beliefs are good, and that all other beliefs are evil, deserving to be punished in most horrible ways. Those beliefs led to religious philosophies which encourage early death, killing and violent suicide, in order to reach that promised land of immortal pleasure as soon as possible. Those concepts have caused millions of humans to not do whatever they can during their lives, for as long as they can, to show love and mercy toward other humans.
Socrates appears to have been a fantastic human. He brought many people great enlightenment. His errant theology, however, has led to a monstrous cloud of human disasters, which has followed all our societies since his time. Everything we know about our universe tells us that it runs only on random acts, has no planned direction, is completely indifferent in every way to human life, and creates specialized life only by natural selection. The concept of a total Goodness that controls the entire universe is a monstrous Socratic scam, for which we have paid dearly. Every bit of evidence we have tells us that good and evil are human inventions, created by us to describe those things and events which either hurt us or help us. It is high time we recognize the Socratic scam for what it is, and learn that there is no intrinsic goodness in the universe, no justification for violence toward other humans, and imperative that we treat all other life with utmost respect, regardless of their beliefs. As long as we follow the intrinsic Goodness scam of Socrates, Muhammad and Jesus, we are committing societal suicide.