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!
