"Black & White"

Some students had a hard time in our college philosophy class.  We were told in the first lesson we couldn't use the Bible to prove anything.  You can believe it, but don't use it as a verifiable source.  "It's the Word of God!"  How do you know?  "The Bible says so!"  That's a circular argument.  Our Buddhist teacher said she didn't care what religion we practiced.  She cared about our logic.  It was the first class I'd had that taught thinking.

I watch too much news and see a lack of thinking going on in politicians, reporters, and the rest of us.  We get our talking points from the party of our choice and just accept those points to be true.  How do we know they're true?  Because our side told us so!

My friend in Florida chuckled over the miserable winter I've been having.  I don't know when he last lived here, but he was amazed when I told him I only shoveled my driveway once this year.  "Climate change is happening faster than anyone is acknowledging", I said.  I told him about getting bitten by a mosquito a couple weeks before.  I think he feels lied to by the national weather reports, but they're correct in a way.  I have had some nasty weather this year.  It just doesn't last.  A few days of freezing misery, then the temps bounce above freezing again.  Back and forth, but never cold enough, long enough to kill the damned mosquitoes.

I don't want to be cold, but it takes 10 days of solid cold to reset trees and animals.  I want to eat apples so I'm willing to be cold for 10 days.  How are we going to make that happen?  Black and white answers regurgitated from political parties aren't the solution.  We need to honestly address the issues we face and be open to other people's ideas.

I dated a Republican attorney who was pretty high up in his party.  This obviously didn't last very long, especially when he pressured me to go to an Ann Coulter lecture, but I've long remembered him for some of the things he said.  For example, I wanted people to drive fuel efficient cars but noticed the vehicles around me were getting bigger and bigger.  He said that was going to continue to happen until we taxed gas more.  I said that would punish the people who couldn't afford it and the people with money would keep buying big vehicles.  He cited European taxes.

I heard him.  I didn't like it.  I don't want to spend $10 or $20 per gallon of gas.  I sputtered and tried to think of better rebuttals to him while conceding he'd made some good points, not enough to convert me, but I learned something.

We need logical discussions outside of our preferred groups.  We need to get along, think, and learn or we aren't going to eat apples or nuts or anything else that grows on a tree.  If we don't save the pollinators we aren't going to have bread or corn or most other kinds of food.

It's happening faster than most people are noticing.  I got bit by a mosquito in February!