I have troubles organizing my thoughts. I don’t make arguments on Facebook or even on my own website here because I cannot get everything organized and put into a sensible order, then make a compelling argument. One reason is that there is just so much to include. Another is because there is so much I cannot remember. I look at Facebook and see a relative’s repost of a video of a girl in her class saying that Evolution takes as much faith as Christianity because she just cannot believe it. She makes the argument from surrender and ignorance because she is too lazy to actually learn and understand how we have come to understand evolution, so therefore, it all has to be intelligent design and a creator. But for me to try to argue against that requires so much more than I can put to print in just what I know, never mind the parts I do not know, which is such an overwhelming flood of information that could cause a guy to build an ark. Yet, metaphorically, that is what she does in the video. I am not sure what the video is trying to prove, in fact. I came away with the sense that it is just inspiring people who view it to give up on learning anything and just believe in the favored myth of the era.
That’s just one video. There are more videos, more writings, more podcasts, and more points of view to take on, and I am no Christopher Hitchens. Then there is politics, where it is easy to see that if the meek will inherit the Earth, then the oligarchy is trying to usurp it, and using Christianity as a tool to wrest it from them. And the further one dives into the MAGA mindset, the tighter the bonds of irrational stupidity are apparent. I feel helpless against it because I am of the McDonald’s generation that wants a Big Mac argument that will satisfy the hunger. But the problems with that are compounded, and the nutritional metaphor is overwhelmingly apt. It is not my responsibility to single handedly win that argument against society. But it is society’s responsibility to educate the young on the progress we have made as a species, and how we are moving forward away from our primitive selves to an advanced culture, and how to continue to build on what progress we have already made, and how to temper our growth so as to not destroy all of our resources.
But throw your hands in the air and decide that the truth of how we came to be is unknowable because you already know that someone or thing had to create it all. Decide on the argument that nothing could be without being made, then decide that it was all made by something that was unmakeable. Yet that is the whole argument of the video on my relative’s Facebook page. Do I address that and the flood of stupidity that will then come after that? I don’t even know where to begin.
Now, there are loads of other things that could be brought into this note on my lack of thinking ability, and in this case, it is not because I cannot think of it. It is not because it is irrelevant, either. But because I need to limit the scope of the not to the point. And maybe that is a part of why I feel I cannot think, because I don’t know how to set my boundaries. Maybe if I do that, I can also limit the supporting evidence that is required to make the point. Then I can worry about the scope of what I need to research and include. But honestly, I feel overwhelmed, and I have not even addressed the stupid video with the person that posted it. But then, I know that person to have a lifetime of absolute devotion to their beliefs, and they have always refused any actual knowledge. I cannot stop the one who insists on ignorance at full speed ahead.
