Week 08: Order

Civilization

“Why should I be good to others? Why should I care about anyone else?” Skeptics of a Humanist values system pose these questions regularly. As with the origins of life and evolution of species, we have not had the answer for most of history but it is beginning to emerge.
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Discipline – Self-Control – Self-Regulation

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability. [Christian writer Roy L. Smith] Your disciplines today will govern you tomorrow. [French author Thomas Blandi] We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds . . . Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough for us to find our way back? [Dietrich Bonhoeffer] Some
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Stability

I have constructed this model with an emphasis on change and progress but in our everyday affairs, people also need stability. It is indispensable to the development of good habits and practices. Emotionally too, people need a sense of orderliness in their lives, even people whose lives we would not
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Habits and Practices

The brain processes everything we experience and all we do. People who are skilled in any field usually have acquired habits and practices that facilitate their competence. For example, musicians rehearse because the repetitive act of playing the music over and over quite literally writes information on the brain. As
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Concentrating

Unlocking bits of the unseen order – penetrating into the unknown and making it known – or succeeding in many fields of endeavor is best done through concentrated effort. Most of our notable examples of learning and advancement are products of intense and sustained concentration of thought and effort, channeled
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Selflessness

A prime demand of the orderly life is the taming of the ego. In its pre-orderly state, the ego senses desired ends but lacks the discipline necessary to achieve them. For anyone who is committed to the well-being of others, selflessness acquires another dimension. The ego must be brought under
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Order

Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the
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