RE: Why Can't others See?
July 31, 2009 at 12:30 pm
(This post was last modified: July 31, 2009 at 12:32 pm by Beholden.)
I think the most interesting cases are as much psychology as philosophy. Free will, rebellion, conflict and conformity... If a child is taught to think a certain way from birth, do they really have any free will to examine and choose when they get older? The deck has already been stacked in one favour, one could say, but the point also can be made that if there truly is free will, the journey will be made, and the belief examined.
From my experience, it seems the Seekers are the vast minority. I was born to a "non-practicing" Catholic family, though apparently I was baptised Catholic. I don't recall, and I don't particularly care. I sought for the better part of two decades, from when I was old enough to question and reason, through thousands of books, inteviews, debates and discussions, to the point when the end of the trail was growing quite near, and the decision made that none of it could be right. My father never made the journey, and has remained undecided on the god question his entire life, as has my brother.
Conversely, there are others that start under very similar circumstances of a "non-practicing" family that walk the paths of religion and find one that suits them just fine. Such was the case of my mother, who now is both Southern Baptist and Messianic Jewish...
To the original question, "why can't others see?" people as a whole can easily hold to internally inconsistant ideas when they are not examined side by side. Compartmentalisation is in many ways a self-defense mechanism, and as life grows increasingly complex, so will 'separate but equal' standings within an individual's mind. Without deep, difficult, and ponderous reflection, there can be no reconcilliation, and the vast majority of people are not willing to dedicate the time and effort, the emotional turmoil, to evaluating who they are, where they stand, and what they stand for.
It's a long, hard road, and a one-way ticket to boot, with no promise of anything at the end. If someone walked up to you in the street with a one-way bus ticket from Boston to San Diego, or from Brussels to Bangkok, how likely would you be to take it? How many out of a thousand, or a hundred thousand would really be willing to risk it all right there on the spot?
From my experience, it seems the Seekers are the vast minority. I was born to a "non-practicing" Catholic family, though apparently I was baptised Catholic. I don't recall, and I don't particularly care. I sought for the better part of two decades, from when I was old enough to question and reason, through thousands of books, inteviews, debates and discussions, to the point when the end of the trail was growing quite near, and the decision made that none of it could be right. My father never made the journey, and has remained undecided on the god question his entire life, as has my brother.
Conversely, there are others that start under very similar circumstances of a "non-practicing" family that walk the paths of religion and find one that suits them just fine. Such was the case of my mother, who now is both Southern Baptist and Messianic Jewish...
To the original question, "why can't others see?" people as a whole can easily hold to internally inconsistant ideas when they are not examined side by side. Compartmentalisation is in many ways a self-defense mechanism, and as life grows increasingly complex, so will 'separate but equal' standings within an individual's mind. Without deep, difficult, and ponderous reflection, there can be no reconcilliation, and the vast majority of people are not willing to dedicate the time and effort, the emotional turmoil, to evaluating who they are, where they stand, and what they stand for.
It's a long, hard road, and a one-way ticket to boot, with no promise of anything at the end. If someone walked up to you in the street with a one-way bus ticket from Boston to San Diego, or from Brussels to Bangkok, how likely would you be to take it? How many out of a thousand, or a hundred thousand would really be willing to risk it all right there on the spot?
