I happened to be re-reading “Philosophy: Who needs it” last Thursday, and had just finished “The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made”. Remember that essay on the serenity prayer?

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

While Rand makes it perfectly clear that she disagrees with Reinhold Heibuhr’s ideas in every fundamental way, she finds a certain value in the prayer and uses it to introduce the topic of her essay on distinguishing between the metaphysical and the man-made and how to treat each.

So, later in the day (or maybe it was Friday), I hear that this fellow Dr. Ben Carson (who, up until then, I’d never even heard of) is considering a presidential run. Well, that set off a fast and furious google/youtube catch up session, and I’m now in part 2 of Ben Carson’s “One Nation”, and I watched “A Breath of Fresh Air” Sunday.

I found myself (as usual), trying to overlook (and translate) the bits about “If it’s God’s plan for me to run, then I will”, and praying for wisdom (do I want a president who might pray for answers to real problems and use divine revelation to choose the way he leads?).

In keeping with my tradition of “thinking out loud” Gulch posts, I really like this guy. He seems to exude a serenity that is the antithesis of what Rand describes as the men who “spend their lives in futile rebellion against the things they cannot change, in passive resignation to the things they can, and - never attempting to learn the difference - in chronic guilt and self-doubt on both counts”.

So I whipped out my personal decoding toolbox, because this is too important to ignore... a distinguished, “non-politician” actually talking about “serving” in a public office... definitely too important to ignore.

Here is my cheat sheet for translating religious language to rational language:

1. Prayer = meditation = settling extraneous thoughts to allow one’s entire attention to be focused on the topic at hand without making the error of allowing extraneous thoughts interfere with the process of assessing the topic.

2. God = the “spirit” of man = the “essence” of man = the “nature” of man = that part of every man which is common with every other man (that he is a rational animal, if you will).

3. God’s will = (in accordance with the previous translation) that which truly rational men must conclude is in their best interest.

This is no science, to be sure, but it works for me when assessing earnest men on either side. If Mr. Carson says that he is praying for wisdom with respect to running, I’m willing to interpret that to mean that he is settling his mind in order to bring his full attention to bear on the situation he would be placing himself into. Every indication is that he is capable of objectively discerning between the metaphysical and the man-made... how can any good medical doctor not? If Mr. Carson says that he will run if it is God’s will that he run, I’m willing to interpret that to mean that he thinks it is in his best interest as well as the best interest of other rational men for him to run.

I’m wondering how other members of the Gulch feel about him as a presidential candidate.