Terrible Weather Huh?Ahh small talk how you fill those awkward silences. We all hate those awkward silences so we talk about everything, and sometimes nothing, a lot. With the two notable exceptions of everything being the old truism: politics and religion. Supposedly these two areas, no matter how important to the world, shouldn't be brought up because it would end all of life on earth.
Change the Subject Please
So they say just go ahead and scratch off potentially the most two important subjects for fear of hurt feelings because what happens in the world outside of your friends isn't important anyway right? What's the worst that can happen?
Of course this is at least half wrong because politics are not really out of bounds. Everybody doesn't like it when someone brings up politics or someone questions your viewpoint but no conniptions are usually had (but there are exceptions). But the old cliche seems half right because religious faith is generally completely beyond questioning and met with hostility when brought up. In return for our silence we get: less verbal conflict and we don't offend anyone.
A Challenge We Can Meet
What do we stand to lose by not discussing faith and religion? Any time we refuse to discuss something for fear of consequences we sacrifice critical thought and integrity to the alter of political correctness. But what else do we stand to lose?
Imagine for a moment we knew someone's religious faith was demonstrably incorrect. Under our current rules we wouldn't tell them the truth, no matter what the effects of those beliefs were. This is obviously unjust.
Its apparent we all value critical thought and would like to lead people away from untruths so why not, put aside possibly hurt feelings, even on the subject of faith? You never know, we might just be saving some of our friends from untold lost hours of their lives and potentially dangerous ideas.
Besides, intellectual duels can be fun.
Change the Subject Please
So they say just go ahead and scratch off potentially the most two important subjects for fear of hurt feelings because what happens in the world outside of your friends isn't important anyway right? What's the worst that can happen?
Of course this is at least half wrong because politics are not really out of bounds. Everybody doesn't like it when someone brings up politics or someone questions your viewpoint but no conniptions are usually had (but there are exceptions). But the old cliche seems half right because religious faith is generally completely beyond questioning and met with hostility when brought up. In return for our silence we get: less verbal conflict and we don't offend anyone.
A Challenge We Can MeetWhat do we stand to lose by not discussing faith and religion? Any time we refuse to discuss something for fear of consequences we sacrifice critical thought and integrity to the alter of political correctness. But what else do we stand to lose?
Imagine for a moment we knew someone's religious faith was demonstrably incorrect. Under our current rules we wouldn't tell them the truth, no matter what the effects of those beliefs were. This is obviously unjust.
Its apparent we all value critical thought and would like to lead people away from untruths so why not, put aside possibly hurt feelings, even on the subject of faith? You never know, we might just be saving some of our friends from untold lost hours of their lives and potentially dangerous ideas.
Besides, intellectual duels can be fun.
A good chunked post. I'm going blind with your background and transparent body. Let's see how others feel about that.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Can faith be "incorrect"?
I've changed the background and header and on the p.s. question: I can see why this seems strange to assume because that wasn't the best possible word choice, I probably should have used "religious beliefs." However this non-optimal word choice did inspire a new post.
ReplyDelete