Don't Tell Me What to Believe

Q. Some people say that a problem with religion is that people don’t think for themselves; the common people are told what they are allowed to think and believe. I’ve always taken pride in making my own decisions and being my own person. Don’t you think that religion is primarily made up of people who think they know God, when really they only know what others have told them about God?

A. From conception, our bodies develop from the physical contributions of our parents (whom we do not choose). At birth, we are branded with a family name (which we do not choose). As we grow, our parents teach us what they know…the best way to walk, the best way to talk, the best way to eat, etc…and before the age of two, we are pretty much just soaking it all in (without much input). By the time we can string together the right words in the right order to say, "I want to make my own decision," we are already chock full of inheritance and borrowing most every idea that we have from some combination of contributions from a multitude of sources.

We live in a world of "self-made" successful people and "self-taught" guitar players and other self-this and self-thats. And our epistemology has been influenced by what we perceive as "true individualism". We have bought into the notion that we really don't need other people; we do not view ourselves as students in need of teachers. As so many toddlers tend to say, "Me do it self." Suddenly, our epistemology has been drastically altered without sufficient consideration of this modern approach to knowledge. But as we close our eyes and ball up our fists and try really hard to actually believe that mankind is more about individuality than a learned communal way of life, we are simply wasting our time. That belief is wrong and pursuing it as an attractive option is just plain silly.

We may no longer live in a culture which relies primarily on audible story telling to transfer knowledge from one person to another, but all of our technological advances cannot change the basic, natural order of creation. Behind every website is the designer who is thoughtfully selecting images and words to transfer his "knowledge" to the web-surfer. Behind every email address is a human correspondent (or computer program designed by a human correspondent) who would have written letters by hand on paper just a few years ago. Every handy book on our shelves that empowers us to "teach ourselves" was actually written by a fellow man who had some ideas, facts, and opinions to share. Precious little of anything that we learn comes from sources which could not be described as "others telling us."

By definition, if we are buying, someone has to be selling. If we are building, we need materials. If we are producing building materials, we still have to acquire raw materials through some means. We are not able to create something from nothing.

If what I am saying is true, then we need to say "balderdash" to those who would have us to believe that we can cast off all that we have learned and rely on our own intelligence. Such sentiments simply do not pass the test of common sense.

So what? What is the practical implication of stating that a logical epistemology includes someone teaching and someone learning.

Most importantly, we need to be extraordinarily careful about who we choose as our primary teachers. As we are generally inclined to agree with and therefore believe our primary teachers by default, we must be deliberate in selecting them. We want to trust our teachers and so we need trustworthy teachers. When we are students of one who is worthy of our trust, our confidence in whether or not we should “agree” with what is being taught is significantly helped.