When I was first presented with the opportunity to contribute articles to the Brush Fire Forum, I was especially drawn to the chance to explore the intersection of reason and faith. Hearing the vision for the forum, I knew the use of critical thinking in the workplace would be my main focus – thus the birth of the Cubicle Survival Guide series. The application of critical thinking in the area of religion and personal faith, though, is one that I have long wanted to touch on in my writing. I have written blogs about (nearly) the entire Bible, and that experience really opened my eyes to the limitless potential for exploration in the scriptures.
As it turns out, writing about religion and politics is a great way to make others uncomfortable. Readers who are uncomfortable may not be too keen on returning to read more, but for the Brush Fire Forum to succeed, we are going to need people to handle a little discomfort and challenge themselves to consider why the topics are prompting the feelings and emotions they are experiencing. Trust me when I say that writing about these sorts of personal stances and publishing them to the world to be dissected and analyzed – often by strangers – is an equally uncomfortable experience at times.
With that cautionary introduction out of the way, allow me to jump into the deep end of the pool
this week and explain why the intersection of reason, faith, and politics in my life had led me to be a small-government, socially-conservative Libertarian. What could possibly go wrong? Don’t click away now. You have come this far, so you can deal with a few more paragraphs of taboo talk.
this week and explain why the intersection of reason, faith, and politics in my life had led me to be a small-government, socially-conservative Libertarian. What could possibly go wrong? Don’t click away now. You have come this far, so you can deal with a few more paragraphs of taboo talk.
The Brush Fire Forum was birthed out of a veritable mountain of discussions and theoretical conversations between the original contributors to the site. In the end, nearly all of our discussions returned to the belief that our society could only experience positive changes through an awakening of critical thinking skills in its members. The somewhat troubling part of that conclusion for many of us, though, was that it was a belief that had long been promoted by an assortment of Marxist and Socialist progressive types. How could we have such polar opposite social and political backgrounds and yet come to the same path forward in encouraging greater critical thinking and reasoning in society?
The answer to that riddle for me was found at that intersection that I mentioned before. I had to consider all three aspects of reason, faith, and politics simultaneously to see how two seemingly opposing viewpoints could hope to utilize the same channels for advancement. This is starting to sound terribly deep and perplexing, I know, but hang with me for another couple paragraphs, and I think you will understand my meaning – and me as a person – a little clearer.
Critical thinking or reasoning is essentially a tool that can be picked up and used by anyone. Like most tools, the more often you use them, the more familiar and proficient that you become with them. Every human being comes equipped with a mind and, therefore, has access to this “tool” of critical thinking. That is why it can serve as such an obvious asset in changing a society. It needs only to be taught and promoted and refined within each of us. So, how can two opposing philosophies hope to have a critical thinking person eventually arrive at their destination when they are worlds apart?
The answer, I contend, can only come from the world of faith. As a Christian man, I believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing God created me and endowed me with the mind that I am using to form these words. I believe that the ultimate goal of my thinking and reasoning as a mortal man should be to emulate, praise, and glorify the God that created me by trying to perfect myself in His image.
A secular person will seek to employ critical thinking without God as their foundation. The ultimate goal of their thinking and reasoning will focus on mortal man perfecting his society through increasing his knowledge. The inevitable conclusion they will arrive at is that independent man is too self-centered to put society’s needs above his own, so he must think as a collective in order to advance society.
You can quickly see how the personal belief in a higher power can immediately draw a stark contrast between two camps in their application and promotion of critical thinking. This contrast – almost without fail – carries over into the political disposition of the two camps as well. For me, having God as the supreme authority in my life automatically relegates any government or collective body to a secondary position in my hierarchy. For those like me, distrust of any sort of collective influence within our society is instinctual, because we want to avoid any hindrances to exercising our personal faith and pursuing the will of God in our lives as we see fit. Secularists will always need to stifle faith, because it proves to be divisive within the society they are seeking to unite and lead centrally.
As a Christian, I can consider and comprehend the intentions of the collectivist, but I would have to divorce my mind from my soul before I could accept their ultimate vision. We can both agree that mortal man is sinful and prone to selfish motivation; but while I believe the answer to that is a personal and life-altering relationship with God, the other side believes the solution is to have man elevate his thinking and put society’s needs above his own.
I can understand how those that choose not to believe in God can arrive at this conclusion, because it seems to be the only other available solution. My question for those folks, though, is what happens when the collective finally arrives at a decision that will have adverse effects on essentially half the society? How does any group of humans make a fair decision that will negatively impact fifty percent of its number? At that point, are violence and an “only the strong survive” mentality almost certain to surface? Given the results of the last few elections in this country, are we getting closer and closer to something approaching this scenario already?
I don’t mean to end on an ominous note…but if you infer that I am implying that our country needs a return to God’s will for it, a return to far more limited government intervention into the lives of its citizens, and a return to a critical thinking electorate as its backbone or we are headed for disaster…well, I guess an ominous ending it is.
And that is the story of how I came to be a small-government, socially-conservative Libertarian. See you back in the cubicle next week.
