The things we don't question
Sep. 20th, 2004 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eIt is obvious that...
It is simple commonsense that...
Clearly it is...
This is where we make our biggest mistakes. These are the points where we differ from other rational, intelligent people. So long as we refuse to justify our fundamental assumptions we will never find common ground. Even worse, you can question your own assumptions and back them up to the nth degree, but if I refuse to do so then we are hardly better off.
It is hard enough for atheists and agnostics, but it is almost impossible for those afflicted with religion. That mind-virus specifically forbids questioning anything that might threaten its hold on the mind it infects.
But even if your mind is relatively free, how do you question everything? We all have blind spots where the mistakes hide. How do you question something that is virtually invisible? And even if you can unravel your innermost assumptions, where is it safe to stop? At some point you need to start from an assumption, right? Or is that a baseless assumption?
*sigh*
It is simple commonsense that...
Clearly it is...
This is where we make our biggest mistakes. These are the points where we differ from other rational, intelligent people. So long as we refuse to justify our fundamental assumptions we will never find common ground. Even worse, you can question your own assumptions and back them up to the nth degree, but if I refuse to do so then we are hardly better off.
It is hard enough for atheists and agnostics, but it is almost impossible for those afflicted with religion. That mind-virus specifically forbids questioning anything that might threaten its hold on the mind it infects.
But even if your mind is relatively free, how do you question everything? We all have blind spots where the mistakes hide. How do you question something that is virtually invisible? And even if you can unravel your innermost assumptions, where is it safe to stop? At some point you need to start from an assumption, right? Or is that a baseless assumption?
*sigh*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 04:56 am (UTC)Do we need to find common ground?
If we were smarter and gentler and less xenophobic then maybe we wouldn't need to find common ground. Unfortunately that day may be quite some way off yet. In the meantime we probably need to maximise understanding in order to empathise with each other. It is probably our only way out of the dangerous fixes we seem to be working ourselves into.