What does this have to do with intellectual dishonesty? I'm not going to bore you with all the details of the game and this blog is not about the entertainment factors in it, but I recently had an interesting exchange with a member on this site, we'll call him "eaglecat." Why, because that's what his name is. Anyway, in a nutshell he attacked me (a smaller and less defended nation) because I had attacked another guy (a smaller and less defended nation). Now, normally, I don't have a problem with someone attacking me unprovoked, except that this gentleman claimed that what I was doing was wrong, but he was in the right. This is the part that got interesting. In a nutshell, he stood above me on his moral soapbox shaking his cyber righteous finger telling me "NO! BAD BOY!" Except, he did it with F-bombs and *#&^@#*&%[insert expletives]. When I pointed his hypocrisy out, all of a sudden it became personal. I pointed out his intellectual dishonesty and without going into all the details, I began to reflect on the consistency of the encounters like this, and it spawned a blog. I haven't heard any public commentators use it, so I feel it necessary to define it before I proceed.
Intellectual Dishonesty: To choose, or hold firm to, an false idea or reality despite being presented with contradictory evidence pointing to a superior alternative. This is intentional logical fallacy. For example, if a person, who is holding a red triangle, still desires to call it a blue circle, despite any evidence presented to prove the geometric object is a red triangle.
My wish, when defining this phrase, is not to put others down who use them, although it will happen undoubtedly, but to make those who who are unaware, aware. I desire progress and all progress requires a measure of the uncomfortable before growth can occur. This is natural and to be expected for all change comes packaged with a need for an adjustment. What new adventure or experience comes without a measure of uncertainty?
The bizarre thing that I have discovered, is why have I not noticed the saturation in our society. Perhaps, I too was part of the problem, or more likely, I was simply ignorant of it's existence. Most, I believe, are unaware and therefore may benefit the most from reading this blog. Also, in the world of debate, discussion and communication the awareness of this tendency in our culture to accept intellectual dishonesty will help us to scrutinize it more. Subsequently, there should be less fights and arguments as long as the one who is committing the intellectual dishonesty is humble enough to accept constructive criticisms instead of responding like a child who snaps back after recoiling from the initial discomfort. You know the ways, "I'm rubber. You're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."
Humans do not like being wrong. It is embarrassing and hurts our pride like few other things may, but we must understand the difference between fact and opinion. We are perfectly right in our opinions, in fact, it is the only thing in which we can be perfectly right at all times. No one can argue with another about the rightness of their opinion, because it is yours to create, to have, and to espouse. However, the problem lies when an individual claims their opinion to be fact, or truth.
Claiming your neighbor is an adulterer can only be true if that neighbor truly has committed infidelity, but claiming such a thing is just an opinion unless you possess some proof. Is this not what gossip is? Like a man who adds coffee to his sugar, do we not add a little truth to our opinions? This is far reaching, and sometimes, I sadly admit rampant in the church.
I am learning, regrettably, to distinguish what is my opinion and what is truth. This has allowed me to identify those indispensable, timeless realities that I am willing to defend adamantly and has made me aware of much more that I should not care as much for. Religion, politics and economics are three fields of study that I am cementing my beliefs in because of the timeless truths contained there within.
I find that humans should approach their opinions like a scientist who studies the stuff in the box of the universe. Hypothesis, theory and law. Laws are the timeless truths but require intense testing, scrutiny and analysis. And through the scientific method we can arrive at an established and predictable timeless law from which our lives can function.
This has led me to discover certain things as being the only reasonable solution. What I mean by this, is that in the past it was the most reasonable of other reasonable solutions. However, as I move down the process of scientific method, I have come to believe in certain laws. Christianity is no longer the most reasonable solution to the problem of salvation, but it is the only reasonable solution. It requires more faith to believe in evolution than it does in a creator.
If you wish me to explain this in more depth, just comment and I will be happy to elaborate, but it really does take a blind faith to believe in evolution. It takes more blind faith to believe in global warming. It takes more blind faith to believe that socialism is an effective way to run a society.
It is not these ideas in themselves that are wrong. These are natural conclusions to draw from a worldview that believes man is inherently good. Unfortunately, when you begin with a broken foundation, you get a broken house. To begin in the negative will only lead to negative results. To a scientist that starts with a belief that gravity is not real will stand amazed when he sees a plane fly and perhaps may draw the conclusion that the plane, like a fish in the sea, is less buoyant than the air in which it swims. He may never get to understand that gravity is overcome by a law in physics called lift.
What does this mean ultimately? We must always question what we believe. Not like a cynic, but as a scientist. If we do not do this on a regular basis we become subject to most well argued and propagated argument, not the most reasonable one. And this, I believe, is what ails the world the most, of which Christians are no exception. This can be fixed, and must be fixed in our churches so that we can be the city on a hill of a dark and blind world.
"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Acts 17:11
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