Curious?
Despite everything else you think you may know about me…despite any label, or anything you’ve heard about the way I think, or theological position you may assume that I take, this is the word that describes me and accounts for much of the way I think and why I read like a maniac: CURIOUS
‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.
(ht: i found this video on Brian McLaren’s blog)
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Good video.
Fundamentalist = take things as fact based on faith, before or without investigating themselves.
“curious” = explore first and then consider the facts and findings.
Seth’s use of “curious” sounds a lot like the scientific thought to me. With a curious person, growth is possible. As new information and facts are encountered, your views and perspectives grow and change. With fundamentalism and religion, there’s little or no room for growth. New data is cast aside as heresy unless it fits in the theology. In the end, facts and data can’t be ignored. Even the holy church eventually declared that the earth was round not flat. Eventually, they admitted that women were not the property of men. Eventually they conceded the earth orbited the sun, not the other way around. Eventually, they conceded that evolution was the best explanation for what we observe in the natural world (1996). The church did not discover these things, curious people did. Fundamentalism can never discover anything except mistakes in its understanding.
Contrary to what he suggests, school didn’t keep me from being curious. The memorization maybe. But, certain good teachers fostered my personal investigation and exploration. Maybe I got lucky.
I always found my religion to be the place where investigation, curiosity, and questioning were discouraged.
Good thoughts here. I agree. It’s not easy to be curious. It’s much easier to be in the stupor of non-thought. Once you begin to be curious though, it’s hard to go back.
February 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I disagreed with his first statement, on the definition of a fundamentalist. Rather, it is a set of doctrines (facts) from the Bible, agreed upon by a group of Protestant churches in the US in the early 20th century. This was done to counteract Darwin’s theory of evolution. There was nothing really controversial in them, other than opposing evolution.
I also disagreed with his characterization of the US as stifling curiosity because of TV advertising. That is an obvious target, but the decline of the average US intellect I believe is more due to the breakdown of the family than TV.
Disagreements aside, I agree curiosity is a valuable trait, well worth cultivating. I fear no facts and I love facts that seem contradictory on the surface, but together reveal surprising insights on the fundamental nature of reality.
Myself? I am so curious, that I do not remember never being curious. I don’t ever recall being punished for it, although many have thought I was excessively curious. I want to understand everything.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Jeff, agreed if you’re defining “fundamentalist” as a particular religious group. But, I think Seth is thinking about “fundamentalism” in a much-broader way. It’s encompasses evangelical fundamentalism, but also includes Islamic fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists, philosophical fundamentalists, etc.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:32 am
I’m with Jeff on this one. I don’t see much more than a straw man argument. It sounds like he is arguing that there are two types of people, and thank god we are not those idiots who watch tv and accept a mediocre life.
Keith – your flat earth comment may not be factually correct.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Mitchell, I guess my statement about the flat earth had a little sarcasm to it. By the classical times of Aristotle, the view that the earth was not flat was widely accepted in Europe. However, it was still debated in religious circles, including the Christian church, by those who cared to debate flat earth vs. round earth. It’s an example of how an idea can linger on long after there has been overwhelming evidence that the idea is completely and utterly wrong. There are still “flat-earthers” to this very day! (I think they live in Texas
(and.. I hope you are not one of them, otherwise this is a little awkward). I find this scarily fascinating.
The ancient Egyptians some 3000-5000 years ago new that the earth was round. Homer has a few lines in the Odyssey that indicate acceptance that the earth was round. Yet, thousands of years later some people still believe in an idea that has no evidence for it, and overwhelming evidence against it.
But it seems for those that tend to be “non-curious”, examining evidence is just too taxing, and it is just easier to point back to tradition, or an old book, or FOX news for an answer. (Side Note: with the popularity of such shows as CSI, I think that people are at least exposed to examining evidence and using some critical thinking.)
I used “flat earth” and “women as people” as an example of the ways of thinking that the “Curious” video discusses. The fundamentalist way of thinking would say “I’ve been taught all my life that the earth was flat, I’ve seen it in the scripture my parents gave me, I’ve seen it drawn by my spiritual leaders or some authority, etc. therefore the earth is flat and that’s that.” When confronted with evidence to the contrary, a curious person would say, ‘hmm…, you may have a point there. Let me examine the evidence and see to what conclusion I arrive’.
Reference the following drawing, Topographia Christiana, in which a monk from the 6th Century AD has drawn a flat earth as a parallelogram sided by four oceans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographia_Christiana
St. Augustine (4th century) said the idea that there were these other sides of the earth, where people were upside down from us was absurd:
“But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they say that the part which is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.[23]
Since these people would have to be descended from Adam, they would have had to travel to the other side of the Earth at some point; Augustine continues:
“It is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man.”
In this day, debating flat-earth vs. spherical earth seems absurd and comical. Just as it would be absurd to try and debate “Earthquakes and tsunamis caused by homosexuals!!! vs. tectonic shift”. But 1000 Rabbis are doing just that:
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/02/04/1000-rabbis-warn-homosexuality-in-the-military-may-cause-further-natural-disasters/