If one believes that the purpose of life is to serve others, nothing can take it away--not even peak oil or AGW. If the purpose of life is accumulating more toys, peak oil is a real threat. It can change a person's outlook on life.

...in the teachings of a guy who I don't think was actually anything special.

Whether or not he was special should not influence whether or not any of his alleged teachings have any value. (This is a distinction based on the idea of separating the sin from the sinner, or the author from the words.)

If you take a look at the Sermon on the Mount, for example, it may have some useful ideas, like Blessed are the Peacemakers (or mediators).

Having said that, I must say that I am one of those who thinks that it is highly likely that there was no such creature, that Jesus Christ is the evolutionary result of an imaginary god called Hesu Krishna invented by Constantine. (Look at religious history to see how distorted are our current belief system origins and claims.) I also find the Sermon on the Mount to be a confused mishmash of a number of entirely different belief systems, theistic and pagan, that were extant around the time it was compiled (300AD or so?).

Hi Nate,

I'd like to relate a story to you. My father was an abused child, who would have been killed by his stepfather, had he not been saved by Dorothea, his high school English teacher. She recognized a child in distress and he lived with her until he graduated from Stanford. She also rescued may other creatures both men and beasts. The men included Derry who became the editor of Stanford’s Mark Twain collection; Ted who helped design project Mercury’s heat shield; Morey, whose hard-scramble parents thought school was for suckers, but when to college because of her and became one of the principal designers of modern satellite communications, Chief engineer for Voice of America, and later Director of Whitehouse Communications; and my father, who went into television.

Raised by Dorothea with a strong sense of moral and social duty, he felt that broadcasting was a privilege, and that TV stations had an obligation to help the less fortunate. As a result, he hired the first woman newscaster (KPIX), read the first on-air editorial and asked for public response, hired the first black TV anchor man and woman in the nation (WTOP, DC.), pioneered children’s educational shows, and produced the first TV documentary on urban blight and decay. One night, while returning from a TV conference, he found himself sitting next to the producer of "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau", who was under enormous pressure to cut it because its ratings were below expectations. He spent the entire flight lobbying him to keep it, because it was a moral responsibility. Fortunately, the producer decided to keep the show, which became a springboard for the Cousteau Society and a large portion of the environmental movement.

The reason I mention all of this is because Dorothea referred to herself as a Christina woman, and went to church every Sunday. I don't recall her every telling a story or a quote from the Bible, she certainly lived the best parts of it. She said it gave her guidance and the strength to do what was right. Sometimes the stars align so that good things happen, and Dorothea was one of these.

Mark Anthony’s eulogy for Julius Caesar is often quoted as representative of today’s society, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. I disagree. Disasters and violence grab our attention because they are dramatic, but they are not what lasts. Every day I see Dorothea’s influence on the world, and so to for the thousands of other men and women like her whose kindness and dedication is reflected in the good deeds we do to help each other and why society and civility, against all odds, perseveres.