Tuesday, November 13, 2012

I Don't Know

“I don’t know.” I grew up thinking this statement was a sign of weakness. My father set the early goal of making me a leader--with middling results--by establishing tenets drawn from self-help books and cliches such as “never let them see you sweat” and “shoot first, ask questions later.” His uncharacteristically geeky role-model, Captain Kirk, always had the answers even when the situation was completely unknown. While this worked out for the main character of a successful television show, but in the real world the “no-win-scenario” actually isn’t winable and some questions just don’t have accessible answers.

I eventually dropped Kirk as my inherited role-model for the more analytical Batman. This was partly because Bats was way cooler and partly because I didn’t want to end up as an away team red shirt. Bruce Wayne’s alter ego is considered “the world’s greatest detective” and is an accomplished scientist in many fields. (For the purposes of this argument, please familiarize yourself with the Batman of the comic books. I recommend Grant Morrison’s JLA or Batman: Hush. Christian Bale’s depiction was great and all, but he wasn’t the hero we deserved.) Among nerd conficts of superheroics, it is accepted that, given enough intel and perparation time, Batman could beat anyone. Seriously, Superman, Thor, Yahweh, anyone! I consider him a posterchild for the importance of knowledge.

via AmazingSuperpowers.com

Religion has proven itself a source for answers throughout history--and history has proven religion’s answers false at nearly every turn. Yet people still hang on to the few answers that religion holds over the growing wealth of verified human knowledge. Abiogenesis, pre-Big Bang and post-death happenings, and existential meaning are all supposedly answered by invoking a single word, “God.”  That kind of baseless research tells us nothing. We should instead sit at our Bat-computers, gather information, study, learn, and contribute to knowledge. If that all fails, we need to accept what theists and Kirk don’t understand--that “I don’t know” has value. The value is honesty.

8 comments:

  1. That's really the problem, religion hasn't proven itself a source of answers, it's proven itself a source of empty claims. It just says things that are convenient at the time, yet in the long-run really mean nothing. Religion's "answers" are about as meaningful as fortune cookie fortunes. They may sound pithy when you first read them but you know they're cranked out by the millions in a factory somewhere.

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  2. Arguments for God really do sound legit when you already (at least somewhat) believe in God, but under closer consideration...

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  3. Under *ANY* rational consideration...

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  4. The only thing religion has done in my mind is find justification in ways to steal things and kill people. Great post!

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  5. This needs to get to the people at Headquarters of the major retailers. The 1 I work for won't allow us to say "I don't know" even when we're asked a question that we honestly don't know the answer to.

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  6. It's interesting to see just how often uncertainty or changes in scientific theory count as evidence against it in the eyes of religious folks. Many of them take what should be a virtue and treat it as a vice.

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