Steve Jobs: So close to saying "God."

Aside from some pathetically silly guests on my Fave Talk Host's show today who rue his "concentration of wealth," nearly everyone in the tech-touched universe is saddened by the loss of Steve Jobs.

I certainly am.  The world needs brilliant, creative, iconoclastic but sensible and realistic entrepreneurs, and each of those adjectives certainly applied to Steve Jobs.  Even those of us who own PCs are really using Macs in some piece or form.  Even if we're too cheap to have bought a real iPod, our imitations all owe their success to it.  Even if we haven't downloaded iTunes (and most of us have), the idea of music organized and procured through our computers instead of in the physical world has transformed our listening.

And the guy was a deep thinker, viewing events and circumstances in a broader context.  This is especially clear when you read the address he gave to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford University.

In it, he tells three stories.  The first one explains how dropping out of Reed College allowed him the freedom to audit classes there he enjoyed, one of which--in calligraphy--a decade later influenced the typography available on all personal computers.  His point was that eschewing the conventional path turned out to have a major positive impact, but he only saw it years later, when he could "connect the dots" in retrospect.

Steve Jobs' second story describes when, at age 30, he got fired from the helm of the very company he'd founded, just a year after its release of the Macintosh computer.  It was a very public failure, but resulted in his later triumphant return to the company, the creation of Pixar films, and the bonus of meeting and marrying his wife.  His message in that story was to have confidence in pursuing what you love, despite obstacles.

And his last story described his initial diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.  Jolted by the doctor's advice to "settle his affairs" for imminent death, he focused on what truly mattered, which was again, doing what he loved.  Turns out he had an operable form of the disease, and he survived another six years.

In his commencement address, he says, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

I admire Steve Jobs' accomplishments and his passion--and wonder about his conclusion.  He implies that "your own inner voice," what he also calls "your heart and intuition" is an independent entity which, anthropomorphically, "already knows what you truly want to become." And he talks about events in his life as casual accidents that later, "connect" to make perfect sense and seem to have had a purpose.

Between Steve Jobs' very eloquent words I see him dancing around the concept of God.  What is your "heart" and "intuition"?  Is it just your taste? Stuff you enjoy?  Do events just "occur" or, as he implies, do they happen so that something later can come of them?  Were Steve Jobs' enormous talents and dynamic, energetic enthusiasm--his drive--random genetic facts, or abilities and attitudes he cultivated, pondered and, through what--God?--had the opportunity and circumstances to make wildly important and successful?

He also seems to rebel against convention, almost ironic since he worked so well with the business establishment.  He admonishes against "living with the result of other people's thinking," and of course, we're all living (happily) with the results of his.  "Don't be trapped by dogma," he warns, and while rigid adherence to unexamined instructions can surely stifle creativity, sometimes "dogma" is formed out of the collective wisdom and experience of people who have come before.  Such predecessors can be insightful, and they can be prescient, and they can suggest you break out of the mold.  And at the same time intimate that all their certainty still holds questions.  That's the wonderful gift of people like Steve Jobs.

Note: It has been said that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist, though sources about his religious activities and affiliation are scant other than a well-documented relationship decades ago with Zen master Kobun Chino, who early on was the "spiritual advisor" for his company.

Does Your Perception of God Determine Your Politics?

The cover story of USA Today about ten days ago was "How America Sees God," and certainly if so august a journal elevates this to its main front-page feature, it must be factual and important.

The piece was basically a publicist's dream, touting America's Four Gods: What We Say About God--and What that Says about Us, a new book by two sociologists at Baylor University.  The authors, Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, have often mined Baylor's annual religion surveys, packaging the idea that how one sees God determines one's political and social positions. I actually read the survey from their 2006 report, which asks everything from belief science will find Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, to whether God is "a 'He,'" to agreement that "The U.S. must establish democratic order in the Middle East."

The survey shows a bias in its Christian-centric construction (as a Jew, I was confused by some terms and would be at a loss to answer some queries).  In 2005, Gallup contacted 3,702 potential participants, and got a 46% response rate. Once the results were in, the professors interpreted the material--by deciding that views of God fall into (only) one of four types, "Authoritative," "Benevolent," "Distant" or "Critical."  The first two include an active, engaged God; the latter two, a God who started it all, but now doesn't interfere.

