Why hello there, insomnia.

[bladespark]

I was tired, and tried to go to bed, but sleep wasn't happening. This always seems to happen on Friday nights, when I need to be out the door at 8am the following morning. :P I have a strange life, I can sleep in as late as I like on weekdays, but on weekends I must get up in the morning. On Saturday it's the Market, on Sunday it's church.

Which leads me to think about something that happened last week, that has to do with insomnia and the Market and church too. Since I have nothing better to do right now, I'll write about it. Skip if you don't want philosophy and religion in your day. :)

Last week I had it pretty bad. I didn't get to bed until nearly 6am, and with the alarm going off at 7:30 it goes without saying that I didn't get much sleep. JJ hadn't gotten to bed much earlier, and while I don't mind depriving myself of sleep for my work, doing it to him on his weekend is a bit too cruel, so I went and drove myself, set up my stuff alone, and generally managed. Which I don't mind at all! But last week I had a problem. I'm usually pretty good at staying awake, lots of college all-nighters under my belt, and I've always done it without stimulants, since they're against my religion. But even I have limits, at by about four in the afternoon I had nodded off at my table half a dozen times, and I was starting to worry. Because JJ couldn't come get me, I had the car with me. I would have to drive. Other alternatives (sleeping in a down town parking garage) didn't seem like a great idea (I mean this is Eugene, I'd probably be fine, but I'm not sure I could get any good sleep in such a situation anyhow) so I was left with pretty much two options. Option one, just drive home anyhow. Odds are that nothing would happen, even though being that tired is just as bad as being drunk. But it's not a great option. Option two, have some caffeine.

A lot of devout people would go with option one. I mean, "driving while tired" isn't against anybody's religion, right? It's not sin, like a cup of coffee is, so it's the better thing to do, right? Surely doing something really stupid but not sinful is better than doing something you're specifically forbidden to do! And that right there is the problem with a pre-packaged moral system. When all you have are a list of "do this" and "don't do that" and your moral choices involve nothing more than checking if it's on the "don't do that" list, you get your priorities out of order. And you do the "right" thing that in this case could get you or some innocent person who gets in your way when you fall asleep at the wheel, killed.

I went and found the nearest source of caffeine, drank a mocha (which was the least vile-tasting option available) and was awake enough to drive home safely.

I'm sure the very idea would horrify a lot of people at my church. I broke a rule. I did a "thou shalt not." I did something wrong. But I happen to think I did something right. And I did what I did because I unwrapped my pre-packaged moral system and had a look at it, and thought about it, and considered the reasons behind it. The scriptural bit that forbids coffee, for example, is presented with a promise. Follow these dietary rules and you will be healthy and strong and wise, it says. So there is my reason. I promised God I'd eat and drink a certain way, and He promised me He'd help me be healthy and wise. Now I have something to weigh against the other half of my equation. I weigh "healthy and wise" against "maybe kill somebody" and I find that I'd rather pass on healthy and wise for a while, to avoid the whole death and maiming thing. :) But somebody who's never taken their religious commandments out of the box and had a look at them may well have chosen the other way. And they probably would have been just fine, truth be told. But maybe they wouldn't have been.

I've read a number of studies that say that atheists have more highly developed moral codes than theists. I suspect that's why. Nobody has handed them a tidy box of do-and-don't. They've had to build their own. When you need to stop to weigh every decision on its own merits, rather than just checking it against a list, you end up putting a lot more thought into even the smallest of choices.

Of course plenty of theists have great moral systems. The commandments of a religion make a really good starting point, in my opinion. But it's only a starting point. If you stop there, you're crippling your morality, and in the end you may well end up making a lot of knee-jerk stupid decisions. Maybe even ones that get somebody killed.

Comments

[harliquinnraver.livejournal.com]

this is just the best post. well thought out, well written and interesting. i read it to Psyko and he agreed.

Personally, we both think you made the right decision, even if your church claims it is the wrong one. 'thou shalt not kill' is more important than 'thou shalt not consume caffeine'. lives are at stake.

im proud of you. :)

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you. :)

[uneko.livejournal.com]

I will be honest. I normally don't "like" your religious posts, being rather unreligious in general, and .. well.. y'know. They're alway well written (and I do read them because I tend to enjoy reading what you have to say in general :) but I don't /like/ them, if you can appreciate the distinction.

I liked this. This was a wonderful, wonderful post and I wish I could take it and show it to EVERYONE around me in real life who gets so hung up on "God said..." (and in Rural Alabama where I am, there are a LOT of "but God said..." people)

Thank you. May I share this with some friends who will appreciate this as much as I have?

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Sure, go ahead. :)

[teeth-in-a-cave.livejournal.com]

*applause* Entirely too many people in the world never get the idea to mentally tread that path, nor exercise the will to do so.

[mavikfelna.livejournal.com]

I think one of the most important parts of the word of wisdom that you mentioned is that following the rules helps make you healthy and wise. And I think wisdom in this case says it's better to do the little thing after thinking about it and seeing the options rather than risking the greater failure.

I think one of the most important things, and unfortunately one of the least understood by many members, is that the religion itself encourages us to think about, analyze and test everything the church teaches.

--Mav

[aburamechan.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, anyone who looked at the situation closely and stills aid you did wrong is a bit nuts. :3 Far better to break a rule than to potentially kill. I'm sure that a fatal car accident is a bit more sinful than some coffee.
Religion is nice in that it gives you bases to build your moral code, but it's nice to see that you are actually building it, rather than sticking with the kit. c:

[silveradept]

I suspect situations like these are why Catholics have categorizations of sins, "venial" and "mortal". The venial things are bad things to do, but they're not the kind that are supposed to automatically separate you from God and the Church until you seek absolution, like transgressing the Decalogue does. I don't know if there's an equivalent gradation in the LDS system or not.

Regardless, I think you demonstrated wisdom by examining and interpreting, rather than getting stuck in a course of action because you made decisions by proof-texting. Had I been driving that night, I would have appreciated you being alert rather than drowsy. So would the person that you might have had trouble with on the road.

[stevenroy.livejournal.com]

This is why the phrase "lesser of two evils" exists.

I've always just assumed that rules like these exist not because coffee is inherently evil, but because coffee can be addictive and addiction is bad.

I don't think any sane person will have any doubt that you made the right choice here. Just don't make it a habit! The biggest sin here was probably that you had put yourself in a position where you had to make this kind of decision in the first place.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

O.o I think it's a bit much to expect people to look perfectly into the future and never put themselves in a situation where they might have to make a difficult choice.

[stevenroy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's true.

Gah, "biggest sin" was a terrible choice of words there. Sorry if it sounded accusatory or judgmental.

What I really meant was that staying up so late was probably worse for you than the mocha was... Or something like that.

[bloodbeauty.livejournal.com]

really good example of why not *all* religious people are blind followers.

also you could argue that by avoiding coffee and sticking to the rules when you can, it makes it that much more effective in situations like this where it's necessary. had you been a habitual coffee drinker you might still have hit a pedestrian!