Bizarre

Come on in, enjoy the heat and steam. I've closed up the den a bit because I need to sweat out this cold.

And that of course is the irony of the situation. Yesterday I talk about how great my health has been lately and today my throat is aching, my nose is entirely stuffed up, and I'm exhausted. So I'm going to spend the day resting, sipping some liquids, and trying to get over this annoying cold.

So this sparked something I want to talk about in between a couple things my wonderful friends cenobyte and Viper Pilot have posted recently. And that is the extremes. The extremes of belief and religion and such.

Reading about ceno's experience with some teachers who balked at books on time travel, and of course the hilarious searching for signal, made me sad, and tired, like herself, because it really is a bizarre concept. The idea that ideas lead people away from God is rather bizarre. It's the restriction of ideas that lead people away from religion.

Example time. Buddy of mine I work with, great guy, and very intelligent. He, and his family are very committed Christians. Of course he loves dirty jokes, spends his days at work making y'mama jokes about me, and is a huge fan of tech blogs and questioning the very nature of the 'truth' through various podcasts and such. In fact, I think that's what makes him a very good Christian. Because he constantly questions. And that's the funny part. He describes himself as a former goody two-shoes who bought hook, line, and sinker into the 'party line' that ceno has described, as he went to Christian orientated schools, until he got into high school and realized that a lot of what he was taught in school about the world was a complete lie.

And then he revised that, he explained that a lot of the 'dangers' of the world, as he'd been told, were not dangers at all, merely parts of life where people could overindulge, or find issue, but that his faith, and his belief in the core values that he was taught were still just as valid as ever. He started his own path and found his faith and spirituality.

And that's really quite cool, because he got past the indoctrination, part of the reason both ceno and I agree that until someone is able to understand the decision they shouldn't be required to be a part of any particular religion, and found what his personal relationship with God would be. That's pretty neat.

So part of the problem that bothers me about that indoctrination is the 'us vs. them' attitude that is fostered in it. We're right and they're wrong, the vast over-generalizing that assigns people to specific beliefs when they should be considered in each situation individually. What, because D.C. Scott was a confederation poet, and the Indian Commissioner who wrote scads on the eventual assimilation and destruction of the First Nations people and culture, that I should say all Canadian poets are racists? Hell even Scott wasn't a racist, he was mere a product of ill conceived science and reason.

Which brings me to the logical fallacy that is used and then mocked in academia everywhere. The Hitler reduction. And while the Pope was wrong for using it, let's not let Mr. Dawkins off the hook either. He did the EXACT same thing! Really, it's quite like two kids, 'Hitler was your fault poopy head!' 'No he was YOUR fault, poopy head!' Really? And this pisses me off because I have read quite a bit of Dawkins stuff and I find his central argument popping up in a lot of places, and even in my friends' mouths. And it is an identical indoctrination and over generalization as religion does.

Somehow Dawkins thinks the only rational people are those that reject religion and spirituality all together. You can't be rational if you believe in any form of God. And how is that any different from the over generalization that if you don't believe in God you can't know right from wrong? Because as we all know science and reason have NEVER been the cause of anything bad. EVER. Like old social theories that created systemic racism. DDT, thalidomide, CFBs, atomic waste, strip mining, and a vast cornucopia of scientific 'advances' have brought us worlds of grief, therefore, reason and science are evil and anyone associated with them should be put to the cross.

And of course this will foster the cross argument of 'Well it was individuals...' Wait what? Stop. Individuals caused this issues? So why is that not good enough to understand the so-called 'Evils of Religion?' Ahhh right, that doesn't support your argument. How rational is that?

It comes down to the extremes. I understand that each side will go to whatever lengths they can to 'win the argument' and meanwhile, people will take these extreme points of view and run with them. When really, neither side is right or wrong, neither side is really all that valid. Both sides should be there to support the individuals who support their point of view, and reinforce community and understanding rather than a continued debate that doesn't even ATTEMPT to speak to one another, just shout over generalized insults and accusations.