According to the USA Today summary, the 24% of Americans whose God is "Distant" think since creating the world, He stands back and watches. The 21% whose God is dubbed "Critical" also think God "rarely acts on earth," but might judge in the afterlife.  This is the deity of "ethnic minorities, the poor and the exploited," says the article, mainly because their lives are so hard (and therefore God must be "critical").

The "Benevolent" God of 22% of the respondents see Him as mostly a "positive influence on the world."  These folk don't blame God for tragedies, but credit Him for the good stuff in life.  The final 28% of respondents see an "Authoritative" and judgmental God, who, while loving, "can become angry and is capable of meting out punishment to the unfaithful," such as natural disasters or illness.

Basically, Froese and Bader take James David Barber's four constructs describing Presidential character, and apply them to Americans' views of God.  Barber sees some presidents' personalities as active (like the Authoritative and Benevolent God) and others as passive (like the Distant and Critical God).  At the same time, some presidents have a "positive" affect (corresponding to the Benevolent and Distant God) and others a "negative" perspective (Authoritative and Critical God).  Barber uses these to categorize Presidents (or candidates) to predict how they'll perform in office.

Presidents like Thomas Jefferson, F.D. Roosevelt and John Kennedy are "active-positive" presidents, adaptive and self-confident.  John Adams, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon are "active-negatives" who compulsively but joylessly achieve.  James Madison, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are "passive-positives" whose need to be loved makes them compliant and reactive, while George Washington, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower exemplify the "passive-negative" withdrawn style that acts out of principle.  Just as you'd expect, the best bet for president is active-positive, then passive-positive.  Active-negatives were termed "dangerous" choices by Barber.

So, who are USA Today's poster boys?  Glenn Beck is their Authoritative God icon (who prefers the "dangerous" active-negative God), with his "warnings about losing God's favor."  Their Benevolent God guy?  Why, Barack Obama.

And how does this play out in political views?  "People with an Authoritative God are about three times more likely to say homosexuality is a choice, not an inborn trait...affecting their views on gay rights, particularly marriage and adoption."  (Notice that reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman uses the word "rights" rather than "issues.") Yep, active-negative, all right.

Glenn Beck's Authoritative God, book author Bader says, likely caused tragedies like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, "directly punishing us for a society's sinful ways."  The Benevolent God fans, though, are relentlessly upbeat, and "focus on a fireman who escaped, or the people who rebuild homes..."

Says the newspaper piece, "When President Obama says he is driven to live out his Christian faith in public service, or political satirist Stephen Colbert mentions God while testifying to Congress in favor of changing immigration laws," they're expressing a deity author Froese says "cares for all people, weeps at all conflicts and will comfort all."  (How active! How positive!) But Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck represent those who "divide the world by good and evil," whose actively negative God "appeal(s) to people who are worried, concerned and scared."

I think I'll take care and comfort over worried and scared.  And active optimism over active negativity.

By the way, the Distant God (who's passive-positive, like Bill Clinton) gets good press too.  Quoted is Rabbi Jamie Korngold, since Distant is "the dominant view of Jews."  She says Distant appeals to her because "that gives me more personal responsibility. There's no one that can fix things if I mess them up. God's not telling me what I should do."  (Notwithstanding those pesky commandments in the Torah.)

So, Froese and Bader offer a paradigm where two views of God appear to be pessimistic, and two appear to be optimistic.  Two reflect the active vitality of self-determination, and two reflect passive powerlessness and resignation.  Authoritative and Critical views of God correlate with conservative (bad) political views; Benevolent and Distant views of God correlate with liberal/progressive (good) political views.  Surprise!

The research assumes--without evidence--that like one's character, shaped in childhood, views of and feelings about God are well-defined character traits, not subject to change.  That people don't hold conflicting and sometimes confused thoughts at the same time. That such variables as mood, weather and public or personal events don't influence connection or inspiration.

