Before I begin this post, I acknowledge that I will be making generalizations that, in the eyes of many, are unfair generalizations. But I need to begin somewhere in my journey. I should not start journaling when I am finally clear on everything and no longer have to sort out my biases and misinformation.. No! this is exactly the time that I need to be writing. This is what it means to be transparent! So I begin..
---This used to be one of the highest ideals in my life:
---This used to be one of the highest ideals in my life:
To understand the realities in the world and of people. That I wouldn’t be able to honestly respect
myself and to look back on life without regrets and to die in peace if I had not
actively looked the realities of life in the face and acknowledged them for
what they were.. Even if those realities
challenged my cherish beliefs and assumptions..
That the highest ideal was to follow the evidence wherever it lead, but
make sure not to bring emotions and experience along for the ride….
There are secular intellectuals who claim that they “follow the evidence wherever it leads”, but this is
simply not a true representation of them. No, all of them that I have
known have fallen short of having THAT type of intellectual courage!!
In my strong opinion, the truth for most of us is, we will follow the evidence "wherever" it leads, when it is in our best interests.. Rarely does one not consider their best interests in their decision to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Rarely does one follow the evidence into the night not knowing how it will change them, but I was one of those people and I willingly considered it my cross to bear. But among the many disillusioning moments I had along the way was that most of my secular intellectual friends did not go wherever there was knowledge to be found. No, they remained within this circle of topics, but rarely did they venture out beyond that circle of topics, little alone discuss those things with other secular intellectuals..
Christians that I have known are no better. Rarely will they venture beyond the circle of topics found within their Bible and devotionals and when they do there is very little encouragement to discuss these things with other Christians. There is more emphasis on faith than knowledge and when knowledge is discussed it is that the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's eyes. Yet, even these Christians are still better off than the secular intellectuals who more rigorously explore the realities of the world, because they are focused on: how happy and fulfilled am I in this life?
I am currently grappling with this point: I'm not really dealing with the rest of my life IF I am not dealing with why or why not I am happy and fulfilled in this life... There is no greater question that one should ask..
Let's be honest, most of us don't want to understand the how's of life, most of us want to understand the why's of life and the why's that have an emotional and hope filled resonance to them......
In my strong opinion, the truth for most of us is, we will follow the evidence "wherever" it leads, when it is in our best interests.. Rarely does one not consider their best interests in their decision to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Rarely does one follow the evidence into the night not knowing how it will change them, but I was one of those people and I willingly considered it my cross to bear. But among the many disillusioning moments I had along the way was that most of my secular intellectual friends did not go wherever there was knowledge to be found. No, they remained within this circle of topics, but rarely did they venture out beyond that circle of topics, little alone discuss those things with other secular intellectuals..
Christians that I have known are no better. Rarely will they venture beyond the circle of topics found within their Bible and devotionals and when they do there is very little encouragement to discuss these things with other Christians. There is more emphasis on faith than knowledge and when knowledge is discussed it is that the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's eyes. Yet, even these Christians are still better off than the secular intellectuals who more rigorously explore the realities of the world, because they are focused on: how happy and fulfilled am I in this life?
I am currently grappling with this point: I'm not really dealing with the rest of my life IF I am not dealing with why or why not I am happy and fulfilled in this life... There is no greater question that one should ask..
Let's be honest, most of us don't want to understand the how's of life, most of us want to understand the why's of life and the why's that have an emotional and hope filled resonance to them......
---I now consider this to be the highest ideal in my life:
To understand happiness and fulfillment and to bring emotion
and experience along for the ride and not strictly exclude them..
To ask myself: Do I
want to be right OR do I want to be happy.
Figuring out how things work and analyzing everything has not lead me to
more happiness, especially back when I considered that the only way to approach
understanding reality. If anything it has made finding happiness a more complicated matter.
Yes, suspending one’s judgment on things and keeping
one’s convictions/emotions at bay and to consider them not that very important
in your “quest for truth” has the appearance of intellectual integrity and the look of a great ethical ideal, but the hard reality is that you never arrive at
“truth”. Science is always tentative, it
rarely if ever fully knows reality and does not support knowing things in an
absolute sense.. But that is ONE of the
fundamental needs in our brain, to have certainty, to have hope! And you’re not just being a “true scientist”
when you deny the needs of your brain for certainty and hope and therefore
only settle for what can be proven and turned into data to be analyzed. You're not just being a so called “true
scientist” when you do that, you’re being unhealthy and not partaking in all
that you are. You're not being a complete person.
-One side of our brain has a predisposition to analyze
things and understand things, and to approach them with our logic and reason.
-The other side of our brain wants to feel and experience
things and to embrace the abstract. It’s
also the side of our brain with a predisposition for spirituality and
faith. It’s the side of our brain that
is okay with things staying mysterious and beautiful…
So, here are some questions that the serious seeker of truth should
ask themselves:
-Am I approaching the truth with all of my mind and
self?
-Or am too inhibited in stepping outside of my element and
experiencing who someone is or an aspect of life?
-For example, People are eager and willing to learn about sports or anything else that is important to them, but are reactive to and hesitant to step inside the doors of the church to really learn what a particular church’s Christianity is all
about.. Instead, this supposed free thinker discusses these things safely from a distance where it's all that much more easy to succumb to a biased understanding of things?
This is not the type of Enlightenment thinking tradition that I went in search of to represent, but it is the dominate majority of free thinkers that I have met... How sad.
It's easy to point out someone's flaws and to use those flaws to define and dismiss that particular worldview, but it takes maturity and courage to experience that person's worldview and so do justice to your understanding of their worldview....
That is what I am doing and it is a big reason in my returning to and immersing myself in Christianity....
This is not the type of Enlightenment thinking tradition that I went in search of to represent, but it is the dominate majority of free thinkers that I have met... How sad.
It's easy to point out someone's flaws and to use those flaws to define and dismiss that particular worldview, but it takes maturity and courage to experience that person's worldview and so do justice to your understanding of their worldview....
That is what I am doing and it is a big reason in my returning to and immersing myself in Christianity....
