That’s Right, Man Can Fly
Some people might say that jumping out of a plane and free falling until a parachute is opened is not really flying or superheroic, but I argue that it is. It was man that put himself up on that plane and man who figured out how to free fall to safety. It was man who realized the need to do this in order to defend the innocent people of his nation. Any soldier who commits himself to the defense of his nation signs a “blank check” to the people of that nation. The call of his duty will determine how that check is cashed – anything, up to and including his life.
HALO stands for High Altitude, Low Opening, and it is a form of military insertion. In HALO training the soldiers are taken up to 32,000-46,000 feet above the ground and they learn to use night vision goggles and radar altimeters strapped to the chest to monitor position relative to narrowly specified landing positions. To get some perspective, 747′s fly that high. So next time you are on passenger airliner, imagine jumping out of it and guiding yourself to a certain predetermined location – in enemy territory – at night! At those altitudes there is little oxygen and great care must be taken not to panic and to regulate the body to avoid decompression sickness. One breath of the air could render the jumper unconscious. The temperature is 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. A hole in the protective suiting means frostbite, hypothermia and death. It’s that cold. And there’s always the danger of the parachute not opening. I asked my husband, “Knowing all of that danger, what goes through your mind when you jump?”
“Man, I hope I don’t die.” He always said the Lord’s Prayer too.
Men do die in training. It’s part of the commitment and it takes a lot to learn how to complete a HALO insertion. The soldiers train 20-30, or even a hundred, times before they actually begin the mission. In HALO school before anyone jumps there is intense training in a wind tunnel and the soldiers learn to fly their bodies. They literally learn to maneuver together, to manipulate the body synchronized with everyone else so that they will land where they are supposed to land.
All that danger just to get to square one of the mission.
So, about that “may can fly” thing. Yes, he can fly because he was meant to fly. It’s not just that man has figured out how to build airplanes, how to parachute to the ground, or even that man knows he must defend and uphold something greater than himself – that makes him able to be a superhero. It is that the human spirit, when lifted by faith, can reason that peace and justice are worth defending because mankind is progressing towards the ultimate end, to the Kingdom of Justice and Peace, the Kingdom of Heaven. Man, created in the image and likeness of God the Father, redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ the Son, and sanctified by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, was in fact made to soar. For that matter, the ground was never given to him as a permanent dwelling place anyway.
I also found myself wondering how any man could commit himself to such noble acts without faith in something greater than himself. Why would you risk your life for strangers, for justice, for peace, for the future of a nation? Why? If there is nothing beyond yourself, then what is the reasonable argument for risking your life for nothing? I am overwhelmingly grateful to the soldiers out there who do these things that we never hear about. We don’t know who has has done what to keep us safe. I will never even know the details of my husband’s missions over 20 years ago. Obviously he didn’t pay the ultimate price, but he was wounded and he has memories. Some of the dozen men in his A-teams were killed under his command and he considered it his duty to tell the parents in person. That haunts him more than anything else.
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Love these posts! Thanks for continuing the narrative. I really enjoy thinking about this stuff. I had a similar post I wanted to write once, but thought people would call me crazy, then when Marc wrote his, it validated me
You have solidified it! Thanks
Stacy,
I found this to be a pleasant blog until you said this painfully naive bit:
“I also found myself wondering how any man could commit himself to such noble acts without faith in something greater than himself. Why would you risk your life for strangers, for justice, for peace, for the future of a nation? Why? If there is nothing beyond yourself, then what is the reasonable argument for risking your life for nothing?”
Why would any decent person NOT do something like this? So what if it is for strangers? Strangers are human beings too. Just because there probably is no divine being, that does not mean there is not something greater than ourselves. There is a whole world of people out there who cannot defend themselves, and it is the obligation of the good, the decent, and the able to defend them, for the benefit of all.
It kills the concept of heroism when you only do the bidding of a more powerful being. Real heroes do the right thing for the sake of making the world better.
Rome, you found this to be a pleasant blog? Wow, thanks. I've appreciated your discussions!