I'd speculate that even the most faithful have doubts, various levels of clarity, and frequent revision in their religious perspectives.  And those perspectives are a complex amalgam of views on all sorts of spiritually-related subjects--not a single concrete block of simple beliefs.  Similarly, political views cover a range of topics--and views on any given subject can change.  (Can a conservative be a tree-hugger or condone first-trimester abortion?  Can a liberal favor second-amendment rights or oppose the death tax?) And how does God-perception predict the political views of the third of the electorate self-identifying as "independent?"

Just look at Barack Obama's polling--the country was overwhelmingly supportive in January, 2008, when his approval rating was 69%; Gallup's ratings for this month (Oct. 2010) show his disapproval rate higher than his approval, 48-46%.  Does that mean the electorate changed its views of God?

Could it be that these academics have a political agenda?  Oh no, the pristine halls of ivy are populated only by seekers of truth, who would never overlay personal perspectives on research outcomes.  Maybe they're just hoping to copy James David Barber's literary success.  And perhaps if God is truly Benevolent, they will.

One Way to Understand God

Your dog wags his tail and looks pleadingly to you.  You pet him.

You feed him his kibble when you come home from work, after he's joyfully received you; after all, he's been doing doggy-things all day, digging in the yard, sleeping, watching the birds search for their worms.  He barked at the mailman and the little dog that walked by with its owner.  Now you're home and he can't wait to snuggle in next to you, to hear you say nice things and scratch behind his ears.

Sometimes you even take him to the park, and let him off his leash, in the area where he can frolic with his doggie friends, chasing them, sometimes running into the pond.  You throw the yukky yellow tennis ball and he eagerly fetches it, happy you're willing to throw it again and again for him in different directions.

Sometimes you have guests over. Some of the guests like him and also scratch behind his ears. Others prefer not to be around dogs, and yours gets put outside or in the bedroom then.  He lies in his bed, but hears your voice and wishes he were inside, too.

Some days, after you get back from the park, you sit in a chair and pick up something small and square and stare at it.  Occasionally you move pieces of it; sometimes you laugh out loud while you're looking at it.  Other times you look very sad.  Most of the time, you just stare at it.

Other days, a little metal box makes a noise, sometimes like a few notes of music, and you grab it and hold it to your ear.  You talk, not the same tone that you talk to your dog, and seldom the same words.  Sometimes you get animated when you're talking into the little box.  Sometimes your voice gets very quiet.

Nearly every night, you sit in front of a bright screen and move your fingers on a flat piece of metal that taps.  Sometimes the screen makes music and has changing pictures on it; most of the time it has black and white marks, and boxes of color, sometimes moving boxes of color.  You hold your hand on a bump and move the bump around in a small area on your desk, and it clicks.

Some nights, you sit in front of a large flat screen with moving pictures.  Voices of people come out of it, and the colors change and switch and sometimes seem familiar.  Sometimes you laugh so hard you nearly cry; most of the time you just sit there, looking at it. Once in a while you walk to the refrigerator and get food and then bring it to eat while you stare some more at the screen.

Once in a while you take your happy and eager dog to the vet.  When you drive close to it, he starts to shake. He knows this is a place of pain, but he doesn't know why you want him to feel it.

This is your dog's life.  What does he understand? When you leave in the morning, does your dog know where you go?  Does he understand when you're sitting at your computer that you're reading about events on the other side of the world? Does he know there is another side to the world?

When you sit in your chair reading a book, does he understand that your mind envisions Elizabethan England, or theories of mathematics, or the punchlines of Garfield cartoons?  Can he understand abstract ideas like justice, the court system, prejudice, war?

Can your dog comprehend that when he goes to the vet, the sharp puncture he receives will keep him from getting deathly ill?  Can he understand when you talk on the phone that you're expressing emotions to people far away?  Or the sale of a property? Or ordering a pizza you'll pick up in 20 minutes?

There's a lot a dog can't ever comprehend.  But your dog has a pretty good life, on his simple, two-dimensional dog-level.

Can we ever understand God?  If not, does that mean he can't exist?