Wednesday, August 13, 2008

on misunderstanding the nature of your own view...

Extremists come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Materialist atheists, for example, believe that everything in life can be reduced to matter in motion. They do not understand that the essential nature of their view is one of abject faith. They preempt themselves from having spiritual experiences and then utterly shun ideas and claims that are grounded in the very type of experience that they willfully remain ignorant of. Thus they are doubly ignorant: firstly, and most importantly, of the nature of their own belief system and secondly of any substantial familiarity with the belief system that they attack.

Typical religious zealots fail to consider the utterly unjust convenience of being born in a region where the one and only true religion prevails. And, whether or not they were born into their religion, they reject absolutely the notion that their beliefs are historical and cultural constructs fashioned by other human beings. Thus they misapprehend the nature of their own system of beliefs. The obstinate dogmatists invoke reason sporadically and only in service of non-negotiable tenets. And so they too are doubly ignorant: firstly, and most importantly, of the nature of their own belief system and secondly of the value of doubt and the utility of reason.

To these and other such positions I'd like to offer this sardonic imperative from William James (1890, pg. 320):

“Whatever you are totally ignorant of, assert to be the explanation of everything else.”

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