My husband and I talk about that question a lot. I don't understand how someone who doesn't believe in God explains that. To me that's a very fundamental question. Maybe you don't use this kind of language, but I've heard lots of atheists say that there is nothing spiritual and that everything real is material or physical. They don't believe there is anything beyond just themselves, their lives, they believe it all ends when they die. If your life is all you have, the only meaning you have, then why would you risk it?
You understand nobility and heroism, but how do you explain it? It is, by utilitarian standards, quite irrational.
Thanks Joseph. Marc's piece was inspiring!
I agree with those atheists, at least to the extent that going into a state of nothingness after death and ceasing to exist seem the most likely outcomes, whereas ending up in paradise seems incredibly unlikely.
I would risk my life that others may live. That's why I'm in the service. Is it irrational? I guess, for selfish people, doing the right thing is irrational, but for those committed to doing the right thing, it's the only option.
Nobility and heroism, from a purely secular point of view, are the attempts to make the world a better, kinder, more prolific place. Sadly, the ones most devoted to the cause often do not get to see the results of their efforts. Often, they get punished with pain and death. That's why it's a sacrifice, though.
The greatest heroes are the ones who do the right thing and know that it will cost them. People who do the right thing with the promise of reward are not really heroes. They are mercenaries.
You are in the service? Well, I have two words for you then Rome, “THANK YOU!”
I get the idea of sacrifice and honor for something greater than yourself, but I still don't understand how you make sense of it. Still, you do it and so for whatever reason, that is worthy of gratitude.
Just regarding the argument, have you heard of Dawkins' “selfish gene” idea?
Stacy – first of all, this is a beautiful post. But I just had to jump in to say that my dad was a Special Forces HALO instructor during the Vietnam era, so your post really resonated with me even more because of that. I grew up hearing about HALO, so I think it's so neat that your husband did that too!
Stacy: You wrote: “I also found myself wondering how any man could commit himself to such noble acts without faith in something greater than himself.”
My answer is those men do not; self-sacrifice is diametrically opposed to self-interest. To those who love (John 15:13): may God bless you and keep you.
Rome: You say you are active duty and that is enough; no need for me to verify it. Thank you for stepping to the line when those of us needed to step away.
Stacy and SteveP,
You two are welcome, but I feel, in all fairness, that I should say that I really have not done anything yet. I am enlisted in the National Guard and am training to become an officer in my university's ROTC program. I intend to go active duty when I commission, and my greater ambitions are currently aimed at Airborne or Ranger infantry as an officer.
To try and alleviate your confusion, Stacy, I do it because somebody has to do it, and if no one does anything, then everyone in the world suffers, and that's not acceptable.
I have heard of the selfish gene idea. It tries to explain self-sacrifice through an evolutionary lens, which I suppose makes sense in a history of tightly ethnic, feuding tribes. I feel that few people in modern militaries follow this path, particularly in the West, as the motives and the nature of wars are rather different today.
Rome, still very commendable! I'm a mom at home with kids and if there were no people like you, my family would not be safe.
“I do it because somebody has to do it, and if no one does anything, then everyone in the world suffers, and that's not acceptable.”
Good for you! Jen has said before that her father is an atheist (I believe) so it's not that atheists can't do such noble things (obviously they can and do), it's only that people like me don't really understand the reasoning, but it's not a surprise either that people want to do what is good and right and noble. It's our human nature.
Interesting comment about the selfish gene too.
Stacy,
I believe realizing the true superman has been said by some, to require a sort of “transvaluation of values” in our society.
There are many atheists in the armed forces of the United States any many other countries. I greatly enjoyed the jumpsuit used as a metaphor for religious faith. Like religion the jumpsuit protects you from the harshness of reality, and like the jumpsuit religion is a creation.
To John –
Firstly I will pray for your soul. The Lord commands all to know His Way through The Divinity and Majesty of His Son, Jesus Christ, and The Apostolic Tradition of St. Peter within The Rectitude of The Holy Catholic Church.
Some small boys came out of the city and jeered at [the prophet Elisha], saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And … he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.
