Are the religious right right?
CBC Radio ran an interesting program today in which a committed, evangelical, fundamentalist Christain minister took the CBC reporter into his home for a week. The program, told entirely in alternating first-person accounts, related how they came to respect each other even though their viewpoints about God, homosexuals, abortion, G.W.Bush, and almost everything else, were so different. Each told how wary they initially were about each other, how they became friends, and respected the other (even though his view was wrong!)
Here's what bothers me a little about the certainty of strongly religious people. Throughout history, religious people have always been strongly convinced of the correctness of their own beliefs. A while ago, African Americans were unworthy of treatment as humans; before that Native Americans, witches, heretics, "infidels" in the holy lands. Jews have been persecuted by Christians for a couple of millennia. Church doctrines have changed over time.
At each instant in history, I will bet that committed religious people have always said that they were certain their beliefs were true. They would have said that those who lived before them were misguided; that, in fact, EVERYONE who thinks differently is wrong.
My question to an evangelical, fundamentalist person of any religion is this. Isn't it worth considering that all of the people in those earlier eras felt as strongly that they are absolutely right as you do? You have been born and raised (or otherwise come) to accept certain tenets as absolute truths. If you are truly open-minded and rational, shouldn't you acknowledge that there is a rather low probability that you happen to have been born at just the perfect time in history that your generation was taught the absolute truth, while all those who came before (or believe different things now) are the ones who are wrong? How can honest, clear-thinking, fair evangelicals be so certain of the correctness of their positions?
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Save "me", please
English may be a living language, but the proper use of "me" is dying. Often bad language comes up from the bottom: kids, TV shows, wrestling matches. Over the last ten years, an error that bugs me came down from the top, from adults, from professionals. It is the use of the word "myself" when the speaker or writer means "me."
e.g. Turn your documents into Kevin or myself by 3:00.
e.g. (worse) Dave and myself will be away tomorrow. (should be "I")
I turn in documents to you, not to yourself. I see her, she sees herself. You play with me, I play …
On second thought, I guess the word "me" is not imperiled as I first thought. Almost every student says "Me and her are going to the mall." Hearing that always gives myself a headache.
English may be a living language, but the proper use of "me" is dying. Often bad language comes up from the bottom: kids, TV shows, wrestling matches. Over the last ten years, an error that bugs me came down from the top, from adults, from professionals. It is the use of the word "myself" when the speaker or writer means "me."
e.g. Turn your documents into Kevin or myself by 3:00.
e.g. (worse) Dave and myself will be away tomorrow. (should be "I")
I turn in documents to you, not to yourself. I see her, she sees herself. You play with me, I play …
On second thought, I guess the word "me" is not imperiled as I first thought. Almost every student says "Me and her are going to the mall." Hearing that always gives myself a headache.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
If we only knew
I'm old enough to remember "Whites Only" drinking fountains and regulations in the American South that blacks had to sit in the back of the bus and give up their seats to white people. This concept looks so repulsive now. (It was repulsive then, too, but not for many southerners...bear with me.) If whites in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia in 1960 could have looked ahead 45 years, they would have seen the disgust that people today have for their attitudes. If they knew, then, how their attitudes would appear to people 40 years in the future, would they have continued to hold their values?
My parents grew up on the Toronto Islands. Up until the 60's there were no Jews allowed in the bowling and baseball leagues, nor at the events in the Clubhouse. And my parents and their friends were otherwise very good people. Why didn't they see how wrong this was? If someone told them what people in 1980 would think of this policy, would they have changed it sooner?
Or take Sadam Hussein. He wanted to be known as a great leader, like Saladin. If he had known that he would be despised by future generations, would he have acted differently?
Let's assume that people would change their behaviour if, magically, they found out what future generations thought of them. The question becomes, then, what are WE doing today that people in 2040 will say "How could they have thought THAT? How disgusting! How could they have behaved that way?"
A couple of suggestions might be
"How could they (i.e. we) have ignored/contributed to global warming so much?"
"How could they have treated homosexuals that way?"
"How could they have destroyed so many species?"
Are there any things about us that you think might disgust future generations as much as those behaviours from the near past, like routinely-accepted racial descrimination, that disgust us now?
I'm old enough to remember "Whites Only" drinking fountains and regulations in the American South that blacks had to sit in the back of the bus and give up their seats to white people. This concept looks so repulsive now. (It was repulsive then, too, but not for many southerners...bear with me.) If whites in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia in 1960 could have looked ahead 45 years, they would have seen the disgust that people today have for their attitudes. If they knew, then, how their attitudes would appear to people 40 years in the future, would they have continued to hold their values?
My parents grew up on the Toronto Islands. Up until the 60's there were no Jews allowed in the bowling and baseball leagues, nor at the events in the Clubhouse. And my parents and their friends were otherwise very good people. Why didn't they see how wrong this was? If someone told them what people in 1980 would think of this policy, would they have changed it sooner?
Or take Sadam Hussein. He wanted to be known as a great leader, like Saladin. If he had known that he would be despised by future generations, would he have acted differently?
Let's assume that people would change their behaviour if, magically, they found out what future generations thought of them. The question becomes, then, what are WE doing today that people in 2040 will say "How could they have thought THAT? How disgusting! How could they have behaved that way?"
A couple of suggestions might be
"How could they (i.e. we) have ignored/contributed to global warming so much?"
"How could they have treated homosexuals that way?"
"How could they have destroyed so many species?"
Are there any things about us that you think might disgust future generations as much as those behaviours from the near past, like routinely-accepted racial descrimination, that disgust us now?
I realize that English is a living language, but would you help me save the word "me" from extinction? Often bad language comes up from the bottom: kids, TV shows, wrestling matches. Over the last ten years, an error that bugs me came down from the top, from adults, from professionals. It is the use of the word "myself" when the speaker or writer means "me."
e.g. Turn your documents into Kevin or myself by 3:00.
e.g. (worse) Dave and myself will be away tomorrow. (should be "I")
I turn in documents to you, not to yourself. I see her, she sees herself. You play with me, I play …
On second thought, I guess the word "me" is not imperiled as I first thought. Almost every student says "Me and her are going to the mall." …Hearing that always gives myself a headache.
e.g. Turn your documents into Kevin or myself by 3:00.
e.g. (worse) Dave and myself will be away tomorrow. (should be "I")
I turn in documents to you, not to yourself. I see her, she sees herself. You play with me, I play …
On second thought, I guess the word "me" is not imperiled as I first thought. Almost every student says "Me and her are going to the mall." …Hearing that always gives myself a headache.
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