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Helen: I know you'll say I'm being evasive again but please bear with me...
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Well, yes, you are probably inadvertently being evasive, but, dammit, Helen, I have a soft spot for you. You have made me like you so much I can't keep on trying to make you face the truth. It makes me feel like a bully and a heel.
So, I'm just going to encourage you to privately keep on doing what you're doing, like reading Sagan's excellent books. Yes, I've read
The Demon-Haunted World and it remains one of my favorites; it was given to me when it first came out by a man whose opinions I respect very much. My use of the monster illustration, though, just came from real life; I just naturally thought of how I try to quell my granddaughter's three-year-old-sized fears about monsters by reassuring her they don't exist and how I certainly don't let the fact that no one can prove that
anything absolutely doesn't exist get in the way comforting her.
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I live in an irrational world.
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So do I; it's full of religion!
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I gave up on rationality. Now it's more a matter of, try to live my life in an irrational world where most people don't have a clue what it's like to be diagnosed with a mental health disorder and mostly it's because they don't care.
Is that irrelevant? It's not irrelevant to me, that there came a point where I had to say "what's the point?" and decide if rationality was the point, the world would be a very different place.
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I know it seems that way, Helen, but I think you probably live your life a lot more rationally than you think. I think we
have to be pretty rational, just to get through the day; to get the kids off to school, to supervise homework, to shop for groceries, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to accomplish day-to-day living. And I think many people compartmentalize certain areas of their lives to be irrational about, and religion is one of these areas. I know I've got these areas, too, but I just don't know what they are; if I did, I'd change. When I discovered I was irrational about religion, I changed. The religious, for sure, don't win all the prizes for irrationality, as I'm sure you've seen in many an atheist's post, but religion is an area that we can, at least identify that irrationality is occurring. Note: Take the words rational and irrational as terms of convenience. I realize that none of our thoughts are composed of purely rational cognition, but, for the most part, we can identify thoughts that make sense or don't make sense. By "irrational", I refer to things that don't make sense, even to the one who thinks them.
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Most people don't want to be rational. If you do, good luck: you're swimming upstream.
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Actually, I never exactly
wanted to be rational, I just am. I've always been compelled to try to root out the truth, even if it hurts. And I had a strong impetus to search for reasons for human behaviors; that reason was to stay one step ahead of my irrational father. Anyway, the lessons learned have served me well. And I'm a great swimmer, especially upstream!
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But just to show you that I do listen to what people say, here. And in fact the chapter "there's a dragon in my garage" begins so similarly to the whole 'monsters' thing I was wondering whether you'd read it too!
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I am very encouraged that you are reading this book. I hope when you're done, you read all his books. If your journey is to be a private one, so be it, but, remember, this forum is here if you want it.
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love
Helen (shupid as they come...)
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Shupid as foxes come; right, Helen?
03-31-2002, 07:09 PM
. I don't know why that should be...(I'm kidding!)