– II Kings 2:23-24 (RSV)
You see yourself screaming unintelligibly, 'baldhead baldhead!' at God, at Christ, at the One True Order and Mucilage of Existence? Well that same Force of Existence, and Light of The World, will tear you to pieces if you fail to Witness The Unity of The Trinity.
I feel that Stacy is the She-bear that will tear your nihilism to pieces. The choice is either to let your sin be destroyed by the power of the Witnessing of people like Stacy, or be torn to pieces by worst beasts than bears in the depths of Eternal Hellfire.
Manuel, thanks, in a nutshell your post is the reason why I have never been tempted by organized religion. She-bears? Torn to pieces? Threats of damnation? For doubting? For choosing another path? For being different? (I'll give you bullying, but even I don't think bullies should be torn to pieces by bears, why do you?)
Stacey, I suppose this makes us even. As an atheist, I don't understand why theists need anything more than their own minds and spirits to live and love and do all the other messy, beautiful, nasty, hurtful, wonderful things that make up human existence.
Those men and women risk their lives for their country, regardless of what faith (or non-faith) they have and you try to take that noble characteristic and wrench it into an attribute of your supernatural world view.
Soldiers serve because they want to protect their friends, their family and the society they live in, and because they have the courage to risk their lives for it.
Courage is defined neither by faith or the lack thereof, claiming it as an attribute of either rather than a characteristic of the men and women who serve is incredibly disrespectful.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
“You understand nobility and heroism, but how do you explain it? It is, by utilitarian standards, quite irrational.”
## The ancients were not utilitarians. The Stoics and Epicureans (for example) did not base their ethics upon theology. The Theban Band did not depend on theology for the love that bound them together and gave them their military fighting spirit.
Like a lot of Catholics today, you're taking for granted a connexion between theological doctrine OTOH and ethics OTO, that in antiquity did not exist: either divine morality was not a model for human morality, or, religion was for keeping the gods “on side” and satisfied, while ethics came not from religion but from the various philosophies.
The close connexion between God and ethics that people seem to take for granted as the obvious way of thinking about morals rests in Judaism very largely on commandments or on customary morality. None of these three ways of relating ethics to theology is distinctive of Christianity – that takes its ethics partly from Stoicism, partly from the Biblical texts, partly from natural law theory, partly from deductions about God based on dogmatic topics such as the moral characters of God & Jesus.
What Catholics who require a religious basis for morals seem to forget or not know, is that morality is not based on revelation alone; most it is based on reason. Aristotle did not need, or have, the help of revelation in writing his “Ethics”. Nor did the Stoics. Christian ethics is deeply influenced by both.
Ethics is not based on commands – it's based on the nature of things. It is wrong to do wrong. Doing wrong warps the personality of the doer. It is ugly, not loveable or beautiful, to treat people in certain ways. Custom supports certain ways of behaving, as well as putting them under the spotlight. Certain behaviours damage others or society in general. Different combinations of motives indicate that certain acts are wrong or right in certain circumstances.
These and many more considerations – such as the Golden Rule, which is found in several ancient cultures – work together to provide us with many moral insights. And they do not require religion. It would be odd if they did, because if the the Judaeo-Christian claim that man has been created in the image of God is true, one would expect man to have a moral sense, however defective. And many of its defects can be counter-balanced by life in community; what one of us doesn't see, others often will. That too is to be expected. God's law is written in the heart of all men,and we all have consciences. So it is completely false – *according to Catholic teaching* – to say that there can be no morality without revelation and w/o basing morals on theism. Such a mistake STM like an infection from Fundamentalist Protestantism.
“Courage is defined neither by faith or the lack thereof…”
## Couldn't agree more.
“It is that the human spirit, when lifted by faith, can reason that peace and justice are worth defending because mankind is progressing towards the ultimate end, to the Kingdom of Justice and Peace, the Kingdom of Heaven.”
## No. Peace and justice are goods even without a religious sanction or basis. Aristotle knew they were goods. Why would they not be goods ? Yet Aristotle was neither nor a Christian nor a Jew.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_ethics