Ihre Zukunft
Some days I am frightened for my future children.
I am frightened that a very charismatic homeschooled fundamentalist Christian will find his or her way into their lives and fill their minds with the wrong questions. These will be questions that masquerade as the right questions, the right ones being the questions that lead to more and better questions. Instead, their questions will have neat little answers to them. Tidy, closed answers that rule out any further inquiry. They will think that they have the universe figured out, that the Christian God is the final word on things. This bible, this book, this collection of short stories that has spread like a plague across the face of the earth, worked its way to be the #1 Bestseller of all time because no self-respecting churchgoer or road-side motel room can be without one, will hold all of these supposed answers between its very finite covers. In a very important way, however, these covers will contain something even more terrifying: The fear of not having an answer. The fear of being wrong.
It is a system of trial or error, and not one of investigation that I fear. If one holds an absolute belief so strongly, and so much of one's life has been spent stagnating in it, there will be immense fear of being wrong, of having wasted this time. Thus, to change one's mind would be to fail. The only way to succeed would be to hold firm to these beliefs, despite one's doubts. Rationalizations of such acts, such as "I'm being tested", "God works in mysterious ways", and other cop-outs will be used to maintain this illusion of success and failure in the maintenance of such a belief system. But why not investigate? Why is it that, to find the answers we seek from Christianity, we must already believe that what they tell us is true? If we only investigate
our existence, to question anything and everything in relation to everything else, there is no fear left. If we are constantly learning about the universe instead of finding different ways to rationalize what we already pretend to know about it, we will be better off. There is comfort there, and surety. We do not need an absolute knowledge of any god or of any religion to live a strong, safe and ultimately good life. This is what I want for my children.
I am frightened that a very charismatic homeschooled fundamentalist Christian will find his or her way into their lives and fill their minds with the wrong questions. These will be questions that masquerade as the right questions, the right ones being the questions that lead to more and better questions. Instead, their questions will have neat little answers to them. Tidy, closed answers that rule out any further inquiry. They will think that they have the universe figured out, that the Christian God is the final word on things. This bible, this book, this collection of short stories that has spread like a plague across the face of the earth, worked its way to be the #1 Bestseller of all time because no self-respecting churchgoer or road-side motel room can be without one, will hold all of these supposed answers between its very finite covers. In a very important way, however, these covers will contain something even more terrifying: The fear of not having an answer. The fear of being wrong.
It is a system of trial or error, and not one of investigation that I fear. If one holds an absolute belief so strongly, and so much of one's life has been spent stagnating in it, there will be immense fear of being wrong, of having wasted this time. Thus, to change one's mind would be to fail. The only way to succeed would be to hold firm to these beliefs, despite one's doubts. Rationalizations of such acts, such as "I'm being tested", "God works in mysterious ways", and other cop-outs will be used to maintain this illusion of success and failure in the maintenance of such a belief system. But why not investigate? Why is it that, to find the answers we seek from Christianity, we must already believe that what they tell us is true? If we only investigate
our existence, to question anything and everything in relation to everything else, there is no fear left. If we are constantly learning about the universe instead of finding different ways to rationalize what we already pretend to know about it, we will be better off. There is comfort there, and surety. We do not need an absolute knowledge of any god or of any religion to live a strong, safe and ultimately good life. This is what I want for my children.
Labels: Religion
posted by Ubersehen | 16:07
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