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Concern
By Dan Schobert

It is probably safe to say that we often miss the obvious, though it may be directly before us. This could be the case as we investigate the concept of Concern.

Laws were created because of concern.

As we look across this land, from sea to sea and border to border, it is very clear that Americans are caring people. We see this care and concern exhibited through the laws and agencies we, the governing people, permit to exist in this vast land. Consider our traffic laws. These travel restrictions are not in place to vex motorists, but have been established as guidelines in order that life, human life, be protected. While some drivers may disagree with these laws and act as though they don't exist, the point is that the laws were set in place to protect life and those individuals who think differently about the laws will either pay the price in traffic tickets or will work to change the laws.

We see concern in many areas of our existence. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its associated organizations (Professional as well as lay) are dedicated to keeping our water and air as clean as possible. Why? In order that human life be protected. Without this as a basic premise, the EPA would have no to reason to exist. Here again, there may so often expressed in the media in various subtle ways. For instance, a recent news piece in the Cleveland, Ohio Plain Dealer told of a mother charged for choking her six year old daughter. Why was she charged? Because it was illegal..and why was it illegal? Human life is not to be abused.

Even those groups advocating assisted suicide exhibit, in a warped sense, a recognition of life being valuable...helping people to die with dignity, as they allege. However, why dignity? Unless life is meaningful, people should not be treated with any kind of care. A person wants to die, give'm a gun!

Beneath so much of our day-to-day activity there is something we all have: concern for life. We must not deny this to be true. Why it is true leads to a very interesting study.

What is concern?

This concern for human beings is wide spread and is the announced justification for much of what we do and permit in America. Concern {some might even call it love} would probably be known as a "given" in philosophic circles. That it exists can not be denied but what is it and where does it reside?

We know what concern is by our actions, but the actions themselves are not concern; they are expressions of concern. A person could be concerned, but not act upon that concern..so concern is real...even if not expressed. Concern is a concept. It is a non physical reality. We do not deny it exists, but we can't hold concern in our hands; we can not stop at K-Mart and buy a pound, we can't order a truck load from Sears. Yet it is real...it is an idea.

What is an idea? Webster may define an idea as "a notion in the mind." So concern is an idea that exists in a person's head, in the brain..and in that area of our cognitive being where we think...a place we call our mind. We may not be absolutely clear that the mind exists; it is however recognized that we do think and that this thinking occurs in our brain, not in our feet, etc.

Concern, therefore, exists in our brain/mind and becomes a physical reality through the things we do, though we may at times act inconsistently with this concept. Concern can be influenced by other ideas that come into the mind and could even be eliminated, but this is not within the scope of this paper.

How does concern happen to be in our minds? Probably through education, both formal and informal. People learn things from other people...both things good to know and things not so good to know. If we have learned and embraced concern in our minds because we received this from teachers and have put this concept into concrete form through our laws and actions, at what point, looking back through time, can it be established that concern started? In other words, if concern is a non-physical reality, an idea, and did not originate with those people living today and has been a part of this culture (as well as many others around the globe) for years and years {as far as we know}, can we determine where this idea started?

Where did concern originate?

When it comes to the origin of things we, basically, have two views from which to choose. And this is a choice, though sometimes not recognized as such. We have the possibility to choose that all we are and all we see around us has come into existence through naturalistic causes, that all of reality is the result of chance + mutations + time. The thought is that given enough time anything and everything is possible. Time solves all, or so it is thought. On the other hand, a person can choose to see that all of reality is an expression of a Creator, a super intelligent agent, many will call him God. This position is bolstered by what many see as design in nature; the interconnectedness of the universe.

What does this have to do with concern? It is this that if we choose to see that life is the result of time + chance, that the ideas we have in our minds will have originated as the result of this process of chance; than a concept like concern has no validity and would have started by a chance formation in some creature's brain. Eventually this idea was passed along, through supposed eons, until it still resides in our brains today.

Furthermore, our motivations to express concern are not based upon real concern, but upon a chance formation of electrochemical connections in our brains..so the feeling we may have of really helping another person is nonsense. We are doing something, not because we really believe it is important, but as a response to something over which we have no control: we are robots.

On the other hand, when the choice is made to see reality as an expression of a Creator, we can appreciate the ideas in our minds, knowing that thoughts can have validity since they have been imprinted upon our brains from an original source Who has ultimate regard for his creation. So when we act in accord with concern, we are acting consistent with an idea that originated from the Creator.

This is not to say, however, that every idea is from this Creator, for like concern, non-concern is also an idea..something that exists in our minds. These two concepts do exist: either people are concerned for others or they are not concerned, and this non-concern...this non action is also the result of something a person has in their mind.

So we have two ideas fighting, in our minds, to control what we do or don't do. If we allow that concern {the desire to help others and to work to protect human life} comes from the Creator, what is the source of the competing idea? Would it make sense that this other idea would also have come from the Creator? Would this not amount to a house divided? Furthermore, we should see that if the concept of concern comes from an all powerful Creator, that we possess something imparted from a supernatural being, a being that exists but which is outside our physical perception. This being the case, does this not also speak to the possibility that the idea of non-concern also has its origin in a supernatural being, but one in opposition to the Creator?

Conclusion

In conclusion, it becomes obvious that much of what we believe in this country, whether realized or not, has its origin in the mind of God. That this is expressed through many of our laws, especially by our founders, can not be denied. We see, therefore, that America stands as a citadel to something that began in the mind of God; that our concern for others started with God. This is a standard we should all desire to maintain as we move into the 21st Century.

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