Universal Morality And Basic Needs: Lessons To Be Learned From History
Universal Religion And The Law Of "Love Your Neighbor As Yourself"
What is the universal religion (morality)? Food and housing belong to God and must be guaranteed to all people. What is universal worship? Fulfilling the behaviors of "love your neighbor as yourself" is worship. These behaviors are: My neighbor gets hungry too, I must feed him too; my neighbor also needs a safe shelter, I must shelter him like myself. All worship other than this worship is personal; it is done or not done. God's law, that is, morality, does not change: This law is the #LoveYourNeighborAsYourself law. We will continue to learn about this subject through history and art.
The Two Voices Inside Us: The Conflict Of Body And Conscience
Now I will clarify the subject of universal religion. First of all, what I am talking about is never a mystical, spiritual thing. Religion already means law, and if a group of people decides to obey the law among themselves, they will definitely be successful. The hard part is not being successful, but accepting to obey the law. We are experiencing all of the economic problems we experience in the world today because we do not want to obey the "love your neighbor as yourself" law. It is very easy for me to say this because even I, who want to make this rule mandatory among us, reject the conditions that will make it mandatory. Here there is a perception of me divided into two as me and the voice of God. There is a voice inside all of us that tells what is right. Regardless of our education level, this voice always tells what is right and our body tells the exact opposite. What God or conscience or whatever you call it says is this: โAll other people need food and to sleep in a safe shelter just as I need them. So either give these needs to them too, or at least do not prevent them from accessing these basic needs too!โ The voice of the body says this: โOthers will eat it all and there will be nothing left for me. I must eat before them, I must be strong, and if necessary, I must make them dependent on me to meet these basic needs of theirs.โ Both voices echo inside all people without exception. Here, a human being comes to a stage of choice. It is very easy to listen to the voice of the body; we have already created the world order we live in entirely by listening to this voice. Although we talk big words like human rights from time to time, we got stuck in the implementation stage and could not control ourselves.
Personal Experience And Realizing The Basic Truth
So what am I doing? My name is Pฤฑnar Han Polat. I turned forty years old and I bought certificates from the age of 20 to 35 with the hope of finding a job. None of them provided enough financial gain for me to buy a house, bring a child into this world, or travel the world. It took me years to understand that all humanity is in a great race to provide these in conditions where there is no food and housing security, and that this race is extremely meaningless. What did I need? Well, what did other people need? There were only 3 basic needs and everything else, absolutely everything, depended on meeting these three basic needs. I am grateful that I realized this and was able to use my current abilities to explain it. When a baby is born into the world, it is immediately fed, cleaned, and given to its mother's safe embrace. All humanity is nothing but an organism striving for this condition to continue throughout its life. I made a common deduction from all the books I read, all the art pieces that affected me, political speeches, state administrations, wars, and relationships between people. The basic needs of the best and the worst person in the world were the same. So I could show this by redrawing and painting the art pieces we already know very well. I read the books, I draw the illustrations, and I reinterpret them within the framework of the 3 basic needs. There is no one to criticize outside. Unjust courts, nepotistic governments, rude leaders, ruthless killers, savages, ignorant communities, or misogynists... I needed a fixed reference point to define them in this way. And unless this point is fixed for humanity, it slips, it turns, and it cannot be objective in any way. I nailed this point right to the center. This point is the guarantee of the 3 basic needs. Now I will explain what I am trying to do through examples.
The Era Of Sultan Abdulhamid II And The Absence Of Basic Needs
During the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the Ottoman Empire was in a bad economic situation. The Sultan was a highly conservative person known for his piety. The Ottoman lands had spread over such a vast area that Abdulhamid II sent the young male population to the fronts to protect these lands. These soldiers could neither get married nor find a lover. Whenever they took a break from their duties on the front and came to Istanbul, they immediately went to women sellers. While even this was unacceptable in an empire ruled by giving importance to religious sensitivities like the Ottoman state, one more thing happened. The soldiers caught venereal diseases, and most of them became unable to fight. Until that time, selling women in the Ottoman Empire was both a sin and forbidden. Abdulhamid II could not tell his soldiers to get married, build a home, and not to give their already very little money to the merchants of women who are with everyone and are sold for money. Because the war had to continue for many reasons. But the most important reason was this: the need for food, safe shelter, and a society that has received the "love your neighbor as yourself" education was not guaranteed for neither Abdulhamid II, nor his enemies, nor the soldiers, nor the women sellers, nor the sold women. No one profited from this business. Moreover, none of those people are in this world today; they experienced all these pains and died. What lesson will we learn from this? How can we pass through a world where we will die anyway as a moral person? Whether it is a sultan afraid of being assassinated, or a soldier at the front unable to lift his weapon due to a venereal disease, both need food and a house to sleep in peacefully. Therefore, we must guarantee these needs to each other.
Engraving The Law Into Memories Through Art And History
I think I was able to explain my general thought even with the first example. I will continue in this way. My English learning process continues. If you have read my previous articles, I had also written that I use some of the illustrations I draw as a memory palace. I decided to do this detailed work on my own. The part I will share publicly will continue like this. That is, I will examine and explain the historical subject on an illustration. I will talk about how the 3 basic needs can be guaranteed, and thus I will ensure that the law of "love your neighbor as yourself" is engraved in our memories with every single event. In this example, you see the illustration I was inspired by the Abdulhamid II painting of the Italian painter named Fausto Zonaro, who served the Ottoman palace for 14 years. When Abdulhamid II was dethroned in 1909, Zonaro also lost all his titles and privileges in an instant.
The painter, whose job and security were taken away, had to leave his beloved Istanbul in tears and return to Italy. Whether you are a palace painter or an ordinary citizen, your life is ruined when your food and shelter are not guaranteed. We will promise not to do to others the things we do not want to be done to ourselves. For this, we will accept being monitored by cameras if necessary, and obeying a common "love your neighbor as yourself" law even if our body does not want it.