27th
Tux Life: Everything That Rises Must Converge, or, How I ‘Got’ Religion on a Friday Afternoon (via Instapaper)
It’s funny to think of it as ironic that fundamentalist Christians are repulsed by fundamentalist Muslims. As Julie reminds me, almost too often, we tend to be triggered by other people’s similarities to us - not by their differences. Especially to the things in us we consider least defensible, of which we are least accepting. To my mind, the fundamentalist Christians’ vitriol for fundamentalist Muslims amounts to little more than a violent expression of a pervasive, irrepressible doubt concerning their own stated beliefs. It’s the fear that they’re wrong - about everything - amplified and caught in a destructive feedback loop with doctrinal intolerability of having, or admitting, doubt that directs them to take aim at their most similar competitive threats first.
There is such a thing as reasonable faith. I’ve never heard a sound argument that faith is inherently unreasonable. But to me (here we go with the beliefs and opinions again) the legitimacy of faith must be determined by the degree to which it effects humility and curiosity, as opposed to justifying arrogance and complacency.
Which brings me back to this one (of many - seriously, go read the rest) significant passage from Shandon’s post up there: It is precisely because we no longer teach (and are therefore increasingly incapable of performing) critical analysis that armies of myopic, ignorant, bigoted, paranoid dullards have been able to infiltrate not only the court system, but the educational system, the business world, significant portions of the media, national and state legislatures, the national presidency (2000-2008), and so on. “Infiltration” is deceptively mild at this stage. “Occupation” is more like it.
The issue threatening us is not religion vs. science, and we intelligent people of decent intent perilously distract ourselves by getting hung up on that debate. The issue is the death of the ability to reason in our society, and whether or not we have the will - and increasingly, the ability - to revive it.
