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Then and Now

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"People become wedded to their beliefs, because the validity of those beliefs reflects on their competence, commends them as authorities, and rationalizes their mandate to lead.  Challenge a person’s beliefs and you challenge his dignity, stand, and power.  And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile.  No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up because all sane people can see it with their own eyes.  Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that god exists in three persons or that Ali was the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad.  When people organize their lives around these beliefs and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them – or worse, who credibly rebut them – they are in danger of looking like fools.  Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to unbelief with rage, and may try to eliminate that affront to everything that makes their lives meaningful."

- Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined


I absolutely used to feel like this when I was a Christian.  I can say, even to this day, that when someone challenges my beliefs or doesn't come to the same conclusions as I do that my initial inclination is to get angry (usually because I feel as though I’m not making my point adequately).  The difference between then and now is the reaction AFTER that initial pull towards anger. 

When I was young, and felt like I needed to always defend my faith over all else, I would see red.  It was god over everything else, no exceptions.  That is what a true soldier for god would do.  No matter what the argument, no matter how valid, no matter what the source, if it went against god’s will or the word of the bible, it was wrong.  However, I lacked any real information of substance outside of my simple faith and the words in an ancient book.  So I got angry and went on the offensive.  It would either detach from the conversation in rage, or I would try to end it with ad hominem as quickly as I could because I didn't want to be associated with someone who wasn't on fire for god.


Now, after my years of reflection, meditation, and critical thought I have left that behind me.  In addition to leaving my faith, a side effect of that thought process has left me in a much better state of discourse when talking about things like this.  Instead of getting angry at them, I push that feeling aside and instead replace it with a feeling of curiosity.  Curiosity for why they think the way they do.  Then I compare how I got to my conclusion with how they got to theirs.  This is how we grow and learn.  Yet now I see it from the other side of the fence.  People now act this way towards me when I challenge the beliefs I used to hold, that they STILL hold.

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