I'm sorry to have offended you...

Michael Matthews shares some insight into the futility of being "offended" and the tactic of apology often employed by politicians to use another's emotionally-based and reactionary criticism advantageously. Michael provides us with the example of Warren Chisum's distribution of an anti-evolution essay espousing anti-Semitic claims of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christian teachings about the universe. Michael says -

"The lesson is, if someone does something ridiculous, it's not sufficient to express offense. In fact it's counterproductive. Instead, one should make explicit the silliness or inconsistencies in the person's argument, how it is racially bigoted, how it is constitutionally illegal, or simply why it's logically fallacious."

Counterproductive indeed. Expressing offense, as Michael notes, gives the offender a way out by "apologizing for the offense instead of the actual act". How so? Because the offense is committed in the mind of the offended.

Reason or Reprehensible Rearing?

Recently, I had an off-curricular yet important dialog with a few students. We were discussing the state of affairs in Iraq and the United States. Naturally, George W. Bush was introduced as a key personality involved in current events. As is common concerning this topic, several students voiced their opinion of the 43rd president of the United States. A young child - that of "missionaries" to Africa - pipes up and states, "George Bush is a good president!"

One would think that a teacher's best approach to any students' supposed proclamation of truth would be to question rather than immediately rebut. As well, the teacher may be mistaken and could negate an opportunity to learn by reexamining one's own view. With this in mind, I ask a straightforward question...

"What's your reason for saying so?"

The student responds, "Because he's Christian."

The Best Defense is a Good, Um, Er... Belief?

Update: The CNN article seems to be deleted. Fortunately, the Internet Archive had a copy.

The Intelligent Design circus has recently made headlines in California. With "ID as science" proponents having their buttocks kicked in a variety of locations, it seems the strategy has changed. ID is now being proposed as a "philosophy" with social studies teacher Sharon Lumberg attempting to offer a "Philosophy of Design" course to her students.

Personally, I have no problem with a discussion of "intelligence". Such discussion would blend well with philosophical discourse. "What is intelligence?" is a tremendous question. But when it's framed as the intelligence of "That - out there" - not simply intelligence itself - folks, we have strayed far from science or philosophy.

The most telling part of this article is when CNN states that Sharon Lumberg "defended" her course with the following argument...

"I believe this is the class that the Lord wanted me to teach"

No Belief

An astute young man asked me today - "What do we have left if we are without belief?"

To clarify, this fellow and I had discussed what we considered "belief". Our inquiry was centered around spiritual/religious belief - the various ideas that people attach themselves to regarding god(s), saviors, souls, prophets, miracles, what happens after death, etc. That is, our inquiry was not about the complete eradication of all belief. We were not considering conjecture based upon observable evidence. For instance, we understood statements such as "I believe this water will turn to ice if we lower the temperature below 0 degrees." or "I believe that if I drop this rock, it will fall to the ground." to be reasonable assertions.

What we considered was the quality of mind that has absolutely no spiritual/religious belief whatsoever.

Perhaps, to find the answer to that we must first find out why we believe. We believe, do we not?, to escape fear. Perhaps since childhood our family or our society has told us to believe and we fear standing alone. We fear being rejected by those who collectively share a particular system of thinking. To stand alone may create unrest, and in order to avoid that unrest we cling to our belief.

Perhaps we stick with a belief because we are afraid to consider the possibility that we may have been deluding ourselves for years. We may have believed something so strongly that to even question that belief would mean questioning everything we've stood for.

Perhaps we believe because we have experienced or witnessed tragedy in our lives and feel lost unless we can try to make sense of it.

In some cases, we may believe in order to deal with the fear another belief evokes. For example, we believe such-and-such happens after death so in order to make sure that our foundational belief in the process of death is carried forth in our interest, we believe in X.

These various escapes from fear we speciously label 'hope' or 'meaning' - for if we honestly saw our belief for what it is - an escape - we may decide to face our fear directly. We say that belief gives us hope and meaning without questioning why we feel the urge to ascribe hope or meaning to life itself.

Indeed, there may be various cosmetic explanations for belief but the common denominator is undeniably fear.

Surely, belief divides us. It never brings us together. Of course, pockets of believers come together under their particular umbrella, but for one concerned with the whole of humanity, it is clear that belief is a mechanism of division. The theists are in their camp whilst the atheists are in theirs. The communists, buddhists, christians, hindus, muslims - they all have their particular beliefs and are thus fragments in conflict with the whole of humanity. At times, they may take action that serves others outside their belief circle, but psychologically - inwardly - they see the world as 'us' and 'them'. Just as one may cling to national pride yet offer foreign aid, action is not whole and therefore, incomplete. The aid is but one plug that may slow the overall leak, but the fundamental fissures are ignored.

What is the quality of mind that looks directly at fear instead of escaping through belief?

One imagines the believer cleverly stating that such a mind also perpetuates the "us" and "them" mentality and is therefore no different. They may claim something like - the "believers" versus the "non-believers". But can the negation of belief (not the reaction toward - take, for instance, the atheists) be fairly lumped into the mash? Is a mind that is alone (all one) a mind that participates in the religious realm of belief at all? Is a mind that steps aside and honestly says "I don't know." in conflict?

What do we have left if we are without belief?

Why speculate? Let's find out.