The following levels are merely my best attempt so far to put into words the concepts I am trying to express. A second caveat is that I realize that my thinking on any of these posited levels can never be in complete isolation from the others. A third caveat is that I know that the best I can hope for is that any given thought I have has been as objectively differentiated from the others as I am capable of achieving.
So here they are. Please tear them apart... as objectively as you are capable of being.
Level 1: I need to eat and sleep almost every day if I am going to be me... today, tomorrow, and in the near future. This is arguably the level of thinking that is omnipresent, consciously and/or unconsciously.
Level 2: I need to provide for my sustenance and safety to ensure my existence...in the present, in the near future, and during my lifetime.
Level 3: I need to be social because I need my family and society to enrich my life... and theirs in turn... in all that that entails.
Level 4: I need to become as competent as I can be...socially, educationally and morally... if I am to live the best that I can while I am alive.
Level 5: I must accept and/or ponder the meanings of my cultures' teachings and the evidence provided by science in my effort to understand the meaning of all that I am able to perceive and do in my lifetime.
Level 6: I must accept that it is impossible to unerringly fulfill all of my obligations all of the time on each of the previous levels... even if (and maybe because) my perceptions of what they are may be flawed.
Level 7: I must pick and choose to the best of my ability the aspects of each of the previous levels of understanding that best comfort my understanding of what my species has labeled 'existential angst'...while knowing that I will never know for sure if I am doing 'the right thing'... and nobody else does either.
The efficacy of my having chosen to be a Deist is coming from what I perceive to be my best efforts at Levels 5, 6, and 7.
But I could be wrong...
Author: Lyman Paul Grover
