Human beings sure are an odd bunch. I was lying in bed last night thinking about all the strange things we do and all the crazy ideas we stir up. I don’t think there is anyone who can express the bizarre and ridiculous nature of humanity with more insight and sarcasm than Kurt Vonnegut. In his brilliant novel, Galapagos, he attributes all of the unnecessary problems in the world and the eventual fall of mankind to our over-sized brains.
According to Vonnegut it is our big brains and all of the humming and drumming that they do that gets us into trouble. If we were fortunate enough to have a less developed mind that narrowed the playing field of the human drama, life could be a wonderful place. The ability to think, to rationalize, to ponder, to weigh options, to manipulate, and to tell our bodies to one thing when they want to do the other (with all there instinctive might) is nothing but a damn shame. If only we were more basic, less imaginative, less ‘in our heads’, order could be restored and natured would be balanced. To all of these thoughts, sometimes, I agree. Why should one person believe one thing while the other is stuck on something else? Why are we constantly searching to define truth in the world when all we have to do is live in it? I mean c’mon, really, what good does it all do? Doesn’t it just divide us; pit us against one another and for what use; to satisfy the weird curiosities of our oversized brains?
I found myself engaged in a familiar conversation last night, but I have to say it is one that never gets old. Lets just go ahead and jump right into it. My friend Gabby said to me, “the bible is the truth, it is fact…how could all of the millions and billions of people who have and do believe in it be wrong?” I don’t know Gabby, I just don’t know. Matt commented, “you’ve heard of the holocaust right? You agree that it was wrong, but all of those Nazis, the thousands or millions of them believed that killing Jews was their duty in life. We all agree that was wrong, Nazism was not the truth.” So then how could all of those Nazis be wrong? Gabby says, “ I don’t like to even think about Hitler…they were all indoctrinated that is why they believed what they were doing was right and justified.” Thank you Gabby. I wonder, “Is Christianity or the bible or religion not a doctrine?” Is truth simply the aggregation of the same belief over a large enough population? If so, how many does it take before an idea becomes a fact of life? Now we come back to the main culprit, that grey matter in our skulls always cooking up the craziest of schemes…if only we could be satisfied with food, sex, and shelter.
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